The Groundhog Must Be Stopped

You know that feeling when you’re driving and it’s especially noisy outside, like when there’s a big crowd or bunch of motorcycles or a lot of loud traffic on the interstate, and you roll the window up, muffling what was just deafening noise? Or maybe it’s pouring down rain outside, torrential downpours, and someone opens the door and shuts it quickly, letting in the loud noise of the storm and smothering it just as fast? That’s how I feel right now. Like I’ve been muted, like I’m on mute, I’m muffled. That’s how I hear myself, and that’s how I think I’ve been existing for the past few days. Maybe I'm inside myself a little too much lately. I don't know.

But, God, I feel awful. I’m so exhausted of the same old, same old. You’re supposed to always find a way to weather whatever circumstances you’ve been given, but there’s something particularly difficult about the monotony of feeling like you’re reliving the same thing over and over. Oh wait, isn’t that a sign of insanity? Repeating the same thing and expecting the outcome to be different each time? I understand the writer of Groundhog Day now. Profoundly.

But Bill Murray, he made it through. Let's see...what did he do to survive? He tried to kill himself every day and robbed a bank a couple of times so I think I’ll go ahead and rule those out. He drank and cussed and ate everything in sight while insulting everyone he met. But no, that’s not really me no matter how rotten I feel. He learned new things. That was the cure, right? He learned how to play the piano, how to ice sculpt, how to care about other people instead of being so bitter and selfish all the time. So what the hell can I learn? How can I keep myself occupied and stimulated? I have no flipping clue. I do know that I have to figure out a way to turn this mute button off and break it altogether. I just gotta try something different.

Ice sculpting. Great. So that’s what’s in my future.