Consummated Randomness

To Destroy is to Create

This has been an unexpected, eye-opening, life-adjusting week. It all started last Saturday when I openly admitted to my sister, while drunk, that I get so horny sometimes (I'm drunk everytime) that I'll sleep, or at least fool around with, people who I heretofore find unattractive. Though I was drunk, it was an alarmingly accurate introspective realization. Living here in the keys, living life post-Gary, has become a strange game of Dream Date. I lost my dream date, or at least lost a pretty good date and the despair over that put blinders on me, convincing me that every guy from then on out would be a lesser date (some lesser dates are fine for some girls!). And so began my dignity decline...I stopped caring about myself, I stopped searching for Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Hot for one Night and found myself settling for Mr. Right Now, quite a few of them, who apparently saw something hot in the blankness consuming my eyes.

My first thoughts waking up the next morning were not the socially ingrained feelings of guilt (politics of sexual shame) but, instead, I woke up thinking "I hope he looks as good as he must have last night." In all honesty, none of the guys have been that ugly, but few looked good enough to fit realistically at my side in a crowd, a.k.a not up to standard. Am I superficial? To an extent...but not many people ever thought Gary was hot and I loved him like no other. Anyways, I'm sidetracked now...So, living in the Keys has driven me to levels of desperation that I've only experienced during those dark months right after the break-up, and I finally realized this the other evening. It has been over two months now since I have had good sex (and it was great) and before that it had been another month, and before that a month (though Matt and I had some pretty good sex during the tenure of our psuedo-relationship from February until August). I guess it's really starting to sink in that, though its relieving, good sex isn't enough to sustain me anymore. I miss having a loving companion as much as I miss having great sex and meeting Josh made this fact resoundingly clear. The two separate weeks I spent with him were probably two of the happiest weeks I've experienced since Gary and I broke up. Being in the arms of someone who I could tell really liked me and cared about me was sweet medicine for this desolate cough in my chest.

Unfortunately, as great as Josh is, or seems to be, he was only temporary relief and that's all he really ever could have been. Not only because he lives so far away and has his own issues to get through, but also because I have my own issues that I have been ignoring, pushed aside, and gently stepped around. True, I have finally gotten over Gary, which was the biggest step, but now I'm left standing here on this bed of rock known as the Florida Keys and, though there's only one road out of here, I have no direction in life.

I've been living a hedonist's life and Monday night bore no shortage of dramatic evidentiary support. I have been living day to day, seeking out the most pleasure I can, and shirking almost every shred of responsibility I possibly could. After a weekend of heavy imbibing and seriously late-night good-times I had tried to command myself to have a quiet, responsible-ish night in on Monday. That was not to be however. When my dear sister showed up to my work at the end of the night I was enjoying my very stiff shift-drink and she convinced me that we should go out for the night because she didn't work the next day and had no plans; so why not let's spend it hungover.

Again, responsibility tossed like the rotting salads at work.

The night went by much like every other night out at the Dog and the Monkey do. I end up getting really drunk, we stay too late, the ugly-lights come on, we hop in the car heading to Dion's for some food, and end up home sometime around 4:30 or 5am. Except this night took a parallel course around 3am when the fiancee (or former fiancee) of a good friend of mine, who happens to have a vicious problem with alcohol, shows up at the bar and we consequently get into an argument. No fighting at the bar, I saved it for the car; my sister, in her normal obtuseness, decided to offer him a ride home since we were passing by. I was utterly drunk, beyond the point where you can talk reason into me, and my sister starts bitching at me for being a drunken ass to the fiancee...well, some choice words were directed at her and it set off her temper. After wrecklessly slamming her brakes more than a few times in the middle of the highway (causing me to go face first into the back of the seat in front of me several times while I was trying to eat my fried chicken) we finally got home and I was livid and was rough with her car seat trying to get out of the car. Well lil' miss crazypill decided to grab my nearest possession, like usual, (it was an ipod this time) and launch it 65 feet across the driveway and yard. Well, the scene on quiet little 4th street in the quiet and quaint KCB then took on that of a COPS episode on FOX: a bunch of screaming and hollering, hair pulling, clothes ripping, epithets flying EVERYWHERE, property damage etc. Then comes the intervention, and thankfully it wasn't brave men in blue, rather, the parents descending downstairs and wanting to know what the hell is going on. 30 minutes later after many a curse word, a broken mirror on my scooter, and her car door broken on its hinges and not able to shut, I had a bit of an emotional breakdown in front of my parents...a rage-tinged, caught-in-the-throat crackling vocal performance of something like this: "I'm so sick of it here" "you're a drunk loser, go to bed" "I'm not a loser, I'm just lost and sick of my life here, I've got to get out" but very flourishing and dramatic, perhaps Oscar-worthy if it had been Hilary Swank. It was a night from hell...the third time I'd ever lost control of myself and acted out violently to the point where I scared myself due to my lack of ability to halt the situation. It was nothing short of a wake-up call. Not a sign that I was or am a drunk, not a sign that I'm a loser, but a sign that I am indeed, a Hedonist, and that my life is seriously stalled.

I've not gone out since that night, and I've only had two glasses of wine with dinner. I've spent my time amongst myself and this computer and working: a bit of introspective solitude. I yearn for the day when I once again have a companion, a lover, someone who is special and brings out the best in me and I realized over the course of this week that I will never have that until I have climbed back out of my hole, taken on responsibility, risk even, and find harmony and balance within myself. I need to put the pieces of my puzzle back together, leaving just the one that will complete it, that way I know what the piece looks like and I won't prematurely try and fit wrongly shaped pieces into my puzzle under the false notion that they fit due to the open space left by other missing pieces. To do this, I definitely must leave the Keys; I must step out from under the welcoming roof of my parent's hospitality and situate myself in a place where light reaches upturned leaf, water to my roots, and my face can glow with self-reliance and pride.

I've been planning on leaving here for a while now, and I may have left earlier had my car never been totaled and traded in for a Geico insurance check. It isn't very easy to even consider a move without having a vehicle to rely on and thus I've been biding my time, saving more money, and hoping for a summons from somewhere extricating me from my sun-scorched and salt-lashed binding. That summons came on Saturday, shortly after being let-down because an offer I made on a desired car was rejected, when I opened my email and found a job offer from New Mexico. Does it matter that it is only a seasonal summer employment? Or that the pay is only nominal in comparison to the cheese I forage here? Not at all. I have, heretofore, been trapped here, not really having a prime opportunity to escape and this seasonal employment opportunity is not just an opportunity to go out West and get my hiking legs back under me, it is an opportunity to uproot myself from the Keys, to sever ties, say bon voyage, merry sailing, and to literally drive off into the sunset.

posted by RPF @ 10:08 PM