one day she stiffened, took the other side

This year, I am feeling rather indifferent about the holidays. I do not feel grinch-y about it, but I also have no urge to put the radio on the all-caroling-all-the-time dial. Perhaps it is because I do not do the consumer Christmas stuff. I am actually really absorbed in diligently trying to get Christmas-ish presents together, but none of them involve stepping into a mall.

The thing is, nothing could compel me to go shopping during this season anyway. So, even though some people think it lame to get crappy, homemade presents, I rationalize that they're better than getting nothing at all. Which is really the only other alternative when it comes to getting presents from me. Anyway, thanks to the constant rain the past several days and the lack of much of worth to watch on television (that's actually quite important given my penchant for procrastination), I have not had much trouble keeping myself on task.

It is a little bit blowing my mind that I will be on a flight out of San Francisco in exactly a week. The past few weeks have been such a strange trip that I have not really thought beyond today in most cases. I have been reticent to make commitments on much of anything. When I have been invited to do this or that, I have been vague. I want to see everyone (sort of), but I really have no ability to subject myself to stress right now.

And that is what is kind of unforgivable about me right now. It is my tendency in general to have very little tolerance for bullsh*t. It's this whole notion of reactions, I suppose. Some people are fine with reversible reactions; they have no problem with reacting with each other, reaching some stable interaction, and then getting volatile and parting, only to start the whole cycle over again. And then there is me, me with too much of a streak of irreversibility. Once I have gone through such drama once, I avoid entering into it again.

Co-worker GBF and I were talking about this yesterday, because we are both of the mind that there are some things you just cannot take back. There are some reactions that are just irreversible. You try to retrace your steps, but it's like the light on the path back home has been extinguished. I do not particularly relish being a harda$$. I am not being steadfast and unmoved just to be stubborn. It's that I legitimately do not know how to go back.

I am limping along to a commitment this weekend, but it is limping and dragging and all against my will and instincts. I am trying to rescuscitate a friendship that is gasping its dying breath. But it's difficult, because my natural instinct is to let things go. Some people cling to things when they're in decay, thinking they can hold them together; I let them slip through my fingers, figuring it is only natural. I have stopped myself, and considered whether I would regret it. And that's the problem. I would not regret it. It is hard to coax a reaction into reversibility when you feel perfectly comfortable with the place you have already reached.

But here is where it gets most dangerous- I could probably reach the same conclusion about most, save about two, of my friends. So, in case there remained any doubt, I really am a heartless jerk.