I have realized that the reason I cannot write is a strong discomfort with taking my mind off of my son… probably also off of other things as well. The world might stop turning if I am not mentally keeping tabs on it.
This is exhausting.
I know that I’ve grown, because I can say and believe that I have a great deal of potential. I also know that it is being squandered by the mental and emotional energy I pour into making sure the world continues to turn.
I have a massive ego in this sense. My thoughts have power. My body believes that they have the power to affect reality. What they actually have is a brutal, choking arm bar on my potential.
I am currently on my laptop in a library, surrounded by 20-somethings on their laptops and iphones and androids. I am thousands of miles away from the libraries I sat in when I was a 20-something, and there is something disgustingly hilarious about the fact that my 37 year old ass is here, fruitlessly cerebral as ever, tippy-tapping on this laptop among the youth who may or may not be living up to their potential at this very moment.
We are not the same, though, the 20-somethings and I. Not only because they didn’t witness 9/11, not only because they view Nirvana as “classic rock,” not only because they grew up on the other side of the land mass. We are not the same because, unlike me, they are free.
Okay, maybe they’re not, I don’t know who the fuck these people are. I’m going for drama, literary flair, impact. I want to impress myself because I cannot. fucking. write.
The point is this. The weight of making sure the world turns has compressed my bones and muscles and tendons, deformed my back and forced my head to bow. It has pushed me down, down, down, squashing me, shrinking me, diminishing everything that I am.
It is time for my cosmic expansion. I am ready.
Lines and Strings 