Skip to main content

Decisions.

Back in NYC. As lovely as ever, if a bit more confusing, but then that's mostly my own doing.

See, I could catch a bus home tonight OR I could stay at my friend's place and catch a bus tomorrow. Seems simple--but naturally I cannot allow that to be!!


See, if I catch a bus tonight, I need to be back in DC before the metro closes. So that means the 530pm, 6pm, or 7pm buses. Alternatively, I stay with my friend. Except I'd like to know if my staying over is still cool with him; right now he's finishing off/editing a term paper. So I don't want to pester him too much. Cuz that would be rude.

See what's going on here? It's usually referred to as willfulness. I'm trying to force my will on things around me--be it in this reluctance to just catch a bus now & know the Metro will still be running or in this insistence on staying with my friend. It isn't exactly as black & white as that, mayhaps, but the schematics are there.

In essence, my willfulness seems clearest to me in that reluctance and insistence I mentioned. I have general issues in letting go of things and letting things just be; right now, I'm clinging to'em, and it's fouling up any decision making process.

So, here's a thought: I don't have to make a decision right goddamn now. I could more or less aim for that 6pm or 7pm bus unless I hear from my friend; in that case I don't really have to be certain of anything until 5:30 or 5:45ish. So I could let him know what's up and type up draft 5 of my poem while I wait to hear back from him. That's productive; but maybe still a little controlling? Kind of cuts it close. and otherwise still feels a biiiiit wodgy, though better than sitting here anxiously waiting and doing nothing.

But, hell, I could just call him now, chat it out, and know. Right now I'm trying to decide everything on my own (more willfulness); I'm setting up all kindsa contingencies in case things don't work out in that way or they work out in this case and so on, all of which pretty much riding on this poor friend and his term paper. So maybe calling him could clear everything up and eliminate the waiting.

Hm, yes. That sounds a little more grown up, don't it?
Labels:
Location: W 43rd St, New York, NY, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Or just tell me what you think.

Other things that might interest you...

On aging, and fear.

To begin with, I’m not sure you’re aware of it, but I’m middle aged. Oh? What gave it away? Using a blog as my primary literary medium?¹ Hm. But in fact, the APA defines 35 years as the end of “young adulthood.” Yeah. I found out via some shitpost on twitter when I was already 35, so it didn’t sit well with me then either. But my worries about aging began much sooner than that. See, even in my 20s, I feared I’d been wasting my life. I’d struggled with school and life and everything since graduating high school, arguably sooner, and nothing seemed to be going anywhere meaningful . I felt I had a limited social life, a dead-end job, no money, no great travels, a limping love life; I was, generally, a loser, wasting away... There were none of the usual hallmarks of success or happiness. And that scared me. Would my life have been worth it if I continued in this direction? Would it have been a “life well lived” by the end? So, this is my existential struggle. Even now, as I lurch ever nea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Changing lanes.

I was driving home in some traffic last night when I drifted, in my mind, a long way back (about 20 years) to high school. I was caught in one of those periodic traffic slowdowns as I floated back; you know, those waves of congestion that seem to pass backward through the columns of cars in each lane. (I've heard they start because someone switches lanes, and in response, a rippling emergent slowness travels backward and outward as the cars behind it accommodate the change, one by one.) What drew me back to those younger days was that, back in high school, similar phenomena of congestion took place in the halls between classes, when eddies of young humans would get caught in and around those clumps of those chatting by lockers or retrieving books. Occasionally, backups would occur when groups of people got caught in these eddies, or collided with other groups by the lockers, and slowdowns would ripple back from there. Maybe it's not exactly the same, but as I drove it seemed si...
Post a Comment
Read more

Oatmeal is tasty.

{slurps up berry-oatmeal-deliciousness} Indeed. I need to work on rebuilding a morning schedule. I can be zombie-like enough that I'll waste a perfectly good morning, and have often slept through many. And, really, it's such a useful time of day.
4 comments
Read more