Sunshine (Groove Armada Sunset Mix)

For the past several weeks, I'd been feeling dark. Yeah, I can hear y'all say, "D'uh, you're one negative dude, jackass." And sure, I'm not exactly Johnny Sunshine. But when I say dark, I mean, well, let's put it this way. If you were to film a scene for how dark I felt, it would be at night in the room of some flophouse hotel. The only lighting comes from the flickering red neon of dive bars three stories down, illuminating the peeling paint off a ceiling covered with mold. Black sheets of rain pour down onto broken concrete and ramshackle slums. I'd be sitting at the window, just a silhouette, drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels and waiting to die.

A large part of this came from a feeling of hopelessness and fatigue, a belief that I'd be coming home to an empty apartment no matter what I do. The whole match.com sitch is an exercise in futility. Something has blocked me from every woman I've truly clicked with--she lives over three hundred miles away, she has a boyfriend, she thinks of me just like a brother, she's a lesbian, she's only fourteen. And a significant part of this has come from my dissatisfaction with my career--miserable at SmallLaw, miserable at BigLaw. No matter how much I told myself that there are others out there in a worse situation, I still felt dark.

Then two nights ago, I had a dream. I was in college chilling out in the commons room of my dorm. I wanted to watch the season premiere of HBO's "Six Feet Under" since I'd never seen it before. I was sitting on the floor and resting my back against the seat of the couch. For some reason, Allyson Hannigan who plays Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Amber Benson who played Tara, Willow's lesbian lover who got killed off, were sitting on the couch. They weren't in character. They were just sitting on the couch as Allyson and Amber. I looked up at Amber, who I'd never really noticed on "Buffy," and she was smiling at me. I smiled back. Then she reached down and held my hand. Allyson smiled and left Amber and I alone. We sat like that for a while. When we stood up, we kept holding hands and smiling.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I didn't feel dark anymore. Sure, I still hate the law and complain about my job. But I didn't feel the anger and melancholy about my love life. I have to admit it's creeping back in, but I'm doing my best to remember that feeling of release I had yesterday morning.