Gordian Knot

There’s a great Dutch saying that roughly translates as ‘being knotted up into your self’. The meaning is that you’re making things harder for yourself than they need to be, or that you’re getting in your own way. Actually, it’s more a bit of both.

I’ve constituted that that’s my problem right now. I think I’m moving forward, but my break lights are on (that’s not mine, it’s Jack Johnson’s, but then things are very rarely mine, even if I’m not aware of it. The subconscious is the biggest plagiarists of them all). Every night I sit in my room, studying, working, watching movies, reading and generally trying to entertain myself – when in truth I want to be out meeting people, seeing places and doing things.

Yet during the day, when I could be doing something about it, I’m not. I could be setting things up so that I’d have things to do in the evenings, but instead buy a pre-packaged meal, go home and eat alone.

People have tried to help me. They’ve invited me out. They’ve offered advice. I haven’t taken any of it. And I don’t know why. Well, I do. It’s because I’m ‘knotted up into my self’.

Or maybe it’s because I’m so used to it being so easy for me to find nice people, do nice things and see nice places that now that I can’t seem to understand that over here it takes effort, time and patience. Over here I’m not special anymore. I’m just another Dutch guy, wandering the streets of Amsterdam with a pre-packaged meal under his arm.

And yet I find it incredibly hard to do anything about it. I think that’s what happens when you’ve managed to get yourself stuck in a rut; the longer you’re in there, the harder it gets to get out.

I think it would be fair to say that I’ve been pretty unhappy with my situation for quite a while now. I hide it from myself, from others; but when I’m going home alone again in the evening I know it’s true. When I’m sitting on the bus, aware that soon I’ll be in my room and my fellow passengers will be the last people I will see till the next morning, sometimes this desperate loneliness tries to overwhelm me.

Of course it’s gone in the morning. Then there’s a whole day of meeting, talking, discussing, sharing, complaining, ridiculing, chatting and interacting. Then I’m okay. I forget about it, even.

It’s just the evenings.

And what to do?

You see, the thing is that what I miss is kindred spirits. People like me. People that used to be easy to find when I was younger but have been getting progressively harder to encounter as the years have passed me by.

I don’t know if that’s because I’m getting more unique, more choosy, or just less social. I do know that recently I find it easy to make acquaintances, but neigh on impossible to make any friends.

It’s your friends that you hang out with in the evening.

So I go home alone.