Treading Through Tracks of Treacle

The last thing my Aunt said to me as I drove out of her driveway on my way to two years of both self-exile and improvement was to stay positive.

So easily said -- it just rolls off the tongue.

Today I tussled with my first interloper in the guarded realm of my positivity. I'm not quite sure if it's just my allergies or if there is something deeper at work here - but I feel exhausted. I opted out of going to an unknown relative's graduation ceremony this afternoon due to this lack. I feel ugly to the world. I want to crawl beneath blankets and hide my nasty face from the light of day. I can feel this sadness welling up inside of me for no reason whatsoever and I can't explain it. I'm not feeling sorry for myself here, okay, yes I am, which disgusts me further -- but this is also something different.

This is something I don't understand. The simplest of things is ample to set me off on some sort of swooning. Whoa. Watch out...Here I go again!

Swoon. Swoon. Swooooooooon.

I simply want to stay outta sight. Not even nofriendo is pacifying. I suppose the only reason I'm talking about it is to try to sort through it -- in cyberspace. I'd rather not bring it to the surface in the real world. Bury it! Bury it deep until it bubbles all around you -- like a Murphy septic tank following a raucous 4th of July celebration!

(if anything, this is the beginning of motivation)

I plopped myself down in front of the computer to send off an email to the ex-roommate concerning my new whereabouts, as he had called to let me know he had some of my mail. So here I am. Just blathering now, thinking about ways to pacify this pestering swell of nothingness that won't leave of its own accord. Perhaps there is something wrong with my secreter, (thinking Sartre) and I have become subhuman in my inability to distinguish myself from the world, my negation bottling up inside of me and I'm slowly losing sight for all that I am in this world.

I know that a few nights ago I swam out into the absurdity of Camus. You must, because you cannot, because if you do - then you don't. Absurd.

Just getting these words out I can sense it passing. I'm sure that if it remains by nightfall, those remains will be forced to dissipate into the surroundings as I hedge them, spackling Ben and Jerry's into every possible empty part of my soul. Half a pint oughta do it. For now I think I'll return to that dusty volume of Proust, Cities of the Plain.

As my eyes slide over paragraphs and the fragile leaves are turned over, I sense in the recesses of my thought what needs to be done in the next few days. A list is working its way out, a table of questions to present in a telephone conversation to the admissions office, names of those I need to get in contact with -- that volunteer opportunity at the local library...Once I turn these over into action, it is almost a certainty that these degenerative thoughts will lose the emptiness on which they feed - as time's relativity will shift into higher gear - and traction will rip me from the molasses I've fallen into.

Know that if you don't hear from me -- other than in the echoes of this vast pink wonderland - it's because I'm gathering myself. I'm pushing out all this negative energy that's seeped in over the course of the past few months and I'm trying to become whole again - so that I can be my own being.

As I wind this down, I'm actually starting to marvel at the oddity that is the now. During the course of typing this out, I've seen three different ice cream trucks drive by, each using the same jingle to reel in the fish. Yes, even now I can sigh and in hushed tones, let forth the positive rally, breaking through the brown with a building mantra: "Super-Fantastic."