The weekend is over and I am exhausted.
Friday I went to the gym very early (for me, at least), at around 9:30am, followed by nine hours of work, followed by hanging out with friends until past 3 am. I work up the next day, after not sleeping at all that night due to dreams waking me up over and over, for another eight hours of work, followed by a party at my friends house. Turns out I wasn’t at all in the mood to party. At all. Nothing about it pleased me. So I mostly just talked to my friend about how much we hate life and how we’re depressed. Go us; we’re not downers in the least. That part, at least, was fun, since we’re in a very similar boat and it’s true: misery does love company, especially when you share the misery. Last night I sort of slept, at least better than usual, but I still woke up at least six times. This may seem like a lot…but it’s not. Not at all. I planned to do absolutely nothing today. Just try to sleep and whatnot, but instead I went to my friend’s picnic. I’m glad I went. I had a lot of fun, despite my fatigue. People told me I should take sleeping pills and whatnot, but I stay away from any and all medicine whenever possible. Nightmares, of course, can be caused by unresolved conflict and various others things in life, but like I’ve said, if we dream something, then we’re supposed to dream it at least on some level.
I looked at the calendar today and realized it’s only August 14th. Usually the months fly by. For some reason, this is the slowest month of my life. It feels like it’s lasted forever, and it’s not even half over. Strange, because I’ve been extremely active and having tons of fun with friends, yet time really does drag.
Anyway, I’m beginning something new tonight. It’s a series of flash fiction. I’m not sure where it’s heading or what I’ll do with it. It’s about a guy, I guess…you’ll see. Everything is fleeting. That’s my main goal, I think. Fleeting. Actually, I never know what my goal is, or if there is a goal, or what I’m really doing. It’s just flash fiction, close to around 500 words, and it’s in letter form…you’ll see. Always moving, always in snapshots and thoughts, seemingly random but perhaps not. I don’t really know.
Letter (1)
She wrote me a letter explaining how she could never be with me. She was too afraid to lose what she never had. The risk, she insisted, wasn’t worth the pain of loss. There’s never gain without loss, but we’re stubborn, and young, and we take but so rarely give.
No one wrote letters anymore, but she did. The page white, her ink black. She didn’t cross out words or scribble over letters. Her penmanship was neat, almost perfect. She said this wouldn’t be the last letter, but no matter how many letters she sent, this would always be the beginning of the end. We could never begin.
That much was clear, and certain, she said. She would write me a book and I would read the chapters one by one.
--
Reading the book would break my heart, she said, just as writing it broke her heart. But sometimes the heart must be broken. It must heal itself, strengthen, to be broken again.
She said this. She said many things to me.
--
Perhaps I’ll one day write my own book filled with memories.
--
This was all before she left. And before she made me leave.
--
I couldn’t endure the letters. She was right. Reading the, broke my heart. It broke everything. I stopped understanding life and started questioning everything. So I left, or I fled, and I vanished.
--
Now, at night, I drive. I don’t know where I’m going. Day I sleep, and dream, and wake up with a bottle of whiskey on my nightstand. I hate whiskey, the burn and the taste, but it reminds me of her lips, how they tasted the last time, and that’s the one thing I refuse to let go of.
She told me, in one letter, that while you can forget or at least pretend to forget, some things you must hold onto forever. The past is the pieces of our lives; some pieces cannot be lost. We’re nothing without those pieces.
--
I still believe everything she ever told me. Not because I want to believe, but because I must. My belief in her is everything. It shapes me. I wish it didn’t.
--
I live from hotel to hotel. I check-in at night, the latest hours, near dawn, when the world is asleep and I’m just done driving, alone, through the darkness of roads and highways I’ve never traveled until then. I remind myself of a character in a Jack Kerouac novel, only they seem to have all the fun while I have music in the darkness of my car and the yellow and white lines of the road, the dim streetlights and cars passing ever so seldom. They have what I want and everything I try to avoid.
--
Her letters rest in a neat pile on the passenger seat, beneath a stone I found beside a river. I drive with the windows open. The air is cool, refreshing, healing. The air breathes into my eyes and tears run down my face.
Sometimes I read her letters when I drive. Usually I don’t. I try to read them as rarely as possible. I fail, but that is expected.
--
This was never expected, but the best and worst things in life take you by surprise.
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