De File

I realized a few minutes ago that I haven't posted here since July 4th, which is strange, because I'd gotten back into an LJ groove in June and have also had numerous "I should compose an entry" thoughts. Life has been emotionally tumultuous in the interim, but I should be used to that by now. Maybe the Monsoon, our glorious semi-wet summer, is to blame. I love it -- see my last entry, in which I excitedly presented the radar evidence of its arrival, as I have for several years running -- but it makes me feel lethargic during the day and hesitant to sit at the computer at night.

Whatever the reasons for my absence, I'm back. Yes, like a lot of you I have taken a tentative dip in the waters of Google+ since I last posted. And I plan to incorporate it into my social media existence in a more robust way going forward. But I like the idea of keeping this journal going, if less frequently than I did a few years back, both because I like the continuity and because Google+, like Facebook, is better suited to short posts and the posting of links to longer ones.

I don't want to get too mired in discussing my domestic situation right now, since I'm in a relatively good space, but I can say that my current feelings about it, both present and future, can mostly be grouped under the rubric labeled "Reconciled." I'm not happy about it, obviously. But I can't do much to change things for the better, at least in the short term, so walking around projecting anger or depression is only going to make me and those I'm in closest contact with feel worse.

Part of being more at peace with the situation comes from the realization that it has to end. For the longest time, I was holding on to the belief that my patience would be rewarded in the end. Now, finally, I recognize both that all evidence points to the contrary and that I am growing impatient myself. Because of my professional crisis -- I need to figure out a new career and find work until I do -- and the fact that I'm caring for my mother and, indirectly, my father on a daily basis I don't have much room to maneuver. Eventually, though, I will make it through this time of trial and will have the liberty to plan for a future worth living.

It's very hard for me to think ahead in that way. My feelings are still so bound up with my failed marriage and the parental burdens that come with the territory to give free rein to my imagination. Still, I'm making the proverbial baby steps towards a goal. I know now that I'd be better off living in a state of detachment than to get caught up in another relationship with someone whose energy is directed primarily at self-preservation. I understand where that mentality comes from. I'm sympathetic. But coping with the neglect of my own emotional life that has been a byproduct of living that way has taken too much of a psychological toll for me to be able to repeat the pattern without destroying what's left of myself.

That I can articulate this realization without being overwhelmed with rancor or regret strikes me as a positive sign. I know that I'm still badly tangled in emotional ties that keep me from going where I need to go, both literally and metaphorically, but at least I'm looking at the mess with a little more detachment, the sort I will need to begin the process of freeing myself from it. Seeing as how I basically failed out of Cub Scouts for not being able to tie knots, maintaining my composure in this endeavor will be taxing. But at least I know that it has to happen and, moreover, what state of mind I need to be in for it to be possible.

Ever since I got back from my cross-country drive on December 23rd, I've been having a terrible time sleeping. The schedule I adopted in order to make time -- in which I'd drive until my eyes tired, sleep sitting in the driver's seat for somewhere between fifteen minutes and two hours, then head back out on the road -- has been hard to shake. I've tried alcohol, ambien, antihistamine, but none have seemed to help.

Now I'm giving melatonin a shot. Last night was my second night using it and, though I still didn't get to bed early, I do think that I might have slept more deeply during the time when I was asleep. At the very least, I feel more level-headed than I have in a while. I can't say "refreshed", exactly, but believe that I might finally be on the pathway to that state of mind.

The main reason isn't melatonin, though. After much-needed prodding from friends, I've decided to let go, finally, of a mode of being that has been making me and those around me miserable. I guess it's presumptuous to write "decided", as if it were as simple as that. But I felt a powerful shift inside me. I'm still sad about a lot of things. I'm still beset by regrets that seem overwhelming on a good day. The difference is in the way I'm processing those unhappy thoughts.

It seems a little too textbook to say that I'm learning to make the passage from melancholia to mourning. Since those are the terms that best fit my understanding of the shift, however, I'm going to use them until I find better ones. You see, although I was sad and regretful before, I tended to divert those feelings into plans for restoring my life to what it once was. If I could just hang on a little longer, I told myself, wait out the storm, I'd get back to a good place.

The epiphany I had the day before yesterday had multiple parts, some of which I can't share here. Taken together, though, they added up to the conclusion that the way back I'd been counting on for so long was barred for good, like the entrance to the Mines of Moria after that hideous sea creature destroys it. If I'm going to survive, I'll have to do it by moving forward into the dark, balrogs be damned.

Even though I knew I'd be making this second cross-country drive with the same time pressures as the first, I still had visions of myself darting off the interstates periodically to experience life away from their regimented sameness. I was going to force myself to eat at local places. I was going to try to rekindle my passion for photography by seeking out shots of rural Americana. I was going to be the sort of tourist I've always wanted to be.

And now I am feeling guilty for not doing these things. Part of it the reason has been timing. Because I had grades to file on Sunday and Monday, I had to spend valuable daylight hours sitting in a café. By opting to see an old friend in Raleigh for lunch, I sacrificed even more of the time I could have used for aesthetically satisfying detours. When I stumbled upon an "alternative" strip mall outside of Greenville, South Carolina, with a comic book shop, tattoo parlor and large used record store, it was already nearing midnight. I looked in the windows, but that was all I could do.

So I do have legitimate excuses for my failure. The thing is, though, I've also come to realize that getting off the beaten track just isn't as easy as it used to be. Right now I'm outside of Montgomery, Alabama. I wish I could say the experience was characteristically Southern in some way. Aside from the accents, though, I could be in any American suburb.

I wouldn't even be posting this if I were sitting in a classic diner or hole-in-the-wall café. But since the exit I got off at to get gas had a mall with a Panera Bread Company, I figured I might as well have a breakfast bagel and fire up the laptop. Although it certainly isn't a way to get in touch with the romance of travel, I do find comfort in being able to simulate the home-away-from-home when I'm truly away from home.

Mind you, to use the word "home" in that way risks draining the world of all semantic value. It only works if one's home is already rather unheimlich. Since mine currently is, though, I'm able to conjure most of its comforts remotely. And I can also distance myself from the discomfort that has made me happy to be on the road.

Part of the reason that I was willing to make this trip so close to the holidays is that I have mixed feelings about them as never before. Historically, I've had a hard time understanding the haters who emerge this time of year. I can understand the need people have to relax instead of running around on holiday errands. And I know that those who are already lonely are likely to feel lonelier at times of forced communal cheer. But that never stopped me from participating in the festivities.

This year, however, with my mother's worsening condition causing her to be admitted to a rehab hospital and other family relationships in a state of crisis, I'm feeling the heavy burden of memory that the holidays impose upon us. Every song, every ceremonial object, every timeworn ritual reminds me both of how things used to be and that they will never be that way again.

Things change, I realize. Yet I can't help wondering why they never seem to change for the better in my life. The last decade has been a blur of badness, from the political to the personal. Even though my innate personality inclines towards optimism and a gift for taking pleasure in the moment, I find it harder and harder to ward off the weight of the past and worries about the future.

Maybe that's why I'm actually not that upset about my failure to make this trip what I'd imagined it could be. To get off the interstate in a meaningful way involves engaging with history. Normally, I'd be able to cordon off that kind of time travel from the sort that memories compel. In recent months, though, I've found it increasingly difficult to maintain the boundary between self and non-self.

Movies and songs make my eyes tear up, even when they invoke the worst clichés. Photographs of historical landmarks ineluctably direct me to the contemplation of my own "archives". And word and images about abandoned places lead me to indulge my allegorical bent, pondering the ruins of so much that had seemed crucial to my existence.

The more I think about it, the more that the kind of traveling I've actually ended up doing on this trip -- stopping as little as possible, stretching my legs in places like Target rather than locations with personality -- seems to be a mode of denial. Everyone who participates in that aspect of American consumer society, heading from one Starbucks or Borders or Best Buy to another, is participating in a reality that is specifically constructed to conceal the past and block thoughts of the future. The landscape, if you can still call it that, is reconfigured either to refuse local color outright or to repackage it like another flavor of vodka. You can have your currant or your citron or your raspberry, but the spirit underneath is identical.

That's a sobering thought and one that is making me regret what I've been doing at a deeper level. Nevertheless, because I have many miles to go and promises to keep, I don't see myself being able to switch over from this anti-touristic traveling to a richly layered engagement with the places I pass through. Part of me fears that, were I to make the effort, I wouldn't want to return to my old life. Maybe what I need is not a home-away-from-home but a place that doesn't remind me of how I've been living.