Zugspitzstraße After Dark

Flo’s birthday party wasn’t really my thing so I left early and spent the evening with Eniz and Ali instead, wandering around after dark. We ended up at the old playground on Zugspitzstraße—the one where we’d spent what felt like the best parts of childhood—and sat there for a while talking about how things used to be. The playground exactly the same. Us not.

Sunday was restorative: Super Smash Bros. Melee until our hands gave out, a few new classes in World of Warcraft, pizza, Isi and Romi and Mille rotating on the controller. A decent antidote.

Somewhere in there I also updated the few personal rules I’ve been quietly running on. "Never give more than you get back" had been making me too calculating—replaced it with something about expressing what I actually feel without overclaiming it, because overclaiming just puts someone else in charge of your reactions. The old one about smiling to attract good fortune felt hollow too. What I actually believe: live what you feel, fully, even when what you feel is that everything is shit. At least that’s not a performance.

Pick a direction. Stay in it long enough to find out.