The Line Begins to Blur

 It’s been a month since my friends from Michigan moved out. A month basically since I’ve talked to them. More than that since I’ve really talked to any of my family. 

One month becomes two.

Two months become three.

Three months become six.

Six months become a year.

After that…it fades away. Things die, covered in rust, rot, dust. Discarded yet stored away for potential future use. Like a box of old clothes in the attic you just haven’t gotten around to throwing out. By your actions and your habits, you’ve no intention of keeping it, but the fact that it still exists near you means there’s a chance it may be used again in the future.

When I think about it like that, I feel like I should act somehow. Things fade quickly. With the exception of a very small handful of people, I am the lifeblood in every relationship. I make the effort. I make enough, and often enough, that I don’t end up needing to wonder if it would be made back should I stop. The people who I haven’t kept up with, stopped keeping up with, forgot to keep up with, I don’t know anymore, with a couple exceptions. It’s not about time. It’s not about distance. It’s about effort.

Inside there’s mostly apathy and emptiness, but there is a certain amount of caring left. I feel like I’m close to a line that I can barely see. A threshold beyond which the sense of obligation, of duty fades. Structure breaks down and is ignored, if not advised against. I wonder if I want to get to that point. Generally I know what I want, and why I feel the way I do, but in this place I do not. This place, this weird, new place I have wandered over to. I don’t remember where I was before. I wandered though, so I must have wanted to leave.

Sometimes I really do feel like my mind is slipping. It seems harder to focus on things. I forget things I definitely shouldn’t. Like that I shouldn’t leave things on the toaster oven. My chicken cordon bleu and pierogies were enough, thanks. I’ll have that charred oven mitt for dinner I guess. I forget about people sometimes. I forget what exactly I spent my money on. I forget if I forgot more in the past or not. If there is a standard from the past, I have forgotten it. 

I suppose these are all the consequences of taking great effort to change yourself. Well, that and old age.