11:53 a.m. | 2005-01-04
Life, I Think, Is But A Parenthesis
I watched Garden State again this morning. Has to be the 6th time I've seen it. Still more breathtaking each time. Still beautiful shots, an amazing soundtrack, and the same great lines.
I seem to be struck more and more by ideas and thoughts like that these days. By movies about people discovering themselves and walking their own lines and finding things they needed so deep inside. And even though I rarely cry over movies, I find this one to put me in that place. I think it's because I've had that conversation before. I've said those things like, "this kind of thing only comes around once," and he's said things like "I'm not putting a period there, just sort of an ellipses."
Just because I've wandered around in the rain wearing a trashbag and I've sat on the couch watching the entire world pass me by.
And it got me to thinking, that whole speech he makes about what home is? About how you go back and you want it to be the same--but it never is? I was sitting at my mother's house. The house I lived in for a year on and off. The one that I referred to as my "home" but never really enjoyed. I was taking care of her puppy and I went to go change the sheets on the bed as she asked me to and I stood in the frame of my doorway.
And it looked so much like a movie.
A room, definitely familiar, but missing all of the most important things that had been there. Almost like there were remnants. Only remnants of me. I mean, sure, there was old drafting desk and old wooden chair I painted matte black. And there were some shoes I had worn all but once. And that chest, that was mine too. But I didn't live there. I never lived there. I stayed there.
I put on an old album, carefully picking up the needle and placing it down on the music set I had bought years ago but had no room for in my new life. I put the sheets on the bed and watched as I did things so predictably. As I tucked where I always tucked and measured how I always measured and fluffed the down comforter just how I like it. And I hated the spot that I was in. I hate that what I'm doing is so predictable. I hate that I'm living here doing this and not going anywhere with it.
And even if I follow the path I plan. Even if I go back to school and finish my degree, what's that going to change? I'll still be restless. I'll move to Boston and try all over again. Make new friends and go to bars. I'll join local clubs and learn to love the area. But I'll get bored again.
Things will get stagnant and I'll get upset. And I'll want something new and something pretty and something special. And I won't be able to have it. And that frustrates me.
I only hope that someday I can conquer the idiocy that I call impatience.
