Spinning and ruminating. Despite a string of great days, that’s what I’ve been doing with some of my free time. I’ve also gone out and explored the city and gone on walks and had job interviews. I went to a beer festival on Saturday. I have three interviews this week. And this past Sunday night, I tried to give dating the old college try again by reaching out to a handful of people who had liked me.
The spinning and ruminating has, as often happens, taken place on the page. I have one thing I’ve been writing (for the better part of a week) in which I’m trying to figure out how to build the type of excitement in meeting someone new that doesn’t feel forced and could lead to something more. Organic, easy, and full of laughter. What I want out of those experiences, in addition to fun and good conversation, is a sense of consistency. I almost dread first dates, but crave that everyday or near everyday type of connection. Getting to that point in a relationship takes time and a lot of trial and error, and honestly, I’m not sure I’m up for the task. That post is sitting at over 2,500 words. Then, last night, I had a less than ideal experience on a dating site. I started writing about that. It’s just over 2,200 words with one funny picture. I always try to maintain my sense of humor.
In the process of writing that second post, I had noticed web hits for my category about pets. I was thinking about the joke I make about an ex’s dog probably liking me more than the ex does. Searching through content for the words “woo woo” led me to the draft post from 2022 that I published today. Looking at other items in my drafts folder, of which there are over 200, I rabbit-holed my way into reading some old drafts – hence the clippings post from 2020.
If anything, I should probably be deleting old posts and not publishing them, but I kinda liked the poems in the Clippings post, and well, the woo woo post was a fond memory. I’m not sure why I shelved it and didn’t publish it when I first wrote it. I’ve read a few others that are sitting in the draft folder. There are another 137 posts that I marked private and either felt they should stay private or never got around to re-reading them.
I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well. It’s gray out and I haven’t left the apartment today. Often, revisiting old writing gets me down – not so much because of the content (though some of that gets me down) but mostly in the sense of revisiting that exhausting question of why bother with any of this.
On top of this, I’ve had an impending sense of doom that something big (a medical scare or a major world event), is going to knock me down. The other day in the shower before heading out into the sunshine, I imagined getting ill before I land a job or a partner and becoming a sort of untouchable. Who hires or falls in love with a dying man. This is the first time in my life (at least that I can remember), ever really thinking like this. Maybe it’s because things have been going pretty well that I’m anticipating the other shoe dropping. Maybe I should count myself lucky – I’m sure there are people who live in a constant state of fear and morbidity.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for now. I felt like I should add context for the posts from 2020 and 2022. Maybe I’ll wrestle with other two. Maybe I’ll go for a walk.