Because

Lately I’m all about making excuses for myself—my desires, my lack of effort and ambition, my ability to waste whole days and call it relaxing. In the face of great justifications, I went out into the cold last night just so I could come back into the warmth. And I wonder what I would do if there came a day when nothing struck me anymore.

I’ve been accused of wanting or welcoming drama, but those folks have no idea the zoo in which I grew up. Drama? More than one lifetime would welcome. Though I will say that there comes a point when the drama reaches a critical mass and you learn to spigot things (to run hot or cold, to learn to shut either or both off and on). The risk, of course, is rust. Not misuse but neglect. The muscles atrophied and the memory of how to feel becomes foreign. How does one get back from such a place?

As far as I can tell, most people don’t come back. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched someone I love go from surviving to dying (by their own neglect) and thought: how the fuck did that happen to you? How does it happen to any of us? It seems an untraceable thing, so slow, like watching the faces of your children change while they sleep, their bodies growing eight (amazing) inches in a single year. Their feet, shoe after shoe after shoe. So close to these bodies, it’s hard to see the sudden yet gradual changes they undertake, that nature imposes. This is how I feel about watching those whom I’ve loved most degrade, defining degradation. And in watching, I am trying so hard to keep a hand on something still, to not get swept in the current, the tug of that enormous and sinking ship.

My legs are tired.

This morning, someone sent this version of Comfortably Numb to me. May it wreck you as it has wrecked me.

I know that this isn't the sexiest post ever, certainly very little that's uplifting here, and the impetus oh-so vague, but I felt compelled to get something down on this gray day in the valley, where I can see the rain and know the snow falls hard in the mountains. One more post before the new year, during which I promise you funnier, happier.

Til then, Happy New Years, All!

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