Curing loneliness with even more loneliness

Just over a year ago, I found a plastic card on the street. It was all black except for the words "EB GAMES" in big red type on the front. I put it in my wallet and assumed I would use it later. I had since forgotten about it.

Passing by an EB today, I remembered that the card had been taking up space in my pocket almost every day for the past year and a half, so I stopped in and asked how much money was on this dirty old gift card.

Turns out I've been carrying around a hundred bucks in video games for a year and a half.

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Since returning to the T-Dot from my formerly gregarious lifestyle of Maritime university friends and Quebecois high school friends, I've been able to literally feel the loneliness seep into my life. I recognize this feeling: I lie in bed until just after 12:00, I run the few errands I've set aside for that day, maybe perusing the city's many ludicrous fashion stores and revel in the disgust I can't help but feel when looking at mannequins wearing silly and colourful clothes worth more than my rent.

With any luck I'll start work soon, , but that won't fill the gap created upon leaving my cozy Halifax nook. Maybe I took for granted the ability to call any number of my friends and take the five-minute walk down to the Wardy for a $2.50 Keiths, but the knowledge that I could was what stripped me of the social void I fall into every summer.

That's what kills me: I know this feeling. Every summer, for as long as I can remember, I spend time alone in my basement, replaying old Zelda games, renting four movies a week, spending heinous amounts of time on Facebook. Wishing I could bring myself to read all the books I've been telling myself I ought to read, only to find that my copious lethargy makes me immune to sitting still and concentrating for longer than ten minute intervals. I get so clinically lazy that I can't bring myself to do something that requires any sort of disciplined investment.

I'm not depressed, just aimless.

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I bought six video games today, all used, sort of on a whim--short of buying Rock Band for absolutely no reason, I figured it was the best use of the hundred dollars. I could feel my summer degenerating into arthritis as he told me I had $15 remaining on the card.

This post turned out indulgently long only because I've literally nothing else to do. (I played two of the six games already; I'm just taking a break.)

Granted, I finished university a bit earlier than almost all of my friends; I anticipate the shared two-fours and Banquet Specials that will inevitably precede shouting "BRUUUUCE!" in a car to Manchester, TN. This summer will not be horrendous, and I know I have friends here.

Mostly, I'm just fucking bored.