Last One on the Blog Train

I borrow shamelessly from Christina Aguilera's 2003 album of the same name because that's how I feel right now. It's the night before my first paycheck in well over a month. Both accounts are well past empty, I'll be fishing for quarters tomorrow morning for my cup of coffee, and for some reason I find myself on a low-social contact diet. At first not voluntary, but as it goes on, it's kind of refreshing.

Living at bare-bones, or close to them, puts a lot in perspective. What was once a "need to do" or "have to have" becomes a "nice again someday." Those that were "I'll do it tomorrow" or "I'm young enough to push off" or any other procrastination justification suddenly becomes a genuine interest or source of excitement again.

At one level there are things that I've done or put in my body and mind that I am really thinking numbed me to real life experiences. When you live for the weekend or the next party or the next great fuck, you really do miss out on what happens in between. You stop making decisions; you let too much just "happen" and possibly spin out of your control. The come down starts to out weigh and last longer than the jack-up.

Cold-turkey or never again? I doubt it. But I'm not comfortable or even slightly interested in making real life a struggle for a few hours of pleasure or fun (with people that I'm more and more becoming afraid that I may not truly be in the long haul with, which is really unfortunate, because I miss them terribly, but I can't force it.) But now that I'm stripped down to a raw state I find myself enjoying more of the day to day than I have in a very long time.