Reflections

This week was intense, filled with a lot of working and playing hard, and now that it's finally Friday I find myself filled with relief at the prospect of a weekend to chill, relax, work-out, eat healthy, and catch up on some much-needed sleep.

I went out every single night this past week, after going out four nights in a row last weekend with IP. Monday I went out to dinner with a co-worker, Tuesday I had therapy and a facial (which sounds relaxing and didn't include drinking which was a plus, but also did not constitute an evening of unadulterated downtime), Wednesday I went out with my co-workers to a fabulous sit-down wine tasting dinner followed by bar-hopping, copious amounts of alcohol, and a massive lime-throwing war (don't ask), and last night I had the first meeting of a book club that I recently started with a friend of mine in which we discussed Jane Eyre (excellent).

All fun, but I'm exhausted! Add to that a relatively stressful week at work, and I'm really exhausted, and in desperate need of some solid down-time.

It was funny because last night, while I was flying up the East side in a cab after just finishing up my book club meeting, I happened to look out the window and catch site of a Blockbuster and I was suddenly filled with a wave of nostalgia and an inexplicable feeling of longing. It was as if the fleeting image of the Blockbuster had conjured up some pleasurable, relaxing memory of the past that I had somehow forgotten or lost. Thinking about it, trying to place the feeling of longing, wondering what it was that I was remembering that was making me feel a sense of yearning, I realized that the last time I was in a Blockbuster was almost two years ago.

During my first year in New York, I used to go all the time. After moving to the city, not knowing anyone and not having much time to do anything except for work, one of the few things I did for pleasure, along with wandering through the city and visiting museums, was to watch movies. During that time, my first year in the city, I was quite lonely. Back then I keenly felt the emptiness left behind from everything that was missing in my daily life, including friends, activities outside of work, relationship prospects ...joy.

A typical week back then included working the entire week with no breaks and oftentimes no human contact beyond work associates (one of whom was Dragon Lady), breaking down on Saturdays, and then picking myself up and trying to make something positive out of the last few hours of freedom left to me on Sunday. It was a very difficult period for me, and I never would have dreamed that almost two years later I would have found myself looking back at any part of it with a sense of longing.

Astounded as I was, I sat for a second with the feeling of longing as the reflections of the city lights flashed across the window of the cab and the reflection of my face mirrored there, and thought for a moment about how far I've come since that time when movies served as poor, but much-appreciated, substitutes for human contact. Now, almost two years later, I have a job and friends in the city that I love, too many activities to fit in each week, and hardly any time to do laundry, much less to rent a movie.

Comparing the two, I'd have to say that I choose the present state of exhaustion over the past state of loneliness, hands down. But, just for old times sake - and because I have a massive crush on him - the only thing I'm planning for this weekend (so far) is to go watch my man Jason in the Bourne Ultimatum.

Art found here.