How are you doing these days? she asks...
First I have to apologize for doing the following to you. I'm writing to the universe and myself but you got in the way. You're a total stranger to me now and I have so many memories of us kids back in the day, the high-school way.
How many quarter-life crises have you seen? I always expected to hit one right in the middle, buy a sports car, maybe get a trophy wife or something, and realize on the back end what a dick I was and repent and be forgiven. Sunset fades to black on a typical life, banal but not trite.
I feel old, and a line from an STP song plays in my head. So very thin. And I realize that we all think this way sometimes, and no I am not special and never will be. Special is the rumored green flash, seen in far away places, when the sun dies at just the right moment and you realize you were part of something ephemeral. Special is ephemeral. But we live a long goddamn time.
The internet sucks. You love it at first. "Wow!", you say. You never thought to hear from so-and-so ever again and here this wonderful technology has delivered them to you with no effort whatsoever. Delivered you to me. There are consequences to such occurrences. Consequence is always paired with truth. The truth of the past, forgotten for so long, is suddenly here and no you aren't even close to the same person, so you get to experience it anew. Retrospectively. You always come out looking worse in 20/20.
That's how a life is lived.
The monks will tell you that the way to enlightenment is now. Not in heaven. Here. Bliss is experienced as a series of infinitesimal moments. Suchness, they say. And they are right, but that's not living. That's dying well. And that's fine, enticing even, but I don't want to die just yet.
Should I repeat the apology? I am so very selfish, I know. I do this from time to time. Hit people completely out of nowhere, because that's where I live and I don't know how to play in the real world. I know all the rules, but am too forceful in my execution. In absence so long, that when I visit I am overblown, incomprehensible. And secretly I like it that way. I like to be mysterious. I like to shock people, and fade away like a well delivered punchline. But no one ever remembers punchlines. You end up as fodder for awkward social engagements before the alcohol has taken effect.
What to do when angst becomes ennui? Some do drugs. Some grow up. Most just fade away and die long before their bodies give out, and roam malls like vampires feeding on the energies of a youth they no longer understand. But the thing they don't tell you is that drugs work. Hell yes, they work, but the price is very high. Everyone secretly knows this, but please don't tell the children. No sex. No drugs. No music, because these necessarily involve difficult emotions and no thank you I don't want to talk about that right now. Anger is easy, and so we dose our kids with violence because it's the easy thing to do. I understand it. I hate it, but I understand it.
You used to write forever, and while that is one reasonable motivation for this, it is far from justification. This is not a letter to you. This is an insane-man's ramblings, drunk on Elliott Smith and regret. So yes I expect to never hear from you again. What could you possibly say? But I don't want to be polite today, and you're the victim of that. Probably you will mutter a small WTF and go on about your life, forgetting a strange occurrence in a world rife with weird. And that's ok, perhaps even preferable.
But I wanted to tell you that I remember you, favorably even, and truly I am curious about how you're doing now. Aren't you so very sorry you asked me in the first place? Oh. Right.
I'm doing great. So good to hear from you. :)