No disrespect to Sir Robert, but it's a soft rain that's falling this night. He's right about the warning thunder, the laughing and the starving, the crawling on the crooked highways. If there's any vindication to be felt, it's in knowing that the drops fall softer and less frequent than his ominous premonition foresaw. I could also liken the roof of this second-story balcony to shelter from the storm, but that would be the obvious play.
There is no temptation to read the tea leaves, not that their message could be any less clear. We're at about that part of the story where we hit the Cue Miss Friends button on the heart every time another hour wanders into the next just a little bit too slowly. We're at about that time where the true weight of what is left behind is pushing the needle even further to the right, while the what remains hovers near the origin and what lies ahead still too distant to be assigned any value. Throw in some red ink on the credit card statement, one less zero in the bank balance, and a lot of free time that could otherwise be directed towards reversing the aforementioned trends and the result is something resembling human vulnerability. Ever the optimist, I'd like to call it a catalyst.
Yes, there have been some thoughts about stability. This was going to be the move where all the bags were unpacked, those posters finally framed, a tapestry or two unfurled across some newly acquired "piece" of "furniture." It was this notion of growing-up that most feel at twenty-two finally sweeping over me on a ten year delay. Something familiar, once pedestrian, suddenly bearing some previously unfathomable sheen. The vision was so genuine I even contemplated a -gasp!- career.
And I still do, with reservations. I like the silhouette of myself coming home and setting the overcoat on the rack by the door, a frantic race between the 2.3 kids and the family dog for daddy's first embrace coming into the foreground. Then the silhouette gets color and texture and I see the bags under daddy's eyes. The slumped shoulders. The steak sauce stain on daddy's shirt. Daddy doesn't look happy so much as relieved, and mommy's about to tell him that Somebody forgot to pay the deductible.
It's life, and it's my misfortune to have visions of it at its blissful worst. Other people, specific someones from my past, do not share these visions. They don't share them to the extent that upon relaying the tragicomic tale that is January 2013, they don't see why a bachelor party at a music festival seems less appealing than the one grand said festival's tickets could yield. Ditto that the connection said yield could do for one's financial situation. In short, one dear friend who blacks out with frequency and has slept with at least, I repeat, at least one dozen prostitutes is telling me it's time to grow up.
Maybe Sir Robert was right.
But then one small job began today, and it went as well as it could. There's the phone interview for fifteen hours of work coming tomorrow morning. And let's not get too ahead of ourselves here, but there have been two Real Jobs posted for which I have Real Interest and I did apply. Progress. Momentum. New beginnings.
Of course, then the sun sets and the rain does fall and there are no 2.3 kids, no family dog, and nothing to do but cook one meal and look inside oneself. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I spent the last part of it under the porch, watching the rain, flopping down some of them written words.
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin', and it all felt just right to me.
There is no temptation to read the tea leaves, not that their message could be any less clear. We're at about that part of the story where we hit the Cue Miss Friends button on the heart every time another hour wanders into the next just a little bit too slowly. We're at about that time where the true weight of what is left behind is pushing the needle even further to the right, while the what remains hovers near the origin and what lies ahead still too distant to be assigned any value. Throw in some red ink on the credit card statement, one less zero in the bank balance, and a lot of free time that could otherwise be directed towards reversing the aforementioned trends and the result is something resembling human vulnerability. Ever the optimist, I'd like to call it a catalyst.
Yes, there have been some thoughts about stability. This was going to be the move where all the bags were unpacked, those posters finally framed, a tapestry or two unfurled across some newly acquired "piece" of "furniture." It was this notion of growing-up that most feel at twenty-two finally sweeping over me on a ten year delay. Something familiar, once pedestrian, suddenly bearing some previously unfathomable sheen. The vision was so genuine I even contemplated a -gasp!- career.
And I still do, with reservations. I like the silhouette of myself coming home and setting the overcoat on the rack by the door, a frantic race between the 2.3 kids and the family dog for daddy's first embrace coming into the foreground. Then the silhouette gets color and texture and I see the bags under daddy's eyes. The slumped shoulders. The steak sauce stain on daddy's shirt. Daddy doesn't look happy so much as relieved, and mommy's about to tell him that Somebody forgot to pay the deductible.
It's life, and it's my misfortune to have visions of it at its blissful worst. Other people, specific someones from my past, do not share these visions. They don't share them to the extent that upon relaying the tragicomic tale that is January 2013, they don't see why a bachelor party at a music festival seems less appealing than the one grand said festival's tickets could yield. Ditto that the connection said yield could do for one's financial situation. In short, one dear friend who blacks out with frequency and has slept with at least, I repeat, at least one dozen prostitutes is telling me it's time to grow up.
Maybe Sir Robert was right.
But then one small job began today, and it went as well as it could. There's the phone interview for fifteen hours of work coming tomorrow morning. And let's not get too ahead of ourselves here, but there have been two Real Jobs posted for which I have Real Interest and I did apply. Progress. Momentum. New beginnings.
Of course, then the sun sets and the rain does fall and there are no 2.3 kids, no family dog, and nothing to do but cook one meal and look inside oneself. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I spent the last part of it under the porch, watching the rain, flopping down some of them written words.
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin', and it all felt just right to me.
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