Artistic License: An Interlude
when lots of bad things are happening, you still get up every day. you still exist and you go through the motions and you keep on and you eat and sleep and drink because the routine is the only thing that you know. it is the only thing you can construct.
it is how you get from point a to point b.
so for months, as everything got weirder and harder, there was a whole lot of routine going on. there were lots of normal days. time passed, just as it always does.
the thing about routine, though, is that it makes my memory fuzzy. too much routine makes the days blend together. and then when i try and remember the non-routine things, they stand out but i can't put them in any real order.
well, no, that's not true. i could put them in a very tidy order and say, see, this is how it went. a-ha! here is where it broke down! so, see, this and then that, so that this and then that and now? here. it all makes sense, doesn’t it?
except i don't feel it that way. i can put it into rational perspective all i want now. god and my friends and my therapist know i have, a thousand times over.
but that's not how life actually ever happens. and when i am alone in my head and i let myself think about it, that's not really how i really remember that year at all.
it is how you get from point a to point b.
so for months, as everything got weirder and harder, there was a whole lot of routine going on. there were lots of normal days. time passed, just as it always does.
the thing about routine, though, is that it makes my memory fuzzy. too much routine makes the days blend together. and then when i try and remember the non-routine things, they stand out but i can't put them in any real order.
well, no, that's not true. i could put them in a very tidy order and say, see, this is how it went. a-ha! here is where it broke down! so, see, this and then that, so that this and then that and now? here. it all makes sense, doesn’t it?
except i don't feel it that way. i can put it into rational perspective all i want now. god and my friends and my therapist know i have, a thousand times over.
but that's not how life actually ever happens. and when i am alone in my head and i let myself think about it, that's not really how i really remember that year at all.
hey that was nice to read..and so relatable and interesting.
ReplyDeletei so know what you mean. i actually had to sit down and write a timeline of events from three Beyond Horrible This Cannot Be Happening years because i couldn't remember when exactly things had happened. i had to look things up in old datebooks and emails in order to do it.
ReplyDeleteand even after writing out the timeline and looking at it several times, i cannot remember it. i remember the things that happened and how i felt as if it were yesterday, but have absolutely no sense of time around it. the entire thing is blurry. but i think i was a little blurry while most of it was happening, which is probably a lot of why that's how i remember it!
mc - thank you.
ReplyDeletesweetone - i know you went through some nearly impossible events. i have never actually mapped out a timeline, because i'm afraid to. afraid because i don't know if i could, even if i tried really hard. i'm comforted to know i'm not the only one. thanks for sharing that.