Take a second take a second take a year take a year

My first New York winter is wrecking hell on me, emotionally. I don't do well surrounded by flickering greys that smear into blackness by 5 P.M. every night. As a teenager, I used to romanticise Seasonal Affective Disorder. A lot of this has to do with the fact that my first girlfriend, the girl who was my first kiss and my first sexual experience and my first experience with loving someone being like a brick through a window constantly, would look into the distance in that way that only high school girls can  (which is to say looking at absolutely nothing but making a 15 year old boy heart will with the feeling that she's staring into the future and has it all in her hands) and whisper shit like "winter's coming..." only to trail off.

(Again-only something that a teenage girl can get away with, because as women get older, their eyes lose the ability to mask truth.)

Now, though, I realize there's nothing romantic about suddenly dropping through the floor because it's getting darker earlier. I'm up with the sun, which means I'm chipper as fuck first thing in the morning, but by the time evening arrives I readily surrender all stability to the chilly darkness. There's nothing poetic, the teenage me should know, about, at 7 P.M. every fucking night, staring at the phone wishing someone would call to shake me from the winter torpor but also enjoying the weird sort of melancholy blanket the season has stuffed around my heart, just under the surface of my chest.

As such, I have been falling in an intense sort of love with Tegan and Sara's 2007 album The Con. It's a broken shard of a winter record, the sort of thing that's so painful and poetic that it's actually really dangerous to fall in love too hard and deep with (see also: Tori Amos' Boys For Pele). It doesn't help that I'm dealing with wanting something in my life that's indefinable-something that can be trusted, relied upon, and built into something runs in the background, there to return to.

When someone pours all their energy into you, and you into them, and suddenly a cord is cut, a tie is severed, you start questioning...everything. Especially when you-ok, I-don't make friends easily, mostly as a result of the fact that I sit, constantly, in silent judgement of...myself.

Once again, this shitty winter-drainpipe grey skies and trees slowly giving the fuck up-does not help.

I've been re-reading a lot of Bret Easton Ellis, also-and I'm not sure if it's a symptom or a cause of this mood, this unshakeable need to want and know and feel something that I can't put my finger on all the while simultaneously fighting against and snuggling into the bleak winter quiet. Whenever this mood onsets and I need to steel myself against any acts of emotional terrorism, which in this state could constitute a word a nod a single misheard breath, I fall face-first into Easton Ellis's aching misogynist nihilism.

I spent last night waiting for a call or a text to try and put some blocks in order, in front of the little well that springs up when I realize Thanksgiving's around the corner, with Christmas to follow, all the family-oriented holidays one after another, and it didn't come. And now I'm switching what I'm reading-more Easton Ellis today-and sitting, cross-legged, drinking coffee and listening to The Con.

It's the sort of album you want to shove in someone's face, in the face of whoever has your heart in their palm, you want to force them to listen, to understand, you want to do more than send them lyrics or youtube videos, you want their deep working knowledge of how your blood is hotwired into the situation that is this music. You want to use this instead of saying to them something like "if you would just let me tell you what I need to without fear of you ripping my skin off because you can maybe I would be able to breathe." (See also: Nicole Blackman, "you just want someone to fuck you so you can finally get to sleep.")
And if they're the type of person-and sometimes they are-who won't get it, who doesn't understand, you want to patiantly explain to them, line by line, what this means:

I listened in
Yes, I'm guilty of this you should know this
I broke down and wrote you back
before you had a chance to
Forget, forgotten, I am moving past this
giving notice
I have to go
Yes, I know the feeling know you're leaving

or

I might stay out longer then

I left the light on for you then

if you show you show. if you show you show.

But it's obvious it'll never mean the same thing, regardless what sort of walk-through is provided. And maybe it's the winter, the grey, makes one off-putting text message, one denial, one thought like "social networking has completely fucked the thinking person's ability to not give a shit", suddenly spring a leak in the little boat and cause a flurry of emails to be sent attempting to vent both heart and spleen with no pause or caution.

And when there's only silence on the other end, and text messages you regret sending too quickly and too often, you can blame the winter for that, too. For being the sort of person who cares too much, reads too much, listens too much. For responding emotionally to changes in color and temperature.

Oh and I'm feeling
Directionless yes
But that's to be expected
And I know that best
And in creeps the morning
And another day's lost
You've just written wondering
And I reply fast
All you need to save me
Call
And I'll be curled on the floor
Hiding out from it all
And I won't take any other call

I want to go back to my 15 year old self and tell him winter is nothing to fuck around with.

Comments

[Mike Cane]

I could come over and break a finger and snap you out of this. That would cheer up ME at least.

Stop with the Ellis. The perfect winter book is Jack Finney's "Time and Again." Go buy it. NOW.

[Collin Kelley]

There's always homosexuality and Hawaii. I kid, I kid...sorta. Kinda. I love grey, winter days and cold weather. It's why I belong in England. Maybe you should come back to ATL for the holidays. It's been in the 60s and 70s and decidedly un-winterish here.

[buy Louis Vuitton sunglasses]

-buy Louis Vuitton sunglassesOnce we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.