viragette

So has the winter of my discontent started early. I cannot punish my body enough. On the bike I have to push ludicrously hard to even be sore the following day. I have to ride for hours, and I don’t have hours. There aren’t hills in this town big enough to climb over my anger. I have to ride up that one hill over by MLK over and over again, and that just looks stupid, but I do anyway. And when I run I push myself too hard, and my shins ache so much the next day that I need to take days off so that the injury doesn’t progress. Which would only frustrate me further. And I’m not strong enough, nor am I fast enough to pummel this. I can never be. Because I don’t really want to muscle this, I want to exhaust it. I want to be exhausted. And yet the crushing weight of my own frustration makes me so tired that I can barely move, and I feel weak and drained and tired. And I am tired, because I’m working through the night too often.

And everything is wonderful. It is just as I want it to be.

I have phenomenal good luck, in every sense. I have a wonderful job. I have my health despite my best attempts to confound it. My family is a joy and a comfort. Without them, I would fail to resemble myself. My friends are so beautiful that even when they reveal their failings or frailties I am humbled by the power and dignity inherent in their willingness to share their lives with me.

My material possessions, Henry David forgive me, are a source of slow, warm joy. My apartment is - well, it’s lovely at this time of year. When I wake up in the morning and walk out to the sun rising over the city, or when I return home in time to see the sun setting like a flaming ball over the church steeples, it often makes me stop and stare. Sometimes I just wish there was someone to turn to and say “God. Look at that. That’s beautiful.” And when I realize that no one is there - that sense of isolation makes me happy in an indescribable way. As if I cannot help at that moment but gather all of the beauty in the world for myself.

I could go on and on about how magical it is, my little world. About my morning routine at the coffee shop where, like f***ing Cheers, everyone knows my name. About how beautiful the river or the abandoned brewery is in the morning sunlight. The way that the cool, early morning, slightly misty, autumn air smells and feels against my skin when I get on my bike. My delight, in the locker room, when I suit up in the ironic armor that is my kick-ass Sid Vicious meets 40’s vixen parody of a professional wardrobe. I crack myself up. Complete with the red lipstick and the (shh, don’t tell) punk-rock garters with real silk stockings. That’s my own private joke, but if I get hit by a bus I’ll certainly be the most popular girl at the morgue.

Walking around at work and seeing so many people I know and like. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be someone that each of those people will stop and speak with for a time. There are days when I cannot sit by my door because it’s a constant stream of visitors, smiling faces just wanting to chat. With me. And that is incredible to me. That there is a community to which I belong, in a very real sense.

And the calendar afterwork - parties, concerts, dinners with friends and what the hell is up with all these text messages.
And all that is real. And I really do enjoy it. And my life is just like I want it.

And whenever I pause for a moment, that feeling is there - consuming and barely contained. I just don’t lose my temper anymore, but I want to scream and throw things. Like a child. And I know why I am so angry, but I can barely wrap my head around it.

I think I am so incredibly angry because everything is just like I want it to be. Because I am in control of everything. Because I am in control of myself. Because I have reached a horizon of self-actualization that is so profoundly boring that I can type “horizon of self-actualization” with a straight face. God damn little-miss-big-vocabulary to hell. Even the risks that I take, and I keep piling them on like logs on a bonfire, are under control. I’m so mad I could spit. But I don’t. Because what would be the point? The point would be that I am really, really mad - so mad that spit just doesn’t cover it. Pain doesn’t cover it. Sweat doesn’t quench it.

Maybe that’s not it. But this keeps coming up and it’s not that I’m not challenged. Because I am. But I am still, somehow, in control. Where is the pain and suffering and the trial? Where is my comfort zone? I can handle all of this, and I can even handle it when I can’t handle it. And what makes me mad is that I just laugh and roll with it. And say - “this is nothing. Is this all you got? Bring it the hell on because this is child’s play.”

Because - where is my fear? Where is the limit of this? When am I going to feel overwhelmed and trapped and frightened by anything ever again?

I think I’ve come so far that I may never get home.