Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Glancing Up At Where You Lived When You Lived Here

I can't go home. I am home. I'm three stories above the ground-- eye-level but five miles north of where my heart is. Not quite 2 in the morning? It'd be outside, in my backyard. Three of the sweetest girls I will ever meet are walking into my backyard to hang out with me and Dave and our grimy friends. The prettiest one has a pack of cigarettes for me, whose meaning will evade me until what has recently become November 10th or 2010. The night will be young when all but one will go home. I'll fight being tired when the sun starts rising but I'll turn in once my pack is empty.

I've been kind of sad lately-- the way I felt when I was in freshman year of high school, or maybe 7th and 8th grade. it is no longer possible to discover getting drunk and high for the first time anymore. My friends have either grown past or too comfortable with that kind of lifestyle. On this particular night, though, the one thing on my mind is a great realization. It's come a few years late, though, as I think I met her a few years early.
Brendan Kelly wrote about some of the difficulties of getting married. The key point that stuck out to me was the abandonment of trivial habits. Here's my version of his explanation: when you get married and realize that you no longer have to impress a potential mate, lots of niceties go out the window. Hiding farts, keeping the sink empty of dishes, or showering on a daily basis suddenly doesn't seem necessary. For women, shaving one's legs may no longer be part of a routine. Pretty simple-- yet very believable-- stuff.
I get caught up in this kind of thing all the time. I used to wash my sheets every time I knew my first girlfriend was coming over-- and I never even told her that. I quit smoking whenever I'm trying to impress a girl (which has been the case with at least three who would become girlfriends). What else? I clean up much more often (by which I mean that I shave and wear cologne and a nice shirt and look like a real dork) when under this kind of pressure. Oh, and I often take womanly advice more seriously, like from my sister or mom or close friend-who-happens-to-be-a-girl.
Anyways, this all boils down to the cliched teen-chick-flick storyline where I was too stupid to notice the girl who cared about me when I was chain-smoking and getting as drunk as I could before the sun rousted itself and trying to live life to the fullest while being as reckless as possible and being constantly surrounded by all of my best friends. Yeah.
Now I'm tame and I'm followed by this girl who cares about me way more than I care about myself and I kind of feel like an asshole in a very general way. And that's why I've been depressed lately.
But tonight has provided a major break-through as far as my obsession with cigarettes (referring more to why I place so much importance on their implications and less with my actual smoking of them).

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