the 6 month rule

Hello friends! It's been awhile,  I know. I've been incredibly busy with mostly mundane life-tasks, and in a mostly reflective mood--not one that was incredibly conducive to writing anything funny or non-personal. It's a journal-keeping, staring out windows, listening to Radiohead's In Rainbows over and over (and, to be honest, I'm still not totally sick of it) kind of mood. Perhaps I should consult my horoscope and find out if Pluto is in my Saturn or some shit. I am a Scorpio after all, prone to deep waters and locked in emotions.

But anywho, while I've been away I've had a pretty great summer. I went on vacation with my family (and we only had like one half of a fight, which is QUITE the feat for family vacation, if I do say so myself), spent of time with my friends from home (though not enough), weekend tripped it to the beach, Connecticut, had visitors to NYC, melted in the heat, ate good food, drank plenty of beer, inhaled the hot pee stink of NY in the summer, and am now ready to rejoice the freshness fall that is rapidly (cross your fingers) approaching. It was strange to see summer pass so quickly; in years past (especially my Vineyard summers), the season seemed to stretch on from late May, each day a wonderful surprise of sunshine and lush green trees. This year, stuck in a cubicle, I could do nothing but complain about my pasty skin and hunger for the next weekend when I could escape the noise and oppressive air of the city. Every time I looked up, half a month had ticked by, and, though it is still August, I feel that summer is over. Kids are going back to school, and I'm sincerely envious. I would give anything to hunker down with my books and write a research paper, head to class with a spiral bound notebook, take everything in. There are some days where I honestly feel brain-dead. But such is my lot in life at this moment, and it's apparently up to me, the adult, to stimulate my mind.

I cannot believe that I've been in New York for nearly a year. It just seems crazy. I feel like nothing happened, and at the same time, everything happened. How is it possible that I can live in the same place for 11 months and not feel endeared to any of it, and when I return to the Vineyard, a place where I spent, in total, only about 10 months, I feel home? Truthfully, I still feel like my life is very in flux, that nothing is permanent or settled. There's always someplace else I'd rather be, something else I'd rather be doing, than what I happen to be doing at that moment. I've some to a crux: what is next? Well, nothing is next. Not nothing, but not moving on is next. Staying is next. Making myself see things through is next. "Next" is now.

Sometimes when I think about things too far in advance, I start to panic. I just can't shake the feeling that "OH my GOD. I'm going to wake up and be 30 and single and living in this damn apartment and working at the same damn job and I've gotta make a plan and I've gotta get out of here!!" Which is so silly because a.) I'm 23, and b.) I already "got out of here" so to speak, if "here" represents the stagnation of the dreaded "home". I mean, for Christ's sake, I live in the biggest, most vibrant city in the United States. If I can't be satisfied with adventure here, where WILL I be satisfied?

So for now, I have a solution. The 6-month-rule. I will only think about the next 6 months in concrete terms. 6 months beyond whatever date it happens to me exists only has hazy "maybes". Maybe I'll go somewhere else. Maybe I'll switch jobs. Maybe I'll go back to school. Until then, I'll hazily make plans, and then cross the bridge when I come to it. The future exists out there, the 5-10-20-year future, complete with a faceless husband and faceless children, a nameless dog on a nameless street in a little house where there's a room for me full of books and a career that has yet to be determined. I'm comfortable with this notion, and the concrete (for now) exists within 6 months from the right now. It calms my panicky listlessness. It helps me through the doldrums of routine: the endlessness of eating, bathing, grocery shopping, laundry doing, and existing only for myself and living only in my brain (which is exhausting, no?).

I do miss excitement.