How Lucky

I have to tell you how lucky I am. I have to tell you that I'm ready to face these things in front of me. I'm ready to deal with all of the bullshit that will arise as I progress down this road. I'm ready because I have no choice. It's going to hurt and drive me insane. I'm going to have to trust some people more than I'm used to.

I'm going to be in control. I'm a control freak, confessed. I need this control. So many of the events in recent past are the way they are because a control I thought I had was imaginary. I will maintain my own level of comfort inside the discomfort. I will dance on the head of this pin and not fall as I have so many times before.

I said big things last night. I said them to someone who handled them, outwardly, well. I said them because I needed her to know I trust her. It worries me how I trust her. It worries me, the way her eyes look at me, analyze me because I cannot see the result of that analysis. I was intense and she just took it. I was open and honest and sappy and overly-romantic and she just smiled. I'm sure she was giggling inside more than once, even I know how ridiculous I can portray myself. She stayed. I don't mean physically either. She never left the table. I mean she stayed.

I can't say that I'm comfortable with some of the admissions I made. I think it's ok that I'm not comfortable though. I believe in her. I believe that now, at this point in my life, she has happened along by no small coincidence. The Hawaii rule was in effect the day I met her. That has never happened.

She knows i'm imperfect. She tells me sometimes. She knows that I'm intense and over-the-top and romantic and often ridiculous when speaking of my own life. She knows i'm honest to a fault with myself and with other people. She knows and stays. She knows and smiles. And her smile could make men start wars.

Flashback

I was numb. It was good. I was feeling things at my own discretion. A little emotion here, a little there. Nothing too intense. It was nice to be so controlled. Control-freak that I am, it was comforting to know the level of discipline I had over my emotional state. I worked long weeks, weekends. I interacted and laughed and played social. I'm good at social. I'm good at charming. I'm good at those things. This. This i'm not good at.

I have too many things to say. Too many things to apologize for. Too many regrets. I could have been there. I could have been living my life with those choices included. Instead I turned them off, sent them away. And the Murphy and her law came to play in the playground of my fucked up life.

Now i've missed opportunities. Now i've dismantled a friendship, a relationship. I've taken it apart and stored it for reference. I tried to control those things one should never control. Now it's all backfiring.

I'm not numb now. I'm full of emotions. I'm disgusted with myself. I'm angry at myself. I love unconditionally and to a fault. I want to be able to include, not exclude. Now it's almost too late and making up for lost time is virtually impossible.

I felt so right. I had thought it all through. Choices like those are not made so easily. Now it will haunt me. What I gave up. What I distanced, separated.

Because it hurt. Dammit that's not good enough! When did I become so weak? I know my hindsight is 20/20. I know we don't get second chances. Now, as I flashback to the times, to the feelings, to the words and the looks and those eyes, all I can do is break down. I call other men stupid when I hear what they've given up. Now i'm the fool. I'm the one who didn't know what they had until it was gone. I made it go. I'm guilty of these self-inflicted wounds of guilt and destruction.

I can close my eyes and think, and be swimming in those eyes. I can close my eyes and remember and see the smile in front of me, feel it radiating. I can close my eyes and try to sleep, but tonight is not for dreaming.

Burning

I've made plans to visit someone. I've made plans in my head for the way things are going to go. I've run the scenario over in my mind and laughed at myself. Here I am attempting to run simulations of my own life. I've been nervous. I'm not entirely positive where the nerves have started. I can tell they exist and that's about the extent of it.

I've been burning to see her. I've been burning to be intoxicated by her. I've been burning to exist in close proximity to her. Soon i'll have the chance and I'm very excited. I spoke with her today, for a few moments, and my smile almost split my face in two.

I'm dancing on the head of a pin from day to day. I'm burning the candle at both ends to survive. I'm burning myself out. I can feel the motivation slip sometimes and I have to be careful. I can see things letting up and I know that's what I'll need. In the meantime, i'll dance and dance and burn a little more.

Then she was glowing. I was trying to finish a sentence. It fell apart in my head, even though my mouth managed to get it out correctly. I was standing straight up and falling at the same time. I was a mess and perfectly fine. It was intense. This is intense.

This is living and breathing and finding myself. This is Destiny reminding me of the promise I made. The promise that burns continually in the back of my mind.

I'm beginning a journey with no end in sight. I just hope they have maps along the way.

Notes

I remember high school. I remember grade school. I remember passing notes. It was an art form. Some sort of unspoken membership that you were given upon achieving the football fold and the square triangle tuck. These skills were crucial to the passing of the communication from one hand to another. Notes floated through hallways and homerooms. This was before the cell phone text message and the Nintendo DS with it's messaging abilities.

I remember passing notes to people simply for the rush of getting away with it. We didn't have any teachers that would read them aloud, but the notes were almost always carefully worded with code phrases and various idiomatics that only our circle of age group would follow. We referred to people using nicknames. We spoke of events using vague but recognizable names. We felt like spys, our super-secret club always on the verge of being infiltrated by the evil teacher/parental unit type person.

So it was, as I walked into my office Thursday morning that I was reminded of all of these things. There on my desk was a note. Folded, not so painstakingly as it would have been ten years ago, in a square and tucked partially under my computer keyboard. My name was written in artistic scrawl on the front. I smiled, not quite sure who it was from, but having some idea.

I read the note, the nostalgia of the act eliciting a grin. I re-read it and re-read it again. It was simple. Informational, but flirtatious. It was casual and forward. It was perfect. I smiled at some point and had a hard time letting it fade for the rest of my rather hectic morning.

I miss the notes. The IM and the txt message have destroyed the need for these small paper communication devices, artfully shaped into the best form for safe delivery. I miss the notes. I miss the innocence that was those notes. I miss the world through my eyes when i was 15. I look at 15 year-olds now and remember that I was that way once. That annoying to my elders. That outspoken and that resistant to normal. I remember being that age. I remember my raging emotions. I remember my view of the world. I remember the parties and the trouble we got in. I remember 15 year old passions and kisses that made my heart stop. I remember my wishes to be older. I remember the music and the movies.

I remember the notes.

Baker's Dozen

Somehow I've stumbled across that unlucky number 13 quite a lot recently. Last week was filled with 13 hour days. I'm not complaining. Let me state that now. I am tired. I am wasted, often, at the end of those days. But i'm enjoying my job right now and I'm enjoying having something to immerse myself in as the world continues to spiral out of control all around me.

I meet people. I like to meet new people. I like to see them smile and look them in the eyes and get a sense of them. I like the empathic nature of the first conversation you have with someone. The "feeling out" that occurs while you're bantering about this mundane thing and that mundane thing.

I feel successful after last week. I accomplished a great deal and survived to tell the tale. This week has started off at a similar pace. I have yet to completely dislike it. I'm sure my pay check will affirm that I do like it.

I like having this deadline. It gives me something, every week, to strive for. I get stressed about it. The part of me that is capable of observing from over my own shoulder laughs when I stress. It laughs because it knows that I enjoy the stress. I enjoy the challenge of doing something in a time frame. I didn't like having papers due on certain dates. That was mostly because of the topics. This is different. This is my deadline, for my work, for something that I enjoy doing. I don't love the content of the work. I love the concept of it.

I have a "cool" job. Funny, when I think about it that way I have to laugh. That's what I've always wanted. When people used to ask the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question, i would always respond with something cool. Bartender, DJ, Actor, Editor (that's the one I have). I managed to find it. I managed to stave off the corporate jobs by being poor for most of a year. I'm slowly recuperating now. I'm realizing how much more responsible I need to be with my money.

13 hour days. Teach in the morning. Work until the evening. Teach in the evening. 4 days last week, that's what my schedule. It was exhausting. It was invigorating at times.

Then this Monday. Stress fell down on my head. I had a deadline and I met it. I worked with some students. I taught 2 classes. I had a fullfilling day.

Now my eyes are heavy and falling. I need sleep and dreams. I need to get ready for another day with my favorite number.

Candle light

The flicker danced shadows around the room. I was enthralled, captivated by the simple perfection that sat there on the table in front of me. I was more enthralled, still, with the person that sat next to me on the couch. She did not take well the compliments that made there way from my mouth. She did not say as much as one would think.

We talked. She talked of the illusive figure she has so dreamt and written about as of late. Her eyes sparkled at the mention of his name. Her stories were told as though they had been run a million times in her mind. I was in awe of her passion. I was in awe of her awareness.

How deep does it all go? How far do we let ourselves fall? I've told people, i told her, that falling doesn't happen by choice. That the life we carry our hearts through every day doesn't allow for certain decisions to even be made by our ever-thinking, ever-analyzing minds. It just happens. It just is. John Lennon said it one way, Bob Dylan said it another. They were all talking about the same feeling. They were all there, where we are.

It's nice to know there are people with such intensity in the world. People aside from myself. People who, by nature, speak freely, and emote with their eyes, or their eyebrows or their smiles. I am one of those people. I worry that others don't exist sometimes. Then she shows up and I'm reminded again that I am not alone.

To say I'm a bit hopeful would be an understatement. I should be careful. I will be careful. Still, just as I said tonight, we can be careful all we want and our hearts will never listen. The candle light will flicker, the glow will illuminate her face, make her eyes twinkle. I'll sigh on the inside and try to hold on.

"Light shine down on me I am
Light shine down on me I am
Light shine down on me
I am a light."
---Ellis