quick little math lesson

When I graduated college, I learned about subtraction. When we're in first grade or so we learn the arithmetic action of subtraction, the mathematical component and motions, but it's the anthropological, psychological concept of subtraction that doesn't really kick in until much later. About what you have left in your life when everything else is removed.

I've been formulating this theory because today I came home and my roommate had unexpectedly moved out. I dimly knew she'd be headin' out soon, but I've been too wrapped up in my last film project here for it to kick in that this weekend she'd be gone. So I came home, and saw the unexpected physical manifestation of what my life was like once she was subtracted from it.

All the shit I've accumulated in my years on this coast is pushed into corners, and this is the difference that is left in our lives once she is subtracted. My sneezes echo.

Seeing this math problem led me to think about subtraction and the parts of my life that have been shed now that we are scattering. I'm all that's left in this apartment. I'm looking at my life now that the social construct is taken away, the roommate removed, the college subtracted, and the film shoots are at an indefinite hiatus now that the necessary academic requirements are no longer relevant/impending/impeding. So...what's left are the parts of my life I haven't looked at very often. The lesser parts. Like why I pick at my cuticles. Or fixate on the things(people) I shouldn't.

This is a pessimistic way of looking at things. Wise man say you have education, relations, riches, and LOVE. Which I'm truly, painfully, aware of. But right now, I can only hear my typing clattering noises clicking weakly in the empty apartment and my social calendar is empty. Shit. I'm a negative number.