Pauses
Thought I'd try an entry now that I've cleaned the flour out of my keyboard. All the old recipe books I have that are covered with grease spatters and food stains, yet keeping recipe files on a notebook computer seemed like such a good idea to me at one time. Time to get my crap printer fixed (or better yet, replaced) before my iBook starts smelling permanently of onions and curry.

I'm still dealing with sleeplessness and randomness. To get an idea of what this feels like for me, think of the old Activision games that didn't necessarily get more difficult as you played along, they just got faster until you finally made a mistake and got your froggy squashed in a traffic lane or drowned in a river. I'm processing a lot (in 8-bit color?) but none of it is really that challenging... or interesting. But it is relentless, getting faster. And I feel that inevitably, sooner or later I'm going to fuck something up just from sheer overload.

The Atari analogy I created here reminded me those things had pause buttons. In college, I'd piss my dorm-mate off when I'd leave a game-in-progress paused on the TV for those extended periods when I'd go off to parties, or sometimes, classes. Never mind it was my TV, my game system, and therefore my prerogative. (An interesting aside... that carousing, quick-tempered dorm-mate of 21 years ago is now a well-established Lutheran pastor. I'd love to drop in on one of his services sometime!)

That analogy, in turn, reminds me I never did the roommate thing well. For all the loneliness I feel sometimes, I'm grateful for times of solitude. Even in marriage, I had a need to create, maintain and use space that affirmed my occasional desire to be left alone. That usually took the form of a spare bedroom equipped with a comfy chair, books, candles and a boom box. Kind of a mid-income, white trash version of a "study," is how one could conceive it, right down to the unframed, thumbtacked Patrick Nagel posters I once thought were high art. But, t'was all "mine."

Even if I think of the times I fell asleep in that chair (or, later, actually locked myself in the room for extended periods to escape some storm raging on the other side of the door), I used to appreciate that I was able to employ a pause button of sorts. When the weasels got hungry and fidgety, I could escape them through some sort of self-nurturing ritual that helped restore equilibrium in my mind, letting me rediscover and therefore claim myself, long before (and now, after) "sensitive male" psychology was something guys could openly admit to practicing.

Now, though, all space is "my" space, and it seems like all I do sometimes is wax introspective. It's literally the only thing of substance I've done since I set out to face life alone. I've picked myself apart, molecule by molecule, examined it and reassembled same. I've learned to stop hiding my own truths, to accept myself and thereby love myself. I remain determined not to go the way of many people I've observed go through my situation, smothered in denial. So now I've learned to be assertive; to disagree without being disagreeable; to be less guarded (yet remain civilized) in what I say, do and think; to not find fear in occasionally making my own decisions; to be passionate about people and things that matter to me.

The backlash of this... now I feel like a control freak. And I've developed nervous habits that are unflattering. Sleeplessness only seems to be the latest manifestation. And ultimately, this is keeping me from following the stirrings of my heart. More and more, it seems as if I need to stop obsessing over identifying rationale for wanting to do something, and just get out and do. Every time I've tried so far, though, I feel like an impostor. When that happens, I'm tempted to reach for that metaphorical pause button again, to take time out, to analyze.

This behavior worked well for me at one time, but it's not working anymore. I feel I now need to loosen up, lighten up and... yes... fuck up a little. Life is messy, and I'm becoming aware that one doesn't always have to clean it up.

Anything to bring up the adrenaline a little. Though I'm safe, secure and drama-free, I'm also pretty bored and joyless. That's not how I ultimately want to define myself. 3:23:41 PM    comment []trackback []