The Last 2 Minutes

I switched gym, and no, not because that “24-hour fitness” is a traumatic name, I grew insensitive about it. The new one has a better environment and services. There’s also a steam room in it, one thing I like to do is to force myself to stay inside for a certain time, with my low heat tolerance, I would want to get out almost immediately. But no, I stay until the time out, psychotic? Maybe, sometimes I’m pretty good at forcing myself. The last two minutes of this process are grueling, it feels like an eternity, I absolutely hated it.

But I choose to do that, and I have to do that, to remind myself what it’d be like at the end of the next two years, the time when I really receive my freedom. Because that’s what I’m feeling right now, like the last 2 minutes. It has become a more intense and extreme feeling since Will and I ended things.

I still have about 86.2% of my life that I’m mostly happy with, and am in control of, sort of. Don’t get me wrong, whoever knows me also knows that I’m not a guy who’s just too greedy and does not know how to be content with things. Surfing and a couple of other activities are about some of the only defenses I have against the dullness that the 40-hour-a-week brings to my life. There’s nothing against anything or anyone in particular – well, maybe a little bit, if they could be a little bit less indifferent. But no, the major problem is me, at the core I don’t find pure joy doing what I do at the moment, my skillsets right now are merely a tool towards the objectives. I have to admit though, I say that I can’t change the situation, is because the legal and financial leverage it has on me has been great enough, but over time, I kept feeling that I am being pushed over the edge of giving it all up. Giving up something, most of the time, is not in me, but THIS is the danger play, you don’t know if it’s in you, you just suck it up and do it by the seconds, if you give up, you know it’s not in you.

Of course, I understand what Jim consoles me with. If I try, I bet I could find a hint of personal happiness doing what I do. But I just don’t like it enough that I don’t even want to try. Yet this is not a 2-minute wait-out, nor the last 2 laps of a 5k, during which the rewarding dopamine could just be released by imagining the end of them.

I got to know that Will moved back to Denver CO from his mom’s post, I envy that, to be backed and supported by a loving family, and to be able to just change things. I would like a change in my life. “It’s not the environment, it’s you.” To hell. I’m a human being, and I’m a social animal, it is the environment.

Paul invited me to go to Chicago with him the last weekend, for a gay soccer tournament he’s playing in, I wanted to surf so didn’t end up going, struggled a bit because there is another friend Maggie who I long to see there. I should have gone with him. I could have used that little trip, as a mild remedy to this state of mind, that I don’t feel in control of things in my life, what a theme for 2021.

At least I’m not alone, right? Am I? Yea, kinda. That’s why Sunday is the worst, shaken and numbed by anxiety and emptiness, lying on the bed letting the music play, and waiting for the daily nightmares to free me from this agony. But I try to not let the 23.8% of life bring me down this much, so there’s that. Would it be better if I’m not alone? Probably. My problem is not with being alone though.

On a warm summer’s evening
On a train bound for nowhere
I met up with the gambler
We were both too tired to sleep
So we took turns a-starin’
Out the window at the darkness
The boredom overtook us
And he began to speak

He said, “Son, I’ve made a life
Out of readin’ people’s faces
Knowin’ what the cards were
By the way they held their eyes
So if you don’t mind my sayin’
I can see you’re out of aces
For a taste of your whiskey
I’ll give you some advice”

So I handed him my bottle
And he drank down my last swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette
And asked me for a light
And the night got deathly quiet
And his face lost all expression
Said, “If you’re gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done
Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep
‘Cause every hand’s a winner
And every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep”