‘And the season of loving has long awaited me’
When I see my friends going from one hazardous relationship to another, or making the same mistakes in innovative and awe-inspiring ways, I always write off the common denominator as, well, them.
Then as I start wrapping caution tape around my world for the umpteenth time like I’m dancing around a goddamned maypole, I have that moment in which I realize, hunh, what is the common denominator here?
I often find that I feel so out-of-control in so many domains of my life that when I do have a choice — say, whether to guzzle a gallon of red wine or smoke a cigarette — I often choose poorly. Why? Because it’s my choice. Nobody can take that away from me.
Sure, I could choose right (say, instead of abandoning my diet for a month now). But in my world, exhibiting control doesn’t always mean doing the BEST thing.
I’m starting to see why instant gratification rules those tiny pockets of my life. It’s because I’m sick to goddamned death of waiting for everything else to pay off or at least mercifully end one way or another.
I often wonder whether I left my heart in D.C. But I think I did my best to take my heart with me when I left. Even if I did have a great dream last night in which all my friends from Arlington and I were at a big dinner, celebrating my return.
I don’t see going back — at least, not for any extended stay — as being in the cards. And a part of me is almost afraid to go back, in wonders whether some of the ones I want to see most wouldn’t make an appearance.
Dear Lord, one day, please let me be as happy as everyone else seems to think I am and/or that they seem to think I deserve. Because I still feel like I’m doing this life thing all wrong. Again.
“Tides and waves have kept me
Kept me going
I’m longing for the calm
I’m heading for the pastures
I can see on your dry land
Let the sea that once did take me
Bring me back safe to your door
For I long to touch the dry land of your shore.”— Joan Armatrading, “Dry Land”