After And After

 Sometimes I wonder just what in the hell am I doing. 

Maybe it actually is really cheap therapy. Thinking out loud in text? Trying to figure myself out? Maybe all these things?  I really can't tell the difference sometimes. Maybe its something I do to try to stay as sane as I can. It's not quite witty or entertaining enough to be a book or a speech or whatever. Besides, books need readers, speeches need listeners, and what exactly am I really offering? Not quite a best seller. Not quite a 'Once more into the breach' sorta inspirational thing. Just pieces of me, All that I am, all that I have. Just me. Somebody would have to totally Hollywood this up to be interesting enough for an audience. I never really expected one, though. Not for unique ordinary me. The fact one never materialized is probably a good thing. Audiences scare me. There is a lot to be said for obscurity. I guess I'm crazy, but still relatively sane compared to the internet infamous. Granted if I really were to really speak my mind and filters be damned, that gulf would be a lot narrower. Still, in a world of comebacks and catchphrases, a lot of realness can get lost in the noise. 

Come to think of it, this world of late seems crazier than it has ever been. I wonder in reference to a poet named Yeats, if the center will hold. I see so many ways everything could fall apart at the seams. I wonder what he would think of all of this. It really seems to be prophecy, a foretelling minus all the religious mumbo jumbo. I wonder. I really wonder. What was it like in the last days of Rome? What was it like 24 hours before the Visigoths came riding into town? Was anyone wondering, doubting, or fearing the center wouldn't hold? We are really walking a fine line these days. The world seems balancing, teetering, wavering on that very fine line indeed. I was a child the last time people worried whether the missiles would crisscross  on their journey east and west. I remember "The Day After" scaring the hell out of me as a little kid. Still, At least then there was some semblance of unity at home. At least then, politics was relegated to where it belonged. Government agencies were far less politicized, or at least made a better effort to appear that way, so who investigated who had nothing to do with which political party happened to be in power at the time. Not so these days. And both sides are to blame. Now it seems we stand on the verge of a meltdown. People dance to the tune of propaganda, of political parties and even foreign governments. And are blissfully ignorant that their thoughts, these manufactured thoughts, are not actually their own. They call each other sheep when they're really both being led around by a different set of wolves. There is no shepherd, just like there has never been a Santa Clause. Look up, look around, the truth is all around us. And like the great wreck of the speeding train riding the tracks that dead-end into the cliff face.. There is no stopping it. In the end, all we'll be able to do is watch. It is the dawn of that last day in 476, the Visigoths are topping that seventh hill, and there is just no stopping it. The tide of group think is just too strong to counter. Everybody wants to know which side you're on. It is a world where good and evil depends on the side you're on. Your guys are the good guys. The other guys are the evil ones. Absolutism, black and white, 'if your not with me, you are my enemy' sorta mentality. It's just insane. Lunacy raised to an exponent too high to fathom. I won't say it's the end of everything, but I have come to believe that it will be the end of a few things. What it will be, what will replace it, I have no clue. Maybe instead of 476 it will be 44bce... When republics were replaced with Caesars. Julius, Augustus, and hopefully not Nero. All I know is that 476 is far more likely than 1776. It won't be dictators and monarchs being overthrown, but installed instead. If the center does not hold, neither will liberty. And that my friends was my political dissertation of the day. Enough of this shit. Clean cup move down, mooooove doooooown. It is time for a mad hatter's subject change. Also, it's my Unbirthday. Where the Hell is my cake? 

This upheaval of the outer world has been quite mirrored in my personal life. Health problems.. A couple of my own, and more seriously for the ones I love. Depression, anxiety, to name a few but not all the upstairs maladies that are the eastern front opposite the western front of all my outer struggles. Death, Divorce, Losing a few years ago the best job and the greatest boss I ever had. Having my first ever broken bone. Courtroom drama, Category 5 hurricanes, Losing my mother, losing my baby sister and the absolute best friend I ever had. Losing myself and realizing I have very little hope of being this true self I know to be in my heart, Seeing very little chance for the peace and solitude I didn't realize I had so long ago. Fighting the fight with ever diminishing returns. At what point is it no longer worthwhile? Tired, man I'm just so very tired. Yet I'm still here. Go figure, go fish. No rewind, no saves, no redos, not even a damn pause button. Who wants to even play such a messed up game. I would rather start over and if I can't restart, then I'd rather quit. When I start to feel this way, I try giving myself the same advice I'd give others who might ask: You never know what tomorrow will bring. Thing is that this sure cuts both ways. I never knew there'd be tomorrows upon tomorrows without my best friend and baby sister. So many yesterdays hurt so much. And no tomorrow could ever bring her back. Maybe there will be a tomorrow to bring me to where she is. You never know what tomorrow will bring. You never know, you never know, you never know. What is there? What awaits? Anything to make the heartache worthwhile? Who knows? Blank pages don't write themselves. Or do they? And the only one I talk to about all this is good ol Doctor Blog-ieo. Not that it changes much. Heck, Even my voice impression of Doctor Freud says I'm totally Phfaaaaaacked up in za head. After all this, can you really blame me for having a marble or three rolling around upstairs? I've been leveling up for years. I at least do happen to still be trying. 

As I would guess it is for a lot of folks these days, money is sure getting tight around here. My old car finally gave up the ghost last year and I had to get another one, with a payment and full coverage insurance. The cost of everything has really jumped up and I can't really say it has been the same for my pay. The health insurance and yadda yadda yoda remains too expensive for me to afford. I am on the famous Don't Get Sick Plan. Meanwhile, I have high blood pressure, heavy depression and anxiety. Only the rich get what they need. We poor working folks just lose our usefulness when we drop dead and have to be replaced. You know it might be worthwhile for the big corporate machine if we little gears get to actually see a doctor once in a while. We can't be used and abused quite so well if we are not at least half ass healthy, right? Sorry if I seem to let my bitterness show. It just sucks to work so damned hard day in and day out when you still can't see to some very basic needs. I don't need a mansion or a fancy car, but I'd sure like to see a doctor, maybe fix a few basic things in my run down house. Maybe not have to think of replacing these hole ridden shoes as a long term project.  I would think an honest 40 hour week should cover the most basic of needs. Meanwhile it has been hot as all hell and I just couldn't hold out on running the air conditioner any longer, so I am sure the electric bill is going to be astronomical, especially with their fraudulent "Hurricane Michael Recovery Fee" and their goddamn "Franchise Fee" on top of inflationary rates.. Yep it's gonna suck. Then I need to either fix or replace the heating unit before cold winter temps hit in November or December. Either that or I'll go from burning heat to freezing cold. But... Way before that, my middle boy has some expensive dental work coming up, and I can't hold off on that because that poor kid has been in a lot of pain.. It just keeps piling on and on and on. Yet my employer can't seem spare a living wage. Poor them, right? It really sucks to spend so much time working and can't even cover the basics. Somebody's getting rich but it by damned sure ain't me. This will conclude yet another dissertation of the economic situation, Where I illustrate how the working folk are getting screwed by a system very much designed to do just that. Now for yet another subject change. Clean cup move down. Not all madness is fun like the hatter makes it out to be. 

My youngest kid just started his senior year in high school. No more dealing with the school system. Can I get a hallelujah? I've done my time, folks. I most certainly have. And having been the absolute only parent who put in any real effort, especially in these last 14 years, I truly feel it's time for a few much needed changes. I need an inner sanctum. I need a place where only I can go, where anything I have there will be left undisturbed. It does not have to be a gigantic space either. Just enough for me and what little possessions I have, and a door that I can lock up tight when I am forced to go out in the world. I don't really have that right now. No inner doors in that old house. I can only cool one room so my bedroom doubles as a living room for that reason alone. In short, I could do with a lot more privacy, and a place where my few items of value won't tend to sprout lil legs and walk off. I would be a heck of a lot happier.  I think that being the one who pays all the bills should grant me just this one comfort. I don't think it's asking too much. Meanwhile I need more solitude, I need more quiet, I need more peace. I am just getting too damned old for all this insanity. I think after all these years, after everything that has happened. I am not being unreasonable at all in asking. I have more than paid my dues. I need to have that peace and solitude. Sometimes I think I love sleep a bit too much. It really is an escape like no other. When the dreams are nice, when I get to see my lost loved ones, even better. Though it does make waking up that much more depressing. You kinda lose them again. And it's always like the first time. Otherwise it is as I have said before, wandering, wandering endless flavors of mazes, encores of people and places and wandering (as Jim said) in endless night. Well he actually said hopeless night, but I am trying my best not to see it that way. If night is dark oblivion then it is also peace. Peace of the forever kind, Peace in the valley, yadda yadda Yoda. I suppose there are possibilities, a domain of many kinds, room enough for a universe, if only in the mind. I think that is where I will leave things for now. Happy Thursday.