This Spring, Hope Springs Eternal

I've decided to make sure I write a post every time I get drunk. This is the first product of this decision. I'm probably drunk enough to do two posts, but I'm starting off slowly.

Spring has arrived, and with it comes what I like to call my "spring-time blues". It all goes back to that silly old saying, "Ah, spring... that wonderful time of year when a young man's fancy turns to love." I think that it is this little bit of folk wisdom, or perhaps the reality that spawned it, that has made me rather depressed for the past week or so. Well, that in combination with the fact that I had no prospects for love. The time of year alone does little to affect my mood, but the mental connection that I make with the time of year, and the smells and feelings that accompany it, along with the fact that I don't have the love that I'm supposed to, have always made me a bit forlorn. Ever since 7th grade. That year sucked. Maybe every year has just been a re-living of that year so far, and that's why I consistenly get depressed at spring.

But today, in the midst of my early-spring funk, something happened that snapped the bad mood and made me my usual chipper self. I was wandering aimlessly through the party, not having any particular place to be or any particular group of people to hang out with, when this girl randomly came up to me and introduced herself. We talked for a while, and it was pretty cool, then she had to leave. So I said bye, and she told me to say hi sometime if I saw her in the halls. It was really dark in the room, and I don't even know what she looked like, so the chances of ever meeting her again are slim to none.

BUT... now that I've thought it over, that's probably for the best. What this chance encounter accomplished was to restore my slipping self-esteem, and give me something to dream about. Recently, even for the girls about whom I used to think to myself, "oh, that'd be cool if something happend" it has become clear that nothing ever will happen. And I had come to the conclusion that I am completely romantically uninteresting. Now I don't know if that's still true or not, but I at least have hope from this encounter. I had grown tired of constantly telling myself that something will happen eventually, that I actually am worth knowing, that I will find the right girl, when it never came true again and again and again. My whole life I've been in a battle with feeling like a complete piece of shit, and nothing had really happened recently to aid me in that battle. Indeed, I had suffered a number of rather crushing defeats.

And now I have this small victory, this minor conversation. Chances are, nothing will ever come of it. But what I'm going to do is purposely not follow up on it, and that's why I'm glad that I don't even know to whom I was speaking. That way my hopes won't get crushed. When I start feeling down, later on in the spring, I'll just break out the memory of that conversation. All I need is that little bit of hope to keep me going. It had been gone for so long that the spring-time blues were really starting to get me down. But now I have spark again, and I can be cheerful and chipper.

Really, it was quite funny. A couple of my friends at the party noticed it immediately. I was all of a sudden happy again. I didn't even realize what had happened, but when they mentioned it, it only took me a few seconds to realize what had changed. I had a smidgen of hope, and suddenly I could be happy again.

I know that my hope has no basis in reality, but its effect on my demeanor is real enough. My regained happiness is real enough.