The Icicle Intervals
Sometimes it really feels like joy fades with the sun. First comes the rain and the wet, gray days and then comes the cold. If you live in the Bay Area this cold is inevitably followed by more rain and then the occasional day of warm sunniness, just to throw you off. My return from New York was hardly a pleasant one, as it had become blatantly clear to me that things needed to change, that I needed to be pro-active about making them change instead of letting all this stupid shit fall into my lap and then drive myself crazy trying to deal with it. I needed to walk away from certain relationships, and therefore from certain people. Now, let me say that I am not at all good at this walking away business since I have for a long time considered friends like family and would rather torture myself than let them down. But fuck all that, cause I just couldn't do it anymore.
Halloween was a cold, cold day in Berkeley, and Nicole and I talked about the "icicle intervals", as we nicknamed the frozen walks from house party to bus stop, to another party, to Safeway, and finally to bars. I rubbed my hands together, finger tips white and frozen, poking out of my black fingerless mittens. We shivered and swigged Jack Daniels as we walked, desperately trying to keep warm, and I told her of the pressure on my chest. It was making me anxious, and I don't like anxiety because I can't sleep and it gives me stomachaches and then I can't eat and my head hurts and I'm completely miserable. How do I let this happen to me? You might say that I take things too much to heart. Not that I'm overly sensitive, or maybe I am, but it's more an issue of expectations. I have come to the conclusion that either my expectations for my relationships are too high or that perhaps my general faith in humanity itself is simply misplaced. I realized that I had been living my life according to some outdated version of the Golden Rule, while actually, in the real world, giving is really no guarantee of receiving, as nice as that would be. I resolved then and there to make that my first change, and thus began my foray into some seriously needed, downright selfish behavior. It was about damn time.
Halloween was a cold, cold day in Berkeley, and Nicole and I talked about the "icicle intervals", as we nicknamed the frozen walks from house party to bus stop, to another party, to Safeway, and finally to bars. I rubbed my hands together, finger tips white and frozen, poking out of my black fingerless mittens. We shivered and swigged Jack Daniels as we walked, desperately trying to keep warm, and I told her of the pressure on my chest. It was making me anxious, and I don't like anxiety because I can't sleep and it gives me stomachaches and then I can't eat and my head hurts and I'm completely miserable. How do I let this happen to me? You might say that I take things too much to heart. Not that I'm overly sensitive, or maybe I am, but it's more an issue of expectations. I have come to the conclusion that either my expectations for my relationships are too high or that perhaps my general faith in humanity itself is simply misplaced. I realized that I had been living my life according to some outdated version of the Golden Rule, while actually, in the real world, giving is really no guarantee of receiving, as nice as that would be. I resolved then and there to make that my first change, and thus began my foray into some seriously needed, downright selfish behavior. It was about damn time.