I Don’t Wanna Know

It seems to me that it has been a long time since I blogged about the ongoings of my life. In past blogging excursions, I have felt the need to embellish the fact with fiction to make the recounting palatable. It wasn’t always this way on this blog. I was more forthcoming, less concealing, more unencumbered. In the many weeks that have passed, I have written from a place of wanting to create a safe harbour and it has worked. Safety, as I have mentioned many-a-time before, has been a need unfulfilled. Reassurance, even more so.

I haven’t blogged on weekends in a while because I have run out of ways to embellish fact with fiction. I mean not entirely because I can still do it, but I would much rather not. One weekend after another has been a way to get from Friday evening to Monday morning, a personal Sabbath of sorts, in which I suspend all activity that requires me to expend energy. Not that I look forward to Monday mornings anymore, but still. In these past few weekends, my energies are focussed on what salve can I add to my wounds and how can I rest well to plod through the following week. I’m not miserable, simply tired. Work now has become just that — work. I used to be on a wonderful team, doing a job I loved, and was bloody damn good at. I used to belong somewhere. I used to have fun. Now, I find myself going through the day, not belonging anywhere, and waiting for something to happen that takes my breath away.

But what could take my breath away? I worry too much. I worry about my long-time friend who doesn’t talk to me anymore and who, I don’t talk to. Neither of us has done anything to mend the fracture in our friendship caused earlier this year. That doesn’t stop me from thinking about my friend every other day. Old friends are hard to come by. I’m not sure what happens when you grow up, but for some reason, those unconditional bonds become harder to forge. What’s with all this labelling people as your guardian, side-kick, or best-person-to-eat-peanuts-with? Why do we need to put stickers on foreheads of people in our lives? Don’t ask. I don’t understand it myself. This world is all set up bollocks if you ask me. But, no one is asking me to be honest with you.

I told Boy the other day that I am tired of living what I call the ‘perfect-pandemic-life’. I have just had it. I don’t give a fig about having my day structured, life all dolled up in matte make-up with an exercise routine, a perfect podcast, and a culinary hobby. Blasted beans, this pandemic-life! I couldn’t care less. All I want is to eat too much pizza and drink too much cold drink and lie in bed for the better part of the day. I also want to play aggressive paintball and clean up the local beach every day from dawn to dusk. I would also like revenge. More importantly, I just want to get off this giant hamster wheel. I am too pretty to run around in the same circle every day.

This weekend, I bought myself a small, red speaker just out of spite. I want to own my spite and play happy songs on the small, red speaker and sing along to them loud enough for just me to hear them. And the next time my mother asks me to check on a friend who is in some part of the world being flooded by capitalism’s mirth or visited by the ire of Boreas, I will do no such thing. I cannot recall the last time someone called me to check on me. As I said, I want to own my spite. I want to be human for just a little longer because in the foreseeable future we are all going to be toast. Except, of course, some privileged people who have luck shining upon them and still manage to be tone-deaf and bigots. I see you. We all see you. Because well, what else can we do?

This is also why I read 153 pages of a book in one go this Saturday. I don’t know anyone who has that kind of attention span, these days. Heck, even I don’t have it, but you’re not gonna see me back down on account of being unable to do a thing. I was just trying to prove a point, to break the rhythm of this evil cycle in which I find myself. I just wanted to make a dent in the universe, you know? Being kind, wanting the best for people close to me, and forgiving has gotten me nowhere so far. So I’m just going to forget the world outside and read 150 pages because well, what’s the worst that could happen? (Eyeache and headache, that’s what happens.)

This morning an old friend called me up while I was sleeping and I pulled myself out of bed to talk to her. (Everything is fine, everyone we know is alive.) It wasn’t a strange thing to have happened at all. Not because every morning I am woken up by a phone call from a friend, but because that’s what happens when you’ve known someone for too long and seen parts of them that are flattering and not so flattering. All niceties cease to matter. At least, that’s how it used to be. I don’t think I’m made for this new life dictated by manners posted on social media. I’m too old for all this. Yes, yes, and too pretty, too.