Two days into the new year, and we got hit with a blizzard.
It looked like this.
And I swear that, for a moment, the city that never sleeps actually slept – and so did I.
Thankfully, emails were sent to everyone at work, urging us not to come in, just in case our “lives were in peril.”
Mine certainly was, as I stayed home watching two seasons of Breaking Bad, ordering in lukewarm pizza, and importing the colossal amounts of photos and videos from my phone to my computer.
Have you ever done this before? You watch your life literally flash before your eyes, moment by moment, as each memory impresses itself into the hard drive of your computer. It is pretty jarring.
I’ve had stuff on there for a good two years, and witnessed the snapshots just fly by: the time I chopped a pine tree down in my parents’ backyard and felt accomplished, the latest draft of my short film – crisp and printed out on my desk, going snowshoeing with my best friend and getting lost in the woods, and my first glance at my own tiny, barren NYC apartment.
I also took a photo from when I went to the top of the Empire State Building with Eleanor.
It looked like this.
We haven’t spoken or seen each other since our trip to the top. It’s like someone’s pressed ‘pause’ on whatever relationship we’ve been building, and has hidden the remote control under several very large blankets so I can’t switch it back to ‘play.’
Normally, I’d spend most of my subway rides, dish-washing, walks through the grocery store, and workouts wondering how she’s doing in that apartment of hers across the hall, and if she’s even thinking of me.
But now that we’re nearly a week into the new year, it’s time you meet the new Doug:
Doug ’14 (version 2.0.)
Unlike Doug ’13, Doug ’14 doesn’t enjoy grazing on muddy, doubt-ridden, insecure, and anxious thoughts many times throughout the day.
Instead, the new Doug molds these thoughts into sunnier ones, like the changing of a channel.
Don’t like the “Was The Empire State Visit Too Much” show?
Don’t worry, there’s a good program on “But It’s An Experience She’ll Never Forget.”
You see? If I don’t focus on this process, then Doug ’13 will succeed at cramming these anxious thoughts back into my head, and the two Dougs will have to duke it out.
It sounds like a sci-fi film, right? And it really could be, because with the might of Skywalker, I actually have to push the thoughts out of my mind. It’s like pushing a U-Haul up a ski slope.
Supposedly, a habit takes 21 days to form, so every day through the 21st, this is what I’m doing: mentally pushing a U-Haul up a ski slope.
May the best Doug survive.
thesaintgermain 