OK. So I've contemplated. And pondered. Analyzed. Calculated. Plotted. Machinated. Dreamt. Wished. Prayed. And talked to people, trying flesh out the extent of my madness, trying to give shape to the terrible insanity I'm locked in. For the most part, in my more lucid moments, I do realize that I should be very happy with how my life is right now. The future lies before me in rough outline, spread out like a map of the entire cosmos, and all I have to do is make sure that I'll be there, on my way to where I need to go, in the thick of it all, doing whatever it is I need to do. I am a man on a mission, with a concrete purpose. Sure, there is this crushing weight of intense loneliness threatening to cause my chest to implode, but that's really just a side issue, orthogonal to the entire trajectory of my life. As I've said, it hasn't killed me yet, so I figure I should be able to slog through at least a couple more years in this state. I am who I am, and that fact is all I have. Some day I will hopefully finally believe that that's all I need. Perhaps not any time soon, but someday.
Of course, in the back of my head, there lies the idea that I am living in a state of complete denial, just rationalizing things, that I am just repressing my true feelings. But a man has got to survive somehow, and I don't see how letting all these things out in a diffuse, uncontrolled, potentially explosive manner will really do anything for me.
As always, I need to bide my time.
Yeah, I realize that it is ludicrous to try to just expel the thoughts out of my mind, pretend none of this ever happened, pretend that certain emotions hadn't rushed through my veins like liquid fire, pretend my heart hadn't been struck by a meteor, its axis of rotation totally spun around, off-kilter. I am changed, for better or for worse (although my pessimistic nature will brood over the "worse" part) and no matter what happens, I will have to come to grips with that.
So. At last. It is back to the Art of Not Wanting. Of active waiting. (No more of this passive-aggressive bullshit.) Oh yes, even waiting is an action, if I finally learn how to do it right.
But in the end, words are just breaths of air, squiggles of ink, a stream of bits squirting hither and thither through the ether. Come tomorrow, I've got to act, do or die. But there is no plan. Whatever happens, happens, and I will have to be ready for it. Hell or high water, success or failure, I just need to live in the moment, and play the cards that are dealt to me.
e-mail: aswang@earthlink.net
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