joie de vivre

Once my graduate school applications started, everything I wanted to do just elusively slipped out of my hands. Like one of those days back at UCLA when I’m writing an English paper and shut the door to my room without emerging til im satisfied, only to find that a day has gone by. Except this was months. I began stressing irrationally and basically wasting energy and time worrying about how there just isn’t enough, well, time. And all the “can’t”s started to make their way into my vocabulary a lot more than I would ever have liked.

I basically stopped watching TV. Which isn’t too much of a change. But now, it’s come to the point where TV shows are like urban legends, updated through word of mouth. What’s that again? Ted’s still looking for the mother of his children and the cast of Glee still builds predictable plots around acapella remakes of popular top 40 songs? Well I guess skipping out on a few seasons isn’t really all that damaging. But I do miss watching Tony Bourdain wander the earth in all his badass sarcastic glory.

What is sad, though, is that I ran out of time to do a lot of things I actually care about. I’ve been reading the same book for months just because there isn’t enough time to sit down and finish from cover to cover. And the list of books I want to read just accumulates in the back of my mind. I forgot what it feels like to not rush through the pages but just soak in the rich characters and settings, and relish the poetic diction and style of great writing.

I can’t remember the last time I had time to discover new artists performing in LA and hear them play live, one of my favorite things about living in Los Angeles. I haven’t been able to follow small artists gather fans and break out of their folksie, hipster, struggling musician phases, and hear about them on the radio months and years later. In fact, what bums me out the most is that I haven’t been able to just fall into music without any distractions, instead of using music as a distraction.

I miss painting, writing, playing the piano, picking up random hobbies for fun, and working on projects that strike me on a whim.

I think what I miss most, though, is just having time to experience Los Angeles on my own. To shop along Melrose, find a new café, stroll down Abbot Kinney, spend a day at a museum, drink at a new bar with friends, etc. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t scrambling to drive from my apartment to somewhere else. I can’t even remember the last time my duffle bag wasn’t stuffed with the first set of clean laundry, sitting in the trunk of my car with clothes toppling out of the broken zipper.

This is not to say that I haven’t enjoyed the past 6 months of hair-raising, nail-biting stress, with nary a second to take a breath before I’m on the move again… I actually love that inevitable chaos. But I miss the chaos that I used to live with, that also comes with an overriding sense of peace and self-possession, when I did things for myself and for a purpose, instead of being splattered and scattered everywhere.

After my applications are over next weekend, maybe I’ll just retreat for a bit, and recharge. Maybe I’ll stay in one place for more than a few days. Maybe I’ll sit in my room with the lights off, listen to music, light some candles, and just close my eyes and drift. Maybe I’ll sleep in with nothing on my agenda for the next morning, and see where my mood takes me when I wake up. Or maybe I will have agendas, and enjoy them.

Yeah, that sounds nice. Maybe I’ll find the peace of mind within the chaos again.