Bored.

Boredom is a different kind of depression. It almost makes me miss the wild nights I spent getting loaded on the Lower East Side. At least back then I was trying. I used to wake up with a sore throat in the bathtub and thank whatever god I believed in that I didn’t die or lose my wallet. Now, I mostly just watch re-runs of old sitcoms and bake gluten-free muffins. I go to the gym. I clean my bedroom and take trips to the outlet mall with my mother. I sleep all day, even when the weather is nice and the beach is only ten minutes away. I apologize a lot, for taking up space. I take up space anyway. I don’t pay my credit card bills. I don’t write. I don’t do fucking anything.

Last night, I sat on the rooftop of an apartment building in Los Angeles, palm trees like Grim Reapers guarding the edges. I wasn’t the one drinking. He was. I was thinking back to the windowsill at the bar below my apartment where I tried to die all summer. Back then, my lungs were made of the La Brea Tar Pits. I didn’t eat for three whole weeks. I wore these same blue shorts that I’m wearing now, because I didn’t care about anything, except drinking whiskey.

He grabbed the bottle of wine, took three deep swigs. He fell asleep as soon as we got inside. I didn’t. I stayed awake, Googling things like:  WHEN WILL HUMANS KNOW THAT THE SUN HAS BURNED OUT? WHAT ARE SOME SIGNS THAT YOU’RE DYING?

Here’s what I learned about the sun: If the sun turned off like a light switch tonight, it would take us 8 minutes to notice. But that won’t happen. Instead, it will get too hot, slowly, over time, and the core will collapse in on itself in 7 billion years.

Here’s what I learned about dying: You will sleep all the time. You will refuse food and water. Your fingertips will be cool to the touch. You will withdraw socially, and your energy will be low. Your breathing will slow down. Your body will die from the outside in, like the sun imploding, only faster.

It took me 10 days to leave New York, but I didn’t notice I had really left for six whole weeks. I woke up one morning and realized I didn’t have anywhere to go, that I hated how hot California is in February. I stopped applying for jobs and started driving aimlessly down the 101, east on the 23, west toward PCH. A woman at Rite Aid called me a cunt. I got a kidney infection and ate popsicles on the couch for three whole days. I ate just to eat, but really, I hate the food here. All greasy avocados and huevos rancheros, some inexpensive Chinese food, a few pieces of kale.

“I think I’m dying,” I told him on the rooftop, and he put down the bottle and ran the backs of his knuckles down the side of my face.

“You’re just bored,” he told me, and I believed him.

But.

Isn’t that kind of the same thing?