Pulled toward waking

Started to feel a vaguely creeping emotional crud passing over like a fucked up cloud, at first every now and then, but more recently, mostly cloudy and darkening daily. Depression worming its way back into my daily emotional landscape. I responded at first by thinking huh, maybe it's just this or that. 

Maybe it's just being 56. Maybe it's just being in the more dull phase of the PhD. Maybe it's the financial pressures of getting the sequencing done for my samples. Maybe it's winter. (That could be, actually). Maybe it's just.

I woke up yesterday and it was grey and cool outside. I started to fantasize about getting out of town almost immediately. At first I was thinking of a southern trip and some camping. But then I started to think about snow. And I found out it was snowing in Flagstaff. So I quickly made reservations at a cheap motel and packed and was on the road. 

The drive up was not too bad, except for the last 15 miles or so, icy and very slow on Interstate 17, taking about 90 minutes. The town was swathed in fresh powder, the air crisp and cold, the motel peaceful and warm and 500 feet from one of my favorite greasy spoons (and a Vitamin Cottage on the other side, a message from the equanimous universe). 

Landmines lurking though. I ate a big lunch and then went back to the motel and fell asleep for 2.5 hours. I woke feeling dark and sad. It took me about an hour and half to get ready to walk into town. Walking in the cold night, I felt better, but still oddly bereft. 

I sort of automatically walked to a great restaurant here, Criollo. Went in. Sat and ordered. And it hit me that this is the first time I've visited Flagstaff since before the breakup with A. And then I realized that this stretch of time is the anniversary of the process of my entire life falling apart. The dates, the weather, the Facebook memories coming around and the general atmosphere were all conspiring to subtly but undeniably dredge up that wounds from that time. 

It's weird how the soul (or whatever you want to call it) wants what it wants and creates situations where it can be heard. I want to tell you something, it says, and we either pay attention or refuse to listen, or only half listen, until WHAM— no choice but to look right at whatever it is. 

Tumbling through the air along with the further processing of the slow motion dissolution of my personal life from last year, a great many other tangled memories of snow, visits to Flagstaff. I have been visiting here for nearly 30 years, and for a long time it was a major drinking town for me. I would stop here on the pretense of being too tired to drive on the LA or Santa Fe, but what I really wanted was to go to the Irish pub and drink Guinness and whiskey. A and I visited here frequently, also, either with her kid or not. 

So it feels like the wake up to a run of grieving and letting go was slow boiling in me, and my unconscious self or whatever the fuck drew me toward an outer circumstance that would make it explicit and no longer something I could deny or even make guesses about. 

Simple realizing what has been going on has helped tremendously. But I am still going to see Doc O when I get back to the Valley.