Late Night Walks

Thursday, August 25th

Journals, tch. Where do I even begin?

My name is James, and I'm a university student living in Colorado. I rent out a small house with three other roommates, and um... I like soccer? I've never been good at introductions.

Life seems good when I count my blessings. You can't be too ungrateful, you know? Still, it doesn't take away from the fact that I somehow still feel empty and useless every fucking day.

That aside, this past summer has been horrible for me. You know that feeling where you are surrounded by other people that you talk to and get along with, yet you still feel alone? Like no one cares, even though they like having you around? That's me.

It's hard to know where to start. It was around the time of mid-April when I bought a six month old parrot that was a deep, beautiful shade of blue. I named him Subaru, because his plumage reminded me of the blue background on the Subaru logo. He was a super cuddly little guy, and he was a huge help with my mental health as well. Something about having the responsibility of taking care of him, but also knowing that at least something really wanted me around, made a humongous difference for me.

At the beginning of June, on the third to be exact, Subaru killed himself. The veterinarian said it may have been a possible heart attack, but all I know is that one second I wasn't paying attention and the next the poor baby had fallen off his cage and suffocated in the blankets. R.I.P. the homie.

Around this time I noticed that my relationship with my girlfriend seemed unnatural. There seemed to be more awkward silences and she seemed unfocused whenever we would hang out. We had been dating for four years, so I made a point of asking about it. We were tentatively planning on being married in the future, so I needed to make sure everything was alright. Whenever I would ask her about any of these things, she always would agree that she was with me the whole way.

That's why it was really ironic that when I told her I was making plans to propose, she broke up with me. This happened roughly at the end of June.

For the rest of the summer I tried to distract myself by going to parties with coworkers, but even those made me feel even worse. It sucks to be invited to a party but then realize that you were only invited for the sake of filling the room. Not even sure where the logic was in that, but every time I couldn't help but hope that maybe I'd find a new group of friends.

I didn't. Heh.

My super good friend from work, Carlos, was sort of my "in" to these parties. I feel like I can't complain though, not everyone has as faithful of a friend as Carlos.

I often found myself walking in the dark alleys in my neighborhood during the night towards the end of summer, and it turned into a daily routine. Most of the time it's just walking home from my closing shift at the grocery store. The quiet stillness gave me time to just think and reflect. It wasn't a happy thing all the time per se, but it relaxed me.

Of course, it came with its own levels of danger. A large percentage of the homeless population around the area were addicted to meth, so crazy people were not entirely uncommon. Still, an advantage of being a nobody is that no one really bothers you because you aren't interesting enough (I guess).

So that's what I was doing. As I write this even I can't be sure if I was hallucinating. That night changed everything for me.