I awoke slowly, lingering in bed, trying to determine if the light emerging through the blinds was bike riding light or a prohibitory light that had brought its message through rain and cloud. I found my phone buried underneath my abdomen, partially stuck to my naked back. I had fallen asleep watching something, old episodes of binge-easy tv. I have returned to enjoying being alone again, I think. It doesn't take much, just a little well placed apathy.
All I need at first is somebody to text - a woman - then I am basically happy. Somebody to talk to. I should learn not to over complicate that. I should just learn to be a simple guy. It all requires practice, and life is cursory.
The world has changed much. I have been watching Netflix documentaries on the 60s and 70s to prove as much to myself. It is an odd feeling, to witness in retrospect the world that shaped me and yet to see it as foreign and distasteful, lacking in the contemporary charms and horrors.
I must seem much to bear - excitable beyond the permissible capacity of most, even in texting. During the years that I was in love my youthful intensity became something else, something in need of a woman's touch. A fixer-upper. Now, it seems I am expected to somehow reel it all in and rebrand myself, while the overarching lock-eyed message is just to relax and be myself, but I am a child. I must be misunderstanding the actual message, the mainly unspoken one.
It is all a lot of work: the self, and then the others. Few openly claim they want you to change but none accept you as you are, for very long. They reserve that very special love for themselves, because they alone are deserving of it. That is what a breakup teaches us about love, somebody should have changed.
If you want to observe how much people don't want to change anyone then just watch them with a child.
And listen.
.
