Search for Meaning

I start looking in the kitchen. I look through the cupboards and above the fridge. I throw everything on the lazy Susan out onto the counter - then I pull the fridge out and look behind it. I move to the living room next; the TV is the first to move to the center of the room. Every inch of the cabinet that the TV sits in is thoroughly examined; empty CD cases and old videos are thrown into a pile revealing nothing. The hallway is bare; the closets never had anything put into them in the first place - I look at their emptiness. The storage room is a lost cause; I ignore it like always. The bathroom yields an old twisty toothbrush behind the garbage under the sink, and hairballs behind the toilet. In my bedroom I search under the bed; I clean there meticulously and often because of my allergies - but you never know; nothing. I pull clothing out of the closet, searching through the pockets as I go; there's a rubber band. Finally I pull out the books and start flipping through the pages, midway through I find an old letter that I was writing to someone that I knew I would never deliver it to; it's a sappy sort of letter exposing the ridiculous feelings I was having at the time. I read the letter over and over again - then I put everything away. Twisty toothbrush, rubber band, and a letter full of true yet sappy sentiments - I call the day a win.

Hope

She asked me what I hoped for, it was issued almost as a challange; I said I didn't hope - because they were never realized. Later on that night I asked myself what I hoped for, but in my mind I changed the question to what I wanted to hear: what I wanted. Want is more justifiable than hope, I think; we want numerous things, but we don't expect to get them - hope comes with expectations, and expectations often come with pain. I want a job that I like, I want a house, I want an attractive wife and kids but I'm not willing to set them on a pedestal. The wants I have are so much that I fear that if I actively pursue them I will only find myself crushed in the end. By not hoping for them, though, I crush myself - here and now.

Apartments

It's a hole in the wall room; there's barely enough floor space for my ragged mattress, and chair - let alone the pile of dirty clothing to come. There is an ancient gas stove against one wall which appears to have functioned more as a desk than an actual stove. There's no sink in the bathroom, which is a closet in the back of the room, but there is a sink next to the stove - apparently they share. It's an old loft-style apartment deep inside of the city: the actual loft being barely large enough for the assortment of broken and disused odds and ends that were shoved there upon some unfortunate's initial move in, and left there long since his departure. A series of three old wood-framed, single-pane, moldy windows are midway up the wall, providing a view of a slow-moving and noisy traffic below and other equally lousy apartments across the street. This is the only apartment that I have seen today that I can actually afford.

The landlord is a haggard old lady who looks like she has better things to do than actually trying to sell something as doomed as this apartment to a young student like myself. She was reluctant to show me the room when I had asked previously - so it is my assumption that the person before only signed the lease because they were too ignorant to have a look first; it was probably some kid just out of home excited to find something within the budget of their first or second job. The tour, of course, only took about a minute; long enough for her to show me that the toilet flushed, the windows could be opened for fresh air,and the lights and stove could be used at will. She was asking $375 a month for this, plus gas, water, and electric. To her surprise I slowly nod my head. She beckons me to follow her back to her office and then congenially begins to chat about the local this and that which make this apartment such an incredibly located place; the mere fact that the place is no longer going to sit unused has made her day - and for that I am thanked with dull incessant chatter. I inquire about public utilities only to be informed that I can put a maximum of two mid-size garbage bags out per week. I roughly calculate that I can clear the left-overs out in about a month to a month and a half and sign the lease.

My possessions, which all fit quite comfortably in my economy car include: a rolled up old futon mattress, a small dissembled slat rocking chair, a pile of clothing, a stack of books, a broom, and two stained pots that I primarily used to catch the drips in the last place that I lived. It takes me half-an-hour to move into the apartment. It takes an hour to haphazardly sort through the stuff that was left behind and decide that all of it is garbage, then get it into bags leaned up against the wall by the entry way. That finished I sit down in my chair and begin to read. Of course, I've read this book before; I've read it several times, so it doesn't have to much appeal right now. I set it down and climb into the loft so that I can have a better view through the windows and across the street. For a while I just look at the old brick building, not at anything in particular. Eventually my eyes are caught by a window in which the blinds are open. There are plants inside the window, catching what little sun they can, there is also an empty chair - and the evidence of a very clean apartment. None of the other windows have the blinds drawn, so I make a note of this particular window before going in search of something to eat.

Questions

I've been wondering for a while now if I should change my ways. Would it be a good thing to stop being who I am, and who I'm comfortable with- to leave my shell and step out into the real world? What could I accomplish if I was willing to let myself go? For the longest time I have been comfortable with who I am. I have been comfortable with a personality type that allows me to make relatively accurate predictions about what will happen to me, but what if I just let things happen? What if I let go of the mediocrity and the extremely well-guarded and tentative optimism? What if I let myself dream, and hope; live? Would my friends like me more, or would they be confused and bewildered; have they grown to like the cynic that I have become, or does it bore them? I still wonder.

Crying

It's dark. The clock reads 3:20 AM. The sounds of stifled sobbing are coming from the apartment above mine. You don't wake up at this time of night and just start crying – something happens, something that took time to build up; somehow a monster was created in advance and finally, somehow managed to rear its head at this frightful hour. Why? How? These are the questions that tear through my mind as I lie in my bed watching the hands on the clock tick. Maybe tomorrow I should stop by – just to make sure that she is alright, but damn; I don't even know who she is. I guess I could pretend to be slightly annoyed about the noise, or I could say that I was awakened by her crying and just wanted to make sure everything is alright... Finally a realization strikes me; I am caught up in a series of events that I'm not even a part of. How is it that I find myself so attached to this mystery person? Why am I willing to go so far out of my way just to see that she's okay? Maybe it was her fault, maybe it was just a huge mix up – a mistake; only one way to find out, though. It isn't really that far out of the way.