This is not a comment on the state of my life. It is a bit of nostalgia spurred by a blog post by Hannah (Friday I’m in Love) – which, incidentally, has nothing to do with the song. However, it made me think about The Cure, and Disintegration specifically.
Disintegration was practically the only thing I listened to for months. It was released when I was at the height of my high school angst. I played it over and over and over again on repeat in my CD player. I made a tape to play in the car (in the days before CD players in cars) and in my Walkman as I sat hour after hour in the local coffee shop, smoking like a fiend and swilling caffeinated drinks of all varieties, writing my angsty musings in purple pen (only purple) on page after page of one of my many journals.
It was the theme of my heartbreak over “the only one” and the anthem of my feelings of being misunderstood and oh-so-alone. Of course, the heartbreak was a sine-wave through relationships, the feelings of being misunderstood and alone also rode that wave, and in between were some of the most fun I had with my best friends forever.
I don’t have a copy of Disintegration anymore. Lots of roommates and lots of moves and a couple of desperate moments where I needed some extra cash have been the demise of many a CD. I don't know if I need to go get a copy or not (listen to me prattling about CDs... I mean, of course, that I don't know whether I should download it). It might be fun to have a listen. But then, maybe it would be disappointing. Maybe it's better to leave the memories fond instead of risking a what-the-fuck-was-I-thinking moment. It has been fun to reminisce, though. So thanks, Robert Smith, for the anthems and thanks, Hannah, for the reminder.
I have purged. Not my last meal, but parts of my past (sort of).
For years and years I kept a daily journal where I kvetched and analyzed and parsed every moment of my life from the time I was in high school until a few years ago. Volumes of idiocy and angst. Page after page of heartbreak and outrage and hurt, charts of the guys I liked, musings on war and racism. Each journal also contained lists of books and bands, lyrics, poems, quotes (although I had whole separate books where I kept quotes), stickers, nail polish colors, places to meet friends, flowers, drawings, numerology charts. For each journal I rigidly wrote in only one color. The last few were in green - the Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine Point. Every one finished off with Shakespeare, "The rest is silence." Appropriately dramatic. At some point in my late 20s, I just sort of stopped.
I have dragged these volumes from pillar to post. For the five years that I lived in Los Angeles, they were ensconced in a sealed box in my closet. Recently, Matt asked me why I kept them. It seemed like a stupid question. I told him that I keep them because they're part of my life. Part of me. We actually had a fight about it.
I moved around a lot both with and without my family. I think I keep things because that way, wherever I go, I have everything I need. The familiar. But when I thought more about the journals specifically, I wondered about why I needed them anymore. I hadn't looked at them in years. I know how I got to be me. I remember almost everything - even the things I wish I could forget... So I started to really think about why I needed to keep these relics of my past and what they represented in my life now.
I read through them. They were funny, sad, pathetic, naive, angry, inquisitive. Mostly, though, what they were was obsolete. I've been dragging them around out of habit and also as a means of comfort - even though they were relegated to storage for years at a time.
One of the weirdest realizations is that I've let most of the people and places contained in those pages go. Some of them willingly and necessarily and others less so, but let them go I have. That made the continued possession of these bound pages even more needless.
After I'd looked through them all one last time, I took them to be recycled. I always thought that I'd fall apart without them, that they were integral to my life, but they're part of me so I don't have to keep the pages. The catharsis was always in the writing, not in the reading or the maintenance of the journals themselves. And now that they're gone, I feel lighter. I feel like they were keeping parts of the past too close. So I've doubly purged. First onto the page and then into the trash.
I'll probably always keep a journal of some kind - for ideas, for lists, for things I overhear, but the need to pour my soul onto a piece of paper is no longer necessary for me and neither is keeping the emotional regurgitation of the days of yore. Yay.
I'm not going to lie. I spent the last couple of years- and a little more - extremely out of shape. I took up a torrid love affair with foods like hollandaise and bread. I had a couple of flings with potatoes here and there... And pasta and I became "close." I developed a particular attachment to gnocchi.
While I was engaged in this affair of the mouth, I grew apart from exercise. Occasionally, we'd still see each other, but a the food took a larger role, I let exercise slip away completely.
Now I'm trying to patch things up with exercise. Its been sort of a hard make-up. It's hurt and resentful, and I've had some trouble with commitment. "Had" being the operative word. Recently (okay it's been almost a year) I've found Bikram. Of course, the other problem is that I can't just drop food altogether. We still see each other. Daily. So I can see why exercise is still angry and unhelpful.
However, I love the hot room. I love it. Which goes against everything I believe about climate control and exercise. At no time should I be craving a room at 105 degrees that will make the sweat run off my body and soak my scant clothing through. It's sick and wrong. I think I'm pretty lucky in that I can go into that room and think about nothing. Literally nothing. No matter what's going on or how my day has been, I can go in there and just listen to the words and stare in the mirror or at the ceiling and go blank. When I don't go, I miss it. Which is proof positive that Bikram is the devil. Only the devil can make you love to do the things you hate.