Re:

I ended my last salient post with "Farewell, Quiet of the night." I got a response to that one, which I'd like to address.

Anonymous said...

It should not be farewell but see you later.

I understand what whoever this may be is trying to say, but they're wrong. It's the idea that I'm not letting go, but simply departing from for a time, and that's a nice thought that appeals to the contrarian faux controversial philosopher in me, but that's simply not how change works. If I was adopting my new positions as a lark, as a game, perhaps as a phase or simply a tool through which I could lubricate my college experience that would be one thing, but those things are all too easy and accomplish far too little. I'm trying, not wholly successfully, to leave it behind. True change always means leaving something behind, saying goodbye to what was in order to make room for what will be.

I've done a lot of things in the vein of severing my ties to that life. Most of them involve a part of my life which is not up for public discussion, but at the most basic level theres the issue of rejecting the opportunity presented by insomnia. I made an honest attempt at it tonight, and I haven't gone back to the old ways, but somewhere around 2:30 when you've gone through the discussion of whether or not my psych T.A.s would be more willing to accept an excuse of "mental illness" and you've spent half an hour trying to remember the name of a comic (it turned out to be Pablo Francisco) and another half hour debating the relative merits of weilding two hatchets versus a large two handed axe in a variety of scenarios, including Zombie Apocalypse, and another half hour discussing how the relative merits of these two fighting styles are played out in various video games and you've gotten to the point where you're quietly singing Sweeny Todd songs into your pillow it's time to simply admit that you're awake.

Still I feel like this is a step of progress. Yes I wasn't able to stop myself from being awake, but I have curtailed what I did with that time. Every night I spend waking and not wrapped in the embrace of my addictions chardonnay lips is a step I take out of the darkened lair, and that, ultimately, is what I have to do.