the fire
IMAGE: Flaming Ship of Ocracoke
Across the flames a ship can sail
As long as the Captain can handle the burn
Of everything he has ever know
Becoming lost to the embers
He walks barefoot across the hot coals
Without exhaustion of challenge
To take just one cool drink
From the fountain of youth
----
I need to be ... involved - fully at that. Yet more so than that ... included.
I recognize that a lot of what I am missing is that feeling of inclusion and full involvement. It is something that makes me feel personally fulfilled.
With distance and change my ability to be involved and included has become limited. Some of it is my fault, most of it is simply because there is not much, if any contact, between myself and most of the group that I use to hang out with regularly.
That loss of contact started happening years ago, when I was single, which drove me to find ways to fill my free time - like spending over 2 hours a day, every day, in the gym, and saying yes to every internet date I was offered.
It really sucked - although I do miss being in better shape.
At the time, it felt like my decision to be celibate was the issue, and I honestly still feel like that issue is the main reason I am not contacted; in so much as it initiated the decision for people to stop contacting me and therefore they have become accustomed to not contacting me still. No one is really that familiar with me anymore is the point.
I feel like, after the celibacy decision was made - kapow - contact dwindled. Except from one person, and I am so glad she made the effort and made me feel like I was important.
There came a point when everyone was okay with the new celibate me. Yet still, even at this point, contact did not pick up, because the way people party and hang out is very sexual and no one wants a priss at their party.
And now, even the one person who had maintained contact is no longer. She is has become core to the community group staying connected and together and she is also in a new relationship of her own -- which means she is uber busy and for me that means the contact has pretty much stopped.
This isn't an upset blame game post either. This is a "just the way it is" post. I love and accept everyone for who they are and what amount of time and connection they have to give to me. Period.
Ugh though! No matter how I write this, no matter how I have written things, I feel like it always comes across as whiney and pathetic. It is not intentional - I do not feel like I am whining or being pathetic. Yet when I read my shit I just cringe. Yet, I know I am just trying to work things out for myself. Figure out what it is that is hurting so bad and work on it.
In short, what I know hurts right now is the lack of inclusion, contact, and involvement that use to overwhelm and fulfill me.
I keep grasping at hopeful opportunities that seem to offer a bit of what once was ... only to be promptly reminded that what once was, is no more.
Strange thing, this whole moving forward is. Especially when you keep grasping to remain ... stagnate?
So there I was, at Sunfest this year, with my family. That is what really hit home for me, mi familia, they love me whether or not I am included, contacted, or involved. They love me.
They support me. They calm me. They hold me. They honor me. The talk shit about me and don't want to deal with me. They want their kids around me. They want me to hold their hand. They want me to fuck off. They are my family.
-----
So it is,
Time to breath,
Discover
Drink deeply
Now.
Here.
In this moment ...
Run.
Along the beating shoreline
Of your heart
There is no return
Only new beginnings
Of an aged heart
Made young
So it is this Captain
Shall cartwheel and spin
Shall stick his tongue out and grin
Shall dance and sing of many things
He would else wise
Never seen
Never been
...
Okay I have no more. Not that it all makes much sense anyway but, so goes my brain.
Senseless!
~TigressSky~