semiswete: (Default)
2018-02-10 09:50 am
Entry tags:

the current concern #2

I might regret posting this later, but this is supposed to be a more "public" journal and I'm listening to a really good song that doesn't have any words, so here we go.

I feel like I cannot articulate the reason why I keep sliding into this dissatisfied gloom. I'm used to being able to clearly communicate exactly how I'm feeling, even if I don't share. Description is kind of my thing. But I don't know what this is, where it comes from, which is probably why it keeps coming back. I'm doing 10,000 leagues better than I was when I lived with my parents after college, and I've really settled into my adult life here, working and supporting myself. I'm proud of that, and who I've become as a person, despite all my insecurities and short-comings.

But I keep getting gloomy, I can't ever keep it away for too many days, especially if I'm not at work or out doing anything. It's probably partly my diet, partly my inconsistent sleep schedule, partly this embedded parasitic thought that makes me believe that I "should" be living my life--basically--in ways that just aren't me. It's always the same shit, I can't do much about it (and the things I can change feel kind of fruitless to me, even though I have not tried them), I'm tired of talking about, thinking about it, and you're all probably tired of hearing about it! welcome to the shit show ;)

(I don't like making my loved ones worry/burdening them, and I understand that things usually get better and work out [plus. I hate feeling bad lolol], so when I get particularly negative I like to stick a big 'ole humor band-aid on it, and I just think that's so sexy of me <3)

Anyway. I've got all my hobbies that I search out and learn and then put down for varying amounts of time that might include forever. I like to feel useful and active, like to craft and create. But I'm fairly smart, and recognize that all this is just another branch of that feeling of needing to go. I know going anywhere isn't going to make me happy, just as I know hiking on a mountain and hearing the wind in the trees isn't going to make me happy. It's a desperate, fundamental need to escape, and sources indicate that I'm trying to escape from myself. Big whoop, this isn't a groundbreaking experience. Moving all those times I have, I eventually end up right back here (though I don't remember the sink being quite so lingering). But I always hope that someplace new will give me that freedom, I guess, change me into someone who isn't quite so melancholic, sentimental, lonely by nature.

I'm so tired of fighting this feeling, though I always try. I've got my resources: friends, food, water, MUSIC, sunlight, the usual shit. I just wish...I wish my days didn't feel like chores, wish the hours stretching ahead of me didn't give me worry about how to spend them and how I'll feel in them. I can't focus on the things I like. When I think of other things I like, I can already see myself feeling their flatness, like a soda forgotten on the table. But what else am I supposed to do? Really? Thus the cycles continue.

I'm not depressed, and these issues aren't at a level where I can really get anyone else's help. I just have to keep going, keep dealing with it, hope that one day it changes. I'm pretty sure I like myself just fine, I just wish I could be at ease with my own existence, haha. If I can't make myself happy, how can I expect to find a place or a person to make me happy? So that's where my head is at. It's always the same, and frankly that's pathetic and annoying, so I try not to talk about it. But I also have this need to share, hence all my vague and sometimes emotional tweets and tumblr tags, hahha. I just want my mind to be quiet, I could vomit I'm so tired of this whoooooole line of thinking.

This is kind of long, huh. Sorry. Thanks if you read this far. But things are generally good, and generally unchanging. I'm just not too happy. thanks for coming to my TED talk.

semiswete: (Default)
2018-01-30 07:12 pm
Entry tags:

A short story

Memento Mori

Her hair clip slides down again and she readjusts it with familiar efficiency. The blue paint is long gone and it hasn’t done its job in ages, but it had been a gift in childhood. She inches forward in line and absently pats her coarse hair beneath the clip, jiggles the restlessness out of her brand new sandals with a quick bounce on her heels. She’d had this outfit planned since she finally shared the decision with her mother and doctor just a few years ago, a little after she’d turned 241. Or was it 274? The front of the line shifts again, and she steps forward with a jittery smile.


It had taken 26 years to get on the list, and that was after her initial bid a while before that, not to mention the decade or so spent saving the money. This was a popular way to go, after all, but she was never worried it wouldn’t happen. Getting the go ahead came down to time, and if nothing else, that’s what they had now. There’s a woman about six heads up who looks vaguely like her mother, the way she holds herself tall but craned inwards towards the hands clasped at her center. Her own mother’s hands were leathery and smooth when she heard the news in that tiny office, smelling like a cinnamon stick hidden in a bed of dust and antiseptic solution. She hadn’t said a word, for once, simply reached over and patted her thigh twice. Solid, warm. It had just been her and mom for ages, after dad opted to go out in the night.


“Would you like to come with me?” She remembers asking, eyes overfull with the rest. How could she leave before her own mother? Mom had smiled at her then, mouth pulling softly to the right. She’d kissed her on the forehead as though scared the weight of her skin would drop them both through the floor. A no, then. An apology. A permission. The most motherly thing she had done in years.


She can actually see the attendant at the front of the ride now, voice tumbling over the ambient noise in occasional crackles of fake cheer and latent authority, tinted mechanical by the speaker at his lips. The words are indiscernible, but it sounds practiced, has a rhythm to it. It’s got to be instructions, repeated so often as to be uttered without much thought. He must have said them a thousand, thousand times. They must be magic by now,  for all the chanting he’s got to have done. His polo is yellow, and the cars glide to a stop at the platform empty, old passengers removed at a previous stop. She squints up at the birds overhead, tries to ignore the stench of concrete and stale food for a brief whiff of fresh air. The weather is beautiful. What a wonderful send off.


“All right, would the next 7 people please come on up to the platform!” She jumps at the suddenly booming voice and the attendant grins. “I promise I don’t bite, though sometimes I am tempted.”


Time had passed so quickly for the last couple of groups before her. With a grunt she climbs onto the platform, glad that she’d picked her favorite, flexible, denim skirt for this. The people directly behind her are staring forward with bright eyed anticipation, and for just a moment she wishes she had more time to study them all. Wonder how they got here. And then she settles into the spongy plastic seat, a comfortable warmth radiating off of it from the sun. The attendant begins his speech again, and she tunes in and out, the minutes trance-like. It’s like all roller coaster instructions she has fuzzy memories of from long, long ago when she used to ride them. It seems not much has changed, even for something like this. When the curved bar locks around her shoulders she thinks again of her mother, imagines she is likely tending to her elaborate garden. She likes the methodic activity, but has always enjoyed the harvest most of all. On one occasion she had gazed deep into the upturned soil and murmured that she liked to see it all to completion. The attendant grins at the group once more, not unkindly, and she wonders if her mom will really stick around until the end of this, of all of them. With an absent hand she confirms the hair clip is still attached, and eases into the giddy bubbles sliding around in her stomach. She isn’t worried. The sun licks the back of her arms, a buzzer sounds, and the car juts forward with the leisure of a wildcat. “Thank you for riding, and enjoy the end of your journey.” This last part he says with noticeable sincerity, she decides it is the sentence with the most magic. They’re off.


One row ahead there’s a trio trying to lock hands despite the awkward safety barriers of the ride, and she can’t help but tune into the excited, warbly chirps of their conversation that float over to her on the breeze. She’s not the only one riding alone, but the atmosphere is sated and docile in the sun’s rays. Most roller coasters are tantalizingly short, and this one proves to be no different. She can’t remember the last time a countdown held any measure of electricity for her, made her feel anything. Now, as the sun threatens to blind her and she fights to embroider everything she sees into the pillows of her memory, she can’t help but smile at what’s to come, those precious, unretractable seconds. They seem to climb forever, and with a twitch of fear she giggles when they reach the crest. Her entire body is tingling, though from anticipation or lack of oxygen or genuine excitement, she couldn’t reliably say. As though stalking prey their car slinks over the curve, and light illuminates the drop before them, the one...two...seven loops sprawling beyond. The Euthanasia coaster was initially infamous for it’s dark and impossible promise to be the most enjoyable way to die. Now though, it is quite possibly the highest rated ride in existence, and arguably the most popular paid way to reclaim one’s mortality. After agonizing seconds or perhaps instantaneously, they drop. She explodes into surprised laughter. There is no going back, not that she’d ever want to.


She’s not falling. She’s flying back to earth like her flesh demands to reconvene, and suddenly they’re into the first loop. She can’t breath, but she’s howling with laughter, the wind gobbles up any tears she thinks she’s shedding before she feels them. Her body is light itself, she locks eyes with someone in the front row of the car, and everything is good. The second loop, and they are silent, mouths caught in blossomed ecstasy. Her chest is heavy with life. The third loop? She can’t count anymore, but there is nothing to feel, only to enjoy. It’s fun. So fun. Everywhere is sunlight. And the sunlight is blinding.


***


When the removal squad gives him a thumbs up, he pulls the lever and slides the empty car forward. Light cloud cover has moved in, but the sun still keeps an almost affectionate surveillance on them all. “All right, would the next 7 people please step on up to the platform,” he begins again, pausing to take a swig from his water. Most of the group is smiling, but a few look understandably nervous. He relaxes into his usual speech, mostly talking about safety, as ironic as that is. According to his watch, he goes on break in about five minutes, which is pretty freaking awesome. He smiles. “Thank you for riding, and enjoy the end of your journey.”

(inspired by this)

semiswete: (Default)
2017-12-12 10:25 am
Entry tags:

the current concern #1

 What up nerds, I'm semi and I don't know what I'm going to use this for yet. But introductions are for later! I've got something on my mind, so let's talk about that!
 
 I want to write. I WANT to write. I miss it restlessly--like waiting in line for some event, inching closer and KNOWING that you'll get inside eventually but not going fast enough, which on some irrational level offends you. I miss the creativity, the way innocuous events like vacuuming can be reframed in your mind. It could become more than cleaning! What if someone vacuumed almost obsessively, as though that act alone would erase the memory of someone, the scent of them from their thin living room carpet? (Actually, I may have read something similar once) I miss seeing the world like that, because I've always been a sentimental type who's halfway in a daydream anyway. Part of me even misses the disconnect in how I think I'd write, and the overly flowery style I usually end up with.
 
I have two fics partially written that I will likely never finish, and a snapshot of a scene that never had a fic to go around it; which is all too bad because these are pairs I quite like. Maybe I'll post them here, kind of release them into the ether once and for all? I don't know. The problem is that I'm not really in a fic-writing cycle, but the idea of crafting characters and a universe for them sounds more like intimidating work than interesting fun, and at least with fic you know there's a good chance there are going to be a few people interested in your work or characters. Original work isn't like that.
 
I say I'd like to write another short story, but it doesn't seem like I'll be doing that anytime soon. Well, I think that's enough complaining for now. Bye lol