It’s coming down to this. Again.
Time to break with the past and reignite the present. I cannot be in concert with my CA ex and be open for what’s next. It’s time to draw the boundaries. It’s mine. I can do it.
It’s said we should not choose the comfortable things if they are not getting us where we need to be. We must do what’s hard. End the contact and begin the refactoring. Rebuilding myself as a single and vibrant sixty-something man. My plan is to be better, be more expansive and creative, and release all the obstacles I have dragged along with me. No more. None.
I escape today. I sing today.
Here is how you find your voice.
- Feel everything
- Love with focus and energy
- Git lit by someone or something
- Sing. Sing. Sing.
- Learn where your missing accompaniment
- And where you are happier alone
It is important to get those two ideas straight. Make a list. Put it before yourself everyday.
I want to write. Songs. Novels. Poems. TV Shows. For this to happen in any real way I need time. A lot of time. In my next relationship I need a woman who also has her own projects, passions, and drive. We meet in the middle. We meet by choice and with intention. “I don’t date,” I said to a woman recently. “I am looking my long-term partner. I will keep searching. I will never settle or give up. I am a man with a mission.”
Sometimes the stuff I write even surprises me. As my time is moving toward the last third of my time on Earth, I must be pushing with a little more urgency. I do not want to waste any time trying to date or find the next partner. We’re going to have to find each other. I’m not looking, I’m being. I am committing to my creative process as my path to happiness. I would love a partner to hold hands with during the hard parts. I will continue to need alone time, it’s part of my relationship with myself.
I have exited six relationships since my divorce. Some of them my idea, some of them forced. The last, most secure and comfortable relationship ever, was somehow not enough. A few of the key components weren’t in sync. I gave it a second shot, as I often do, and was clear in my requests. She was committed to San Diego. She worshiped California. And her kids live there. Poof.
And I can see how staying friends would serve to dull my energy. I am UP and OUT now. I am exiting the comfortable path. I will sing a new song.
- Feel everything
- Love with focus and energy
- Git lit by someone or something
- Sing. Sing. Sing.
- Learn where your missing accompaniment
- And where you
The feeling at this moment is ecstatic. A personal ecstacy between me and me. I want for nothing. My time to create is being rewarded with energy and inspiration. I am pulled along by this creative thrust.
I have been seeking this expression since my first staring role in fifth grade. I was the star of the show. I got to sing in German. I got three girls to go steady with me in the days after the play, then lost all of them when they talked to each other. I peaked in fifth grade.
I peaked again when I was accepted into Philips Exeter Academy for the 1976-1977 academic year. As my home universe was degrading, my mom gifted me with an idea of escape. She got three of my short stories typed up. I remember being so proud and confused at the same time. I only remember one of the three stories. It was called Hoover Dam. It had some sort of O. Henry trick ending, that was somehow sad and funny at the same time. I don’t remember the story.
I got in. Eighth grade would be my last year at Westlake. I was escaping. Something bigger. Better.
The summer before my freshman year I started working construction at a building site downtown. My mom had to get a form that allowed me to work as a minor. I had a stainless steel hard hat and the crew called me Little Bullet because the forman also had a stainless steel hat. Mine was a loner. The nickname stuck. I was a mascot of sorts. One day a friend invited me off site to have lunch with him and a few other guys. I still remember the little house. I drove by it yesterday on my way home. We had soft tacos and some weed.
Three days later I came down with a critical case of mono. It lodged in my spleen or something, and I had to get blood drawn every other day. They were still measuring my white blood cells when I flew off to New England.
Two major inflections were caused by this stupid mistake. 1. I did not get to play on the tennis team, with my medical condition, the coach wouldn’t even let me try out. 2. my energy and vitality was probably at 55%. I was holding on. I was living on the adrenaline of “holy shit, I’m here.” It didn’t last. I failed my first semester of Spanish. Decided to spend Christmas in New York City with my mom and sister. Cruised the city with The Cars first album blaring in my ears. I was away. I was scared and pressured, but I was doing it. I would have to knuckle down harder to get Spanish this second time around. I’d never failed anything before.
Arriving back on campus from Christmas break we were given the news that my roomate and I would be loosing our double room. I was going to a single on the third floor. Dwight, my roomate, was going to a double on the second. I losing my best friend. They didn’t tell us why we’d been moved or split up. Turns out it was two jocks that wanted our room. It was on the first floor, and they wanted to sneak in the spring, so they needed a first floor room. Assholes. They did throw an amazing pot party after we returned from Spring Break, but they were jerks. Just wanted our room so they got it.
My whole world veered off course at that moment, with that trivial decision spinning my damaged mind off to the lonely vacuum of a single room.
I am just now peaking again. It’s taken that long. All the books sparkle like a diamond necklace in the night sky. I have much work todo and limited time. The process is the same. Feel everything.
For now the focus and energy is back toward rebuilding and redefining my path forward. First: out.
Namasté
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