Apocalypse Awakening

Time is running out, like the pages of this journal. Time for what? I don’t know. “Like sands through the hourglass”…..the intro to an old ass soap opera.

Soap operas. Those days seem 1,000 years ago. I remember scheduling my college classes around Days of Our Lives. What a time. So foreign now. Did I really exist in the universe where Fruit of the Loom had a cornucopia in the logo, where the Bernstein Bears cavorted in the woods?! Where Haas grew avocados?!

Ayyyyeeeeee, we trippin’ down a rabbit hole now. The unreality of the moment collides with the reality of my pen on the page, and I wonder what surreal news will break today, like so many aliens at a Miami mall.

I want to shave my head. Nay, I need to shave my head. My hair has been falling out in clumps for over a year now. I have all of 5 hairs left for my scraggly little bun. It depresses me to make my silly little hairstyles, so I tie a bandana around my skull in hopes of at least distracting from the pale patches of scalp that peek through. I don’t want to upset my family, but I’m also tired of ignoring the voice in my head that screams to just fucking DO IT.

It won’t be cute. I know this. Some girls REALLY pull it off. I have a lumpy narrow head and a big beak on my face; no amount of makeup will help in this case.

The wind is whipping fiercely out here on the porch, and I can feel the fun starting to push through the clouds.

I imagined such a different life, such a more boring existence, than the one I am living now. Living through the Fall of Empire and Climate Collapse was really not part of my inner imaginings. I am jealous of those who managed to fulfill their soul contracts prior to this part of the timeline; but perhaps there are those even further down the future line who are jealous of ME! What a thought to have on a Monday morning before staff meeting.

I think about him often, more than I want to, more than he deserves. It is so strong, carrying a grief that no one else can carry with me. So isolating. In my meanest moments, I think I deserve it, for tempting Fate and shattering lives and feeding the worst parts of myself with reckless abandon. “You deserve this Lonely Grief.”

And then, I know I don’t. In the same way that I don’t deserve the good things that happen, too. The Universe is capricious, fickle, unjust.

[Do I really believe that?]

I don’t know what I believe anymore. Everything has been stripped away – all sense of normalcy has dissolved, and I am left unmoored in ever-changing chaos.

What to do besides grab the wheel of this creaky ass pirate ship and try to steer toward something that looks like land?

Dry leaves swirling in November winds. Still not cold enough. Me, who despises the Cold. What I wouldn’t give for a good snowstorm right now. Didn’t know shoveling was a good time until I couldn’t shovel anymore.

So are the days of our lives.