letter 11: the search

demolishing it all just to rebuild

All my life I have searched for something more—more meaning, more action, more love, more money, more freedom, more, more, more.

Monotony is, to me, kin to brain-death. I’ve always preferred the transitive seasons: spring, fall. Despised the stillness of winter and summer. Similarly I’ve always preferred the chaotic times in my life; I feel like I can glean more of everything from periods of unknowing, erroneous youth, brutality.

Lately I’ve found myself caught in the tedium.

Wake up, make some sort of caffeine so I can feel my blood in my body again, rush to work. Sit at the desk, at the computer, the iMac. Walk about my workplace, dusting off surfaces that look like they need more. Return to the computer. Drive home, go on a walk, yearn for more. Eat lunch, scroll Twitter, long for connection. Lay in bed, kiss the cat on her head, and go back into work. Sit. Scroll, act busy, pretend to do something that matters. Check clients in, make small talk, clean up, drive home. Go on a walk, yearn for more. Eat dinner, try to smile, read until I can no longer bear the heaviness growing in my eyelids. Sleep.

The weekend rolls around and I can’t help but drown the monotony in red wine, gin and tonics, cigarettes. Each Sunday evening, Monday morning curses me for it.

Going through the motions indeed.

Maybe I should get a different job. Move again. Do a work trade in the French countryside. Eat ripe fruit off the vine, feel the juice drip down my arms down to my elbows. Maybe I should get a dog. A tattoo. Cut my hair. Buy another thing that undoubtedly loses its thrill as soon as I cut into the package. Go back to school. Learn silversmithing.

All the death in my house
Makes it easy to shop online
Where the signal is strong
And the tech flows like wine
And I know you traveled far
But you're still where you are

Devandra Banhart “Kantori Ongaku”

There’s an exponential list of hobbies that I’ve pinned to my breast to feel more, each begins with a spark, some sort of internal flare of worthiness. For quite some time my hobby was men: hunting down an ounce of approval. Inevitably, the cutting open of the package comes, leaving me barren with the fallout of my emotional determination to stick to something (or sometimes, an ungodly amount of yarn, art supplies.) Torpefied by all the options, by the grand nature of the world around me.

From a book of musings I wrote in early college:

There is so much to experience in this BIG FAT WORLD!

A singular, limited life will not suffice!

I am grateful, but I am as equally anxious.

Commitment to a singular life is Terrifying.

I’ve been a quitter my entire life. But there are fragments that have remained throughout: reading, writing, dancing, running through the woods trying to talk to faeries. Even these I’ve let slip through the cracks as of recently. You’d be hard pressed to find a poem in my moleskin.

I build homes, roads, small cities even, just for the satisfaction of demolition. Just for the rouse. The remodeling, rearranging. Move the table over there. No not there, there. Right, okay. Books there, bed here. Maybe this is just a bad house. Maybe I should move to a different city. Different country. Canada seems nice.

I long for a place where perfection is nonexistent. Where there’s more than room for mistakes, for learning. I don’t want to be responsible. I don’t want to wake up for work in the morning. I want to wake up to have a hot cup of coffee on the patio, listen to the birdsong, envy the way leaves yield to the breeze. I want a new pair of shoes. Inescapably, I’ll tire of them, sell them, start saving up for a new pair.

Truthfully, I have everything I wanted even just a couple of months ago—a home, a love, a car, some semblance of financial stability, friends. My body continues to beg me to tear it down, to demolish. Often I run my fingers over the mesh window on the chest of my nightgown. Beautiful. Delicate. Empty.

It’s easy for me to blame extraneous circumstance. It’s easier for me to blame myself. Is this the result of moving into all of the houses my family couldn’t sell when I was young? My body crying out for lamotrigine? Therapy? Do I need to eat more vegetables? Go on a run? Switch from coffee to green tea? Meditate more?

Is everyone aching for more?

Is it okay to tear it all down again?

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