I Read A Book and Now I’m Mad!

Yesterday I randomly pulled a book from my shelf and began to read it. Well, re-read it. The book in question (which I will not name because it’s sort of embarrassingly bad) was one that I adored in high school. You know the books that you read several times in a row and carry with you for months because they resonate with you so much? When I was 16, this was one of those books for me.

Please take into account that when I was 16, I was also goth. I did not make the best choices at 16. Anyway…

So I selected this book and delved into it and spent the better part of my day reading. By the time I was, oh, about a third of the way through, I realized something: this book is responsible for having shaped approximately 73% of my adult personality.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

Yesterday, it made me really mad… mad about what, I couldn’t say. All I knew is that I was pissed off and crawling out of my skin, so I went for a drive, and I bought shoes, and I sort of flirted with the too-young-for-me-anyways-and-either-way-I’m-married salesguy, and he sort of flirted back, and for a moment I was like “…still got it!” but then I went right back to being mad about nothing again. And I drove and I felt boxed in by the very city I live in and have always lived in… like I wouldn’t allow myself to drive beyond certain roads or highway exits, lest I get lost or end up somewhere too far away in a fit of complete insanity.

Adult life is so strange because you have things like credit cards and a car and you honestly could just abandon it all and take off at a moment’s notice to start over somewhere new, if that’s what you really wanted. When I was in high school, I found out that this kid I went to elementary school with, his mom had met some guy online and she had taken off to Texas to go be with him. Just up and abandoned her family. I would never, never do that (I think it’s monstrous), but it’s strange to think about how easy that was for her to do, and how anybody with a way to get around and a means of paying for it all can just… go. (Incidentally, when I say easy, I don’t mean emotionally… I mean just physically moving from place to place, anywhere in the world you want to go. Difficult as a child, incredibly simple as an adult. I could fly to Azerbaijan tomorrow if I wanted to.)

I’m not sure what any of this means, really… if I should quit my job or go back to school or go back to playing guitar or travel or go on mood stabilizers or just never, never read that book ever again. In any case, it’s interesting to think about. So many people, myself included, complain about feeling stuck or trapped or tethered, but it’s actually very easy to just cut loose and go try to make a name for yourself somewhere else, in some other circumstance. So what is it that we feel tethered by, exactly, and how do we go about breaking away from that? If we even should?

Questions, questions…

You’d really laugh at me if you knew what book it was that had me in this state of mind, just by the way.

Feeling Like Ugggggggh…

I have had zero motivation for life lately. Bed is my absolute favourite place to be. Preferably with my laptop open to my feed reader and a sleeping Steve beside me. Other than that, I just want no part of anything.

The past two days in particular, I’ve been really grouchy. Looks like 61 Days of Pure Awesome never really came to be, as the past few days it’s really been more like 3 or 4 Days of Moodiness, Depression, and Sulking. This is in spite of some really great stuff! We got our wedding photos, for one… they’re gorgeous and they capture exactly what I wanted to see. The only problem with them is me. Holy double chin and mammoth arms! I really hate looking at photos of myself, especially as I get older.

Speaking of which, I’ve decided to be proactive about that. You know me, I’m all pro-positive-body-image and what not, but there also comes a point where you have to admit to yourself that if you’re 27 years old and keep waking up with pain in your back and neck, you’re probably a bit too out of shape. I know I’ll never be a skinny size zero, nor do I have any desire to be, but I’d like to be comfortable in my body again. I really like this website called 43 Things, where you can put down your goals and write entries about what you’re doing to achieve them. I already had a general account, but today I started an account devoted strictly to fitness goals, so hopefully that will keep me on track once and for all.

How do you become the kind of person who bounds out of bed first thing in the morning, eager to greet the world? I’ve never been that… but I really want to be.