The Draft Folder
/I've been trying to write something here for the last few weeks; the beginning of a post languished in my drafts folder for the last three weeks or so while I tried to come up with a topic that I felt enough about to write something worth reading. I don't feel like I have anything to add to the various conversations that have been dominating the news cycle over the last month, and I'm pretty sure I've already given my take on Facebook, either in my own words or implicitly by sharing someone else's. I have a similar fight happening with my e-mail draft folder. I've been able to pare it down somewhat, but for a long time, I was struggling to fill attempts at letters to over ten different people.
I want to know about what people are going through and see their faces. This connection is still there on social media, but it's been diluted by too much noise: of the news, trite platitudes attached to pictures of sunsets or Minions. What people share on social media is a reflection of who they are, or at least the image they want to present to their peers, but there's a superficiality to it all that just drains me. I've never really liked the limbo of small talk, especially with people I don't know well enough to be sufficiently comfortable around.
I've mentioned before about how bad I am at making plans with friends; this hasn't really changed, but I still managed to fill my social calendar over the last couple of weeks. Beers with out-of-town friends. A birthday party. An old (and unfortunately casually misogynistic) movie. Cathartic venting and lunch. I think I'm paying for it now, though, because I'm a bit more tired than usual (then again, it's probably my bad sleep habits catching up with me). If I don't feel like I'm at optimum energy, I'm not really up to the give-and-take of conversation and don't feel like subjecting others to one of my taciturn spells.
It's dark and cold again, though. I'm not much of a flâneur; if I'm out, I need to have a purpose. It could just be a sign of getting older, but I don't have the energy (or cash flow) to just take myself out of the apartment and see where the night leads me anymore. This is why I need to get better at plan-making: as soon as the ice and snow makes getting to and from work a chore, I'll be less likely to find excuses to go somewhere unless I get paid for it.
I tend to take my friends in the city for granted, though.
There are other things I want to write about, but don't have sufficient words at this time. The scary vulnerability of chemistry with another person. The casual realization of your adulthood. The unique joys and frustrations of life in the Maritimes. The words may come, or my interest in these subjects may wane. You may be able to articulate my feelings a little better than I can at the moment.
I leave you with a Joni Mitchell song (yes, the album art is a little problematic, but that's another conversation).
