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on a path, and still a little lost

March 27, 2007

rough, scattered, and sketchy. in fact, it barely makes sense... consider it an exercise...

so, it's back to staring at the blank screen.

beer. beer used to help.

i hadn't gotten away from the beer. it's been a lot more under control though, even though it's become a nightly occurence. i drink and relax. i can drink a bit more, and something happens - the light changes, the notes turn downward a bit to the minor keys, my heart settles a bit, not buoyed so much with that thing, that hope thing.

i've gone from aptly named lone star to sunshine wheat, with its hopeful squeeze of orange. it still works, i can still conjure that cocktail of alcohol and regret.

stability is weird for me. is that what it is?

i love what i'm doing. the coaching is rewarding. it subverts some of those very destructive impulses into something positive. the other day, at brunch, after some people i coached had a largely successful 10K race, one guy asked why i wasn't faster, seeing how i was a coach and all.

my runners, my friends, jumped in immediately, and the warmth of that didn't escape me. but it bothered me, at the time, in the fatigue of a weekend of too much running, because the flip side of that question, of course, is, why am i a coach if i'm not fast? later, though, i realized again that i'm a damned good coach because i try to get people to see what it means to push themselves, to need to push themselves. i remember all the time the kid crying in his seventh grade classroom after everyone else has gone to lunch, swearing he'd be better, that he'd do everything better, and then everyone would see. the understanding of that need, that we all have in some way, is a big part of what i try to draw out and egg on. we all could stand to have some wins in our lives.

but still, in my life, so much has changed, and is changing. it's good, the coaching and running and getting my responsible, "grown-up" life together, but everything's taken on a life of its own, with its own momentum, and other things are still not right, and some things, important things, are being ignored. i haven't been writing. the world goes unsaved.

and then there's just the fact that the picture of stability is incomplete and a little false. everything around me appears to be stable and makes sense, in a way. there's structure and uniformity and discipline. but the same mind is still in the center of it all, an engine powered to some extent by chaos and spontaneity.

all this stability feels a little like denial. still unmedicated, i still feel the ups and downs, but now i have full-time intravenuous stimulant to keep me crashing headlong through my life. i've stayed so busy and driven that the momentum has kept me from falling down or even taking a look at where i am. i still dip, but less often, and less obviously, but sometimes the momentum of the full days isn't enough to prop me up.

but, i don't want to lose parts of myself to this new sort of imbalance. it should be healthier, but i'm not so sure it is.

i looked back over the blog the other day, at two and a half years of writing. i see a good deal of crap, and absolutely nothing well-developed, but i also see a lot of honesty flowing out of me. in a way, i miss the person that wrote a lot of those things. i had time to sit in bars and drink and write. i worked at a coffeehouse, rode my bike home through downtown a little intoxicated, immersed myself in music. i was more in touch with the wantings and longings in me.

that sounds maudlin, sounds like i was just more comfortable with being unhappy. certainly, it's the way i lived for most of my life, and there's a comfort level there. but some of the best parts of me were revealed in those wantings and longings, and in the struggle sometimes just to walk away from the continual crash and burn.

so, my life on paper, at various checkpoints on any given day, is better. but is my life any better when i'm at rest? finances are better, and i'm doing something worthwhile with the coaching. much as i love that, though, it's not enough. i haven't been writing, much less doing anything with music, and time's running out. and then, of course, there's the other thing.

no, don't think about me being disappointed, please. seriously. i don't want to be that person again. in a way, i do, oddly enough. i want to be that person that believed in love and hope so devoutly.

but i really allowed it to eat me up. she became She, and I just became a big ball of wanting her, and there really wasn't anything else to who I was for a real long time.

in some ways, i've got all this stability and sensibility in my life
now, and that's good, but sometimes when it all slows down, like
tonight, i realize there's still spaces unfilled and things undone and
i'm still not who i'm supposed to be.

maybe i drink a few beers, write a few words, and maybe i believe again. maybe someone else will end up believing, too. maybe it's the world, maybe just one person. either would be enough, but i can't have anything less.

Posted by Rob at March 27, 2007 08:28 PM

Comments

Posted by: The Great Cornholio at March 28, 2007 06:55 AM

Posted by: chuck at March 28, 2007 04:06 PM

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