A Time For New Beginnings

Been thinking about You Won’t Like My Silence and multiple other posts I have written and came to some conclusions.

I want to be like Einstein and understand why some things are the way they are and have been furious with the lack of answers.

There have been many sleepless nights and restless moments where I could feel the fire burning inside and wondered if the issue was my approach to the questions. It was like a Rubik’s cube where I solved every side but one and that set me off because I was so close I could taste it.

I decided I couldn’t keep it up because it was a poison that was eating me from the inside out and there was no need to prove I can take a beating. I already know that about myself so I shrugged my shoulders and said I would walk away because it was a time for new beginnings.

What The Hell Do I Know About Anything

I reached to one of my oldest friends as I do every 9/11 and thanked him for not making me have to hunt Osama Bin Laden down to wreak my own brand of vengeance.

He told me about how a while back he found his World Trade Center Visitor badge and I remembered what it was like that day for those hours in which I couldn’t reach him.

It hit me harder today than I remember it doing in recent times. I think it it was because 32 year-old Josh had a harder time conceiving of the horror coming true than 55 year-old Josh.

That was in spite of 29 year-old Josh having helped to bury a dear friend because three years later there was still more innocence in me than exists today.

I know now there are monsters under the bed and in the closets and that sometimes they walk the streets among us. I have met the demons on the street and those that live within.

But I also have seen so much good come from people during the very worst of times and believe there are more of those people than the bad, let alone the monsters.

If that makes me naive I am ok with it. We all have to live our lives the best way we can and be able to sleep at night.

It is why sometimes we have to let some things die and not try to keep resuscitating them. You can’t reach the new beginning if you never let go of the old.

****

Don’t ask me to explain that or anything else to you unless you are willing to sit and have the long talk. And even if you are I am not sure that I am or that I will be.

Two days from now I may or may not write about my father who isn’t hear to celebrate his 81st birthday. That wasn’t said with any bitterness or snark, I am smiling while I think about him.

I am thinking about a time when he shrugged his shoulders at me and said he didn’t know the answers. Sometimes that is the best we have got and that is ok.

His Heart Is Going

I woke the dog up when I let loose with my own barbaric yawp earlier. I celebrated having moved heaven and earth again and then apologized for messing with his sleep.

“You know I went for a follow up with my cardiologist and they said my heart is in good shape. They said my stress test was good for my age and the echocardiogram was solid. They told me my exercise routine is good and that I should focus on weight and diet.”

The dog wagged his tail at me and I apologized because his heart is going. He is on multiple medications and we don’t know what kind of clock we’re looking at.

I told him I am trying not to figure that part out and to just enjoy every day we have got together.

“You know I am not as good at this as I want to be, but I am working at it.”

He wagged his tail and licked my hand. I clapped on his belly and said “I love you” and then we sat in silence for a few.

The phone rang and I told him he would have made a good Wilner man because we know how to be quiet for extended period and then I answered the call.

****

I have my own handful of pills I am taking, stuff for my BP, a statin, some Bausch & Lomb stuff that is supposed to help keep my eyes healthy and Glucosamine.

The latter is supposed to help reduce joint pain and in theory make working out a little more comfortable. It is a new addition to my routine and I am hoping it works because I want to go harder in the workouts than I am.

Things don’t hurt enough to prevent me from lifting and I can always power through the twinges if I feel like it. But I don’t want to have to power through anything.

I want to do as I want without making a ton of changes to my routine. I am already making enough other changes, let me have this one thing.

****

Faulkner is correct, you can’t make the moves you want to make without having the courage to lose sight of the shore. Can’t hold hold onto rafts, driftwood or floaties- you can only rely upon your own muscle power and your ability to try to use the current when possible to help move you along.

That is what a time for new beginnings is all about.