Sleeper, Awake

I see the image of her in my mind as I've seen it a thousand days since I last touched her, and I remember myself as I was. It's been a recurring theme, defining experiences sometimes before they have a chance to happen. It's a badge of courage, that memory, and it built a sobering tolerance of every difficult thing I've encountered in my life. I've struggled, I've gone head first through rejection and failure, and I faced much of it alone. That was by choice. I've seen in her my importance to another person, and though it's still there, what I never saw was the growth of myself beyond her eyes. I just set myself to pushing ahead, way ahead of the pack, stopping occasionally to see something beautiful, but not real. Because I wasn't alive, surrounded by people who constantly looked over my shoulder for the next best thing, I stopped looking and worse, I stopped hoping. No, I'm not a celebrity. I'm not rich, nor do I drive a nice car or own my own home. I don't walk into a room expecting all eyes on me, and I don't expect anyone else to open a door for me in my career. I only focused on building my life from and inside ground zero, but things are beginning to change.

I've come to a new place where I don't have years of investment. I am brand new, judged as I am, and there are no thoughts of what I once was. My value only exists in the moment, and if there once was a place to deny myself, to accept being overlooked and underappreciated, this isn't it. I am what I do. I'm trusted with difficult projects, compensated in more ways than one, and gain the exact measure of what I put in, at the very least. I'm in a land of appreciation, and this is a foreign place compared to where I have been, where I've paid my dues.

So, of course, I have to change. Darwin once said that "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change." I can't speak to anyone else I recognize as older but virtually unchanged, but since I write to ask the questions I may not have answers to, and I constantly turn over the topsoil to try to figure out what the hell I'm doing at any given moment, it's not a matter of this possibly being the time for me to change. It's an undeniable truth. I have to be brutally honest with myself and begin to let go of old habits and beliefs. It's right there in front of me. It's that hill I can see from twenty steps away from my house. It's the addition of new people in my life, and the reintroduction of old friends.

I see an image of her in my mind, but it doesn't resemble a picture I've held for a thousand days since. She is redefined, with a new name and possibly...who knows...maybe a new promise. In fairness, I should hold and offer my heart with no hesitation, for I've kept it so long for no apparent reason other than fear. I'm not afraid any more. Let this be a new recurring theme for me.

The Jungian Thing

The unpredictability of day-to-day life never ceases to amaze me, but people do. Often, you appreciate people for whom they are and don't even attempt to define them, and then suddenly, like a hockey player being checked into glass, you see someone display an awesome boundary of their limitations, either through action or blunt inaction. These are the same people who will give you advice despite themselves, turning a blind eye to their flawed nature and repeating things they've heard, speaking with such hollow wisdom, embarrassing themselves without knowing it. They talk about a big picture but see the world through a pinhole. They correct your behavior and justify their own. They say exactly twenty words too far in the wrong direction, and everything after that is just mindless wandering in the weeds of their own dissatisfaction.

Words are as cheap as the unsolicited, unqualified opinions that literally litter every avenue of communication we know, and it's gone so far in recent times that people, I believe, have forgotten how to be polite to each other. People will enter a conversation - be it text, email, chat, or even in person - with one need in mind and upon getting what they need, the conversation ends on one side. It seems a growing majority want to be heard and not responded to. That's the impersonal Internet generation, built on more tenuous connections rather than few strong ones. That's where the search for real people becomes so difficult to hope for.

You know who you are.

And I mean that in the sense of you knowing where you stand. Are you sampling people and experiences from a party tray, or do you begin your search from within? Do you step outside and act with good intention, or do you immediately enter the race and cock your arm to strike down any person or idea that threatens to pull a distant spotlight from you? Do you know only about love for one, or do you know about love for all? This is not a test; I wrestle with those questions all the time, both with how people affect me and how I want to carry myself.

I said that you know who you are, and I meant it. Either you've examined yourself in a mirror and put it into words, or it's the theme song playing in your subconscious. These things are self-evident, and they create recurring patterns that can last a lifetime. One that comes to my mind is the constant reminder to rise above the moment and aspire, build, keep moving and searching for truth wherever I can get it. Most of what I've found lately has been the dirty and dense variety, poisonous and completely foreign. The minority - in truth - has been priceless and promising, and the very least I can do is weigh them equally. That's where I want to put my focus, as much as I'm able. I am distracted, but I haven't lost hope.

I am flawed, still reactive and can hold a grudge needlessly. While I try to practice diplomacy and steer away from emotional situations, I'm quick to react negatively when people make the simplest things difficult. In many respects, I'm stuck in the maze of my own making, but I'm not dull enough to believe the present resembles the future. I want more. I need to grow. I look up and off into the distance, and believe I can and should get there, even if I stand to fail many times on the way.

I will get there, despite myself. If I can help it, I'll choose the right words, find the right people, and let everything else fall away. The truth is - if I'm not blind to it - always right here, right now.

A New Prometheus

Enough is enough. I've written enough optimistic passages to qualify for the very first Hallmark book, an extended greeting card that not only expresses Happy Birthday and Thinking of You, but it also aggressively works towards spinning the negative on its head, regardless of what theme is playing in daily life. Right now there's so much noise. So much noise. I can't throw the iPod cone of denial over my head this time. What's more, I'm going to commit myself to writing something every day to get myself back on track. I'm in the midst of my rookie season and am beginning to forget the love of the game.

What's bringing me back to that? I meet so many people who once loved something, or were moved by something, and left it forgotten somewhere in the past. There are likes and dislikes, attractions and reactions, sometimes the search for an elusive truthful moment. And I get lost. I get busy, and I get lost. One thing I can see clearly now, which I've tried to ignore many times, is that I have lighthouses in the darkness of my memory, reminding me to write, to create, to play music. It's annoying sometimes, because I just want life to be simple. What's worse is the fact that I see these people, or at least read their words and visualize perfectly what they looked like the last time I saw them, and yet I can't tell them that they mean this much to me, still. I wouldn't dare, not even in a weak moment, or risk losing contact. I remain aloof and parenthetical, and brush the feelings aside. It's not fair, but it is the product of trial and error.

The trial has been acknowledgment of things going well, but denying what's actually happening. That's really hard to do, because as much as I may have aged, my body and mind in effect and interest, I still have my old enthusiasm for the simplest things. I will unashamedly let my inner dork come to the surface and say exactly what's on my mind, playing and cracking jokes whenever I can. I'll show interest in the smallest detail, and sink completely into music or a movie without judgement, as if that piece was written expressly for me to watch it. I'll often do things alone to preserve that wonder without judgement, and practically dance with that freedom.

The error has been trying to share that wonder with people, or slipping and saying exactly how I've felt. That seems to be the very last thing people want. Honesty. Appreciation. A complimentary, supportive nature. It all smells strongly of commitment and obligation, like a green cloud that will leave an unwashable smell in their clothes. I've already written here that I've been accused...and I couldn't emphasize that word enough...accused of being too truthful. I've been treated like the greatest medicine with the most bitter taste, shoved to the back of the medicine cabinet and forgotten.

So I step back into the darkness that follows, and I re-evaluate. I think about why I can click with some people so well and then be rejected immediately for an apparent fear that things are going well. Am I too open? Am I too available? Am I too different? At this point in my life, there are irreversible traits and choices that I live with, not understanding an ounce of regret. I've written about it the whole way - for 23 years - and I don't envy a single person. I don't actually optimistically hypnotize myself into thinking that my best days are ahead of me. I can only think obsessively that creatively speaking, I have something great yet to discover. I don't get that from faith, and I don't get that from past successes.

I look off into the darkness, and I see those points of light in the distance. One tells me that I could and should let someone love me again. Another one tells me that I'm smart, and talented, and unique. Yet another one tells me that no matter what decisions I make, they'll be the right ones and I can always alter my course. I tell myself....

Seriously, screw life being easy. My options aren't always laid out simply because there are things that I have to do for survival, and then there's the constant pull from my creative side. It has to survive. It has to keep an opening in me big enough to breathe, to feel things profound and unforgettable, letting out a hopeful voice that keeps searching. There are times I can't get to sleep at night because the overture is still playing.

I work, I pay bills. I buy food and sleep, and so, I live.

I listen to the muses, the lighthouses in my heart, and that makes me feel alive. I can't have it any other way.