ask me tomorrow

On Saturday at Lexington Pizza Parlor I told Eric and Daniel how in September I'd stared up the escalator as I ascended to the lobby of our Wework and realized, I could be doing this exact same thing in six months and nothing in my life will have changed. They groaned. "I would have turned around and gone home immediately," Eric said. Catherine and I used to sometimes talk about death on our walks to and from our funeral home apartment, but being 25 has been marked by existential dread more than any other period that I can remember. That moment in the fall has been plaguing me, and here we are already, six months later. Besides the delicious stretch of the holidays and January, time passed so quickly. I struggle to point to concrete examples of what's changed besides my living situation and the pottery class and the radio show, but I also feel that my existence has shifted at least ninety degrees, and the move into this house in Bedstuy serves as a useful delineation point: there's a "before" and "after," a correlating change in lifestyle habits, how my friends and I spend our time together, and the people I see most frequently. I can feel the effort that it's taking to reclaim some of the things that came naturally in the "before"--farmer's market, seeing Olive, going to the movies--as if I'm doing one of those challenges in Survivor where you have to move some giant object by cranking a handle. *I* feel different, afraid to admit that maybe I'm a little more hopeful about life and love but still using fatalism as a crutch, I'm doomed to be alone forever. On Friday night at Theo Parrish I was greeted by Kevin from Musicland when I got to the dance floor and ran into several people that I'd met at Theo's New Year's Day set, notably my sexy dancer crush Simon, who gave me a hug. I felt such true belonging on that dance floor, validated by others' recognition, a sign that maybe I was no longer just an average consumer but rather being invited into an actual community. When I relayed the story of my night to Ashwin, Billy, and Olive at brunch on Sunday, their complete lack of reaction made me sad, and I felt frustrated that something was disappearing in translation or maybe they just truly didn't care. Their faces went blank as soon as I mentioned Nowadays, and I felt like maybe they thought I was namedropping or bragging about my nightlife participation. After the waiter took our order, nobody asked to hear the rest, and they turned the conversation to the weather without pause. In the past year I've been trying to make more of an effort with older friends, and I've started wondering whether it's even worth it with certain people who don't seem to give a shit at all what's happening in my life. Sometimes the conversation when we're together revolves around them and there's no reciprocity, I don't even know what they want or appreciate out of our time together--maybe it was just sought out by some sense of duty to history or desire for social activity. But I suppose we have a good enough time when we're together, enough to fill the void for someone there for several hours. Is that just what friendships start to look like when you've fallen into different lives? Annie hasn't texted me in months...