So I am pretty sure I lost my mind there for a few days because I was swimming, err drowning in my own solitude, feeling ignored by literally everyone around me for the most part. Family, east coast friends, well, everyone actually. Except maybe E, who is just not in a position to ignore me given the situation with his own father is taking an eerie twist by his body going into not only kidney, but heart failure.

But then I had a few days of normalcy, well a day of normalcy followed by a night of normalcy. I had a really sweet time the other night for the first time in a while with a friend who always leaves me dizzy. Fantastic energy, super easy to talk to, and when I am with him I feel like everything is fine and nothing is anything needing worry. Great day and night…one of those super lovely ones you get all twisted up inside thinking about. I used to get that weird knee jerk physical reaction when I would kiss someone that I later realized I did not want to ever again…or did not feel. I would wake up in the morning and talk to myself and be like, “oh god, why?!? what is wrong with you, dude?!?” And then I would picture the weirdness and freak out, reliving the awkwardness over and over again, physically recoiling from just the thought. This is not entirely different except that the repulsion is replaced with a definite desire and longing in some respects. But I can readily admit it was the first time since I got here that I felt like everything could make sense–I talked to new people, I laughed, I had reason to smile. Sometimes it is the little things, the conversations you have that make the difference. If I had more moments like I had the other day, I wouldn’t complain about feeling lonely given it is the acknowledgment that what you say or think matters that sometimes makes the difference.

Last night an old friend from MA came to take me out–we hadn’t seen each other in some 15 years, but he was always super easy to get along with and saved my tail many a time from a very overbearing family life. He moved here five years ago with his wife, so it was nice to be able to see him again in a definite different environment. We used to go to shows together back in the old WAG days (Worcester Artist Group)…and know a lot of the same old soldiers rocking out in Masshole still. He is a laughing addict so it’s hard not to laugh when you are with him…and laughing is literally the one thing that will always work at disarming my bad moods. He has invited me out with his friends to meet people here, so I think it’s actually going to start getting a little busier for me socially than I have been–I know this might sound a bit weird to the people who actually do know me, but I have felt like I had the cooties or the plague or something when trying to strike up conversations with anyone but the employees of the places I frequent. I definitely appreciate his offer to include me in the parties his friends have, the games he goes to, the Roller Derby I will soon see. It’s again a situation of acknowledgment. Nobody likes to be ignored, and throw this baby in a corner and she might kick and scream her way out.

I went to go deal with the dentist yesterday…which was not entirely as horrifying as one would normally understand with a root canal. Until maybe 6 hours later. I hope this serves as an easy correlation but the tooth was a little less than stellar in its condition. No wait, I will spare you the details, but the shifting of pressure that you get when you go up and down in altitude in your ears? Well the same thing was happening in the tooth. I could almost hear it crack and creak under the pressure of the infection. Unfortunately due to that aspect and the risk that it posed for a pericardial infection due to the size of the tissue that was ruined and what was sitting underneath my gums, I started getting very nervous and imagining how much my life would really suck if something like that happened requiring my hospitalization. Those are no joke infections, they can very well kill you…and without my friends, my doctors, I am missing having access to an entire department of cardiology who has gotten to know me very well throughout the years. So much so that I haven’t even paid for a doctors appointment in many many years. So while I felt this tooth shifting under the pressure of the moving infection, it started to hurt. And my left arm went numb. And usually that is the sign something bad is about to go down–so I pushed it out of my head. I also realized I barely ate any food until maybe 7 pm while popping antibiotics and one vicodin–and that is a major no-no for me here given my body knows it’s wrong enough to manifest some serious symptoms if I am so stupid again. So I ate the soup given to me as a gift by the barrista at my little cafe while we spoke pretty extensively. Then my friend from MA came and took me out for dinner.

I did promise myself that I would need to jump on once I received my charger in the mail, shoved in my mail hatch just today (it’s a slot, but I choose my rude words carefully), which will remove the dependency I had established with having to harass my sister for hers in the afternoons and evenings.

I feel much more alive again and also surmise that I can definitely accomplish some major things, not exclusive of this site, even. I am going to try and blow this up in ways you might not all expect, but at least I am entertaining. I mean, at least I entertain myself! As I said to E…I just needed a little “friend”ly acknowledgment–it’s probably a little easier for me to feel invisible here though the city is not exactly city-like in terms of what I am used to facing daily. I just hope I can find the soul and energy of life here in things besides the mountains.