Muddy cold mud
A remedy to my current situation would be digging my hands into mud. It's a tactile sensation, and I'm itching for something that feels. Not in the metaphorical, pretentious kind of way; I genuinely just want to cling to stuff between my fingers. I think that makes sense? Maybe? Here I am again clumsily pasting pieces of definitions together like it'll somehow make perfect sense to you.
I recently moved into my first solo apartment, returning to the province where I spent my undergrad years. I developed a warm connection here long before school, growing up eagerly anticipating family trips to visit the "big" city. How cute and potent in cliché. I've been saving and saving and SAVING money ever since I got a bank account when I was 12; birthdays, allowances, lemonade stand earnings, and eventually various part-time jobs over the course of my adolescence. The idea of protecting what I've earned has been ingrained in me from the time I could understand language. Earning your keep is a family name standard. We do what we can, we always have. Both sides of my family are unwavering in self-sufficiency and stubbornness, so the tenacity I naturally cling to has been passed down with intent. Of course, my tenacious yet tender parents doted on my sister and I plenty, so we never went without. It's important to learn where the privileges you're afforded come from, and for me and my sister that was evidently in the hard work of our parents. Both of them coming from humble beginnings, their shared dream was to give us everything they never had. Not only that, but they worked their asses off to give themselves a life they couldn't have dreamt up. It's an incomparable joy to watch your parents succeed; the pride I feel for them and all they've sacrificed for me is kismet. Truly two of the coolest kids ever happen to be my parents, which is crazy because they're also the biggest goofs ever (I love you guysssssss).
"MANY HANDS MAKE EASY WORK!"
-My dad, somewhere, probably.
Living back at home with my family after a significant time away gave me a torpedo of feelings. For two years, I enjoyed their company and the usual antics it brings (I say this with so much love). We've always been a funny little quintet, you could say. My childhood dog, Maggie, against all odds is still on this side of the realm, but definitely in the final stages of her life. Taking care of her, especially now in her twilight years, reignited purpose and everyday joy in my life. It's hard watching her grow old and struggle sometimes, but as we just celebrated her 18th birthday (!!) I'm left grateful for all this beloved time I've spent with her. As a child, I had a few pet fish here and there, but when we adopted Maggie I slowly began to learn how to care for another living being. I never had the same connection most people in my family had toward babies or children, but what I lacked in that area soared in my connection to animals. Maggie is my stinky, slightly confused, sideways-walking treasured companion. In every life, I'd look for her. She isn't the "perfect" dog (and 100% lacks in most training) but she's mine, and that makes her the best dog. Duh.
Mags & I (January 2020)
In many ways, being back home made me better, but in other meandering ones it left me unwilling to grow beyond familiarity. With an earnest heart, I hope this doesn't make me sound ungrateful or dismissive of my time at home; far from it, actually. Every moment is a decision after a decision, some so small we don't register them as they happen, and the decisions I made that led me home helped me unpack a bloated brain. Learning to appreciate my hometown as an adult helped me realize why I needed to leave it. I can't connect the dots of who I want to be while perpetually rehashing my teens. A hometown is a cycle of repeating memories; reliving the "greatest hits" and posing for the postcards. There’s also a glaring reality I’ve yet to face, which is that there’s only so long before “finding yourself” loses its romanticized appeal. The further I get into my twenties, that probing fact gets harder to ignore. Ugh, gross.
Feeling so smothered in memory lately, I just want to turn off my brain and slip into the mud. Any mud, although now I’m picturing that dark cool-toned brown stuff that looks like a charcoal batter. Choose-your-own-adventure a mud of choice at this time. My point is, I think, that I'm so happy to have the people in my life that I do, and they reaffirm to me daily how privileged a life I live. Still, I'm disillusioned by my visions of what my twenties would look like. I feel betrayed by my own thoughts sometimes, like I'm somehow disparaging the joys of my life when I become self-critical. I chose to move here without much of a concrete plan beyond the walls of this apartment, but the simplicity of the decision gave some clarity I’ve been lacking. I’ve been ready for a change of scenery for a while. Bing bong. I changed the scenery. I changed the everyday, but the syrupy slope of adjustment leaves a residue. I can picture an abstract idea of my fully-realized future, but if I start thinking critically about the details, it all unravels into a big ol’ ball of unfinished ends. I’m realizing I need to paint this picture one number at a time, or the magnitude of choices will cause me to short circuit.
I got a parking ticket on my first day here. My reminiscing ass was initially going to frame it and hang it on my wall as some kind of official stamp on my new place, but I immediately lost it after paying. The whole thing just feels rife with stretches of analogies I could make if my brain was clearer. When it gets like this, the remedy is as nonsensical as shoving my limbs into sludge just to feel the cool suspension. It's that sudden moment your weight settles and gravity stops pulling you down, and you're there, suspended in that muck, neither on the ground nor off of it. Genuinely, what the fuck does that mean? An impossible kind of thought, isn't it? I can't stop thinking about it. I keep wondering why I wonder so much, or why I can't let go of thoughts like most people seem to be able to. Maybe I spend too much of my time thinking about the ways other people think, or further, the ways I feel my brain doesn't compute information the same. It's probable that we all feel this way about each other, but it's the inability to know for certain that drives me a little nuts. It's likely all in my head, but isn't everything? We made everything up. My longing to feel stretches beyond metaphor, emotion, or basic reason. I just do. It's frustrating when the answer really isn't an answer, but instead a placeholder that never actually holds any place. Drop me into the mud, please, before I drown in my own inability to slow down.
I've been trying to finish this post for nearly two months now, constantly ruminating over whether or not any of this is worth sharing at all. I keep coming back to the thesis statement of DN: words don't fluctuate in their worth. They, like me, just are. Not everyone will understand what I'm trying to say, and frankly, I'm just gonna have to be okay with it. I won't be understood by everyone, and it's a glass shard pill to swallow, but we all do it. Being misunderstood is one of the most painful experiences to me, and I'm constantly worrying that those around me will misplace my character or intent. The reality is I will never know what another brain thinks like, and you will never truly know what mine thinks like either. We can wonder, ponder, and make metaphoric blogposts until we're worm food, but it's all a towering guess. I am here now, in a new phase of life, up to my elbows in unknowns. And yet, I can feel my feet lifting off the ground, and all at once I'm floating, encased in cold. Reality will wait for me; it has nothing better to do.
Sorry I’ve been gone, but I’m here now. That always counts for something!
Talk later alligators,
PJ
I find this oddly comforting. I hope you do too! Or don't. Maybe it's a threat?