“[T]he Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” (C.S. Lewis)
I’m sitting at my desk, like I always am, reading something on the internet, like I always am. And I see myself twelve years ago, sitting at my desk reading something on the internet, stepping outside for a cigarette like I’m just about to now.
And when I step onto the patio it reminds me of a conversation I had there in the middle of my second week at my new job. And something about that reminds me of that weekend, and I remember how much I enjoyed it and at the same time how off I’ve felt ever since.
But that’s an easy one, I can trace that back to the source. It’s usually obscure. I’m sitting (at my desk, reading something on the internet), and I’ll be there, somewhere, anywhere, in the past. Well, not anywhere. It seems like there are two types of things - times of embarrassment or shame and time of happiness or contentedness. They could be classified, I suppose (if you like to classify things (which I do)) into nostalgic and anti-nostalgic. And one isn’t always more common than the other (although I suppose my mood influences the frequencies), but the happiness has a distant quality - not joy or real pleasure, but a muted, warm feeling. The embarrassment, though, can feel as new as ever, warm but in a different way.
I’m at work before I went to grad school, getting chewed out by my boss for neglecting to do something important, for putting it off while I sat at my desk, reading something on the internet. It’ll turn out alright, but even my slacker coworkers can’t believe that I hadn’t done it. I knew it was important, and I don’t know why I never got around to it. And then I get an email - I’m off the waitlist and have a place in grad school. But there wasn’t much joy there to begin with, contrasting with my shame and guilt, just a sense of needing to get out, needing to make a change.
I’m in the kitchen of my first job, talking to a girl I’m in love with, who’s willfully ignorant of how I feel, and I insult her - unintentionally, but seriously.
It’s just after college, and I’m totally lost. I’m just floating, going through the motions, and I’ve finally found the first part of a tow-hold. I’m at a wedding with a girl I’m in love with, who’s willfully ignorant of how I feel, and there’s finally a spark and a moment of passion between us.
What’s odd is how I’m never angry in these flashes. Anyone who’s known me would say that I can be an angry guy, ranting or yelling. But that doesn’t come back uninvited the way that these do. It’s because I’m not angry about the same things over and over again, not in the same way. But my happiness and my embarrassment are eternal, new and old at once, moving in rhythm and endlessly repeating.
