This Memory Needs a Tune Up
It gets me every time: We come home from work, put on This American Life after a nap and start to make dinner. Have a glass of wine, put on a movie and go to bed early. Breakfast from scratch the next morning, go to a gallery or see a movie. It’s raining slightly, she still has a tape player in her car. It’s her personal best of Chet Baker mix with most of MBV’s “Loveless” on side B. “When You Sleep” always brings back your own high school memories of listening to Canadian radio, driving endlessly at night around that crummy suburb you swore you’d never go back to.
We go back home, order a pizza then I head out to my local brewery to meet with the regulars. Sometimes we talk about work or sports or wrestling or music or memories or if you’re all on the same page, politics. She’s at home catching up with her best friend in Chicago or reading a book or writing her own book, or maybe she’s putting it off to organize her CD collection instead.
Of course this doesn’t happen. I can’t sit still in one place for longer than six months before I get bored and severely depressed with whatever routine I set up for myself. Job, relationship, zip code and that self-destruct button is huge and right in front of me and it’s never quiet either. I wish I could put on the breaks, take a look and try to enjoy the things around me for a change. She doesn’t exit all that much either, unfortunately. Sometime the most toxic people can also bring up the most comforting feelings just so as long as you can tinker with the memories. It’s all I have; a strong imagination for things that don’t exist, but the chance of something like this coming true in real life one day keeps me going.
Therapy was decent today. Thanks for asking.
Edit: Yes, I know I sound like a whiny white liberal cliche. I don’t care.