Well, here I am working my first Saturday in quite some time, yet for a tiny short paycheck. Why? Because we here in the particular region of the great state of Florida got better than six inches of snow last Tuesday. Now, I have lived at least somewhere on this particular square of ground about 99.999 percent of my life (more decades than I care to admit), and I have never before seen it quite like this. Yes, we got the north's weather here in the deep south, yet we, of course, lack the north's infrastructure to deal with snowstorms here. All the roads were closed down. The snow was pretty. I took lots of pictures. It certainly gave my childhood home a new look. I wonder what Momma, Dad, and Marsha would think if they were still there to see it. It took a solid three days for everything to melt away. It was interesting, even kinda fun, but I am so ready for the warmth of the sun. I think I have had my dose of winter for the year. So anyway I find myself where I'm normally not on a Saturday. It's the same place, the same propaganda, with better hours aside from the weather. I have never seen any entity, past or present (aside from maybe a certain ex-spouse of mine), so good at faking care and concern. "We're here for you" or "Oh it's mental health month" is such a thinly veiled lie. I haven't been exactly okay for a very long time now. Still, I've got to function, and I've got bills and responsibilities, and yadda yadda Yoda. I couldn't stop for such things. Modern civilization in this semi-dystopian world just does not allow for very much self-care of this kind. In the end, the only person I can rely on is myself, such as I am. There is this poster on a certain wall, advertising some quote unquote employee assistance line, most likely contracted out to some call center god knows where. I don't get it. How are the words of a stranger going to solve my problems, even if they can speak intelligible English? Talk is cheap, man. It might mean something coming from someone you love, but what could a stranger say? How are words going to help me? They can't. I mean, I'm all for this or that crisis line (if it helps somebody), but it just wouldn't work for me. I would listen to my father. I would listen to my mother. I would listen to my sisters, both the one I lost and the one I still have. I would listen to my children. There are a few other people out there who I like, love, and respect whose words would carry real weight, but the words of a stranger could never have that effect. I am glad it helps some, but if it were me, I would need so much more. I used to be that number to call for certain people that I loved. Once only a phone call away, now three years, one day, and infinity. Nobody's words can ever bring her back to me. This rabbit hole is quickly leading to the abyss. How about a subject change? Clean cup move down, my friends. Getting to work this morning was a bit of an adventure. This poor Florida space cadet just ain't used to thick layers of snow and ice on my car. Got it, though. My main worry was the I-10 overpass. No problem there except for the bright lighted clown I met on said overpass. No wonder Pennywise calls them deadlights. No ice there, though. So, I made it safe and sound.... Got some serious time to make up... Gotta have that money money. It sucks having to work on a weekend for what will still be a short paycheck. Bummer, dude. Do you want to know the true proof of being an adult? It is when everybody seems to have their hand out for your money. My role model in such case is a combination of Mr. Krabs and Ezra Thortonberry. "You must think I'm made of money!" It is crazy how suddenly the whole world thinks you have infinitely deep pockets. As my father once told me, there really is no such thing as that sort of freedom I thought I would find as an adult. Maybe for the wealthy, it is possible. As for the rest of us, the almighty dollar will always be your taskmaster. It is a system that does not care about the things we're going through. It can be awful callous and cruel sometimes. It's a messed-up system, but I guess it beats anarchy. It's an imperfect world, no doubt. Lots of emptiness. Lots of loneliness. Way too much suffering, both physical and emotional. All this coldness around us can be just as metaphorical as it is literal. There are many lonely souls out there whose salvation could very well be in one another if only random chance would be so kind as to bring them together. That's the irony. There's a heavy wall around us, separating us from any chance of finding each other. We could all be warm in this coldness, happy in a world of uncertainty, if only for want of a nail, if only for the kingdom of love and belonging. Thus proving just how unnecessary this coldness is. Souls are like shoes, socks, or gloves. They were made in pairs. Unlike them, we rarely begin our existence together. We have to hope that random chance will have the mercy to allow us to find each other. Sadly, it seems that random chance only has a way of bringing before me a certain soul I can't help but love, yet it's far from meant to be. Let me just say, Universe, that I would show more love than I have ever shown, be there in ways nobody ever truly has, that I would give everything that I am, everything that I have, all for the impossible, all for what the roll of the dice, the loss of a kingdom has denied me, yet has shown my what might have been. I have long grown weary of the words, "if only." In this particular reality, they mean nothing at all. I can only live in this universe, no matter the many possibilities beyond dimensions. They make no difference for this mortal soul stuck in this particular realm. They serve only to remind me there should be more, there should be love, there should be peace, there should be a true home of refuge, rest, and shelter. Maybe there is a version of me in an alternate universe who finally found this and more. Should I be happy for them? Probably. Though I guess I'd be jealous of them, even if they're supposedly technically me. Ah, alternate universes. I wonder if they actually exist, and if they do, and if I happen to be there too, how am I doing? Maybe there's one where it didn't snow last Tuesday, just a normal week, with me either home or racking up the overtime once again. Is there one where I still have my baby sister, or still have my parents? What if there's one where the ex never left me, finding myself either dead or in the nuthouse? I wonder which fate would have been worse? Maybe there's a reality out there where I was smart enough to reject her in the first place, saved my money and my sanity, eventually finding somebody real? There are a lot of decisions I made in my youth that I wonder how things would have worked out had I made the opposite choice. I guess the farther I go back in time, the more different such a universe would be. I would love to see, and I would love to try. Then there are certain circumstances even further back, further beyond my control that I wonder about... And how far can a being of experiences go, before they stop being me and become somebody else? It is one hell of a rabbit hole to go down in my thoughts. Hey, it passes the time, right? Maybe I could still chart a few of them out? Hmmmm? Some "what-if" fanfiction about myself, though I can't say I'm always a fan. Not exactly. That is the whole premise behind what might have been. Now, a version of myself that did things right from day one might be worthy of a fandom. Sadly, that was not me. I need a saved game to go back and restore. I am stupid no longer, and I want to have that chance to choose differently. What is the point of learning if you never get a chance to use that wisdom? It might as well be torture. It might as well be hell. That young dummy is long gone, and I am all that's left. There is no restore or load game or rewind. If parallel worlds exist, I will never see them, never live them, never touch that greener grass, never breathe that clearer air, never make those better choices. "You've been looking behind you, son. Try looking ahead." That was the advice a loving father gave to a future version of his son in the Twilight Zone episode, "Walking Distance." My own father might word it differently, but it sounds like something he might say to me. I would give the same advice to any one of my children in such a situation. I know it is good fatherly advice. We can't change the past. It is done. It is gone, buried with that younger version of ourselves, never to rise again. I will keep my loved ones alive in my heart, but my younger self needs to be allowed to fade into the earth below. I am what is left, older, hopefully wiser, hopefully better. I can't go back and fix what was long done and long gone, but hopefully, I have a few years to maybe have a few reasons to think better of and think better about.
You've been looking behind you, son. Try looking ahead. What other choice do we have? We can lament, regret, and pine for the past. We can dwell, brood, and kick ourselves repeatedly. We can do a whole hell of a lot without accomplishing a damn thing. Some things are just gone forever. One can only do the best they can from this very moment until the very last. I wish it were different, yet if wishes were horses, if regrets were cowboys, I'll tell ya whut, pilgrims, I could make the biggest baddest western you've ever seen. John Wayne would be proud, and it would most certainly make Eastwood's day. Wishing accomplishes nothing, yet I can't seem to stop. Hoping means nothing without possibility, yet I must keep hope in my heart in order to keep my will from withering away. It is a very fine line that I have been walking for such a long time. I am not okay, but there's nothing to be done. No words of a stranger, no personality draining substance, can change these truths I have to live with. No hero is riding to my rescue. If I can't rescue myself, then how could anybody else? The person is real, wonderful even, but the hero is a projection, a figment of my imagination and desperation. They're a real, beautiful, wonderful person. This I know to be true. But the image is not real. Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be right to expect even a beautiful soul to play the role of some fictional character, as somehow the answer to my every hope and prayer. Especially if I couldn't be all that and more in return. I have so much more to consider than what I see with my own eyes and feel in my own heart. And feelings just can't be helped sometimes. I can't change mine, nor can I reasonably expect them to change theirs. That's just not how feelings work. Feelings are like the ocean, like the mountain, neither right or wrong, they are just there. I just have to learn to live with what's within me and around me. I guess what is so difficult to just stand by and do nothing about is this: I was once in a bad relationship. I was mistreated, used, totally done wrong. Now I have to watch somebody I love (why deny it?) being treated the same way I was. I want to hold them, help them, see them happy and treated like the wonderful human being they are, but I find myself in no position to do so. Yes, I admit I'm jealous. It wouldn't be so bad if they were being loved, respected, appreciated as they obviously deserve, but they're not. I hate to see someone I love so downhearted, so lost, suffering so. My first instinct is to swoop in and be the hero, but I can't. It just doesn't work that way, because of all the reasons above. People talk about the harm of holding on to anger, and I agree, but I'll tell you right now that nothing hurts worse than holding back love. I want to help and I want to heal, to be that everything. But since I am not that one, since it would only cause trouble and would (worse) go against their feelings, I am powerless to do anything. White knights are for storybooks. I am here if they ever decide, but I can't force the issue, I can't invent what does not exist. I can't presume anything. Finally, it has gotten to the point when her happiness is just more important to me than even my own. So, aside from the purpose of Jedi mind tricking myself into maybe having a bit of (even false) hope to get through my days, I just see no use in these feelings, even if they are the mountain, even if they are the ocean, even if they exist whether I wish them to be or wish them not. Funny thing about oceans: As the old janitor told Sonny Crockett, believe in them or not, step in them and you'll surely get wet. In other words, I'll never be able to move forward until I acknowledge them. So, here for the good Doctor Blog-ieo, and all my friends, Romans, robots, and strangers, and my dearest Universe, is a truth I will never speak anywhere else. You know something about me that nobody in real life does and hopefully the men with the white coats and the good drugs will never find out. Even if the loony bin is starting to sound like a vacation spot. I am Napoleon and I demand a room with a view!
No comments:
Post a Comment