There are a few bodegas by my house. Lately, I have taken to going to one particular one more than the others because they sell Orangina and more appealing flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream than the other ones nearby. Last night, because it was on the way home from the grocery store, I stopped into a different one to purchase some beer. When I brought my beer up to the counter, the man was so friendly in a way that seemed totally sincere, saying, "My friend, where have you been? I have not seen you in a long time."
It says certain things which you may be able to intuit when I say that this was the highlight of my day yesterday. It made me feel connected, noticed, that this man who runs this bodega missed the sight of me, or perhaps just the purchases I made there. He told me to come back soon. My heart swelled a bit. It was a really depressed thing yesterday, still a bit today, less so.
The prospect of living and all it requires in New York, anywhere really, is stressing me out, bringing me down. I don't particularly like my job, but am not too well suited for other jobs, let alone other jobs that pay as well. It's a problem, particularly when I think about aging and adulthood, something I now am firmly in the realm of with the age of 30 approaching in less than a year. How is that one can provide for themselves and be happy doing so? How do I find work that pays me money and also doesn't make me feel like I am wasting my life and my time? What is there in five years time for me if I don't alter my path, let alone ten years time?
I am finding myself overwhelmed by these feelings and unsure of what to do about them, how to find a nice job. I find myself sleeping a lot and watching horror movies on Netflix. There is a comfort that I have yet to identify the exact nature of in watching seventies and eighties horror movies while stoned. There are themes in these films that rear themselves again and again. The nature of place and whether physical locations can hold memory is one that is there again and again. I live in New York City. I live in an old apartment building. My bed is not entirely comfortable and this heat as of late has brought several mosquitos to my bedroom, bugs that seem to take particular pleasure in keeping me up throughout the night, tossing and turning, hiding under sheets. Camp Crystal Lake, a house in Amityville, a hotel built on top of Indian burial grounds. There is something really poetic and mesmerizing about this theme, something hopeful almost about it, that there is continuity, that things don't end, that bodies may end up sliced and maimed, but this land holds grudges, the memories of certain things, and we reside in these memories, thrown about this way or that by the recollection of them.
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