Get Your Shit Together

How’s this for obvious:

I realize it had to be all-or-nothing for me, and you’re not the all type.

1.  Lunch with A and talking about God, depression, and rock stardom.

2. 

3.  Beers with the boys.  Screaming “LIFE IS ABSURD” from the passenger seat.

4.  Forgetting old debts.  Drinking red wine and talking girls and politics with J until five in the morning.

5.  Chatting up that cutie at Fuse.  Acid with J and G on Foster Island.  Swamping.  Back to the bench, talking to the cops.  Dudes, the purple, it’s kicking in…

6.  BBQ in “the stew”.  The speakeasy that makes me feel Southern.

7.  Saying goodnight.  Walking home silent, showering the stink off, watching TV and going to bed.  My cup was empty.

8.  Making a good day from a broken phone.  Pulling G out of his comfort zone.  Beer on patios, with calamari and free meatloaf sliders.  Sorry with O in the park.  Making out after all these years.  That moment, right after you’ve lied down, where that arm reaches around and pulls her close

9.  Lunch at Honeyhole.  Bus to mom’s, bathe the cat and take a nap.

10.  Blue C Sushi with N.  Apologies and soul-searching.  A walk on the water and a chat with at the circus.  Last minute cards with B.

11.  Band practice.  Beer, watermelon, peanuts, and rejection with O.  So it goes.  She’s no good for me anyways.

12.  Practice.  Failing at the fixie.  Rocking the fuck out.  Daydreams of a packed house, a dance party, people screaming my name and demanding more.  Beer at Ivar’s with K.  Sitting on her patio with my arm around her.  Depression, dirt, isolation, public humiliation, heartbreak, sexual frustration.  Get it all out and get it in you.  Wisdom is having fucked up over and over again.  Confidence is having been the laughingstock enough times over.  God is having danced with the devil.  Love is repeated, relentless, heartbreak, soaked in the horniness of a million lonely nights.

13.  Never being alone.  The upswing of a manic cycle.  And, finally, happiness.

I don’t care who reads this.

My life is stupid. I work my job, come home, wait. Go back to work. It’s fucking depressing. I used to smoke pot to deal burn off my downtime, but all that does is ensure I stay up late and don’t get up in time for anything the next day. So I don’t do that anymore.

I don’t have many friends left. Most of the people I really connected to left after school, and what’s left it’s rapidly growing distant. Occasionally people my friends ditch me (with one notable example haunting my dreams at the moment), but most of the time it’s my fault. Whoo, boy, is it ever my fault. T – I forgot her birthday. Didn’t even call when I remembered. Christmas rolled around, and I fretted for weeks about what to get her (mind you, I still hadn’t even called her at that point). Randomly run into her at a party, and sheepishly I said hi and talked to her. It was nice. She sent me an email a few months later, real short and nice – “Let’s get a drink some time!” I responded, too late, that I was a fuck up and trying to change. I never got a response, and it turns out I didn’t end up changing.

That’s one is the worst, but I’ve done it several times. To relatives who always sent me something nice on my birthday. Friends from high school. People I genuinely liked and trusted, had history with, probably should have at least kept in touch with. Oh well.

Broke up with my girlfriend a few months ago. I felt dead weight in our relationship, while she still liked me. And now, she’s moving on, she’s going to parties and getting drunk and having fun, meeting new guys and making new friends. And I’m sitting around Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, alone. Bored. Lonely. And yet totally unwilling to go out and do it. Where do you start?

Fuck it. A, your probably the only person who will read this. I’m jealous because you’re supposed to be the shy one, the young inexperienced one, and I’m the sagely older one. But your life is going well, and mine sucks. I’m very jealous, and being older only means I have had more time to fuck up yet not learn from my mistakes.

That’s really the crux of it. I’m desperately, desperately lonely. Everyone has got their clique, their group of friends, and what do I have? I have a handful of random people I’ve connected with, people I couldn’t dream of inviting to the same party, who I see, one-on-one, once every week or so. How do you meet new people when you’re incapable of being comfortable around more than one at a time?