Evergreen

Excuses and reasons,
And now ’tis the season
for all that I never got right.

All that I’ve got is tonight.

The weather refuses to feel like winter. It lingers in its uniquely awkward southeastern style, sitting somewhere between cool and warm and looking overall depressing. It’s like visiting Seattle, but if Seattle was less depressed and more bipolar.

I sometimes wish that Mississippi had seasons other than “Hot” and “Not as hot”, but there is some bit of charm to be found in the few weeks we try to pass off as Autumn. The roads are accented with the bright reds and yellows of the leaves in their brief colorful time. But their struggle isn’t just against the very small amount of time the weather gives them to show off. It’s  a struggle to be seen at all as they are buried behind the persistent evergreens.

Evergreens. So many of them here, keeping December green. Living year round.

I don’t understand that feeling. I can barely live a single day at a time. If I’m really honest, the cycle doesn’t even take that long. I wake up feeling lifeless until I am brought back to life with coffee and a shower that washes off the past 24 hours. The rest of the day is a fight as well, as I depend on shoving caffeine and food into myself just to maintain the desire to continue so I can later on shove more caffeine and food into myself.

The feeling of being alive fades too quickly, like the Mississippi Autumn. Five minutes of inspiration pop up, but by the time the words are being moved from my brain into my fingertips onto the blank page, those five minutes have passed. Everything feels forced. It feels dead again. I don’t feel alive.

I am stuck in the constant tension that exists in this world. The tension between wanting to go all in with everything I attempt and the flip side of wanting to shut off from everything around. Truthfully, I rarely know on which side of the fence I rest.

Sometimes I want to write and create something worthwhile for no other reason than to create. All too often I want to create so people will just look at me and think I’m somewhat entertaining. Even more often, I don’t want to mess with it at all. I take two months off from blogging and as soon as I return I’m staring at site views and visits and buying into the masquerade again. I heard a song that says “There comes a time when a man loses his mind” and I think that time has arrived for me. I’m really not all that worried about it though.

I don’t really want to be alone. But most of the time, I just want to be left alone. It’s totally different. Caring about friends or family or a significant other brings about the potential of hurt, and at this point in time I can’t see the pain as being worth it. I just want to stand on a rooftop somewhere and soak in the view of the world by myself. Is it an awful desire to get a bigger and grander perspective and enjoy a fine view all alone, like I want? Can I maybe learn to be a loner? Or even worse yet, am I always going to have that desire, at least in some tiny amount, to want somebody to stand there with me as we figure out this world and which side of the fence we stand on?

It rarely feels worth it. It rarely makes sense.

I want to live and I want to be able to soak in all of life. Even when I’m on the wrong side of the fence, I feel sure that I want that for myself. I only wish I could do it year-round as opposed to the brief few moments in which things make sense.

All too quickly, the Mississippi Autumn has passed. Maybe a few weeks, then it is gone. We only have a tiny amount of time to enjoy the colors before they detach and everything is dead. The world feels dead. The holidays are upon us, with all of the cold bleakness that they bring.

But that’s not really the case. Down here, there still too much green to believe that the world is dead. With all of that green, there’s no way the world is as dead as I feel. And I’m jealous. I’m jealous of it all.

I want to have those colorful moments of inspiration, no matter how fleeting they are. But I want more than that. I want to be able to stay green even in the times that everything around has seemingly passed away. I want to make sense of the contradictions, or at least make light of them. I want to balance inspiration and cynicism into the beautiful pattern that comes from the combination. I want to mock seriousness while mourning with those who mourn. I want to find intimacy in isolation.

More than anything? I want to be evergreen. I want to live all year round.

Merry Christmas