A fresh start. The phrase has been given such a self-help book connotation that I am loathe to use it, but it's what I feel is happening for me right now.

After some ludicrous dealings with my landlords yesterday, I am done with the old apartment. The apartment that saw me go through the worst years of my life. And I never realized how much it affected me to keep going back to the same place that housed my depression until I moved out into the warm, sunny place I live in now. Just going back to the old place to clean it left me depressed. Breaking patterns is a very difficult thing to do, and it's so much easier when you can physically break yourself away from places in which those patterns occur. It's why I have generally moved around so much, and because I've been given the opportunity to move around a lot, I haven't given much thought to how destructive it is for me to stay in one place for too long.

All the unnecessary crap I accumulated, both materially and emotionally, because I knew I didn't have to move it around - it was disgusting. I'm not saying all bad patterns are now broken, it ain't as easy as just changing locations, but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel because I'm moving forward and not entrenched in some ditch. But I know it's not as easy as that, I fucked up a lot in the last two years, and I have to deal with the consequences. Some people make it easier, they see my desire to atone and give me more chances which I try my best to take. Other people, like the phone company for example, are not so receptive to my attempts at atonement. It all just makes me want to crawl back into the hole sometimes because actually atoning for all the things I've done wrong seems impossible, which is why I keep watching season 5 of Angel, hoping it will encourage me to do the right thing and keep trying and not recede:

You know, the thing about atonement is, you never run out of chances... but you gotta take 'em. You can't hide in some hospital room and pretend it's all gonna go away... 'cause it never will. Angel to Gunn in Underneath.

It's hard for me to distinguish what is running away and what is creating a new start. I like running away. It's convenient and there's no need to tie up those pesky loose ends. Loose ends suck. You just run away and leave no forwarding address. It's why I refuse to have a cell phone - all that "getting ahold of me" is just terrible for me. And I generally don't run away from emotional stuff, it's the bureacratic stuff, the jobs, the paper work, the bills. But in the past bad years, I was running away emotionally as well, which worried me. But I've discovered that my need to move around is perhaps not the same as my running away, because you can run away from life just as fast if you stay in the same place.

Part of the reason I stayed was because I was too depressed and apathetic to move, but part of it was that the depression I felt...it's strange I'm not sure how to express it but part of the depression came from the deaths of numerous loved ones and to move on from that depression felt like I was moving on from them. It felt ...is disrespectul the right word? I think so. Eventually I'm starting to realize what all the books say, that there is never enough time to convey the sadness at the loss of a loved one, but eventually you have to move on because not living your life to its fullest is the most disrectful thing you can do. Not appreciating the life you have when others have lost theirs, it's just not right.

Plus, after awhile, all that sitting in your own filth just gets smelly and you don't get laid and it's all bad.

Anyway, it feels good right now, even though I still have a lot of stuff to organize. But the pile doesn't feel quite so heavy now. Though the mountains of laundry do still seem to pile up quite quickly.

Adventures abound again. Feeling lighter is good. Thank you for listening.
And for the geeks - christ you can find anything on youtube.