it is only as i spend a few moments alone can i start to feel the same familiar sensation wash over me, just as it has so often before.
i can feel the clutches and the restraint – the smothering suffocation.
don’t get me wrong, i love my family, but i don’t even have a room to myself here.
the only time i spend alone is at night, when everyone else has gone to sleep and when my eyes can barely stay open – or on rest days like today when i can steal moments in the communal bedroom to finish reading a book.
it’s difficult for me to spend too much time with the same people without extended moments of solitude.
i – who cherish times of isolation, who even in the first year of university consciously chose to spend hours, sometimes even a day or two, all alone – have no time to myself.
and how truly can i be myself when i am surrounded by people who have painted a portrait of me as already semi-damned.
i can’t escape the image of my life as having strayed off the righteous path – as being foolish and mislead – and maybe its an accurate portrayal.
but i love my family, and i really am grateful that i get to spend this rare time with them. this trip has, for the most part, been wonderful.
someone please hand me a more positive attitude – just pry the non-existent fingers off my throat, steady, one by one.
above: cheeks and wuvvy playing nhl hockey madness 2000 or something. i don’t even know, but wuvvy’s making a silly face so it’s okay.
i went to sleep 8:30 am after finishing my last assignment of the year. now i’m all done, free from the academic shackles that have kept me awake for nights on end and drinking cup after cup of coffee, cream and sugar.
now i’m sitting in my room, basking in the glory of idleness. i’ve lit incense and minimized the lamplight to create a soothing ambiance and the book i’m about to read is lying at my side. today is a lazy day – a relaxing day – and i want to immerse myself in smoke and pretty words and coffee, cream and sugar – because these are for the good times – the sit and read for leisure times – too.
i was in cheeks’ room watching them play video games, having no obligations of my own to tend to, and it was nice to just hang out with a couple of friends for a while. watching them play simulation hockey was actually quite entertaining. they make funny faces and lean forward when things get even slightly intense and they yell at the screen for no good reason.
i myself like survival horror video games – fatal frame, silent hill, etc etc etc. the thrill of it all and the nightmares people create are fascinating. we live in a pretty sick world – might as well make a game of it.
tonight i will wrap myself in the blanket that i haven’t yet returned. maybe tomorrow i’ll do something productive – clean my room, go to the bank, go for a walk or something.
it’s nice to know that i have a few more days in this city to do whatever i please.
everything’s winding down now. bittersweet goodbyes are looming just around the corner and soon we’ll all be going our separate ways. i shouldn’t be here in my room by myself. i should be living out the last few moments i have with all of the friends i’ve made and the people i’ve met.
it still hasn’t hit me yet – how much i’ll miss these people and the routines i’ve grown to accept – the stability of seeing familiar faces day in day out and being able to visit a friend who lives just down the hall.
i think i’ll miss the company.
i feel like i have two lives now. one is here and the other’s in toronto.
when september comes rolling in again maybe we’ll all pick up where we left off. how easy will it be to reconnect with friends? how difficult? we’ll tell stories over coffee – or beer – and recount tales of our separate summer lives. and maybe we’ll discover that we’ve changed and grown and become different people. or maybe we’ll feel a weird and forgotten sense of home that we never even knew was there.
who will be in my life next year?
where will we all be?
whose apartments will i visit and who will visit mine?
it’s strange to think that after this, i’ll never talk to some of these people again.
but there are a few strong and lasting friendships that i will tuck into my suitcase, and when i come back, they’ll be there to unpack.
here’s to the end of a beginning and to all the beginnings yet to come.
is something i’m not quite experiencing simply because, well, i don’t study.
above: so it turns out that these two (+ jared) were the ghosts that haunted my room. they managed to steal my room key (which i’d left on a table because i trust humanity), rearrange furniture, set up the rest of the haunting and return my room key without me noticing. i’d be more impressed than infuriated had it not been for the fact that i was afraid of my shower for a couple of days.
i’d come dangerously close to checking the security footage because i’m kind of insane.
but enough about that.
a little while ago i resolved to really crack down and study like a neurotic maniac hyped up on loads of caffeine. i could see myself suffocating between the pages of my textbooks, a pencil tucked behind my ear while i turned pages with enough ferocity to tear them. sheet upon sheet of handwritten notes would be scattered all around, every surrounding surface covered in lines of chicken scratch and coffee stains.
i was supposed to learn everything.
i had totally forgotten that i lacked any form of sustainable motivation, determination and perseverance. i let my unrivaled laziness get the better of me and distracted myself with modern family, documentaries and never ending meal breaks.
once again, i just couldn’t bother to care enough.
terrestrial planets was a complete disaster and i find myself counting on the curve to let me pass.
i went out the night before my sexual ethics exam and slept in too long to get any studying done (but it was still really easy, thank the good Lord).
i spent a total of a mere hour and forty five minutes studying for my anthropology of religion final.
but once again i’ll conjure up the dregs of my ever present optimism and say what i always say.
tomorrow i will study all day long. i will bury my head in my textbook and by the time my exam comes rolling along i’ll be a bona fide expert on contemporary moral issues. shoot me with any question and i’ll tell you all about the kantian perspective on the issue and the ethical complications involved. i’ll hit you with the implications of utilitarian-based arguments or show you how sentience is enough to sanction a right to life.
turns out i actually have to know these things and prove my worth.
i can’t count on a pretty face, a sense of style and a string of pretty words to get me through life anymore.
on sunday night, i came back to my room after studying in the lobby and experienced one of the most terrifying episodes of my stay in residence.
SCENE:
you approach your door with your backpack slung over your shoulder and your laptop in hand. you hear a strange noise coming from the room you remember leaving silent. you lean closer to the door – press your ear against it.
white noise.
and you think to yourself – “well, must’ve left the radio on,” – even though you’re sure this isn’t true. you keep the radio in your bathroom. you always turn it off.
slide the key card in the lock. open the door.
the white noise is louder once the door is open. mixed with the pitch black room it creates an eerie atmosphere. you turn the radio off.
turn on the front light.
you can see the silhouette of your bed from here. the mattress has been toppled over. someone has laid every pair of shoes you own on your bed board. it creates a frightening tableau and you’re left pretty spooked.
you go to your friend’s room and sleep there for the night.
you come back in the morning.
you put your shoes back where they belong. you put the mattress back where it belongs. it’s less eerie now.
then you decide to check your closets to see if anything’s been left inside, and that’s when you notice the ironing board standing in front of one of the wardrobes.
you have never ironed a thing in your life. you’ve never taken that board out of the closet.
your friend’s sweater is draped over the board with the iron perched on top.
what. is. going. on.
and then you find your waste paper basket upside down and on top of the wardrobe.
you wonder how any of this happened. who did all this and why?
i was eating my rez express in the caf, all by myself, just because i didn’t want to be in such a weird, tense environment, and i thought to myself, ‘wait. i left my phone.’
but i thought nothing of it because none of my friends have ever looked through my texts without my permission.
my fucking privacy is the only thing i keep sacred.
if you want to look through photos, look through some photos.
i never go to class. i never study. i never spend more than one night on a paper, and even then it’s only a couple of hours.
i never make an effort.
i am not one of those kids who studies in libraries and hangs out in the arts lounge and meets with professors after class to clear up any lingering confusion about the day’s lecture.
but i wish i was.
sometimes i wish i considered all of those things important. sometimes i can see my self sitting in a chair at ssmu, sipping on a coffee and watching a lecture i happened to miss – maybe i slept in, maybe i was sick, but not because of pure and utter laziness.
and then i romanticize the vision.
perhaps i’m reading a textbook in a library and suddenly a young, strapping man sits down across from me and says something along the lines of ‘oh, i’m in that class too. so screwed for the exam,’ and we chit chat for a little while and then we go out to starbucks or something and chit chat some more – this time not about school and not about courses and not about the books we have to read (but maybe about the books we choose to).
every time i sit down and try to get to work, i get this sudden grasp of fatality and i ask myself ‘is this all just a waste of time?’ and i think about all the things i could be doing instead, so i end up sitting at my laptop watching trash tv or going to the caf for hours on end, not even eating but just being there. i end up still wasting time, but in other ways.
i forget that all the studying and the books and the lectures – they’re all part of the experience and good things can come from it.
i didn’t get my anthropology of religion course pack when i was supposed to and now i’m screwed. what have i been doing this entire time? how have i been spending my days? how many hours have i wasted?
i’ve been leading a drifting existence, no direction, never focused.
i think it’s time for a little bit of a change.
i’m going out tonight and then that’s it. maybe a night on the weekends – because i know i’ll feel that carpe noctum mentality wash over my helpless, restless being – but never more than that.
above: cheeks, wuvvy and leto playing video games (playing videoooo gaaaames) at 2:30 in the morning.
this is the room i found myself in after another night at bifteck. i can’t even count how many pitchers of beer i’ve had there anymore. so many nights of conversation over beer, people-watching, neverhaveievers and dares that never come to be.
“let’s swear to not end up at bifteck tonight.”
but it’s a constant and a backup and it has this wondrous gravitational pull that we’ve grown to love and adore.
if we were to look up at the stars for guidance on where to go for the night, there would be a constellation in the shape of the letters that spell BIFTECK.
the cosmos just wants us there.
but anyway, i ended up in cheeks’ room and after the other boys were gone we had a charming little conversation. now i find myself wading through the things he said and trying to pick out the truths from the falsehoods. i’ve decided not to take anything he says seriously.
if someone would like to pack me away and take me to disneyland right now, i wouldn’t complain.
i sometimes have this weird paranoia that i’m constantly being used by the people around me – maybe as an excuse to be with someone else, or as a way of meeting new people or making new friends, or maybe just as the guy who will buy the pitcher or give you a beer or just lend you his bed for the night.
sometimes i feel like i’m just a convenience – a means to an end. it’s a result of the fact that i myself have manipulative tendencies mixed with some strange and deep-seated insecurities that prevent me from believing that people can truly like me simply for who i am.
after all, i have a knack for being obnoxious and annoying and constantly aloof.
but a long time ago i made the decision to never wallow in sadness and self-pity and doubt for too long. it’s okay to entrench yourself in your sorrows – to listen to a stream of heart-breaking songs and wonder why the whole world seems to be against you and question why nobody seems to understand. sometimes it can even be healthy and perhaps cathartic.
but after a while, you have to pick yourself up and remember that life goes on and so will you. remember that sometimes there will be things you cannot change, and there will be others that you can.
it’s up to you to make the conscious decision to try and be happy again. focus on good things and stop dwelling on the things that will eat you alive. start to see things for what they are – maybe they’re better than you think. open your eyes to all the good in the world and have faith. always have faith.
surround yourself with people that make you happy. do things that make you want to live and create and be free to be who you are.
destroy what destroys you.
stop making excuses and grab life by the horns.
there is a strange and empowering euphoria that comes hand in hand with great sorrow, but if you feed off of it for too long, you will miss all the beauty of the world and the bursts of wonder and colour and joy that make life worth living. you will miss the far better euphoria of really feeling alive – and in all the right ways.
a long time ago i made the decision to try and be happy.
i surround myself with people who make me feel good and safe and warm.
i grow to resent anyone who dampens my own happiness.
and if it gets really bad, i cut people out of my life and am better for it.
but i’m running out of ways to start over, and i’m running out of the cruelty to leave people behind.
that and i have more faith in my friends.
but one day i’m going to pack my bags and start a grand adventure without telling a single soul.
