Monday, January 21, 2013

Seclusion: A Continually Elusive Desire

The noise bothers me still. These thin walls don't allow for much silence. The house seems made for eavesdropping. I need time and more time to read. I need to concentrate more. I would like to focus. I listen to music or Youtube videos to drown out the noises here. My father working from home, taking calls, doing his job from his basement. He gets offended, or lonely I guess, if you don't say something to him everyday. He says I'm withdrawing into myself and becoming distant. The closer truth is that I like being by myself more than around him at times. Withdrawing when conflict looms is not a weakness but a strength.

The coughs of these people, these smokers, still reach my ears. I'm not like them in that I don't smoke, or that I don't know my place. They have jobs and wives and ex-wives, things to do with their days to make ends meet. I'm just here for now, trying to figure out what I want to do. Sometimes it seems these people never have days off. My father is home a lot, but he complains that his job is so hard. I realize he may always be on call, but how hard can a job be that can be done from the garage of his own home?

He doesn't always stay here, but there are days he does. Days I'm off from school, I wish that no one were here. I just want a day to myself. I want a day to be able to think without all their voices and coughs and marital problems and grandkids. Should I have kids now? "Why aren't you married?," someone once asked me. I haven't met anyone willing to marry me who I would rather not just be alone than with them?

Talking still my father. He's solving problems from the basement. Good work if you can get it, I guess. Should I go to graduate school like I want or get a job like some people are telling me to do? The phone is charged. My remedial class phone is nice to stay in touch with people, though there are some I wish didn't have the number. I love texting. It seems so simple and is a nice way to stay in touch without having to talk on the phone. Talking is okay, but texting seems so simple.

Thank goodness, it sounds like a car is starting. Two are here still, but one less soon it seems.

...
Some have left now or are quiet. Another boarder remains: the cougher. He awakes and coughs. Cursing and mumbling to himself, he seems to hold conversations with people who aren't there. "Why doesn't he f-ing answer his phone?," he seems to say to no one in particular. Cursing and mumbling still, he trudges about the house, making more noise. I've manage to finish a bit of a book.

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