Shambling Man in 2021

Another sleepless night. I suppose that’s why I’m here. It should have been a slam dunk. I was exhausted when I got back from the concert I went to, but I was on my phone for a bit, and then you know how it is, the right song plays and the wrong thought floats across your mind at the same time and then the window for peaceful rest becomes closed for a while.

I saw The Midnight earlier, that was a great show. Also the first show I’ve been to in a couple year. I was supposed to see Lacuna Coil & Apocalyptica a year and a half ago, and I think that’s been postponed again until February or something. I usually see rock or metal bands, so this was my first time seeing a synthwave band, and it sounds just as good. They can definitely jam, and the sax player sounded awesome, the crowd went nuts every time there was a sax solo. Good show, definitely worth seeing again.

Life remains the same. I’m mostly a hermit, working from home, being home most of the time, really only going out to grocery shop or rarely see a friend. Dating is nonexistent. Self-improvement has been, until recently. I do have a gym membership, it’s just a 20 minute drive from where I live now and I never go. I have a cheap and relatively useless treadmill, every time I use it I have to stop often to adjust it because the belt won’t stay centered and rubs against the edge of the machine. So I just give up after so long and don’t do anything. It’s been rainy season for a few weeks, so bike rides or walking are available, just unappealing. I bought Ring Fit Adventure and have been sticking to that so far. I dusted off my Wii also and have been playing some Wii Sports tennis. Working out through gaming is still kind of lazy, but better than nothing and I can do it in my room.

I need to do something, for sure. I feel myself wasting away. Not spiritually, that’s nothing new, my existence is often in the doldrums. No, it’s the feeling of decaying physically with age, inactivity, apathy. My hair is thinning. My skin is dry and flaky, perhaps because it’s cold and not humid enough. Years of being poor and afraid and not going to the dentist or taking well enough care of my teeth means that when I did go a few weeks ago, I was informed that I need thousands of dollars of work, which my uninsured ass cannot afford. That’s the newer stuff. The bags under my eyes, the stretch marks from gaining weight, the gut, that’s not new. It’s all of it together that makes me realize how pathetic this is. How the unrealistic ideal I had when I was younger of what I could be when I was older has been distorted so completely into what I am now. An overweight, unappealing man lumbering toward middle-age. It’s pathetic. I don’t hate it, it’s just pathetic, sad. It could be better. I’m trying to make it better now. I’ve done that many times before, and it never sticks. I don’t know why it never has, or how it could be different now. Hopefully it is. Not just for dating, the concept of any of this being appealing in any way to someone new not making sense. Not for the fading dream of trying my hand at pro wrestling. No, just for my potential as a person. I’m not some old crone stashed away in a retirement home until the decay is finished. I’m 34, which feels several lifetimes too old, but not old enough to be out of reasons to try. So, we’ll see. My motivation is all threaded together. I either don’t do anything, and feel depressed that I don’t do anything, furthering the cycle. Or, I work out, I play bass, I write lyrics, I sleep better, I kick ass in every area. It does make sense that the best way to maintain that is to physically feel better by being more active.

I’m getting my tarot card colored in next week, that will be cool. I’ve had the line work for a couple months, the friend who is a tattoo student had some stuff going on last month and was out of the area. She works full-time at a night job and does tattoo school during the day, so her schedule is pretty limited. After that I’ll get another tarot on my other arm, and then probably stop for a while. Even with the discounted rate, it’s still adding up. Once that has happened I’ll have gotten 6 tattoos from her, that seems pretty good. She needs 50 to be able to take the state test, hopefully she’s getting close. I suppose I could always get some small ones to help pad her numbers, hah. I did get three small blacklight tattoos, they still haven’t faded all the way yet. It definitely is addicting getting ink…I got my first tattoo two years ago, and then nothing else until a few months ago. I always wanted the sword on my left forearm and the shield on my right forearm, which I have now. Didn’t really have anything planned after that, and I don’t after these tarots, but there’s always something I guess. It would be nice to get something that’s not video game-related, even if they are not overly obvious, but I don’t know what I’d get. Something related to artwork from a favorite album or something? I don’t like the thought of tying a tattoo to a person, in case they turn out to be shitty later. Not just someone getting a lover’s name and regretting it, but even if you get a tattoo of a band and they turn into buttheads later. Idols will always fail you at some point, but an ideal might not. The more abstract the better I suppose.

There’s nothing else going on really. My life is free of any interpersonal drama. There has definitely been drama between friends recently, but it only tangentially affected me. In a way, I’m jealous. It’s nice having peace, but if there’s conflict, that means there’s life. Things are moving, breathing, happening. Better for blood to boil than spoil. Sometimes I even miss that anxious feeling of fading hope, the stomach-churning worry that a situation wasn’t going to work out. At least I felt like I was living then, like I was feeling and reacting and putting ripples out into the pond, being alive. My life is in stasis. I don’t confide in anyone, nor am I anyone’s confidant. I used to feel like an outsider in the inner circle of various friend groups here and there. Now I’m just an outsider, period. My interactions with friends are enjoyable, but relatively shallow. It’s how things seemed in high school, I hated it then. I wanted to be included, and to connect with others, which is why TOD, OD, Livejournal, etc. were such a big part of my life back then. Now it’s like, well, yeah, this is fine. Why the hell would I tell anyone else anything important anyway? Talking just makes things awkward or worse. I don’t think that’s a healthy approach, but it is working well enough. No matter how depressed or miserable I feel, I’ve trained myself to not show it, to be functional in front of friends and strangers alike. It’s been a couple years since I have had any sort of regular, deep discussion with someone. She was a great friend, and I definitely took it for granted. I just stopped responding at some point, and that was that. Although I enjoyed writing emails back and forth, they were so long, it felt somewhat like a forced obligation. How foolish. Funny how a lull in communication can lead to it ending completely, without any follow-up from either side. I did reach out to her a couple months ago and didn’t get a response. I don’t blame her. I’m not sure having a confidant would change anything, though. If anything, I want to solidify my opinions and feelings more. I’ve always been very willing to hear others out and to heed their voices, letting that affect me and my decision-making. That’s not a bad thing, but I’ve trusted others over myself, and tend to second-guess my own choices. I envy the friends I know that are stubborn, who do what they want and don’t do things they are disinterested in, even for the sake of others. I crave to live life with that sort of selfish indulgence, without putting my own desires on the backburner for the sake of others, or some perceived greater good that doesn’t really seem to exist. Selfishness doesn’t have to be bad. As a positive thinking audiobook I occasionally listen to puts it, “there is no selfishness, only self-care”. There’s no need for me to be the person who moves out of the way if a stranger would otherwise walk into me, or to play different music than I’d want to listen to in the car if I know my roomies don’t like it. I’m not asked to do these things, I just do them automatically and then lament, wishing I had the guts to be selfish. Maybe I’ll get there someday.