"If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive."

Against my hoping, the weight of indifference has not lifted since my last post. It's terrible... just waking up, going through the motions, and sleeping. Nothing seems to make much of a difference to me, and I feel like I'm only doing things because they have to be done... not because I'm excited about doing them or because I see the long-term benefits of getting them done. Even in writing this, for the first time in my life (I think), I don't really care about my sentence structure or grammar, and I don't intend to read over this before hitting the "Publish" button. And if you know me at all... you should know that sentence structure, grammar, and a lack of typos are pretty much the only things that I live for. See? I see that glaring preposition sitting there at the end of that sentence, just mocking me.... but I don't care. Let it laugh-- the delete key is just too far away right now.

Actually, when I think about it, I guess I usually get to feeling like this around my birthday every year. Even last year... the best birthday of my life, celebrated with the best friends of my life... the feeling of indifference was lingering, threatening to stamp out the happiness.

I guess I just kind of feel like I'm holding on to too many things and don't have room to pick up the new things that are coming into my life. It feels like both hands are full to capacity and that there is still so much left lying on the ground that needs to be picked up, but I'm not able. All small things, too, but small things that are very heavy.... grad school worries, future career worries, a few job-related issues... plus, last week I sent a short story and a few poems out to a couple different magazines, desperately trying to get published... it feels like nothing matters as much as hearing back from those magazines... for some reason, the security of the concreteness of the impending rejections is something I apparently think I need in my life right now.

Also last week... right before I sent away my work, actually... I got a call from Tom. The first call in a very long time. I don't talk much about Tom, but I still think about him every so often, wondering how he's doing, what's he's up to, who he's with... now I know: he is getting married. The first boy to ever tell me he loved me is marrying a girl named Jessica from Brooklyn. Not that I'm not happy for him... that's not it at all. I guess I'm just using this piece of news as another reason to feel sorry for myself, which is definitely not something I need right now. Memories of old relationships (and the flings that never made it that far) make up the majority of the weights I'm trying to juggle, I think.

Although I think I'm the furthest from feeling like Charlotte than I ever have been before, something she said when she was trying to get over Harry sticks out in my mind.... "For where I'm at right now, you might as well be a gay man with carnations." If you don't watch the show, you probably won't get it... but I know there are a few of you who do, and I hope you can make the connection.

Not the cheeriest of posts and, once again, I apologize. I'll cross my fingers for something to strike me as write-able.