Tuesday, March 13, 2012

and it just gets harder when you ask why.

I woke up this morning with a funny taste in my head.
Spackled some butter over my whole grain bread.
Something tastes different, maybe it’s my tongue.
Something tastes different, suddenly I’m not so young.




I usually do not allow myself to have high hopes anymore. For anything. If it’s a weekend trip, a present I know someone is buying for me, someone new coming into my life, the simple start of a new day… I try to keep things in focus, to accept my reality and be grateful for whatever I already have and may receive in the future.

I do not allow myself to dream too often. It’s very nice to wake up from a nightmare and feel relieved that it’s over. Not so nice when you wake up from a particularly pleasant dream and realize it was all in your mind, and those things, places and people do not actually exist. Or if they do, they’re out of your reach.

But sometimes it happens without me noticing. I can tell myself that I’ll be fine whatever the outcome, but deep down inside I wait. I expect things to be good. I expect people to be nice. I expect places to be beautiful. I expect a sunny day when I plan to go out and then try to act nonchalantly when I open my window in the morning and it’s pouring down with rain. “I knew it”, I say to myself and it’s true - but the flicker of hope i had inside aches before it finally dies.

Those moments are of quiet restlessness. I do not cry, or cough out loud and search for something to do to pretend the pain, however small, isn’t here. I just sit and absorb it, while quietly working from inside to deal with it. The funeral of my hopes is quick and effective, but I know where each one of them are buried and sometimes I like to dig them out. I play with them in my hands as if they were some kind of antique objects of torture. One wouldn’t want to see them at work anymore, but they’re beautiful in a strange way and worth of being admired.

It doesn’t take long as I - mercifully - get bored quickly nowadays. They say that a short attention span is a symptom of the illness that afflicts me but I chose not to see it that way. I prefer to see it as an opportunity for renewal, but in fact it’s only yet another book discarded, another project forgotten and another tv program I will not watch till the end without checking my phone a few times.

But at the core of this ever changing life, nothing really changes. I do not crave changes, in fact most of the time I don't even know how to deal with them. But something in me dreads to think that the biggest ones have already happened and there's not much to look forward to anymore. I'm pretty happy with my lot in life and aware than I'm luckier than most. Shouldn't complain about the very few times life kicks me in the chin. But yet, against my will, I expect it won't. I wait. Dream. Hope.

All the while collecting flowers for the next funerals.



♫ Die Alone - Ingrid Michaelson