Lately I’ve been pushing myself to stay up to midnight to get in the Wordle of the day before I fall asleep. On a streak now of 105, I’m half-terrified of missing one, and half wishing I end this streak so I won’t be staying up to midnight. The silly pressures of a day. The silly things we force upon ourselves. And so here I sit, ensconced in the attic, where I have a single candle burning and lending an element of coziness to counteract the chill of the air conditioning unit in the window. Writing around the midnight hour usually leaves much editing and revising for the following morning, but I’m not going to bother. It’s my blog and I’ll fuck shit up if I want to. Like ending a sentence with a proposition. Or starting a sentence with ‘like’ or… well, ‘or’. Yes, I shall leave this post alone, foibles and artistic license/abuse and all.
Maybe I should do more writing like this, to show what really traverses the frayed connections my brain is barely capable of making these days and nights. I once shared my struggle with social anxiety with a friend and they expressed great appreciation and relief that someone so seemingly not anxious about things could be so debilitatingly afflicted. It dawned on me that maybe my image does in fact overshadow the reality of my limits. Revealing it doesn’t feel like giving something up as it once did. Quite the contrary – it feels emboldening, as if all those years of pretending might have actually coalesced into something genuine; I have in fact been able to build a belief in myself that might have been false at first but has since become real with a lot of behind-the-scenes work.
If you were perched in one of the pine trees or maples outside the window, you would glimpse a light in the attic – part candle, part lap-top, part reflection – and you might wonder at what the occupant is doing up at such a late hour, even on a weekend in summer. I wonder too.
“How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live ’em.
How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give ’em.”
~ ight in the Attic’
On this night, in the spirit of the Zen-like series ‘Mad Men’, we shall close with a song to roll over the end-credits. It’s basic, it’s a cliche, it’s a classic, and it’s summer. It’s all surface and all deep, still water. It’s a secret and a revelation. When two people share all their hopes, all their dreams, all their love…
Back to Blog
