Wasted Hours

What would it look like if every time we felt lonely or self-destructive, we made an attempt to better ourselves? How would that work?

That was my Facebook status from this morning, and has been something that I've willingly chosen to wrestle with all day. I wanted to force my own hand. I wanted an answer to the question of why after twenty years of living I haven't found a way to successfully deal with loneliness. Why when all goes wrong, I still feel like a neurotic fifteen year old in the bedroom in the house I grew up in trying to play power chords on a guitar and illegally downloading Gin Blossoms ballads about how unfair life truly is (my fifteen year old safe would hate to know that I don't like the Gin Blossoms any more...but hey, Empire Records was a big stage of my life). And this morning was like any other. I woke up, reached for my phone to send a text message that I knew would bring no good to my life, and then I stopped and waited. What if every time I felt self-destructive, I did something constructive for my life? I ended up downloading a podcast from my church at home, an institution that I have not stepped foot in since summer (and even then, I rarely was able to attend), and I listened. Instead of talking myself into or out of what to feel, I let myself be influenced by something that I knew would be good for me. And so sprung this crazy idea.

Over the next few weeks as I deal with the post-breakup blues, I want to discover things about myself that I didn't previously know. And I want to encourage other people to do the same. Some days may be trivial and many may end in me performing the perfunctory duties of my everyday life without much thought for myself. But in between, within those wasted hours, I will continue with this journey. I will stop and take deep breaths whenever I feel myself slipping, and ask these questions over and over, a personal mantra repeating endlessly in my brain. The continuing story of Bungalow Bill will move onward. And maybe I'll learn something from the process. As for now, here are a few rules to follow if you find yourself similarly lonely, exhausted, and wearing articles of clothing that ex-girlfriends actually made for you years ago (true story...actually all of my sleeping garments have some relation to an ex-girlfriend).

Rule Number 1: The soundtrack to your life is very, very crucial. One thing that I've realized in the past few weeks is that soul music does exactly what it's intended to do. Despite the fact that seemingly every soul musician ends up a born again Christian due to an ill encounter with steaming grits, is murdered by his father, or suffers a tragic drug overdose, the music actually does make you feel better. Ya know, if you ignore the fact that most of the lyrics are about crippling depression and just enjoy the dance that you can do to it. Oh, Al Green, you are an ironic bastard. Whatever you do, though, don't listen to Joy Division. I see you looking at your record player and hoping I'll let you put on your copy of Closer. Just remember, what happened to Ian Curtis can happen to you too.

Rule Number 2: Find your own way to meditate. Let's all face it, meditation is weird. You just sit there, pretend like your back doesn't hurt like hell, and try to clear your mind of all feeling, which of course causes your brain to react negatively and flood you with feeling. The concept isn't all bad though. I'm definitely a fan of things that distract me in a positive way from whatever is actually going on in my life. For me (at least today) it was downloading that podcast. In the future, I'm not sure what it's going to be. But I'm 99% positive that it won't involve sitting uncomfortably upright while I wonder if my Mom's concerns about me one day becoming a hunchbacked curmudgeon weren't completely unfounded.

Rule Number 3: People don't like it when you bitch. And people also don't like it when you mope around and consciously enunciate every grunt and breath that you take as if you're trying so hard not to bitch. I am making this rule not because I suspect you, reader, of being guilty of said crime. I'm making this rule because I think my housemates will forcefully extract me from my room if I walk around narrating my own life and complaining about not having enough tortillas when everybody knows I'm actually just pissed because I don't have a girlfriend anymore. If anything, this blog is to stop me from doing that by actually dealing with my emotions, trivializing them, and putting them out on the internet where, if I'm lucky, somebody trying to find an in-depth Beatles analysis might stumble across them. This may seem worse, but if you ever see me in person you'll agree that it's totally better.

As time goes on, I'm sure I'll add rules to this list. I really expect to add a lot of things to this process. But one way or another, I'm ready to begin a process of bettering myself in simple and complex ways. I'll let you know how it goes. Keep an eye out though. If cases of whiskey start disappearing from Trader Joe's and I haven't posted an update in a while, you might need to send out a search team. If we're lucky, though, I'll make it through the days unscathed, using those wasted hours for something more.