march 17, 2018 — It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m alone.
I don’t mean this self-pityingly—it’s simply an observation. I was walking home from yoga and was listening to the screams from drunken twenty-somethings, the boom of tacky country music, and felt a peculiar alienness, as I have for months now. A strange distance from it all. It used to be that I was in those throngs—drinking green cheap beer with my friends, getting tipsier by the minute, the pulse of the speakers swimming in my ears as we yelled over the music. I feel so apart from that now, like a walking shadow. I seal myself in; brick myself up behind walls. The anxiety has made the process even more absolute. I spend so much time by myself here that I almost forget I’m alone, synced to the cadences of my own solitude. But I always get these wistful pangs for a life more full, blooming with vivacity. You never realize how little you speak by yourself; you only speak when spoken to, or when someone’s listening. I can go a whole day without speaking, cocooned in the singularity of my apartment life; reading, writing, drinking decaf coffee, watching TV.
Anyway, the whole town is out drinking. I turned down a few invitations earlier, quarantining myself with my anxiety so it won’t spread beyond my control. It’s a new moon tonight, the beginning of a new lunar cycle, a new month. I want this cycle to be rich with healing and recovery, but I’m not sure what else I can do. I fight my own mind vigorously every day, wrestling for the control panel. I have to actively keep it in check at all times, send firm and commanding messages, or else the system goes haywire. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I relinquished control, but I’m too afraid to find out.
I feel stuck and restless. I don’t know where I’m going with anything or what my life is going to look like. I feel tired and disenchanted.
microcosmic 