To slow down

I've been told to take it slow. A lot of times. 'Please relax', 'stop pacing, you're making me nervous', 'just lie down for a while longer', 'try to sleep', 'there's nothing wrong with stayin' in bed all day, both days over the weekend',... the list goes on. Oh and this one 'everything and everyone is slow and bores you, you think you are interesting?'  was a nice one. And true. Touche.

What they don't know is that I AM slow, I do stay in bed all day both days on weekends (when I don't go for a walk), I don't have space in my room to pace, so I sit and netflix every (other) evening, I sit still on my stoop watching other people go by... how much more am I supposed to 'relax'?  Sure, it does piss me off that my office desktop takes precisely 17 minutes to start up, 10 minutes to shut down (on good days), but I do sit very still and patient.

I AM very patient with others, and make exceptions for friends, ... until I don't. But this is usually 'cuz the compromise is not recognized and returned once a year at least. And then I get 'unreasonable' and lose them. My 'friends'. Baah. Nobody's loss either way. Not worth a post.

Strange thing is when the family, who you think are slow and decrepit, keep asking every week 'have you got a new job, a raise, a new place to stay, blah blah...'. Like a raise and new job happens everyday. Now can't they slow down?

But there is something to be said for slowness, a lot of people seem to be happy with it. Maybe that's it. I equate 'taking things slow' with contentment. And contentment for me means being stunted, not at peace, or satisfied. And of course doesn't everyone know when you hear 'Lets take things slow'  actually translates to 'it's over, I don't like being with you anymore' ninety percent of the time? It means they need space and time from you, and preferably nothing to do with you at all, but don't have the balls to say it. Again, what a waste of time... but they're happy, how does it matter what I think? (Sometimes I think happiness is crawling inside the hollow of a dead tree trunk and hibernating. Or being dead).

If it were just semantics, then I have a point. To slow down means you are shutting down (physically) and shutting off (emotionally), creating a void between things and people. And asking another to slow down is like sentencing them to purgatory, to limbo. Like being stuck on a real slow, endless elevator ride that stops at every other floor but yours, and you're dying to get out.

Which could work both ways when it does stop - heaven or hell...but who among us dare presume it's heaven waiting at the end for us? Mostly hell, and limbo is just a practice zone.

On an upbeat (?) note, the only times being slow takes on a real worthwhile meaning is in a slow dance, and while playing an instrument. A slow dance is a surrender, a time to let go; and making music is more about the spaces between the notes than the notes themselves... even here most people misconstrue the meaning of the word 'rest'. It is not a time you do nothing, but doing something as simple and complicated as keeping the beat, it is a serious contemplation that creates a song, a heightened awareness of time.

Most of us can't do it.