It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything of substance. I have notes written, dated, with titles, subjects, and phrases, but I’ve yet to bring myself to thread a needle through them and get them finished. They’ll get written eventually, I hope.
So, as I sit here, crouching on the edge of the tub, it’s a good a time as any to pick this up.
It’s been a weird week or so – at some point I got off my game a little, and November has felt like a sojourn between whirlwinds of attention, and even though none have been debilitating or, well, even difficult, it’s just felt a little dissociative and a lot draining.
Missing one day of writing was an “okay, I’ll get back to it, and do two today” moment and then that turned into three and four and so on. Wasn’t it just November first, and now we’re nine days from Thanksgiving? When the hell did that happen?
An underlying current is the vicissitudes of the heart. Finding someone who likes you as you are is jarring juxtaposed to the fact that you don’t even like yourself as you are. I’ve thought before I’ve had that only to find that they never really liked me or themselves to begin with. Well, I did it first, bitch!
The one buoyant thing is I am happy. The typical despondence that creeps in this time of year and has stalked my mood like a low-grade fever for the better part of two years is gone.
It feels good to be liked. And be happy. And I’m trying to understand it. When you’re used to sadness, you replicate the conditions of sadness, so that sadness becomes safety and comfort. Happiness becomes disquieting, unusual, strange. But it’s here, and it’s palpable, and it’s real.
They never tell you how much your cheeks can hurt from smiling.
