for those who say I don't write enough
I've been on Facebook a lot lately. It is so easy there, a few characters to type that generally don't say anything.
It's easy.
No thinking, no growing no dealing.
Just
a
few
words.
And I sorta like that right now because I have profound things in my head. Some of them hurt, some of them are sweet, some of them just - well - are.
But none of them are easy and I want to come and write about it, to get a good chunk of me somewhere. Then the nagging comes picking at it. What if in a day or two or ten these profound thoughts turn out to be nothing, just some overly dramatic crap that I will be embarrassed about later?
Then it is best just to go do something easy. To put things away so I don't have to deal with them. Annoyingly, the nagging comes back and picks some more. What if there is something that will be helpful or meaningful or just something that I really need to learn by letting it flow out of my fingers?
I have now spent almost as much of my life in Austin as I did in El Paso. Everyone knows you don't really get out of El Paso. It is hard to explain unless you happen to be from there. The important part is that now I have a very clean division of my life. Before and After.
You would think that I would find that great symbolic divide via the divorce. Although, that has been on my mind a lot lately it doesn't quite carry the same "Before and After". (it does have its own though)
I moved to Austin in 1989. It was August and hot in a way neither my body or brain could understand. I grew up in a big giant desert where 105+ temperatures were pretty common. But here - when I got here - I couldn't breathe. The air was thick and cloggy like the fuzz your brain gets when you are forced out of a dream before you are done. It made the dichotomy of the places very clear. I settled into my first apartment and did what I would guess most people do when they really move out for the first time. I knew I was starting "THE REST OF MY LIFE".
Now, I have another milestone and am feeling a little bit like I am starting the rest of my life again. I see people from all the big parts of my history and I can't help but see who I was when I knew them. I can see some of the damage I caused and was caused to me. I know there are people I haven't seen much since college who I dearly love still - although there is no real reason to - or not to - because I am not the me from then, therefore, odds are - they are not the them from then. (That makes so much more sense when you say it out loud)
But as names pop up via 100 billion gazzillion trillion social networks sites I re-live chunks of it. I am now pretty darn clear on so much of the strength and screwing up I got from my parents. I empathize in a whole new way. My friends had kids at about the age my parents were when I was born. It is so weird to see it from the other side. It makes you think.
A kid at work grew up in El Paso. He is about 24 which means he was 3 or 4 when I left. His hometown has nothing to do with my hometown. I am now faced with the reality of my life back then was an illusion. I bet everyone goes through it as they grow up, gaining the knowledge that it is all gone. Even the things that are left - are -all -gone.
Then looking back I can see how great some of it was, how incredibly wonderful and beautiful my life really was. It just wasn't what I expected, certainly not what society had expected for me to expect. And because things weren't I fought against so much of it and made such terrible decisions. One of the worst of those was trying to be that person...the one that was expected. I should have just listened to my gut.
I moved here and have been trying different things but nothing is quite settling right. I don't mean that it has been awful. I've still been pretty lucky. I have had some amazing experiences. The good out weighs the bad when I look at the big picture. The bad bits are just chunkier, with thick ankles so they stand out more. But they are the majority or even the problem. It's just that mostly I can't quite hear my gut anymore and when I do I am choking. I am letting fear get in the way of things.
Knowing that the first half of my life so far is entirely, always, forever mostly gone it then becomes impossible to not see my more recently history disappearing at the edges. Yes, I get that everything that has ever happened to me has made me who I am - blah, blah, blah - crap, crap crap.
It makes me want to be able to hear my gut clearly and to act on it with out fear. I want to be the person I should be, not the person I am expected to be.
Now I just need to listen closer and figure that out.
But it is really hard.
And really scary.
It's easy.
No thinking, no growing no dealing.
Just
a
few
words.
And I sorta like that right now because I have profound things in my head. Some of them hurt, some of them are sweet, some of them just - well - are.
But none of them are easy and I want to come and write about it, to get a good chunk of me somewhere. Then the nagging comes picking at it. What if in a day or two or ten these profound thoughts turn out to be nothing, just some overly dramatic crap that I will be embarrassed about later?
Then it is best just to go do something easy. To put things away so I don't have to deal with them. Annoyingly, the nagging comes back and picks some more. What if there is something that will be helpful or meaningful or just something that I really need to learn by letting it flow out of my fingers?
I have now spent almost as much of my life in Austin as I did in El Paso. Everyone knows you don't really get out of El Paso. It is hard to explain unless you happen to be from there. The important part is that now I have a very clean division of my life. Before and After.
You would think that I would find that great symbolic divide via the divorce. Although, that has been on my mind a lot lately it doesn't quite carry the same "Before and After". (it does have its own though)
I moved to Austin in 1989. It was August and hot in a way neither my body or brain could understand. I grew up in a big giant desert where 105+ temperatures were pretty common. But here - when I got here - I couldn't breathe. The air was thick and cloggy like the fuzz your brain gets when you are forced out of a dream before you are done. It made the dichotomy of the places very clear. I settled into my first apartment and did what I would guess most people do when they really move out for the first time. I knew I was starting "THE REST OF MY LIFE".
Now, I have another milestone and am feeling a little bit like I am starting the rest of my life again. I see people from all the big parts of my history and I can't help but see who I was when I knew them. I can see some of the damage I caused and was caused to me. I know there are people I haven't seen much since college who I dearly love still - although there is no real reason to - or not to - because I am not the me from then, therefore, odds are - they are not the them from then. (That makes so much more sense when you say it out loud)
But as names pop up via 100 billion gazzillion trillion social networks sites I re-live chunks of it. I am now pretty darn clear on so much of the strength and screwing up I got from my parents. I empathize in a whole new way. My friends had kids at about the age my parents were when I was born. It is so weird to see it from the other side. It makes you think.
A kid at work grew up in El Paso. He is about 24 which means he was 3 or 4 when I left. His hometown has nothing to do with my hometown. I am now faced with the reality of my life back then was an illusion. I bet everyone goes through it as they grow up, gaining the knowledge that it is all gone. Even the things that are left - are -all -gone.
Then looking back I can see how great some of it was, how incredibly wonderful and beautiful my life really was. It just wasn't what I expected, certainly not what society had expected for me to expect. And because things weren't I fought against so much of it and made such terrible decisions. One of the worst of those was trying to be that person...the one that was expected. I should have just listened to my gut.
I moved here and have been trying different things but nothing is quite settling right. I don't mean that it has been awful. I've still been pretty lucky. I have had some amazing experiences. The good out weighs the bad when I look at the big picture. The bad bits are just chunkier, with thick ankles so they stand out more. But they are the majority or even the problem. It's just that mostly I can't quite hear my gut anymore and when I do I am choking. I am letting fear get in the way of things.
Knowing that the first half of my life so far is entirely, always, forever mostly gone it then becomes impossible to not see my more recently history disappearing at the edges. Yes, I get that everything that has ever happened to me has made me who I am - blah, blah, blah - crap, crap crap.
It makes me want to be able to hear my gut clearly and to act on it with out fear. I want to be the person I should be, not the person I am expected to be.
Now I just need to listen closer and figure that out.
But it is really hard.
And really scary.