Do you smell like a girl when you smile?
How is it that events that just occurred one, maybe two years ago seem like the whisper of some ancient childhood prayer that conjures up some dim recollection of a scent, a place, a feeling. I feel like my life is running in overdrive but my mind is still creeping along, some sluggish caboose, barely able to keep up with the days that run into nights that run into days. I feel so damn lonely sometimes because I haven’t shared all of the last two years or so with any one person, and now, a lot of the people I did share them with have gone their separate ways. I’ve never had to deal with this before. People usually stick around in my life until I am utterly sick of them and would consider bribing them to leave. No, now I have people that I genuinely like, and bond with in some way, just casually walking in and out of my life. What can I do when the stories are no longer beaten to death, but try to recall them through my foggy mind’s eye. Things don’t come out right. I remember snippets, moments really, or many moments that were very similar, so much so that I can’t center in on one. Oddly enough, most of the moments that I remember the most vividly I was alone for. Just times lying in my bed in my first dorm room, staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers that someone left on the cinderblock ceiling. Deep darkness except for the soft glow of the orange light outside, my ears covered with headphones. My roommate is asleep, cocooned in his blankets, as always. I’m just lying with my hands behind my head and my Discman on my chest, thinking...thinking that I should remember this for as long as I can, and it was nothing in particular really. Nothing at all. Still, thinking back on it, putting myself in that room again on that bunk, I feel good. I suppose that’s the most anyone can ever hope to glean from a memory. A simple, warm, good feeling. But I’m certain for every cute memory that I have that stirs up all kinds of warm-and-gushy feelings I have at least a dozen shitty memories that are so hideous that I choose not to think about them let a lone relive them in my head. Also interesting, most of those memories involve other people. And the logical progression of reason leads to...option B. Stay the fuck away from people. Yeah, that should do it. Well, glad that’s solved.