Thirty-mile handjob
◊ The new year is supposed to be a time to start over -- to make a bunch of resolutions you genuinely believe you'll follow through on, to clean the house and wash the car and get fresh office supplies so you can wash your hands of the previous 12 months and have the perfect year you've always dreamed of.
I am physically incapable of doing anything on schedule, so I've spent the first tender, green weeks of January doing a whole lot of uncharacteristic reflecting. What with getting a new boyfriend, residence and school quarter all in the last month, I'd thought jumping into a crisp, never-used, new-car-scented year would be a snap.
So far I've spent it dodging the half-unpacked boxes all over the house and contemplating my navel.
Some of it is paralysis, the usual "Oh my god what am I doing I'll never get out of school or organize my stuff or get a decent job instead of more fucking slave work that even a retarded monkey could do with a week's training" terror.
And some of it is mourning. I've called the last month "the end of an era." I just moved out of my first place, affectionately and accurately called the "Fight Club House" and the place where I lived for a year with my then-boyfriend. It hosted drama, parties, and endless drinking: the classics that make any place impossible to forget.
It hurts to leave.
I'm adjusting to the new digs pretty quickly -- a big patio and lots of counter space and decent heating and dimmer switches in every room are hard to resist, though I can't figure out why I'd need mood lighting in the bathroom -- but I still end up on my old street whenever I drive home on autopilot.
It's also the people around me: the inevitability of my ex meeting someone new; a bunch of my closest friends being too busy to hang out all the time like we used to; being too booked to see my family.
I try to remember that nothing is static, but it's hard not to ache a little for things I've lost and things that have changed.
If it weren't for all the good things coming my way right now, I'd have to dye my hair black again, bust out the Depeche Mode CDs, slap on some too-thick eyeliner and do this moping thing right.