getting along with it all

I'm goin' down to the Greyhound station
Gonna get a ticket to ride
Gonna find that lady with two or three kids
And sit down by her side
Ride 'til the sun comes up and down around me
'Bout two or three times
Smokin' cigarettes in the last seat
Tryin' to hide my sorrow from the people I meet
And get along with it all
Go down where the people say y'all
Sing a song with a friend
Change the shape that I'm in
And get back in the game and start playin' again
I'd like to stay
But I might have to go to start over again
Might go back down to Texas
Might go to somewhere that I've never been
And get up in the mornin' and go out at night
And I won't have to go home
Get used to bein' alone
Change the words to this song, and start singin' again
I'm tired of runnin' 'round
Lookin' for answers to questions that I already know
I could build me a castle of memories
Just to have somewhere to go
Count the days and the nights that it takes
To get back in the saddle again
Feed the pigeons some clay, turn the night into day
And start talkin' again when I know what to say
I'm goin' down to the Greyhound station
Gonna get a ticket to ride
Gonna find that lady with two or three kids
And sit down by her side
Ride 'til the sun comes up and down around me
'Bout two or three times
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
And start talkin' again when I know what to say

Clay Pigeons by Blaze Foley

She moved out. The text came yesterday, telling me she’d finished packing everything up and was finally ready to take her flight out of America. I’m in Chicago right now visiting a good friend of mine with a sunny disposition and lighthearted outlook on life; we were out on a run when the news came in. I scanned the message mid-breath, something registered somewhere, a checkbox was checked, and I tried to focus on my cardio. But now that the deed is done, and even though I don’t know if she threw some vindictive last blow before departing, I don’t know how to feel. I haven’t seen the place, and I’m honestly kind of scared to. It feels like a tomb now, the air is frozen in time from before, used by an organism that used to exist but no longer does. If I go back it’ll be archaeological, I’ll be dig through the remains and attempt to detach and re-associate these totems and signifiers with the new continuity and the new life ahead. A split, but also, a continuity. How very strange.

It’s nice being here in Chicago at least, it’s a beautiful city, and I’m right by Lake Michigan and can soak in the teal blue of the water and the lush fleeting sunlit green and the grey clouds that vie for control of the sky. I’m also grateful to visit my friend, he’s a true gem, and it makes me feel less alone knowing that I have these connections with people that care about me, and that I care about deeply, too. At the same time, there is a bit of a boyish arrogant casualness with which he treats everything that is simultaneously magnetic and frustrating. But that’s really OK, because I’m not here to bore into his mind, I’m here to get away from it all, and remind myself that I’m not floating in a dark lonely and dead sea of my own making, and that actually, I have some stake in the world, some ties to people that still love and care, and that things can get better. Friendships are like time capsules, they’re forged at a particular point in time, sometimes in the gauntlet, and other times seemingly at random, but hold memories and inside jokes and artifacts of a time past — you were certain people then, you are different but the same now. In these points of connection you can revisit history, delight and lament in the changes, and forge memories anew. Your relationships are reflections of them as much as they are of you; this interpersonal collage of sensation, emotion, memory, doings, is a living, pulsating thing that somehow is reanimated whenever you reconnect. This is all to say, I really appreciate being here, and it’s probably saving me from my most ridiculous excesses.

But still, I’m sad, I’m kind of spiraling, and I’m not processing. I’m not engaging with the subterranean fissures that are sprouting up, that I ignore when I’m about to cry in this little booth where I’m hiding in this big glass box/prison. It does feel like my life is over, but I also know it’s also just beginning. Work feels depressing; I know it’s a matter of mindset and outlook, but it’s hard not to feel like everyone hates me or that I’m quietly despised, and that conversation and gossip happens in secret. Perhaps it’d be better if I quit my job and became completely unmoored, but that’s an even scarier prospect and I know I need the structure to provide some safeguards.

I was talking to my friend and his girlfriend yesterday, and I feel at times, however irrationally, that my calling came and went, that I missed the boat, train, flight, whatever. There was a thing, X, that I was supposed to have identified in some authentic and sincere fashion at an early age, that I then cultivated through careful and deliberate work, that then begins to blossom as I grow into adulthood. But I haven’t found it! And I cast about restlessly, amble through towns, jobs, relationships, and remain aimless. I blow things up to feel alive, I make a rash impulsive decision to chase the high and when it finally fades and the crushing weight sets in I’m left with the bitter dregs of myself. How many things have I ruined chasing this high? Is this some bourgeois sense of discovery that in some very real, postmodern sense has no cohesion, no centrality, that I’ve tricked myself into pursuing? Is this desire doomed to nihilism, cynicism, dejection, and all shades of blue? It feels like that, honestly.

I’m sad, sad, sad. It feels hard to get back on the horse, it feels harder every single time. And I’m tired of trying, it feels insane and ridiculous. I’m burnt out. I would like to be loved, I would like to love, I would like to be surrounded by warmth and comfort and care. These things feel distant to me when I’m in New York, and the dread and reckoning of the coming exhumation is growing with each day. I don’t know where to start. I have some plans that I don’t have the will to see through right now and which feel silly or stupid depending on the day. It just creeps in at the edges of my heart and tugs gently, an almost drunken continuously-falling sensation. What to do with that sensation, I don’t know, but I need new company. I can’t drink alcohol anymore because whenever I do, the color comes out leaking blue everywhere and ruining everything; needing people more than ever right now, I of course repel them. This dance is exhausting, I’ve lost my balance, please someone unconditionally wrap your arms around me and tell me it’s going to be OK. I’m a grown, disgusting, navel-gazing, pathetic man and just want someone to take the wheel, is that so much to ask?

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Thanks to the internet I’ve discovered the beautiful work of Maynard Dixon.