Fog That Surrounds Us

Days like today make me feel like I'm home. Kodiak was always grey and rainy, and while a lot of people might find that oppressive or bleak, I always found it kind of hopeful. It's true that you can't go home again, but home can sometimes come to you. That is comforting, in its way.

Going out to work--at least on my own projects--feels alien. I work on a bunch of shit for other people so when it comes to doing what I want to do, I'm sort of at a loss. Compound that with the fact that I only yesterday hit rock bottom and decided to start living my life instead of being a passive observer in it and I'm feeling a little underwater. But I have to start somewhere, I suppose.

It was good that I reached the realizations that I did yesterday. Yesterday seemed right. It was an emotional blow to the gut, but I'm glad everything happened the way it did. Sometimes, these elaborate fantasies will leap into my mind. Everything is so vivid and real, and when things don't work out the right way for me, I alter the story a bit. "Wait and see what happens." Yesterday I learned that it doesn't work that way, and it's not a sustainable way to approach things. Control what I can control, forget about the rest.

In my personal stuff, I wrote about how I'm feeling scared for the first time in a long while. Things used to exist in a comfortable sort of stagnation; an unending slight-downward curve. Thank Christ my personal math has a zero in it. I'm not sure how much lower I could have felt, or what I would have done when I got there.

And today is the day. Cool, wet, oddly inviting. I've made a plan: flesh out my outline a bit more, firm up the drafts from last night, write some jokes. Write. Staying up to write until 4:00 am, trying to fight off the spectre of past regrets... Weird that I woke up at 7:00 this morning burning to do more. I feel purposeful again, in a vitally tangible way. Today is hopeful in a way days haven't been for a long time.

I generally try to avoid getting overly personal here. My experiences are refracted and stylized and used to draw reference to some great theme in a cosmic master plan, and that's all bullshit. Self-indulgent, self-important, self-destructive bullshit. One of the first things I did when I got home late last night, after lying on the floor and thinking of ways that I had hurt myself and others and trying and failing to find escape routes was sit down and be real with myself. Page after page of peeling away my veneered armor I had constructed to keep myself cool, aloof, distant. Apart. When did I stop being genuine? It's terrifying to look back and see that I haven't been myself in much, much too long.

This has been bouncing around my skull for so long it actually made me sick a few days ago. I'm unhappy because I was viewing myself through the lens of other people. How did they see me? How was I impacting them? At one point, I characterized it as being the main character in their lives. As if those around me go home and shut down for the night, waiting for me to buzz into their surroundings and save them from mundanity. Seriously! That is what a crazy person thinks. For too long, I have been a crazy son-of-a-bitch, and not the fun kind.

And today is the day. Cold, wet, real. Lucid. The first thing I'm going to do is stop lying--to myself, to my friends, to my potential. I'm shelving this version of myself that is comfortable with being tertiary. And yeah, that thing about being scared? It's true. Shields are at zero; I'm vulnerable in ways I didn't know I could be. The fact that this post is real, that people can read it, is horrifying. But this fear is a good kind of fear. Motivation by mortification.

And... Yeah. I guess that's what is going on with me. As soon as this posted, my outline and the drafts I wrote from last night--all for a deeply personal book about deeply personal shit, so let's just keep the painful revelations going I guess what the fuck am I doing--are going to spring up, and I'm going to feel overwhelmed in other, smaller ways. But for the first time in a very long time, maybe ever, I feel like I can face it. In fact, I know I can.

Until an asteroid,
Adam

Things I Will Keep

Getting older. The older I get, the further away I get from the person I think I am. What Happened To All The Time? There is a Christmas tree; a small one, and fake. It whirls in a quiet little circle. My cat loves it. Blank whiteboards, with reminders of impending bills. B.I.L.L.S. Hard-earned money for intangible, untouchable services. Lasers and waves beaming through space, a million miles an hour, screaming "lol" and "no, not tonight." Deflections, rejections. A rotary telephone sits atop a dusty speaker. The bass makes crumpled receipts dance and seem lifelike, the way they were when they were young. Pieces of art of loved ones, hidden behind empty ceramics. Awards for "a job well done." It's crystal, and clear, and hollow, and that says everything. Closet doors ajar just so, begging to be closed. The memories inside peek out, and reveal truths. Little tchotchkes I got to commemorate favorite pass-times. They are dull; they've been neglected. Why don't I like these things anymore? How can pieces of plastic and pewter and paper hurt like this?

A listless plant. Each third leaf is brown and cracked, thirsty. It's a beautiful, powerful pattern. Seeing patterns more these days. One lace crossed over another, the way a cigarette butt rolls to a gutter, the tree turning and turning and turning. Walking outside at night, with a breeze so cold the coat wraps tighter without a pull. It's all around us! And then, the street lamp goes dark. Stars burst into view and endless possibility is laid out before me, and I'm paralyzed. Breathes come soft but deep, and the vast potential of me and you and everyone else is so real I can taste it--metallic, delicate, electric. Alive alive alive. Reaching out to experience.

There is a meaning, a point to everything.

The bigness is gone now. Paths narrow and the movingbreathingthinkingbeing is easier; less fog. A grand-scale adventure. A world of untold, unimaginable things.

I hit shuffle, and pointedly wrap the coat around my body. Have to find a new way back home.

Until an asteroid,
Adam