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Rode out all the way to Coquitlam yesterday, all the way across down on the B-line and then all the way along the Millennium line to Lefarge Lake (I can’t even call that across town, although that would be simpler, because its going even further than that), because I was invited to meet up and see the Christmas Lights there. With one of my friends who I’ve been having trouble connecting with for over a month—this happens. So I wanted to go hang out with them finally, and, plus, I felt I would only have the will to make a trip like that while I was still riding the lift of a week away.

 

I’d never heard of the Christmas lights there before, but apparently it’s a big deal. I guess I live in the wrong slice of Metro Vancouver. It was quite lovely: the coloured lights were strung in designs and shapes all around the lake. They shone through the night’s fog and overpowered the dim glow of the high rises that receded into the distance. They were in all kinds of designs and shapes: a pirate ship on the lake, little igloos, a gnome’s house, owls and the Cheshire Cat, tunnels of light that we were funnelled through.

 

I got some good pictures.

 

The rain that had been so awful yesterday and early that day had slowed to a sprinkle, and it was fine to be out walking in it—it was close enough to not-rain for Vancouver.

 

Then everyone said their goodbyes and it was a long train ride back for me. I’d come further than anyone else, by far, and almost everyone else had a car. That long travel is probably why I feel so miserable today. Although it was fun looking out the window at the cityscape going by, all the new high rise neighbourhoods of the Eastern Suburbs, the shining lights and the signs of life. The dwindling street life and the few people still huddled around in the windows of cafes as we zoom past them far above.

 

I’ve stopped at St. Augustine’s on Commercial, on the way back. It’s a block from the station where I exit the train and board the 99 to zip me west, and breaking up the trip a little makes it easier. Plus, I need to eat: it’s late, and I don’t want to make something when I arrive home.

 

Benny and The Jets is playing—that song is following me.

 

P.S. I was correct about the lift of a week away disappearing, incidentally: it’s today now, the day after all that above, and the miserable weight of day-to-day existence has come crashing down on me entirely. It was there when I woke up, and it rapidly got worse, until I found it hard to breathe, or think straight. My body and mind hurt; I feel trapped and confused; I feel constantly like something terrible that I cannot stop is about to happen; I want to cry; I want to scream—ah, the good ol’ human condition. I hate it. I barely feel like I’m going to limp through today and get done what I need to get done—which isn’t much, but I’m a total wreck. There are many things I could blame but I know it’s my fault for having this awful, lousy attitude about it. I just wish I didn’t feel so frightened and confused, but if that was going to change then it would have already. Burden of self and all those fun things. Life is short, they say, enjoy yourself they say, but just try to enjoy life and watch how fast that life itself comes down on you like a hammer.

 

Forgive me if the quality of the above is awful. It was fine when I wrote it down in the notebook last night, but I’m not up to doing anything with it this morning, (I can’t think straight, as I said), so it’s not my best work.

 

P.P.S. I feel better now. Mainly, I just feel physically awful. I blame the three and a half hours spent on transit yesterday. Or the weather, I can blame that. Or the nonsense about trying to get a doctor's appointment the second I woke up, I never even wrote about that. Just not a good day. Ah well.