I’m exhausted. Exhausted by all of the nothing that is happening. So much nothing. It’s endless. This nothingness.

I am at a loss for words to describe all of this negative space I occupy. The only thing that feels different are the clouds hovering above this space I occupy. Right now they are gray and blue and white and orange and quite thick and rich and deep. Thank you, clouds.

Somebody just told me in an email how lucky I am to spend the summer in Rhode Island. Why have I never experienced this as anything but exile… as a place that is not L.A. or NYC or Minneapolis or Chicago or Seattle or San Francisco?

And now I’m about to leave.

I feel foolish that I haven’t experienced it.

I can blame it on my work schedule and how lazy I was when I was not at my job or commuting for 3 hours 5 days/week. And being a vegetable on weekend.

And then when it came time to not blame my job, it was only because I lost it at the onset of the pandemic. Which is when I grew afraid to leave my apartment, even to walk down the hallway to take out the trash.

And then I could blame it on rehab from hip replacement surgery and a fractured foot which is all legitimate.

But it feels like a personal failure that I not risen above any of that.

In the meantime, time has not paid any attention to my nothingness.