To The Living

It is hard, sometimes, to remember why we get up in the morning. Going to work, earning a paycheck, getting dinner, and then doing it again are enough for some people.

But it hasn't done much for me. It didn't do much when I had a job, and while the financial stability I miss, the  in and out I don't.

It gets so foggy, contentment. In good light it passes for happiness. In bad light it passes for fulfillment. In reality it is neither. It is comfort. A shell to wrap yourself in to stave off the insanity of every day living. A way to find something to point at and say "See, that's OK, right?"

But it isn't even close. It is complacency. It is the poison of good enough.

Car payments, loan settlements, bank trips... all in the pursuit of a future full of stuff. Of things that are nothings.Cars do not write stories and love. Nice toys glitter and dance, but they do not hold and they do not shed tears for our passing.

All of these things are dying without living. They take the place of what is really important so that we don't have to deal with them. We think that it makes things easier, because we do not want to do the hard work.

It is an illusion of safety in a world without any. A seat belt of wishes, crossed fingers, and whispered prayers.

But when the wreck comes, all that is left is The Dying. An empty thing without meaning.

So this is a toast to The Living. To filling one's cup with the things that will fulfill them. With stories and tastes and smells. With songs and loves. With strife and fear and joy and tears.

To those that build supports for the Living, instead of safety.

Cheers.

What are you doing?

I ran into one of my old professors today and like many people who have not seen each other in a while we asked one another what we were up to.

I asked him about what he was teaching, and he cut that off and asked me point blank:

"Forget about that though. What are you doing?"

It was right about then that two thoughts came into my head. One was a screaming shallow noise machine designed to mask its quiet and powerful partner. This first thought gave all of the normal excuses:

"Looking for work."

"Working on my writing/painting/underwater basket weaving."

"Taking care of the puppy."

All of them true but useless and unspecific.

The other thought that was hiding right behind them was far more terrifying. It whispered its quiet poison into my mind:

"nothing"

It was then that Nietzsche's abyss stared back into me for it was also the moment that I realized I had been staring into it ever since I had lost my job. Or, more ominously, longer still.

Like all good questions it opened up into many more, but only two really mattered in this transcendental 'oh shit' moment: "Why?" and "What are you going to do about it?"

At this current time I don't know the answer to either one.

Conveniently by the time I got home I had come down with one of those psyche shattering migraines I am prone to and as such had a great excuse for lying curled in the fetal position in my bed. I spent the rest of my day running on automatic as my mind raced through oblivion and arrived at nowhere.

It was definitely one of those damn days.

Milestones

Milestones are completely arbitrary points that we place in time in order to mark its passing and to give ourselves some metric with which to measure progress. Usually they are the anniversary of an important date: birthdays, deaths, major conflicts, first time actions, etc. Often we mark them one of two ways: by celebration or by solemn reflection.

Yesterday marked the passing of th 9th anniversary of the day I decided to try and build a life with one woman. This milestone, this marker, is a pretty big deal on the face of it. It means that we have spent 35% of our lives together, trying to make our way in the world. We have watched each other grow and change and slowly become the adults that we want to be. It has not always been fun, or exciting, and there have been terrible troubles and great moments of despair. But through it all we have grown and learned to be new people who adapt together.

Often times people say "nothing lasts forever" and that is certainly true. But to spend that much time with someone, to spend what feels like three lifetimes because of the amount we have changed, makes someone more important than worrying about things like "forever". It is because we are not who we will be, and we are not who we were.

There is only here and now and who we are at the start of this our tenth year.

And so I say it here and now, for all and none to see: Thank you, my love, for the time we have had together. I look forward to who we will be at the sunset of next year and for every year we grow after that.

To live again.

Posts here should pick up a bit now that I have my intracranial affairs in order.

I don't know how many people out there are on medication (statistics would indicate a lot of you), but if it is one you need and suddenly stop taking, damn do you notice. It isn't just the withdrawl, but what ever it was fixing comes back one hundred fold, or at least seems to since you had coped and forgotten about how difficult it was for you before hand.

I don't care if it is pain, neurological disorder, chemical imbalances, or any number of other treatable conditions, when you stop your meds, then those nice coping barriers you have been building up so that you can get on with your life come crashing down, drowning out any ambition or notion of having a productive life.

My advice: If you have a problem that can be treated with medication, do it. You aren't a weaker person for it, that is what these pills were made for. To help us have a normal and productive life. Life is too damned short to sit around muddled in fear, pain, or confusion.

Get out there and enjoy it.