Tour de Force

The normally overzealous radiators have gone on strike. I've put on some Godspeed to mark the occasion. A fine soundtrack for a slow, glacial death, doubtlessly. But what am I saying; maybe it's just the end-of-year apocalypticism again. Yes, I just coined the term "apocalyticism."

Jess wrote an entry on the human need for "end" rituals. Ending is certainly something I know very well and appreciate. The apocalypse used to be romantic for me--"I said, 'kiss me, you're beautiful; these are truly the last days'" from the beginning of the first Godspeed album remains one of my favorite lyrics of all time--though somewhere along the line the concept of an idealized end to all things wore thin. Perhaps nostalgia for an end that has not, and possibly will never come to pass is inevitable for anyone who does not perceive time as an infinite linear progression.

I think at Lawrenceville, end of semesters used to be ceremonialized (apparently I just made up that word, too) a lot more, with diner runs and coffee and cigarettes...actually I can't remember how most winter terms ended, but spring terms invariably concluded with an orgy of packing and box-moving as the dorms closed. Now we don't even have that. I just quietly return to my apartment each evening as people slip out of town, equally quietly.

I've got so many thoughts I don't know where best to start. Maybe with the confession that, right now, I feel mostly ghostly. I spend most of my time thinking about things that have happened already and very little of it thinking about things that have yet to happen. Like looking back on a life that's already past--and soon it shall be, so is it really that different? It feels almost like I'm gone already, this story is over already; there's nothing left to do and nowhere left to go. Main cast's played out their parts.

This much, at least, is not a retread of senior year at Lawrenceville. Four years ago I commenced a mad rush for new friends, new experiences, new loves in a last attempt to end high school on some kind of crescendo. That kind of crashed and burned, but this opposite extreme isn't very desirable either. Balance, it's always been about balance with me: that one elusive element. I should try to summon some of that spirit again, but I've just felt so tired this week, not just from the day but from the days.

On a related note, I talked to Andrew last night, about girls as usual--he always brings it up, not I--and he said that I shouldn't be cutting myself off from humanity if that's not what I actually want to do. For my part, I actually don't really care if the last unrequited love I had drags on and lasts me the rest of college. But that kind of thinking scares me. I've got to start thinking of my life as an ongoing process again instead of waiting dumbly for the next jarring jump-cut. Maybe going to Cleveland next Thursday will help. "Maybe partying will help." Lord, that's pathetic.

I don't really want this. I don't really want to drink alone and listen to nothing but Godspeed tonight, but I do. That's not what I need. I need silence. I need sleep for days. I'm so tired.

It used to be I faced these "end days" with a leave-them-all-behind attitude: that was how I ended junior and senior year at Lawrenceville, and to some extent sophomore year at JHU. The Baldwins decided they didn't want to keep me in Hamill as a prefect after junior year, so I decided to abandon it, and never concern myself with its rises and falls again. And we set bonfires all throughout that last year of high school, in rural Virginia and Pennsylvania. We burned branches and beer cans and by the end I was burning regrets, I was burning missed opportunities, I was burning failures, I was burning loose ends and open wounds, I set myself on fire because I no longer liked who I was stuck being. After sophomore year of college I moved to the north Village and resolved to never let the noise of the past year's mistakes (there were many) drone around me again. At each stage of my life I've renounced the immediately preceding stages; threw out everything I didn't like, said it wasn't me, and began all over again.

But, standing in the epilogue of 2007, I find myself without that old rush, without that old resolve. Maybe I've just lost faith in the tearing up and restarting, after attempting it so many times and not having gotten nearly as far as I'd wanted. And it seems my mistakes are finally starting to stick, both what I am and what I've done. I can't substantiate this, but I have a feeling whatever goes unresolved by the end of next May will go unresolved. There are certain things I've left hanging that I want to try and conclude before this whole college thing is over...but I've learned a thing or two recently that suggest this may be even more complicated and difficult than I'd originally anticipated, and even leads me to question whether it's a good idea at all, that is, whether it will actually do anyone any good. One person's closure salts the wounds of another. And who am I to claim priority? I think it's a true sign of my growing older when I can't just burn my bridges anymore, when I'm forced to carry their burden and somehow find a way to keep moving. It's not something I can answer right now; I'll have to think on this too, and hopefully make some kind of decision within the next few weeks.

Growing older is a funny concept when you can't remember ever being young.

New idea: forget me. If I don't matter, I had better start acting like it. Stop using walks to and from campus as headphones reflection sessions. Start buying presents for people on sight. Stop self-referentialism (yep, just made that word up too). Start associating weather movements and sunlight incident angles and songs with others instead of nostalgic moments in my own past. Kindness is something I've always expected from myself, perhaps more than anything else, and if ego's such a tumor in my head, probably not the worst idea to throw it to the dogs. If all the projected loneliness and emptiness of the next six months do not matter, probably best to ignore it completely. Of course, were I to follow through with all this, the first thing to do would be to destroy this blog, but one needs a record. Or one makes the same mistakes. Not to say I don't do so anyway.