Patchwork

I never want to come across as though I’m not satisfied with life, the universe and everything.

I love the Lord.  I am absolutely in love with my girl.  She’s still the light of my life.  Sexy and smart (too much of both for lil’ ol’ me to deserve).  I love my kids.  I love writing.  Sometimes I even love waking up in the morning and being alive.

I just feel like I’m failing.  In a lot of ways.  I don’t have that inside thing that used to be me.  I want to be Gurp, Pooka, Amiel, Beloved.  But those me just don’t seem to be here.

I always thought that, as I got older, my me would be distilled, refined into what I really am.  Like a concentration of the qualities I had (both good and bad). 

But I’m hard, now.  Hard like intolerant sometimes, like stupid at other times. 

And I’m soft, like weak and afraid of conflict now, like a chameleon, taking after the next thing and becoming it.

Like I didn’t grow or refine, but instead got pieces of me replaced over time with patches.  A patch replacing my sensitivity with narrow vision.  Another covered my quick understanding mind with soft perception that seems to miss the reality of things.  My love of peace, breath, beauty seem replaced by this perpetual sense of order, isolation and un-creative thinking.

And lots of the stuffing leaked out.  One eye got scratched off and now I’m tucked away in a hand-made bag somewhere, with all my accessories, the memories and dreams remaining as ghosts that cross the room behind me as I pass through.

And here’s the thing.  I don’t want that stuff to be gone.  I don’t want it to rule my life, that’s for sure, because I have grown older, and (barely) a little wiser.  I at least know which objects shouldn’t go in the wall outlet (usually).  But I don’t want to give in to the group-think that we outgrow our youth. 

The reality of life is that we have to do things, and we have to take on roles.  That doesn’t mean that we have to be these things, or live out these roles.  The role of supervisor and leader are things I hate to be.  I don’t want that job, but I do it, and I think I’m reasonably adept at it.  But it’s built in my a hardness that just won’t leave me.  Being a sailor has built that hardness, too.  My “vast” experiences have opened my eyes and my skills so that I can create and think on several tracks at once, but they’ve diminished my desire for the intimate and beautiful.  I think I’ve become jaded, powder-coated or something, and I want that layer removed. 

The “therapies” advertised, that I can think of, are things like get away from it all or get some time alone to reset, rebuild your relationship, and those sound great.  But on closer inspection, they seem fake.  Impose an artificial setting to reconnect, or rebuild?  It wasn’t an artificial setting that caused all this history, so how is a mockup going to fix stuff? 

And time alone?  I sure have it right now.  8 more months of it.  I’ve had a few other time-out periods, and they’ve certainly given me the perspective to recognize my dreams and wishes, and realize them as what they are.  But the solitude hasn’t fixed me.  And by the time I get back to the people I want to share this with, it’s been worn out, stuffed back under the rug until next time.  I don’t talk about it, don’t feel anymore, can’t find the words to put it in place.  I guess that’s why I’m trying to blog it this time.  Maybe the words will stick?

I think there’s an answer to this mess.  So I have hope.  I don’t believe, refuse to believe that I have to continue missing that me by a whisper.  Give me back my shadows, my love of someone else’s shadows.  Give me back my mountains and sweet grass plains, and the ghosts that flicker in full view.  God, that stuff hurt sometimes.  I really hurt, died inside, really cared and felt and wanted to give.  Now it’s just not the same.  I’ll take the hurt back, if I can get the rest as well.