8:54 p.m. - October 06, 2002
Prevailing solar winds pass me quickly
One day I will slough off this skin of mine and be vulnerable and carefree and learn who I am and leap before I look and laugh before contemplating whether my laugh is appropriate to the situation.
One day I will be a witty, engaging, amusing conversationalist and be myself around you and laugh instead of cringe at your grimace when you hear my admission that I like the Carpenter songs.
One day I'll figure it out, have the answer, find my way back onto the road with everybody else but maybe then too, I'll overcome my fear of ending up alone but the reality is, prepare myself. Do not misunderstand: Despite probable impressions, I don't latch onto the hapless first or second to come my way but realize the leitmotif of solitude is concrete and heavy and I'm already in its shadow, and one may as well adjust.
For the greater portion of my life I was convinced I would die young, by my mid-twenties at the latest. I am quickly approaching 30 and have not died yet and find myself disoriented. One would think to cram as much living into a truncated life but I seem to have done the opposite, squeezed every drop of energy out and am emotionally, socially, spiritually desiccated and when realizing the end has yet to appear, am unable to crawl to the watering hole. It's likely I'll remain in this place, my own Sahara but even there one finds joy, if expectations are lowered a bit.
Why I'm thinking about this I don't know, though yesterday's wedding probably floats around my head. The image on replay is watching the crowd dance, even the great-grandmother from St. Louis, Missouri and several ancient aunt and bushy-eared uncles, to Pink and Eminem and Vanilla Ice, another example in the disconnect list I've been making. I felt adrift, unaccomplished, foreign to the pleasure of being together these people displayed.
Yesterday I lied because I didn't want to own up to being a drop-out; said repeatedly I'm still working on the Ph.D. on second language acquisition and talked artificial intelligence and cognitive science with former colleague-students and while it felt good to be at home so to speak, the undercurrent of washed-up-ness and couldn't-hack-it-ness was heavy like a shroud.
I wanted to have the Ph.D. in hand by now and a young, scholarly university professor whose small, cramped office was filled with visiting students. Instead, I'm doing nothing.
Yes, yes, I know: the books. They can't save me any better than I can save myself, something I didn't realize until too late.
