on reality, waiting, and mush

today the counter slipped down into single digits. i've been verbally grabbing and shaking all my friends, figuratively shouting at them, "don't you get it! nine days! then it's all over!"

i don't think they really hear me, maybe because i'm only figuratively shouting, and maybe because when i "get like that" people tend to tune me out. that's fine. i have other outlets. and inlets, for that matter, though not the greatest.

only nine more days, then it's all over!

but... what, exactly, will be over nine days from now?

once upon a time, in the land of poorly written fiction, i put words down on paper that described my planned post high-school suicide. (did i go through with it? i leave this as an exercise for the reader.) (did my character go through with it? that's an even more pointless and challenging exercise for the reader.) the feeling -- the emotions -- that occupied me at that time in my life are strikingly similar to the ones that occupy me now. it's the reaction to those feelings that differs.

in both cases, the un-known and un-knowable was rapidly approaching. in that case, it was my first time moving out from my parents house. in this case, it is my first time moving in with my girlfriend. whom i will shortly thereafter proceed to wed.

but you see, dear reader, in both cases, i was at a major turning-point in my life. in both cases, i was at the major turning-point in my life, up to that point (though i could argue that events of 9 days from now are actually minor compared to the several other recent turning-points which have led to the impending turning-point. still, i will not foolishly argue that the events of 9 days hence do not represent at least a major turning-point).

(i'm not ready to leave this parenthetical just yet, i guess. it is interesting (to me!) to compare the "majorness" of these two turning-points. in the one, the turning-point is reversible -- i could always cancel my college plans and stay with my parents. the other, while technically reversible, is much less reversible even in theory. i have made a commitment to provide housing which (and please realize, dear reader, just how far into Fairy Land we've traveled at this point), were i to get cold feet (look! the Tooth Fairy!), i could not easily cancel without feeling like a much bigger schmo than a 17 year old scared of leaving home for the first time. in the one case, i made a commitment to an institution. in the other i've made a commitment to a person. in my mind, those are mighty different responsibilities.)

also, more importantly, and to bust out of the parenthetical, i'm a much different person than i was back then.

but then: these are all reactions, not the emotion. back to the "feeling".

i was planning to write in here some place that since i've been experimenting with love, i've become a much more emotional person (since, of course, experimenting with love implies opening up to emotion) and much more likely to sway my course based on whim or other fuzzy indicators. now that i think of it, though, what could be more emotional (not to mention immature) than a snuffing-it response to impending parental separation? no, i dont think i can blame the onset of "weird feelings of impending something-or-another" on love.

but i can still document my feelings to bore all of posterity well into the next millenium.

but first: a little bit of REM that does describe my feeling now, but not then:

It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

that's the crux of the feeling, and the crux of the difference. in both cases it was/is the end of the world as i know it. but as i learned in college (ooh, guess that gave away the answer to the suicide question, huh?) shiva's destruction is followed by brahma's creation. the end of the world will bring about the creation of a new world. it happened then, it will happen now.

i'm a lot older now and a little wiser, and i can see brahma coming this time, where last time all i saw was gary oldman's shiva-of-broken-glass from the fifth element.

i will state it plainly: i am older, more capable, and less fearful now than at any time before in my life. i am not afraid of failure, and i am confident that i will encounter none. and so, though i am even less sure of what the move-in will entail than i was sure about what the move-out would entail, i am certain that nothing bad will come of it (though i do anticipate plenty of discomfort).

what's the point of all this? there isn't one. sorry if i led you on. there's no point, just a feeling: a confusing, disorienting, enjoy-it-while-you-can-because-it's-all-going-away-though-not-in-a-bad-way-but-still-it-will-never-be-the-same-but-then-again-what-ever-is feeling.

as if i'm about to move from one dream to another.

and the reason i want to shake people and scream at them is because i want -- emotionally, fuzzily, feeling-without-form -- for them to realize the enormity of i know not what. it is not a little thing for me.

i just don't know what, exactly, "it" is.

enough on that. on to waiting, yes?

single digits. 9 days left, and maybe only 8, now.

for me, this waiting -- even the measly less-than-3-weeks of it that i'm in the middle of right now -- is like being a tube of expired toothpaste. i'm squeezed and squeezed and a lot of crud makes its way out. i suspect it's the trauma of unbelievably good stretches of being together followed immediately, inevitably, and quickly by longer stretches of being apart. i'm not nearly as close to wigging out as i have been in the semi-recent past, but at the same time, i'm having thoughts and emotional responses that are definitely maladaptive.

the solutions to my problems are well known to me -- sadly, they're not always available.

sigh.

it's seven months later, and i was largely correct. but it's been a couple of weeks too long. i found out already what it is that i'm in love with, and the extra three weeks, though they're filled with fabulous gains in the weight room and the climbing gym, good times in front of the boob tube, and plenty-o-scotch, are not necessary for me.

the separation has for me, insofar as i ever really believed that it had one, served its purpose. and now as the end of it draws near, my sad, fragile little mind is crushed, twisted, squeezed, and bruised by all the whiplash it's been subjected to. i could survive on visits indefinitely, i think, as long as i had some immeasurably long (like 6 months, ha ha ha) time to wait for the visits to transform into habitation, but now, when the count is 9, those 9 seem torturously gratutious.

i feel better now.