For Tomorrow
"London's so nice back in your seamless rhymes, but we're lost on the Westway. So we hold each other tightly, and hold on for tomorrow."
It's just a waiting game right now. As I said in the piece I wrote the last time Jennifer left, I've been counting the minutes since and the minutes until. Perhaps I should count days or weeks or months, but when you really want something, even the seconds can be painful. In some ways, I feel like every one of those minutes - some 90,000 - was wasted. Probably I shouldn't be thinking like that, but in the long slow hours between work and work, little else seems to capture the imagination. In terms of emotional priorities, whatever it is that we have comes before this life I'm currently living, before even my writing. Everything I do right now is a means to an end.
That end is still some way off, and I'm not even going to pretend I'm not struggling with the idea. I am anything but a patient and motivated person, and this distance is driving me insane.
Still, Time Out. No work for a week. Jennifer for a week. Jennifer for 10,000 minutes. Hold off on the resolutions, on the promises and accompanying hardships. Find the smile that isn't marked 'Customer Service'. It's there somewhere, and I know that tomorrow morning at Heathrow I won't even have to look for it. We can just close the door for a little while and pretend like all the miles and the timezones aren't there. We can be who we're going to be when we work this thing out. And a week from Sunday, when I hear the bell for another round of me versus all the things I hate doing, I know I'll feel up to coming out swinging.
That thing I always say to myself about my writing, that thing about never catching your dreams if you don't chase them, that applies here, too. Even when it's the end of another long day and all I can do is lie on my back aching, staring at the ceiling and counting the minutes since and the minutes until, that teenage mantra holds true. All of these things will come to pass.
For now, though, Time Out. There are 10,000 minutes on the clock, and I don't plan on wasting a single one.
It's just a waiting game right now. As I said in the piece I wrote the last time Jennifer left, I've been counting the minutes since and the minutes until. Perhaps I should count days or weeks or months, but when you really want something, even the seconds can be painful. In some ways, I feel like every one of those minutes - some 90,000 - was wasted. Probably I shouldn't be thinking like that, but in the long slow hours between work and work, little else seems to capture the imagination. In terms of emotional priorities, whatever it is that we have comes before this life I'm currently living, before even my writing. Everything I do right now is a means to an end.
That end is still some way off, and I'm not even going to pretend I'm not struggling with the idea. I am anything but a patient and motivated person, and this distance is driving me insane.
Still, Time Out. No work for a week. Jennifer for a week. Jennifer for 10,000 minutes. Hold off on the resolutions, on the promises and accompanying hardships. Find the smile that isn't marked 'Customer Service'. It's there somewhere, and I know that tomorrow morning at Heathrow I won't even have to look for it. We can just close the door for a little while and pretend like all the miles and the timezones aren't there. We can be who we're going to be when we work this thing out. And a week from Sunday, when I hear the bell for another round of me versus all the things I hate doing, I know I'll feel up to coming out swinging.
That thing I always say to myself about my writing, that thing about never catching your dreams if you don't chase them, that applies here, too. Even when it's the end of another long day and all I can do is lie on my back aching, staring at the ceiling and counting the minutes since and the minutes until, that teenage mantra holds true. All of these things will come to pass.
For now, though, Time Out. There are 10,000 minutes on the clock, and I don't plan on wasting a single one.
posted by Michael at 9:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home