on renewal

I am on a trip right now. I went to Georgia to watch my cousin get married and then to Austin, to scout it out two weeks before the big move south.

So everything I do seems primed with significance, symbolic in some way. I helped drive down to GA with my parents, but I didn't use cruise control because I don't like what it says about me metaphorically.

Saturday afternoon I sat out by the pool, my eyes readjusting to the light extremely slowly (due to the eighteen months, just ended, working third shift), and I was reminded of myself in the sunshine. I now have, thanks to a pale Irish complexion and a spotty job applying SPF 50, spots of severe sunburn that will soon start to peel, revealing the new me underneath.

I wore one shirt to the wedding itself saturday, changed into a different one for the reception, and finally a t-shirt for the casual, post-reception hour. The bride's side of the family, with only broad visual cues to go on, might've thought that I returned a different person each time.

That's the beauty of being conscious beings, I suppose: we can always reinvent ourselves (ants probably just have to keep being ants). In theory, I can get used to the dry heat (103 F right now) and the one way streets and everything, but I have to avoid old patterns and old cowardice. It's only day one, but I'm still raring to change my diet and cut my hair (soon, I can feel it) and pour myself into a different way of seeing things.