as i sink down into this worn-in old couch at the star lounge, absorbing (still) the new death cab album, i close my eyes and feel everything at once. the music is simple and warm. i'm thinking about my day, my weekend, and what lies ahead for the week. deadlines at work, my relationships with my co-faustians, the way things have been going so well... and how i'm looking forward to launching into the week.
i feel so relaxed right now, not in the way that you usually think of, as the antithesis to stress. but relaxed in the way that i feel like i'm settling casually and more fully into myself, into this new life that i've built. the feeling is fleeting, so i try and appreciate it when it comes.
i find myself feeling more and more thankful these days, especially towards those i spend most of my time with. sally and bob continue to be warm and guiding presences in my everyday, and dave continually surprises me with his insights into design collaboration. i learn from them as designers, and more innately as people. when i think about the way i act, i think of my behavior as it compares to those more mature than me, and i measure the gaps this way.
i like to keep track of where i'm doing well and where i'm failing, in this respect. brian helps me here, i'm learning. i spend a lot of time with this guy, these days. the defining lines between our relationship as friends vs. that as roommates is always blurring. this is partially because we work well in both capacities, and partially because we spend so much time around each other, it's hard to discern which is which. i guess at this point there's no need to distinguish one from the other. that's something to celebrate because it means that shit is going well.
on that note, we were eating in the kitchen today and were discussing how we'd been living in the apartment for almost a month now with no great conflict or issue. so i took the opportunity to ask if he had any gripes with me as a roommate, while we were on the topic. it's better to air these things out early, because we know they'll only incubate and worsen otherwise.
to my surprise, he had little to say in the way of the roommate part of the relationship. instead, the focus jumped immediately to the way i'd been handling things in our friendship. that basically, i'd been busting his balls way too much lately. there had been sneaking suspicion in my mind lately that perhaps i was joking around, chiding him too much, and he confirmed this and then some. he approached it very level-headed and with a sense of consciousness to how they would make me feel, which made these things a little easier to hear. but in the end, i realized what i was hearing about myself was that i'd been slipping in making sure i'm always being a kind and sympathetic person, with my best friend/roommate, no less! what the fuck!? to be fair, a lot of stuff was intended to come off as jokes or tongue-and-cheek comments. but as brian pointed out, they often extended too far, to things like criticism of his behavioral nuances, or needless questioning of simple and pointless things.
after a little consideration, i was reminded of a particular day in my youth, on a hot alabama day playing a soccer game, when my dad came to me at half time and told me to tuck in my shirt. when i asked why, he told me that i would cool off better with a tucked-in shirt. i argued that i had started the game with my shirt tucked in, and that i wanted to play with it un-tucked because it let more air flow through, etc... we argued about which way was better for at least five minutes, each one going into the physics of the air flow and fabric texture and sweat abduction. i think i finally just tucked in my jersey to get my dad to shut the hell up, and minutes later when the game started, i glibly untucked that shit again, knowing that dad couldn't do a thing about it for the next 35 minutes. the point of the story is not who was right, but that my dad should have backed the fuck up and just let ME make the decision that affected ME, and me alone. this is the kind of shit i realized i've been chiding brian about, and it is without reason, and to no positive end for either of us. what it boils down to (and this is where i start to see my dad coming out in me in ways that give me pause) is that i try to get everything in a certain order--the "right" way--all the time. it's the way i work, it's part of what makes me a good designer, a perceiver and appreciator of systems and balance. it's ok to project onto design and the arrangement of furniture and organization of the fridge... but not on my friends.
duly noted.
to resume where i left off in the talk with brian, i took in as much as i could because i could tell that he had been patiently tolerating me, and had been putting up with this shit for almost a month without freaking out on me. so of course i feel pretty bad now, but that's good because it will remind me to put on the sympathetic/subjective friend hat more often and the compulsive/objective roommate hat a little less. there's always something to work on, i think, and i'm really lucky to have people like brian around that will not only put up with my crap, but work with me to get past it all and improve as a person and develop our friendship.
so as we sit in this coffee shop and take turns drawing in my italian tarpaper sketchbook (thanks, s!) we grimace and snicker at what we add to each turn of the drawing, one of us eventually laughing out loud at what seems to be undeniably clever or hilarious as we pool our bizarre imaginations in the form of ink on paper. it's always a good moment, and it signals that everything is cool, and we've got good things ahead of us. i think it will continue to get better. i'm going to put effort into it, anyway.
in the meantime, i'm really looking forward to 2 major events in the next few weeks. 1: eric moves up. we're pretty stoked about this, as the apartment is finally settled and furnished and arranged, and we're dying for eric's stylistic and material additions to the place (namely: books and a general sense of epic grandeur), not to mention the good times awaiting all of us existing in the same place. event 2: suzie visits again for the 4th of july weekend. the reasons to be excited are pretty obvious, but i'm equally excited for eric and suzie to meet each other. the first time that he and i consciously hung out, we traded stories of epic, heartwrenching, unrequited love while eating some Al's at 2 in the morning. i find it really interesting that suzie was unknowingly the catalyst for the first of many unabashedly honest talks of past lives and common threads... and now the two of them will get to hang out. it's a line of progression that likely links solidly only in my head, but i'm sure it resonates to some degree with eric as he understands that suzie is as embedded in my character history as a love for family or a need for embellished artistic/human expression. he gets things like this, just as suzie does. i'm really interested in what they will find in each other.
also on the horizon is suzie's birthday, july 17th, when i will fly to cleveland for the first time in god-knows-how-long. cleveland used to be my favorite city but still holds a special place in my heart. it was the venue for so many great experiences, a backdrop for the shakespearian theatrics of my late teens. i learned what love was like, had my first kiss there... learned a new love for music and how it relates to experience... developed a real relationship with my sister, who is something like 12 years my elder... got to be around my niece during her really cute early years... practiced art for a summer in the beautiful northern sunlight, warm rays in cool air... there's just a lot of me that developed there. i could go on for way too long. anyway, suzie's 24th birthday marks seven years to the day since we had our first kiss and effectively started dating. that is, before launching off into the whirlwinds of our lives, which would eventually pull us far apart. however, Serendipity meets secretly with Purpose, and through their backroom scheming, we were guided to find each other years later, after making mistakes, maturing, and growing into ourselves. so here we are now, waiting it out, resuming a path that we started carving together at such a young age. it's precious and stoic all at once. but i digress.
what else is new? i buzzed my hair, which was a refreshing change. also, we have internet at the apartment now, and i have resumed my xbox live account. that means... halo! it may be sad to say, but i've really missed playing this game in a really serious way. it's one of only a few things that can really occupy all of my attention, which is super relaxing because i don't have to think about anything for that period of time. on top of that, it's really exciting and fun, and lends itself to team-oriented bonding experiences with nick and whatever random people i meet online. so glad that's back in my life. on top of this, i'm spending time every week with a book, drawing more, eating less and riding my bike to work a lot more. life is fuller, more resolved.
it's a good deal. until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment