Thoughts on 2011

Oh, hey, 2011. It's been 2011 for a while now. 2011 is sort of noncommittal. It sits at my elbow and impassively watches as I move from here to there to back over here, checking things off of my to-do list. As I make little everyday decisions.

2011 seems not to care much what happens. 2007 cared very much, I think. 2011 figures it'll let the cards fall where they may, and it's an odd feeling to me. I don't know that I've moved past dreading the passage of time, but I certainly feel better about it than I did four years ago.

I suppose that's a step in the right direction.

Breaks feel like stasis to me. Nothing's happening. Life isn't moving. Time is barely passing. The only time I feel aware of the its passage is late, late, late at night when I'm having trouble getting myself to settle and go to bed. When I glance at the clock and I think of how it's no longer today, but it's now tomorrow, and it'll never be today again. Never.

It's unsettling, and of course, this makes it more difficult to go to bed. Somehow I manage, though, so I suppose that's all right. I've had more trouble getting up in the mornings lately - I imagine that's because I've actually HAD to get up in the mornings rather than sleep until I wake naturally. I've sort of given up on it. I get to school later -- instead of arriving between 9 and 9:30, I arrive between 9:30 and 10.

It's nice to be at school. Comfortable. I'm going to have to adopt a new place soon enough, and I'll have to give this one up. I still remember the alien feeling I had when, the week before graduation, we had to stop by the high school to pick something up. And I didn't even go in. I just stood at the Fine Arts door and looked in, down that long hallway.

I saw the flecked floor that I'd walked every day for four years. I saw the fluorescent lights reflected as rectangles in that floor, and I saw the classroom doors, the hallways, the murals, the corner beyond which it opens into the lobby, flooded with light from outside. And when I stood there looking in, before I'd even graduated, I felt disconnected. This place that I'd loved for at the very least that last year was not mine anymore.

I wonder if ESF will feel like that to me after I graduate. Like it's not mine. Like I don't belong anymore. It's disorienting.

I finally remembered to bring the Sara CD that Hemler bought me back into the car. Little Voice. I popped it in today, because I've learned all of the words to Kaleidoscope Heart - have known them for a while now - and I still remembered all of the words to it. I've been listening straight through CDs lately, not skipping to my favorites. I like that when one song ends, I can hear the opening notes of the next in my head before they come on, and I know the order.

So, even though typically I would skip One Sweet Love, because it's not my favorite, I listened to it. And this CD is reminding me that she is really an amazing lyricist. Not that her lyrics to Kaleidoscope Heart aren't amazing - they are - but I'm remembering. The thing about Sara is that typically she seems to take a rather pessimistic stance on love (when she's taking one at all), so I don't have to feel disconnected from the song.

Oh. Hahahaha that makes me sound like an extreme pessimist! It's just that I understand the pessimistic side, and I haven't known the optimistic side yet. Someday.

I ought to get back to run that column. It's very cold at school today. I wish I'd worn a long-sleeved shirt underneath my hoodie instead of a t-shirt. Oh well. At least I opted out of a tank.