February

I'm craving the new right now. I've had it with winter, even though this winter was a non-event; I'm tired of all the same old food I eat, I wear the same damned outfit every day, I'm even tiring of Coke Zero (gasp! Would that day ever really come?). I want to shake my world up. I keep looking at pictures of Iceland and Patagonia, and wishing I could astral project myself there. I think this is just a result of the late-February blahs.

I adore my friends and I like my job, my boyfriend is terrific and my family is top-drawer. But I'm simultaneously nesting and desperately clawing at the walls to get away. I reorganized my bookshelves the other day, and that made me feel a little more soul-healthy; I think I need that on a cosmic scale.

I do so many things out of habit (like Coke Zero), or out of a sense of obligation to the person I wish I was. I have a stack of clothes that don't fit, that haven't fit in two years and thirty fat and fleshy pounds, and I keep them around on the off-chance that I magically lose all that weight. I have pairs of shoes that have never been worn out of the house, dresses that don't button over my stomach, pants that are too long. It feels like clutter, and I want to throw it all away and start again. Clean white walls, a few carefully chosen outfits, a fridge full of organic produce and nourishing legumes, and a sense of lightness. I feel heavy, bloated with self-loathing for not fitting into my clothes, for neglecting friendships, for working too many hours in a week.

There are so many things I take pleasure in - the heft of a new-old stoneware vase, the sight of my boyfriend's feet dangling off the end of the couch as he watches TV, and a great chunk of chocolate. But I feel restless. I need to work more with my hands, or spend less time in front of a computer. I want my body to feel stronger. I want to eat less, and better. I'm tired of reading tweets: I want to devote myself to a novel, an epic. Something with heft, real intellectual weight.

Not all of this can be chalked up to February.

I feel this way from time to time, usually when I feel especially far away from the person I want to be. I've moved away from things that I used to - knitting, beading, crafting, sitting on boards, thinking about housing, reading novels and short stories for my degree, drinking in bars. Friends have moved away, both geographically and emotionally.

I just want to feel less overwhelmed and more maker-thinker. More like the person I was, the person who used to make things and write things and talk in loud voices and who was skinny and pretty and simultaneously more and less involved. Is that so much to ask?