There is no thread

I did a little bit of spring cleaning in here the other day, after also horribly breaking the template. It was probably time for a refresh anyway. Maybe all in service to figuring out what I can hang on to and what I need to let go of...

Of course I can't fully stow away my memories, but perhaps it is just time to let them have less power over me.

I was talking with a friend the other day about how moving to somewhere new can be such a blessing. As I walk/drive/bus all around this city, I have very clear and specific memories attached to so many places. Some good, some bad, some just... there... but all the same, it often feels like paging through an old photo album, and the sometimes-ache that can accompany that pastime. I can't really decide if the place-memories are a good or a bad thing, and of course I am often in these same spaces creating new memories to layer over the old, but all the same, sometimes I think that it would be nice to have a change of scene. I love Seattle, but I do often wonder if I've been here too long. I don't know where else to go though. I suppose that I will remain until compelled to leave, until called away.

I'm working on becoming a more active listener. This is something that I have maybe not been so great at in the past. I'm trying to ask more questions, and do less talking of my own. It's interesting, how much people will just talk and talk (and I am very much guilty of this myself) and never think to ask "Et tu?" - it seems to actually take a very special sort of person to find the right balance between give and take in a conversation. A consequence of all this listening is, of course, these more frequent updates to my blog. There is no thread between these posts, really, beyond the fact that it is all the stuff that is rattling around in my mind, and when I compare these posts to the much much older ones, it's much more than a hard jump between two subjects.

In the past few months, I've been a bit of a shit to a few friends, and I have some rebuilding to do over... the rest of my life, probably. When I get upset, I tend to drink my feelings. This is a fucked-up "coping" mechanism that I first implemented years ago when my father was dying and refused to get into contact with me so that we could have any chance of reconciliation. I pull this trick out of the bag from time to time, because I believe what cowboys tell me in songs...

I'm gonna keep drinkin'
until I'm petrified.
And then maybe these tears
will leave my eyes.

or

I'm gonna keep drinkin'
till I can't even think
Cause in the last week
I ain't slept a wink

But I do actually know that this is not a good way to be. I have found myself having to issue apologies for stupid things I have said and done somewhat recently, or, at the very least, being tied up in knots wishing that I could get a do-over, take it back, don't hit send, do not pass go, or what-have-you. I don't want to behave in a way that harms the people around me, so I need to find a new way to deal with bad feelings. I don't think that drinking is inherently destructive, but... my timing is off.

Notoriously poor timing, in almost all things.