everyday's an endless stream of cigarettes and magazines

I’m at that part of the year where the days begin to blur into one another—obligations from yesterday roll into the next morning, and the indentation of my body to the space in the couch where I generally sit to write, to do school work, to work my regular job feels deeper, especially imprinted to me as I work through hours of final assignments and end-of-the-year projects, and holiday projects and plans.

I keep saying that if I can get through the next couple weeks, I will be fine, but I hate how I have to live to do that—so hyper-focused on silly things that feel so pressing, I don’t pay attention much to the world around me, existing somehow above it than in it. As I’ve gotten older, I try to get better at this—to at least stop and look for the birds, to leave my house and feel the way the cold grass crunches under my oversized slippers, to remember that this sense of urgency and stress and rushed existence are symptoms of a manufactured way of life that isn’t actually normal or healthy. But, alas, old engrained habits die hard.

This has been a theme I’ve been thinking about a lot, especially coming off the first round of holiday gatherings with family—old habits, old expectations, old versions of ourselves that people are so adamant on preserving—sometimes preferring the versions of us that they’ve conjured versus trying to really get to know who we really are.