The perils of normalcy

I had a hell of a time getting out of bed this morning. The fog of sleep was clinging to me big time and forcing myself to get in the shower took superhuman strength. Well, maybe not super human but extra effort. Washing the funk off it occurred to me that I am freaking middle aged in a way that made the occurring more than usually palpable. Like it hit me and I felt it. Plus my damn foot hurts all the time from plantar fascias. Constant pain is a real pain, let me tell you.

What hit me is that I've been doing this freaking job of mine since I was like 30 and now I am on the north side of my forties and what the hell is this all about? I've blathered on and on about how home owning and car owning and marriage etc sometimes leave me feeling like I don't have anything to do but whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing, but its looking really a lot like I am going to have to do this gig into my 50s which while normal and all, sounds suspiciously like something I shouldn't oughta be doing. Maybe its the pain in my foot but I don't want to feel like this for the rest of my life. I don't want to feel like I have to do a series of daily behaviors that while not totally sucking, are still not the behaviors I'd like to be doing. I feel somewhat frozen. I hear words in my head like, "well if you want to go on bike ride, go!" and week after week that damn bike just sits there looking at me and mocking me with phrases like, "if you go for a ride you'll have to put air in the tires and you're ass will hurt for days afterwards." Fucking objects are making fun of me. My house does it, my cars do it, even my fish tanks. What kind of strange hell is this?

Well, surely, its one of my own making. But just because I built this jail doesn't mean I know how to escape from it. Drinking beer is like giving the keys to the trustee and making him think he could just let himself out, but he realizes that they'll just catch him so at the end of the day he hands them back to the jailer. Occasionally I will go to a rock show that brings me to the edge of the precipice of change and moral enlightenment, but its just not enough. Music used to be the pivot upon which I could leverage my soul toward something grander than fitting into the surrounding society. It still is but my lovely wife has trouble sharing my musical tastes. Anyhow I'm going to have to end this entry now because the dogs of normalcy are howling on the other line. They must be fed. For how much longer, that it a question I'd like to get movement on.

"Back to Work" or "I'm OK, You're OK"

I figure sometimes I should just start writing and see wtf happens. That's the ticket sometimes, just assume that you have to get things done and do them. Mentally the challenges I've been getting from the inward view are regressing and I'm feeling like getting back to being pissed off at our dumb world. And I really love our dumb world. I mean that.

When my beautiful wife and I have one of our struggles, its always interesting to see how it resolves after it has. Our patterns are predictable to everyone but us I suppose. Basically we find something that we both feel pretty passionate about and that we want to stick our feet into the ground for, and then we wrestle. Wrassle. Tug and pull and basically try to find a way to drag the other person to their senses. Drama ensues. Mock exits, feet stomping and the ever so popular words that wound are all a part of our stock and trade. Maybe we're bored. You'd be half right if you said so.

The culmination of these semi-yearly (on average I'd say that's about right) power struggles is the "go too far and then write a letter apologizing for it" end piece. Some of my best shit comes outta writing these far too personal to show you here missives. Basically I say with humor that I am an idiot while gently reminding my winning lass that she has a couple of Claymores strapped to her emotional bodice. Is that supposed to be bodices? Whatever. I can't help but jab at those suckers from time to time for as I have explained in earlier posts, I like explosions. I like the pure heat and then the crap flying through the air and then, after all the hilarity, a deconstruction of the damage. Call it emotional CSI. "See here Grissom, this is the place where the dagger of family self-immolation went right into the left testicle of the victim. Damn that musta stung a little." I'se a bit damaged, and I like the feel of the gnarled skin where the shrapnel went in and laid me open for a bit. New skin, who doesn't like it?

Well, not to be over confident, although that too must be part of the pattern, all is better now. The kids wisely keep the doors closed while we have it out, and we try to keep our voices low. They feel lucky their parents have stuck it out for 27 years or whatnot. We do too.