These Days

These days I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do. And all the times I've had the chance to.

To me, at the moment, everything seems unfinished. I just have this feeling of dangling around in limbo, loose ends untied, of being.. left wanting.

It's obviously a hangover from breaking up with Darcy, but I feel like its spilt into my entire life, flooding it with a sense of unaccomplishment and lacking that I can't quite shake. And it's not entirely unfounded, either - everything in my life at the moment is half-baked.

I'm halfway through a degree that I feel I'm never going to finish, and if I do I'm barely halfway through a career that has no real finishline as I've still no idea what exactly it is I want to be when I grow up.

I'm moving out, but not yet. I have to sit around here for another couple of months, pretending I'm not desperate to be anywhere but here, and that a place I used to take comfort in isn't now drenched from corner to corner with memories of people I want to forget (or, more honestly, memories of the various stages of me I've been through the years, all of which bring me shame and regret in some form.)

I'm working all the time, but part-time, at various jobs I probably won't be in 6 months from now. None of which pay me properly, as I'm doing them either for psychology experience, or retail experience as evidently getting a part-time job to pay the bills just isn't a viable option these days. I've been trawling through Gumtree and it turns out somehow I'm not even qualified for the scraping-the-barrel jobs. (If there was literally a position as barrel-scraper, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even be qualified for that.)

Honestly, these days I get up and get ready to go to work or to go out, get dressed and put my makeup on, and it takes me at least an hour - not doing anything substantial, rather adding extra eyeliner, or putting on too many rings and changing them around my fingers, or adorning my outfit with various scarves, and necklaces, which I then decide against and take off just before I walk out the front door. Because when I look in the mirror, my reflection seems unfinished. And it seems very apparent - my life has a giant sign across it, reading "Under Construction".

In fact, at the moment I'm lying semi-recumbent on a white couch, right in the middle, with a mock-Edwardian lamp on one side, and a white wooden chest of drawers on the other. There's a coffee table in front of me with my laptop in the middle. Directly behind me is a framed picture of a drawn lady in red holding a cocktail and winking, with the line "Pour moi, ce'est un Dubonnet". It would be a perfectly symmetrical scene were it not for the ashtray and my cat sitting together on my right. I've got the blinds down, so it would appear as if the early hours of the morning on a cold Winter's night. In fact, it's midday on a Monday and it's gloriously sunny outside. In my head, I'm a character from a Wes Anderson film. Fuck it, I'm a Tenenbaum.

(NB: I am actually listening to These Days, by Nico - a song used in the Royal Tenenbaum's soundtrack, which perfectly accompanies my current state of being, and every line, every note of which speaks to me. It's also a song I've played after every major or minor season of my life - I keep going back to it, each time a little more quietly defeated.)



I've been out walking.
I don't do too much talking these days.
These days..
These days I seem to think a lot about the things that I forgot to do,
And all the times I had the chance to.

I've stopped my rambling.
I don't do too much gambling these days
These days..
These days I seem to think about how all the changes came about my way.
And I wonder if I'll see another highway.

I had a lover.
I don't think I'd risk another these days.
These days..
And if I seem to be afraid to live the life that I have made in song,
It's just that I've been losing so long.

I've stopped my dreaming
I don't do too much scheming these days.
These days..
These days I sit on cornerstones and count the time in quarter tones to ten.
Please don't confront me with my failures,
I had not forgotten them.