To Stand Still

That last post wasn't supposed to end on such a low note, but I guess low notes are just what I do.  No matter.  I'm going to try again.



My music taste has been undergoing a major overhaul as of recent.  Really I'm just re-exploring an avenue that I left behind years ago.

In early high school I went through I short phase of listening to bands like Tiger Army and The Horrorpops, which sound like this:





If I remember correctly, this is also when I began reading comics like Hellsing and JTHM.  It kind of makes me laugh to think that I was so stereotypically angst-ridden as a teenager.  Of course, I am, perhaps, still just as stereotypically angst-ridden now.  Depression is always en vogue.

Anyway, most of this stuff got left behind as I got older, except for JTHM because it's funny, not to mention contains one of the more interesting non-fire-and-brimstone versions of hell I've come across (I could do a whole separate entry on media interpretations of hell.  Maybe I will).  But the past few months I've been using Pandora to find music, and since I've been on something of a nostalgia fest, I made a Horrorpops channel, which led from one band to another, to another, and so on.  And you know what?  It's been awesome.  I've found stuff like this:







I'm not sure why these things in particular are resonating with me right now.  Maybe because I'm back home, which has been triggering all sorts of nostalgic fits regarding everything from books to dressing habits.  I really want to leave, to move somewhere else and try life over, I guess.  But that's something else I wish would change.

For about a year I was moving every couple months to an entirely new place.  England to Naperville to Akron to Oxford... I had been some of those places before, in fact, was quite used to them, but the transience of it was nice.  Actually, the past four years of my life I haven't been in once place for more than four months.  Any problem I had, whether it was with a research paper, a person, or myself, could be pushed aside in favor of going back home, going back to school, studying abroad, and so on.

I have been living at home now for seven months.  To put it lightly, I think I'm losing my mind (as if any of the previous entries hadn't already alerted you to that).  Every fiber of my being wants to bolt, to desperately dig for any chance of getting away, to go somewhere else.

The problem here isn't in the physical picking up and moving.  I have always been restless and prone to wandering off, and this was never discouraged by anyone in my life so long as I was careful and promised to come back.  The problem is why.  Dealing with my problems is difficult, and I've pretty much managed to avoid it all for quite some time.  However, no matter how many times I bounce between locales, I can't get away from myself.  Whatever I left behind at school or home is still there whether I am or not, and just because no one around me knows who I am doesn't mean that I've become a different person.

So I'm going to stop it.

I'm embarrassed that I've been conducting myself like this, running away so obviously without even noticing.  Like I said before, so stereotypical.  My inner hipster is horrified at how common I am.

For right now, I'm going to stay put.  The things I want to accomplish can easily be done from here, and if I find that to be somehow less interesting, then I've completely lost my imagination and abilities as a storyteller and there are much larger issues to be addressed.  I will save money and energy.  I will push through the restlessness and hold myself very still.  I will pay attention to my own heart and mind instead of shuffling back and forth from place to place, and when the signs of complete system failure start to present themselves, I will notice them because I am not so incredibly busy with other things.

I don't know how long this will take.  What I do know is that, until I can say with certainty when I move it is towards and not away from something, I will be living in Akron, Ohio.  This makes me sad, because I really want to go somewhere else.  Anywhere else.  But I also want to really enjoy the somewhere else I end up someday, so I know I can't go there just yet.