Haven't you noticed how certain festivities never seem to end? You're sad when they're over, but within seconds it's that time of year again. The time this time? Roll Up The Rim, baby!
Last year, there were many ridiculous adventures in rolling, from the time the cup of winners was left unattended and it took all my ethics and morals and convictions put together to not take the entire cup...all the way to the time I spilled my steaming cup of hot coffee all over myself on a first date and luckily it was a winner so I got another one (along with a conveniently awkward clothing malfunction and pretty severe burns). Ah, to be young and addicted to caffeine.
For the record, I can smile again when I look back on stuff like that. It duesn't hurt me deep down anymore, even when I stare it all in the face. Sometimes I miss the way things used to be, but my only regret is that I didn't appreciate it as much when I had it; I'm taking my lesson away for the future.
It's 3:28 in the A.M. and I'm eating Greek chips and drinking real orange juice with pulp (not from concentrate) and just finished watching One Tree Hill with Emily. I'm sitting on a lumpy couch with a misplaced pair of scissors beside me and a dream on the fringes of my mind that I can't quite grasp but can't let go of either...I think it had something to do with a cruise ship and a jeep and a long-lost something or other. I slept twelve hours last night. I did not stop eating for more than half an hour at any point since 4 P.M.. Oh, and I'm wearing Sunday socks, which is very confusing, which might help to explain how I forgot to put mascara on today (which is very unlike me and had me distracted the rest of the day...slash made taking my make-up off a thousand times easier tonight. But anyways...). This is me. This is exactly where I'm at and it has to be good enough. I have very little energy to give in a day, and the fact that I have that much to write about (and am even writing a blog, for that matter) is a miracle in itself. And tomorrow I'll work harder. And the next day, and the day after that. "And one day, you find you're strong enough to fight through the pain until it doesn't hurt anymore."
is just to love, and be loved in return.
Apparently I haven't learned my lesson yet, with God or with people. I forgot a long time ago what it feels like to be genuinely loved, and as a result find it even more difficult to believe it exists now. And as for loving...I don't feel capable of anything anymore. If deciding whether to get out of bed in the morning causes distress; if finding a place to go is limited to stalking my favourite shelves at Shopper's Drug Mart while the salespeople watch us (because we're the only people in the store at 11:30 on a Friday night) because my imagination literally can't go further; if I can blank out of entire conversations after asking several times to hear the same thing repeated that I actually want to know but cannot focus on for the life of me; if this is who I am, where the heck am I supposed to fit in loving someone else the way they deserve to be loved?
Today, for the first time in my entire life (not hyperbolizing, there are definitely people who can vouch for me), I could not care less if I never get married.
I meant to say more, but I think that last statement about sums me up.
Today is a new day. Yesterday is (finally) gone, and I'm in the next yesterday. When I think about it like that, trials don't feel quite so life or death.
I can't say that I feel better than yesterday, but I have the teensiest pinprick of hope. Silly and misguided? Probably. But if I don't have something to hold onto now, I'm going to whither and fall apart.
Last night, Emily and I dressed up absolutely ridiculous. I'm sure I could list all the items of clothes adorning my body, but it would take me at least half an hour. I can't really explain it, but it was almost as if a part of my brain cracked and nothing seemed real anymore. I guess that's what happens when the one whose opinion counts doesn't care to care anymore. So we packed into Katie's car and went to Safeway. The looks didn't matter; what mattered was the freedom to just...be.
And it feels like today.
