Ache

I could really use a wish right now.

First off, my hair's too long.

A lot of people don't think that that's really much of a problem, but in all honesty my hair tends to bug me. It's one of the few things I'm actually self-conscious about. There are occasions that come along where I wish I could cut it all off.

But for some reason I can't.

I guess it's the dream of just cutting ties and heading out on the road. I honestly love driving. There are few things I find more comforting, freeing or pure. Long drives through the night, with good music blaring and the world just outside, not within. My own little retreat from the world, in the world.

I love highways and city lights. Deep grey thrown up against a peering night sky, clouds fogging up what little light can be exchanged through the city curtains.

I think one of the greatest appeals of driving is that it's purposeful. You may not have a destination in mind, but the sheer activity of movement, of interacting with a machine, or gliding along through the night across the man made landscapes of cement and steel, it feels given. It feels like you may actually have a purpose, even if you don't.

Sometimes I feel like I'm feeling my life from weekend to weekend, month to month, holiday to holiday. Like, what happens in the meantime, that thing that's supposed to one day help me make money and get a job is some sort of sick dream I wish I could wake up from. It's just annoying.

I played video games with friends tonight. And I talked with people, and made plans. And it felt good. And I forgot that 7 am comes a hell of a lot earlier than 7 pm. And I'm not saying I wish I could just give it all up and just hang, but sometimes I wonder.

I mean honestly. What's the point of a job? To make money to support yourself, support a family? What then? What's your family for? Are your kids supposed to go through the same shit just to wind up doing the same thing you did for them so that they could wind up doing the same thing you did for them? It's a self-perpetuating cycle that I can't honestly see a point in. Sure, it's good to provide a living, but what is that living if it doesn't provide an end? What sort of outcome can you get from supporting life?

More life I suppose. Contrived, it means a continuing of human life. You've done your part in keeping mankind going. High five. Now go die so the next generation can be successful.

Is that honestly all it really is?

I don't believe it. I like to think that beating the shit outta your friends in Mortal Kombat vs. DC means something, that it means that the happiness you're experiencing is what you should ultimately try for. But it doesn't help perpetuate life, it doesn't help do anything really, Except maybe get you a few more gamer points.

But is happiness really that worthless? Should we sacrifice that, those moments, so we can study for tests, practice for interviews, work on homework and shuffle papers? It just seems empty. Few things seem to contain substance that are supposed to these days for me.

Maybe I'm burned out, just disillusioned. Missing her. Scared of tomorrow. Whatever. But honestly, it seems like that should mean something more, that car ride in the night, that perfectly executed combo, that laugh from them.

I like to think that does more to relieve the ache than a promotion at a desk job. But perhaps I'm just burned out.

Outer World

Are you glad I found you?

We all make choices at points in our life, and at the time, we may not even be aware we're making them. They're shadows of actions, whispers of the shades we leave from our movement and interaction, that, while they occur, we don't really much think about them.

And then you throw on your sleep, and you look at that mirror on your door, and you realize that somewhere down the line of life you stopped being young, and started being hurt. It's not some kid looking back, it's a person of...

Something.

We all make choices, and sometimes we regret them. Sometimes we don't. But most of the time, we're not thinking about making them, we just are. That's the majority of how we live our lives these days, most days, old days: we just are. We're not actively thinking about how we react to any given situation. We do our work, eat our food, it's not like we consciously make these choices. They just are.

And somehow in the phase of these repetitions of half mind we allow those actions we should care about to fall in line. Sometimes, we're shadows, casting more of ourselves about without realizing what the effects are.

And then we make choices, just like we wake up. It's not a conscious thing, change. But that mirror tells you that somehow, it was in some way. That off hand comment, that decision to walk back with someone else, that call you didn't make, that lie you didn't tell, they all are staring back.

And sometimes, you're not sure you want them to.

Where the hell did I go? How did I make those choices?

Who knows.

Nights spent talking, spent walking, spent driving away from those things you didn't choose to do or not do, but didn't know you were or weren't doing at the time. It's like a dark road in a crowded light-less neighborhood. It's all there, the people, shades of life in rest, but you're the only real one alive. And you don't know how they got there, but there they are.

It's like holding smoke at night.

We all make choices at points in our life, and sometimes you look back and wish they'd been different. But how could you have changed something you didn't even know was really happening at the time? You'd have to have been you now, but that's the issue.

You are.

I wish I could lay down on clouds. I think if all that space night nothing could just hold me close for a moment, even a moment, I'd find something that'd make me think I was dreaming.

I've got that pit in my stomach again, and it's not about the blanket or the bed, but the butterflies I haven't had. And that mirror where things I didn't know I did look back and me and lay a little while upon my head.

I think night is an emotion.

Between

Some theme music, if it pleases you.

So I'm sitting here listening to my roommate giggle. He has a beard, is quite tall, and is rather inebriated right now.

I just got done with playing Splinter Cell: Conviction for nearly the whole day. Somewhere in there I ate Chinese food, pretended to be British, and took a break from pretending to be a secret agent by pretending to be a Halo Spartan.

Oh yeah. And there was some flicking and dastardly castle defending at one point too.

The whole time, I've been thinking about how much I miss her, and wish she was here. I pour pixels and plastic dreams into a cavity left by her snuggles. And it helps for a while. But much like my girlish man beard of a roommate behind me, it can only be so distracting before you realize what you're missing out on.

Oh, right. There was the 6 hours I devoted to making up a fantasy world for ten different people in which I elicited their help in said creation. Dungeons and Dragons works much better than pixels, but the poison's not strong enough still.

It's like trying to use marbles to finish a jigsaw puzzle. Sure, it works for a bit, vaguely amusing in that sort of "this will never work but lets keep failing" sort of way. But marbles tend to roll about where flat, perfect, cuddly jigsaw pieces should fit.

And let's not forget the midnight hunger.

Night has a way of becoming a second day for me. But it's not really a new day. It's just all the stuff I didn't get to do in the day, but seems cooler because I'm doing it at night instead. But eventually the stomach ache turns out to not be from hunger pangs, and the lack of attention reveals it's focus to be about a continent's away.

And I'm left at a keyboard. Somewhere between giggling beards and thinking of what I've gotta do tomorrow. Soft hair and tea sipped through licorice straws is my dream in this half state. But unlike other dreams this one's gotta wait.

Because it's a Saturday night. Far enough away from work and school to not care about the consequences of actions, but close enough to Sunday to keep provoking thoughts about what my time should be spent doing. A mind is certainly a terrible thing to waste, but so are these precious midnight hours tailor-made for cuddles that cannot be.

I really need to find a different word. Thesauruses really are a very underused life saving device. Far too many people end up saying the same thing twenty times in a row to describe the thing they just said. If there's one thing pretending to be British has taught me, it's the importance and versatility of a good English tongue. That, and that street corners can be lonely after 6 weeks of waiting.

And then I hear those bearded giggles.