::Saturnine

I dig my way out from the rubble and it’s another moonless night.  Just like that, it’s been a month.  Full cycle, full circle, while I was tumbling among the stones and the lava, grinding bones to dust and bleeding myself dry over the roots of the mountains.  Even now, the earth is trembling as I pull myself free, dripping and limp.  The night breeze hesitates, as if the stars aren’t quite sure what to do with me.

My guts are wound up tight, feeling full of stones.  Knotted-up knuckles and torn claws from all this digging and fighting.  Eyes dragging down through the bottom of my skull.  My back feels like I’m about to grow a new set of wings, all clutched up and swollen.  I’m weary and maudlin.  One foot, two, I stand and shake off the dust.  Reach my hands up and stretch, and feel my spine creak, ominous.  I don’t grow wings.  So I start walking home.

Nothing is going to change at work, and I need to come to terms with that.  I am a good follower, until the day that I perceive that my leadership is doing a piss-poor job.  Which, sadly, is the case.  Then I become ambitious and hateful.  Sarcastic and angry at the garbage I’m forced to deal with.  Hopping mad and ready to take over and Do It Right.  So now I’m grinding my teeth to nubs, ready to pick up the sword and lead the charge — and find that nobody listens to the blowing horns, nobody sees the waving standards.  I have proven myself invisible and powerless, for the time being.  It’s time to swallow the medicine and collect my paycheck.  It will be years before the ship takes enough water to sink.

But for now I’ve got myself all hackles-up hissing and snapping like a disturbed snake at every little motion.  Which isn’t good for anyone.  I’m closer to throwing things through windows and taking a swing at the bum asking me for change INSIDE THE GROCERY STORE, jeezus why do I shop here.  

Nights I should be writing here, I’m spending maudlin about times gone by.  Choices made and opportunities missed, people whose faces I’ve begun to forget and whose voices I can’t quite recall.  Those who have left me and married others, those who have left the country to live on the other side of the world.  One or two who deliberately disappeared, not just from me but everyone.  And all the rest who just faded away and stopped calling.  Some whose names I’ve even forgotten.  I’ve been clicking on old notes.  System Message:  Diary does not exist.  A little pang of loss, all over again.  Who were you really?  What happened to you?  How did your story end?

I had a close friend who up and left town a few years ago, and didn’t tell anyone.  No warning, no news, no forwarding address.  Even his family didn’t know where he went.  He left behind an ex-wife and a very young son.  I never was able to wrap my head around why he might have done that.  I think I’m a little closer to understanding that lure, that wild desire to shuck off all the baggage and chains we willingly accepted, not knowing the weight that would come to bear.  To run free and lonely and screaming into the darkness, thinking we’ll recapture what we had in our youth.  Which is also a lie. 

Chewing on all the decisions left unmade and paths left untrodden.  Things I’ve never done and May Never, now.  Too old and fat and tied down and frightened.  Trying to accept it and simultaneously trying to wish it all away in a hail of tears like my toddler son:  fists in my eyes, sobbing "nononononono".   (It doesn’t work for him, either, and he’s just trying to avoid taking a bath.)  I want to see Europe.  I want to know heartstopping, maddening love at first sight again, even if it makes me burn down everything.  I want to see Bad Religion live in concert.  I want a reckless, passionate blowjob just one more time.  I want to pull more aunts and uncles and cousins from thin air and have a large family.  I want my father back, you son of a bitch.  I want to be famous for something ridiculous.  I want to see the Pacific Ocean.  I want to conquer the Red Men of Mars, bloody sword in hand.  I want to fuck in the grass in the middle of a summer thunderstorm.  I want to ride a horse through woods deep and dark.  I want polyamory and a government that I don’t have to fear.

I find that in times like this, it’s like my wiring pulls two ways.  An even more slavish duty to hearth and family and labor.  And an even stronger lust for reckless abandon.  Yearning for escape, that pressure valve.  I find myself fantasizing ever more about a weekend in Vegas with an anonymous lover.   Of escape across the sea, or of time travel.  Of double lives or living forever or pushing the button to end the world.

I powerfully miss marijuana this week.  I was never a huge pothead – I experimented a little in my twenties, was extremely casual about it, and quit for good when I got a job at the airport (where I could get tested on a regular basis).  Haven’t touched it since.  But the reason I miss it is because, in times like this when I’m all curled around my stress, all  hisses and scratches and fussing and anger, it helped uncoil all that nonsense and give me a couple hours of giggles and nonsense.  Made me feel spacey and creative and carefree.  Without actually fixing any of my problems.  It gave me a genuine mental/emotional break that I’m not getting now., and made it easier to deal with things and people that suck.  A good, solid toke would relax all that territorial growliness about my job, at least.  This I know.

Also, toddler vomit is possibly the most disgusting substance known to man.  If we could somehow decree that all bullets splattered you with toddler vomit when fired, we’d have an end to war.    ….Also to deer hunting, but you take the good with the bad, I guess.

Coming closer to knowing where to start with my novel idea.  It’s an elusive bitch but I am thinking more about it as the weather gets warmer.  I still don’t know my hero and that’s the biggest sticking point, I think.  I can’t ramble about how the world is broken unless I have someone to ride, to show it to all of you.

Until then, I’m doing this and you’ll like it.

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July 8, 2013

Love your writing! I used to feel what you’re feeling a lot. In recent times I have come to learn that my desire for escape was due to the fact that … I had achieved the basic ‘ness’ of life. And felt that that was all Life had offered. But I’ve come to see that once you’ve achieved the basic ‘ness’ of life – it’s merely the groundwork to be able to work on achieving the big ‘ness’ of life. Just go for it !!!! Create those things that you mentioned ! I dare you ! Just do it 😉 NEVER too old or fat for anything.

I wish I had such a way with words but sadly they all fall away from me,Much like the way rotten flesh sloughs off bones after it has withered enough. I feel like I am becoming downtrodden and beaten into a rhythm not of my own choosing,I watch others embracing life and fear that this is all I will ever be.

Yet I continue plodding along filled with wanting and trying to grasp strands of what was but can never be again. Constantly shifting and waiting for some big break,Sometimes I want to scream and break things just to know that someone sees me…To know I am still alive.

July 8, 2013
July 9, 2013

Even reckless abandon has its problems.

July 9, 2013

ryn: it’s a good question…it’s one the book actually poses briefly as well. it’s not something i could decide in a rush, but a lot combative, enemy countries would be on my list. a lot of already vastly overpopulated countries would follow. and i’d probably take out a few choice states here in the U.S. too.

July 10, 2013

As a sister of a brother of a father who abandoned him, that is tragic. I guess that’s why parents try to encourage their kids to do everything they never did. To live vicariously through them. I told Chris we may need to save Europe for after we retire, if we end up having babies soon. And I’m OK with that. Maybe I’ll have little traveling babies, and they’ll go everywhere I never did.

July 10, 2013

I do like it, yes sir.

July 10, 2013

RYN: thanks for the note! Trust me, I know your way is easier. And I don’t mind telling X half truths, or carefully worded statements, or outright saying “I don’t have the answer.” But I really, truly avoid flat-out lying. That’s why we don’t do Santa, either. To me, presenting a black-and-white binary regarding gender is a lie. I won’t feel right doing it.

July 12, 2013

I hear you about your job. I’m so disgusted with my leadership lately that my sarcasm has reached near toxic levels. I look forward to being the first person convicted of a sarcasm-related maiming. *grin*

July 14, 2013

Your writing always gets me to the core and trust I can relate so much with what you’re saying.

July 24, 2013

ryn: thank you so much for your kind note! 🙂

July 25, 2013

RYN: I think the best way to deal with that is to be honest. “I’m sorry, I didn’t connect with this piece at all, so I’d prefer not to offer any criticism. If you’d still like to hear my feedback, I’ll share it, but please be aware that it’s fairly critical.” Then it’s up to them to take it or leave it.

July 30, 2013

RYN: All volunteer, baby–derby’s home-did. All that anxiety for nothin’. And I can see all those other rec league bitches who didn’t volunteer camped out together on the sidelines with coolers of beer! Bitches!