2001-05-15

what i am lacking is excitement, i keep telling myself... i keep telling myself that things used to be so much more... THRILLING.

then it occurs to me that viewing life in retrospect, the seemingly endless monotony of uneventful days and boring nights gets parsed out... in retrospect it seems my whole life prior to now has been chock full of illicit hook-ups, torrid sex, hallucenogenic drugs and gut-wrenching drama. even though i know, quite well, that those were but aberrant peaks in the dull prairie that has been my 25 year old existence.

i don't know why i want to complain. i said all last year that all i wanted was softness, security and peace. tranquility and freedom. a new job (which i have), a boyfriend (which i have) and somewhere new to live (which i don't have yet...)

but it's all so dissatisfying, though, isn't it, sometimes... mike's revelling in the glory of union-powered overtime, and that means afternoons and evenings of his tightened face looking too tired to talk, too tired to fuck, too tired to do any relating at all.

last night we went to sleep at 930, and i lay there for a while, watching the headlights of the cars on the highway wash over his ceiling, and i thought about the first night that i spent at his house.

i remember how awkward and strange and out of place i felt. i remember how i wanted to throw on my clothes and run away, and never talk to him again.

i remember staring at the skateboards lined up along the wall, and wondering to myself, "what in the hell am i doing here? haven't i done all this shit before?"

it occurs to me that the impulse to run can be so ridiculously strong sometimes... i wonder how many times i followed my flight mechanisms, only to lose out on times and energies and experiences that would have been more beneficial, educational and edifying than anything i ended up running to.

no, i am not really bored. i am scared. i find myself staring at mike's face, his mannerisms, his hands, his hair, his fingers...

i stare at him, and feel the rush of emotion that tides around inside of me whenever i think of how i feel about him.

i look into his eyes when he is talking, and his whole voice becomes a blur, and every cell in my head is trying to foretell the shape and form of every day of our future relationship. will i spend the rest of my life with him? will i marry this man? grow old with him? will i have his children? take care of him when he is sick? will he love me when everything that is "pretty" and "young" about me fades away? will he have affairs? will i? will we actually have that house out in the country? will i really get my doctorate? will he really make that movie?

see, that's the stillness of it. that's the reason things feel stilted, feel stagnant... my whole mind is focused not on the moments that are passing under my feet, but rather on the times that are looming ahead... i feel like this is a quiet time, like he and i are drifting towards something huge and undefinable...

laying in bed last night i realized... in meeting mike, in being with him, i am moving into that future that has always been before me... that future that always has been an undefined promise of things to come.

now that i think i have met the man that i would like to marry, i'm moving into the great, elusive Rest of My Life.

it means i'm getting older, that time is going by. and that i really have to start thinking, day by day, whether i am making things turn out the way that i want them to be.

its a little daunting, when i think about it.