up in smoke: then vs. now vs. then vs. now

i have inserted some very peculiar photos in this post.

okay, not peculiar, but carefully chosen.

the first two are there for a reason

the second two are not.

the first one, i took at the national portrait gallery in london, winter 2008.

the second, i took at the radiohead concert, august 6th, 2008.

a year ago.

it feels like yesterday.

then again, it also feels like it wasn't the same lifetime.

basically, i just feel so different.

i'm battling with my head, trying to decide if i would rather be then than now.

i cannot make up my mind.

~~~

things were so easy.

everything just sort of fell into place.

like pieces of a puzzle.

we had money and joy and honesty.

all we needed for entertainment was a coffee and a pet store.

now, things are so convoluted and twisted.

nothing is easy, there's no simple answer.

no honest questions.

"IN THIS CORNER OF THE RING, WE HAVE LUNA'S PAST! AND IN THAT CORNER OF THE RING, THE STRONG OPPONENT, LUNA'S PRESENT!"

the bells dings, marking the start of the first round.

and they fight fight fight.

the present knocking out the past with one punch.

the present knocking out the past with it's strange relationships, and fuck ups, and lies, and drugs, and complications, and bad decisions, and lectures, and greed.

the present showing it's victory with a lack of sleep, poor appetite, and several anxiety attacks per day.

congratulations, present, you've won this round.

i don't want to be then.

i don't want to be now.

i want to be someplace else.

someplace easier, where there's no such thing as ulterior motives, or guilt trips.

i just don't want to write about being lost anymore.

i want to write about being happy and self-assured and hopeful.

i just feel like shit, and that's the gist of it.

~~~

i feel really different from last year.

detached,

disconnected,

far away,

changed.

that's why i felt so strongly about this quote from On the Road :

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was-I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked ceiling and really didn't know who I was for fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon."