I have her cornered at a table to myself, but for some reason the Great Listener is nowhere to be found and the only sub available is the Great Blabber, a third-tier act who is far less interesting.
“May I interject?” she interjects. “You know what you are? You are girl crazy.”
Girl crazy. No one has called me that before. It worries me a little. Girl crazy? Based on what evidence?
So I’ll be straight: It has not been a very good run. Been in this town ten years, and very little to show for it. I have a decent job, but while keeping it I have pushed away friends, let my ambitions rot, and lost my way to the point where plowing through the hours of the day on idle gives me a vague sense of achievement. “Once something quits changing, it’s dead” — that may not be a coroner’s definition, but I feel almost ready for the autopsy.
One of the few friends I have left is telling me I need to change. (Easy for her to say; she just moved 3,000 miles away from me.) She knows the idea terrifies me, though, so she comes up with a game plan that she thinks I can handle.
“Don’t go back to the places you always go to alone,” she says.
“What? But those are the lonely havens...”
“You cannot go back to them,” she says. “Promise me — do not go back to any of them.”
I don’t give her an answer. Maybe, I figure, I could give it a try. One by one, I would say goodbye to my lonely havens and see if it makes any difference. Start with one, abandon it, move on to the next. Keep going until they are all behind me. Until they are gone.
張.
(a/k/a just a fucking “e” away from change)
08.20.10
All text © 張 友 仁 unless otherwise noted.
