You Don’t Get To Have Me

Elvis is singing Suspicious Minds and I am moving between rage and ambivalence.

Nothing makes sense and everything looks exactly as I expect and the contradiction of feeling like I can see pieces fall into place but haven’t a clue how to stop bouncing down the far side of the mountain is…disturbing.

I hear the echoes of the past and the future and see questions people have asked on the chalkboard inside my head and have the same response every time.

“You don’t have to get me and you don’t get to have me.”

Follow Your Path

I am looking backwards for a moment not because I am trying to go back to the way things were or to be with people who no longer exist but because I am getting my bearings.

It is not a typical journey where you can trust a compass to make sure you are following due north or the kind of thing where you look for a twinkly start to serve as a guide.

Call it follow your heart, listening to your gut or intuition.

Some call that horseshit and hogwash but I call it necessary.

Listen and Learn

If chose to indulge some questions I’d tell you about how 19 and 25 were amazing or that 44 was great but 45 was AWFUL.

There are solid and significant reasons why I feel as I do and why I am feeling crazed by contradictions now.

But the truth is I don’t miss as much as some might think from those early days. Would I do some things differently?

Hell yeah, I would but this isn’t a diatribe or discussion about that. It is an affirmation that what I miss most is that metabolism and time.

Learn and hear.

I turn my back to the wind
To catch my breath,
Before I start off again
Driven on,
Without a moment to spend
To pass an evening
With a drink and a friend

I let my skin get too thin
I’d like to pause,
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim
Who learns to transcend
Learns to live
As if each step was the end

Time stand still
I’m not looking back
But I want to look around me now
Time stands still
See more of the people
And the places that surround me now

Time stands still

Lessons Learned

I don’t know if my head feels like it is going to split open because of stress, excitement or dehydration.

Can’t say if drinking coffee now is going to help take the edge off or make sure I am up until the wee hours.

But I can say I am committed to my path and to doing what it takes to make what I see inside more than just a dream.

The goal is to do so while being awake, aware and present.

I know what is going on and what I am doing…more or less.

Can’t say for certain it is going to go as planned because nothing ever does but I can say I am the captain of my ship and that I am not just passing through life.

I don’t care if people think I am crazy or a genius. Got no time to worry about such things but I can’t  lie and say I don’t prefer one over the other.

Can’t say I am not disappointed in and with some and that I’ll bet dollars to donuts you don’t know who I am talking about.

What I do know is that when this muse takes me and pushes me to write as it has lately you will see more writing, especially if you know the right places to look.

You will see me just write in part to see what comes out.

It is an expedition and an exploration.

I Hate Your Writing

The best part of writing is the contradictory feedback.

There is great joy in reading/hearing that your words are awful and that calling you a second rate hack would be kind.

Reminds me of my 11th grade English teacher and her refusal to recommend me for AP English.

She told me I wasn’t very good at writing and that she didn’t think I should pursue it.

Sometimes I want to write her to tell her that I was the Editor-In-Chief of my high school and college newspapers and that there have been extended moments in my career in which writing paid all of the bills.

I haven’t any idea if she is dead or alive but if I did tell her these things I might have to hand her a stick of butter and ask if it is still one of her favorite snacks.

And maybe I’d tell her about tornadoes and Texas and ask how to climb out from underneath houses that a twister has dumped upon your head because I know she survived at least one.

****

Some people will love the words we put down on the page and some will hate them.

It is just how it goes and it isn’t any different than real life. Some people like us and some people don’t.

Sometimes their feelings are particularly strong and they can’t tell you why.

Ask someone to tell you why they hate you or why they love you and most of the time they’ll struggle to come up with a real list.

But that is ok, because feelings aren’t required to be based upon something substantive, reasonable, rational or logical.

Sometimes you like someone and sometimes you don’t.

If you are really lucky you might even understand the beauty of being able to say you don’t just love someone, you fucking love them.

Editor’s note: Sometimes swearing is useful for adding emphasis and or color. Sometimes it just adds clutter and chaos.

Clutter & Chaos

Around four hours ago I had a conversation with someone in which they told me what they thought about my opinion.

I listened for a moment and then politely reminded them about how easy it is to misunderstand and mistake a person’s position when you haven’t spoken to them.

They disagreed and last I heard were still insisting they know exactly what I think but I can’t say if they’re still arguing with the dead air left from a disconnected phone.

Much as I sometimes enjoy discussion and debate there comes a time when it must end and given the state of affairs inside my cave the time is now.

After two crazy weeks this place looks like the headquarters of clutter and chaos.

That ends tonight.

In less than five minutes I will hit publish and begin removing as much as I can from this place.

Closets will be emptied and reorganized and filing will resume.

It is probably not as bad as it sounds but I know it is tied into my irritation. I am a big believer in doing what you can when you can and now is the time.

Got to make room for all the good stuff that is coming because it is on its way.