CL. Time Better Spent -

Change over time is the basest definition of “history.” Expectation of change is just that - an expectation, a hormone-induced mind game that borderlines the unfounded supernatural phenomenon that is intuition but remains in the realm of respected guesstimation.

Why write, or rather type, up a personal post published of my own accord that is neither promoted nor indicative of any mindfulness that I am using this platform for long-form writing, which data suggests appeals to a demographic I have never been included in, simply because I favor its user accessibility and my resistance to change. Why must I go against the current, so much so, that I cannot bear to spend a minute past the allotted time I have already set for a task?
Do I have a penchant for placing convenience on a pedestal? On the contrary, I am self-imposing inconveniences - train and bus rides, walking, avoiding small talk that would force me to follow the other person up the elevator just so that I can balance at least ten pounds worth of luggage up Manhattan-essentialist flights of stairs.

Self-contrived challenges include flirting with the 80’s - an era I detest in all its trend-driven fashion glory and that I was fortunate of enough to bypass, born into the eponymous Calvin Klein collection-thriving decade instead.

I am no longer flirting with the 80’s, perhaps not even the 90’s, but I do not want to check. I do not want to confirm an intuitive certainty that I am housing in the sheath of limp-less skin I cannot bring myself to look at nor appreciate as I once had: Recovery is a mirage.

Time is passing by quickly but not quick enough. The drudgery of seconds and minutes are amplified when I stare at the subway analog countdown clock as I see the platform getting more crowded. Those same time units could not go slow enough when a whiff of air laced with my childhood associations with New York City- roasted, caramelized nuts and salted dough pretzels- catches the end of my nose, the appendage to one of my three glasses frames.

My time is better spent elsewhere. I should be walking, though running could cut the time in half. I should be researching topics for a thesis statement, though observing the world around me may be more indicative. I should be eating what was already prepared instead of chopping away and sauteing in a false attempt to nourish cleanly, undone by consumption of unnatural amount of unsalted saltines.

– Volta – Over a month later.

I am currently transcribing pages of single-spaced interviews for an approved thesis story. My fingers feel cramped. My skin is cracking underneath the sealant of hand cream, inferior to the temperature drop. I read a headline that come 2050, New York City shall be as hot as Alabama. I did not want to read any further.

I need my seasons, my overturning of leaves. I realize now that time will pass. Conflict will pass in tandem with time. Grudges will be set aside for new ones to be made by people who revel in strife. I’m in their grip. My stars are not aligned, or are aligned, just for that reason.

I have never been one to hold fast unto fortunes near and dear to me. Suffice it to say the taweez was more of fashion statement than anything else.
But what was communicated to me of late, across oceans, and in the land of my ancestors, was so on point. How could they know? Will their solutions pan out or will it have a placebo effect? I cannot say just yet. The circumstances seem to negate the latter question.

Perhaps this period is equivalent to a detoxification period when all the bad must be purged before any good can replace it and then grow. One can only hope. I feel that sometimes I do not hope. That is to say, rather than lose hope, I have none to begin with. Sometimes, there is no hope to lose, or so I think.

From what challenge will I draw my muse from if not from satiating my hunger pangs at the end of the day? What do others do? But no, I refuse to follow. I want to lead. I’ll have to crate a new path down which, or rather up which, I can travel.Tomorrow it is.
The clock may have struck twelve four days ago for everyone but me, asleep, before the days blend into each other.
Here I stand, one resolution resolved at the start, another one as well, but that “change” I am already regretting. There it is: The Relapse, the uphill battle, the inertia-laden waddle that is partially due to my pants that have a bitter relationship with my hip bones, preferring to touch the ground instead.

The very bones the TSA agent thought was a piece of metal I had hiding underneath my university sweatshirt.

“Oh - that’s you,” she said, unconcerned.

I was unconcerned as well, but I was not unperturbed.