So, Friday morning, I'm having coffee in Old Town with my friend Chris, and we hung out for about an hour and a half. Then we parted ways for our respective cars.
As I approached my car I notice: MY BACK LICENSE PLATE IS MISSING!!
I can't swear that it didn't happen earlier while it was parked on my street, but I think I would have noticed it when I got into the car that morning. The irony, assuming that it was stolen on Cameron Street is that I didn't park in a garage or even at a meter on a more populated street because that spot was FREE. Not anymore!
I reported it to the police, so the plates are registered as stolen. But I'll have to replace them, because even as I type this, I'm imagining thieves in a scary masks on a major heist using my plate on their getaway car.
Plus the DMV requires it. And I have to go there in person and everything!
That was one expensive parking space.
On a positive note, being between jobs means I have plenty of time to stand in line....
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
All we can do is keep breathing
I wrote this a while ago, intending to post it to some anonymous depression-focused blog I created, but it's part of who I am (sometimes) and I think it really belongs on the Chronicles. I don't feel the need to be anonymous anymore.
I like "Grey's Anatomy." I think at its best, the show can be genuinely moving. It's no "Buffy"--pondering the nature of good and evil and what it means to have a soul. But definitely glimpses of the simultaneous fragility and resilience of the human heart.
I also really like its music. I'll leave it to others to analyze what that says about my hipness or lack thereof, but I enjoy what I find. And sometimes I find pieces that resonate. Like the song I currently can't get out of my head: "Keep Breathing" by Ingrid Michaelson:
I want to change the world. Instead, I sleep.
Wow, did that catch my attention the first time I heard it. Not that my aspirations were ever quite that lofty, but there are things I thought I would do and I haven't. Projects I want to do, but don't. Specifically, this current relapse has been all about apathy. A lack of desire and energy to do anything but keep body and soul (and my dog) together. Like the song goes on to say:
All that I know is I'm breathing.
Pretty grim, right? And it's definitely felt like that sometimes. Full on episodes of that scary nothingness that is woven into the fabric of depression--what I like to call "the abyss." But I also find another meaning in the song--a subtle shift in the lyrics:
All I can do is keep breathing
Like, as long as I'm breathing, anything is possible.
Breath, in various contexts, is kind of a personal touchstone. Like another song I picked up from Grey's: "Breathe (2 AM)." The tension--musically and lyrically--continuously intensifies, as life throws itself at the narrator, building into a crescendo. The movement and urgency are reminiscent of developing panic attack. Pulse racing, brain sprinting as you try to just hold it together. And then you remember:
Breathe, just breathe.
Taking deep, measured breaths has been a major coping mechanism for me for so long, and while sometimes, during really sustained bouts of panic, only a little valium will do, I like the reminder that sometimes it's possible to just pause and slow it down a few beats.
Or, as the great philosopher and poet Paul Hewson (aka Bono) would say:
And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
along the stony pass
it's just a moment
this time will pass.
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