What I hate most about myself is my absolute inability to live in the moment. Since I was a little kid I have always been able to romanticize the past, glorify the future and somehow pass over the present. Currently most of my days are spent trapped inside a horribly decorated law school library filled with florescent lights and neurotic people hopped-up on copious amounts of caffeine. Its easy to see why my tendency to revel in the past and long for the future has taken on new life...yet I can almost guarantee that in five years as I sit behind a desk, wearing a suit that costs more than I currently spend in one month and driving a car that costs more than a year of law school, I will somehow be able to look back at these absolutely awful days with fondness. My current residence (a town I despise almost as much as skinny jeans) will be remembers as "quaint and charming." The 12 hundred feet of snow that fall each winter and keep me housebound and depressed will be remembers as "romantic." My law school classmates who drive me towards self mutilation will somehow be remembered as "eccentric, " "wild" and "endearing." I will think back on my nights in the library with fondness. I can see my 30 plus year old self leaning over my desk, my head cradled in one hand as I think back to "the good old days." Longing for the days when I rolled out of bed, dragged my sorry ass into the jeans off the floor that I was too tired to actually put in the washing machine, poured some lukewarm coffee into my leaking mug (the one that drips down my face unless I tilt it just right), get behind the wheel of my dying Toyota corolla, and then sit through 5 hours of the most ridiculous self important lectures that have zero bearing on my ability to practice law. I will think to myself, "those were the days." HA. I will have to keep this blog going just so I can look back over this entry and remind my 30 year old self that law school was a cease pool full of self important losers with IQs closer to Forest Gump's than Einstein's.
That's what your memory does. Its like the "antique" settings on digital cameras, the one that turns color to a muted brown shade...it turns ordinary photos into snap shots from the past. That's what your brain does to memories so that when its time to recall them they have been shaded with melancholy and nostalgia. That is the only explanation for why I constantly think back to jobs I once had (and HATED) and think, "gosh I wish I was changing adult diapers, or pouring coffee for anorexic bitches or selling clothes to retarded twits." I mean come on. These memories are still on the edge. They weren't long enough ago that I can't still remember little bits of why I hated them but the memory sweeper is changing them slowly but surely into happy memories of "better days." At this rate I will be reflecting on my fat, awkward, acne prone, single days with fondness...thinking bad skin and a little junk in the trunk wasn't, "that bad" and that it really "added to my character."
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Isn't it interesting? I think it's a cultural thing, there's something wrong with you if you're content with your life as it is - like if you aren't dwelling on the past or the future then you aren't moving through life.
I don't know it's a bit strange though, your blog kind of makes it sound like there's been no job you've loved - maybe the times you are nostalgically remembering with fondness are the friendships and social pursuits that are associated with those times? I just say that because I was there for most of them, and I expect that you are nostalgic for me!
By the way, I think it's weird how things we once thought of as completed ugly and retarded can, over time and maybe the pressure of the media, become attractive - like skinny jeans and spandex tights, I'm pretty sure everyone hated skinny jeans and spandex pants in the 90s - what's up with this resurgence? And why do I all of a sudden find myself thinking - maybe spandex tights aren't so bad after all....damn those people who look good in anything!
Miss you!
-Casey
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