Warm Up

Beginning the day wasn't easy. I consciously lay in bed from 9:30am to 10am, when I decided to turn on the phone to see what time it was. I guess one could say that many people, including me, only start the day when they turn on their phones. When I checked my messages and voice mail, I saw that my Dad had called me. Our dark green 1990-something Nissan Quest needed a safety check. This surely put a significant dent in my plans to actually get some writing done for my final portfolio for my summer class. After driving down, the workers at the gas station - very nice, soft-spoken, and hard working people (mind you) - asked for the car's registration, which was not among the bundle of past year's registrations. I grabbed some orange soda impulsively after being told that I would have to wait, then realizing that it was not good for my teeth. I drank about 4/5 of the thing and dumped the rest after getting home. But while doing all of these mundane motions, I was contemplating - do not do this - last night. A friend and I checked out First Friday's in Chinatown for the first time (ha-ha) and ventured round until we found a restaurant. For some reason, our hang out together reminded me at the end how alone I am, including how little time we all have on this funky sphere of ours. This is no reflection on her, but on me. We could have done any number and combination of things that night, including the Yankee tradition of binge drinking at some bar. Maybe I'm addicted to carthasis and am going through withdrawals

Which brings me to the future - China. Am I supposed to view it as the new and improved land of opportunity? I sure hope so. Will life be better after this experience? Sho' 'nuff. There are no answers, really. Or rather, there are so many answers that just seem to contradict each other. I'm so afraid that I am unable to facilitate friendships. It's not that it seems hard to do. It just seems that at the essence of it all, I feel this feeling, as if the core of my soul lies dormant and separate from the rest of all these amazing people that are constants. My mind is so erratic, unable to fixate itself on one constant. It deviates and I forget who I once was every time that I change.

I was supposed to recycle the bottles and cans today but because of the car dilemma, I'm deferring it. Actually, I gave that task to Dad, because he needs to contribute more. Or at least that's my gentle perspective. I know he's a provider and that he tries in the only way he can, but he's gotten sloppy over the years in his methods of providing. And I overestimate him constantly. When he goes, I hope to understand that there is no great mystery to my Dad. Dads are such an American topic, aren't they? But I need to know him, as if the deeper issue were just out vanity. I was created in his image. Then, my complexities, my unhappiness, my everything - I wonder if he knows enough of the fraction of it. Because my mind wanders so often these days and I think and say things I wish that I could have the power not to say. And I wonder if it's vanity, or whether it's just the chemistry talking. Either way, I feel crazy and so wrong. I'll be 22 in September. I'll be in a different country in a wonderful city. I'll be so far away from everyone and everything. I think I feel truly lost when I'm here at home, because when my mind changes and I go through these phases, I cannot seem to care about one particular thing, let alone act on some goal, aside from getting away from this place. Getting away from my constants. And if this were a movie, a montage of fleeting, awkward, but precious memories will entwine like a vine, severing me from the past and the present. And the future will ensnare me, suffocate me, and then swallow me whole. And I'll sit in the bowels of its belly, waiting, crying, compressing everything I know into one average of every idea and emotion I know - I shall die and none shall here the whimper. I shall die.