It just started raining a couple of days ago. I was sort of shocked. I heard on the radio this morning that it’s supposed to be nice this weekend, but I am not at all fooled. I know what this means. Means summer is over. Time to haul out the rainshell and the closed toe shoes. Time to put an extra blanket on the bed (I did this last night). Time to realize that The Holidays are pretty much around the corner and soon it will be a new year and soon it will be my birthday and soon I will be twenty-nine and still will be the same old person, doing the same old thing.
I’m in this weird funk these last couple of days. I feel fat and then don’t go to dance class like I’d planned. Feel lazy and therefore don’t clean the house like it needs to be cleaned. Feel lonely and so alienate my boyfriend and just decide not to return a couple of emails. I’m feeling annoyed that people have the temerity to invite me to do social things with them. I walk around work in sort of a daze and can’t remember where I put that thing that I need to do. I trip over things and stare off into space. Music is dumb. I hate the book I’m reading but I can’t put it down. Dishes rot in the sink and no one ever sends me any mail.
This “What have I done with my life?” tape has been playing in my head for about a month or so, but I think the sudden rain just turned up the volume or put it into heavy rotation or some other tortured music metaphor. Or something. I was thinking of writing a journal entry called something horrible like “Regrets: I Have A Few” and then listing off for y’all all the things I should have done, ought to have done, could have done but now for some ineffable reason can’t do. I have student loans to pay. I haven’t written any fiction for seriously, ten years, and even then I wasn’t very good. I’m too fat. No one will like me.
But that would be sort of a dumb journal entry, wouldn’t it, because there is some part of me…this is probably the part that used to counsel other people for depression from a cognitive-behavioral standpoint…the knows that if one doesn’t like one’s life, the solution isn’t to whine about it, not to wallow. It’s not to think resentfully about all the rich people who will be going to your high school reunion in November. It’s not to skip dance class and then to wail about how you never get any exercise and no one loves you anyway. It’s to wake up every morning and go to work anyway, trusting that it’s going to get better, that you’re going to make it better. It’s to take that fiction-writing class you’ve been thinking about taking, and get something cute to wear to the party on Saturday. It’s to finish your basketweave scarf so you can wear it during scarf weather, which is right around the corner. It’s to love your friends and family and count your blessings and not get into what you don’t have or can’t do or won’t ever be. It’s all of those things, and know all those things.
So I’m going to try to ride my new bike a little bit this weekend…I got a helmet and lights yesterday for an absurdly low price through the university, and I will be purchasing stickers during lunch with which to decorate this helmet forthwith. I am going to a party. I’m getting some new work pants and trying to clean up the last of the Burning Man detritus that is currently overwhelming my house, and indeed, my entire life. I’m going to post pictures of the aforementioned Burning Man and then never mention it in this journal again. I’m going to cook something yummy from scratch and finally see Pirates of the Caribbean. I’m going to make it to meeting on Sunday. I’m going to call everyone I know and tell them that they are cute and funny and smart and that I love them unreservedly. I am going to undo the mess that is my poor basketweave scarf and make it into a thing of beauty around my neck.
Rain or no rain, I’m going to have a life and not worry about the lives I don’t have.