shutting down.

can't think.
can't function.
just here,
but doing no good.

have to shut down.
start over.
shut down.
so tired.

run from me

when i was a kid, and especially a teenager, growns-ups used to tell me "you can be anything you want to be." that was all well and good, but i just didn't have any idea of what i wanted to be. but at least i believed it was true. i don't believe it any more.

when i was 30, married, with children, no college, i realized that a lot of the choices i might have had at 21 were no longer there. i joke with my daughter that i always wanted to be an astronaut, "...an ASS-stro-not -- i made it a third of the way there." every day of my life i have made the choices that brought me to this point. choices have consequences, results, outcomes. the choice to do nothing, waste my time, is still a choice, and the consequences of inactions are every bit as real as the consequences of actions. there is a certain inevitability about it. please spare me the lecture about how it's never too late, and how it all depends on effort, blah blah blah.. i get that. but there is too a fact that we are expected to deny: circumstance plays a part. so does ability, aptitude, gift, whatever name you want to give it. so here i am, looking at the few choices left to me, and none of them excite me in the least.

but how about the one thing i have control over: me? shouldn't i be able to be who i want to be? i believed that for a while too. i can pretend, i can practice techniques, but sooner or later the "real me" always ends up annoying, alienating, boring, offending, intimidating, oppressing, repulsing or disgusting every single person i meet. i see people, and wish i could be like them. people with a winning smile that just makes you like them instantly, or a cool calmness, or an easy-going manner that everyone likes to be around. no amount of pretending will ever give me charisma or charm.

everyone is sick and tired of me. sick of my whining, sick of my bitching and swearing, sick of me being a pest. i'm sick of me too. it's like i have this stain inside me, and no matter how hard i try to clean up, the stain always starts to show again. you wish i was different. i wish i was different too. i tried, but it's no use. to hell with it. i am what i am.

where are you christmas?

Where are you Christmas
Why can't I find you
Why have you gone away
Where is the laughter
You used to bring me
Why can't I hear music play

My world is changing
I'm rearranging
Does that mean Christmas changes too
Oh

Where are you Christmas
Do you remember
The one you used to know
I'm not the same one
See what the time's done
Is that why you have let me go
Oh

Christmas is here
Everywhere, oh
Christmas is here
If you care, oh

If there is love in your heart and your mind
you will feel like Christmas all the time, oh

I feel you Christmas
I know I've found you
You'll never fade away, oh
The joy of Christmas
Stays here inside us
fills each and every heart
With love

Where are you Christmas
Fill your heart with love



------------- James Horner, Will Jennings and Mariah Carey

last christmas

i was remembering last Christmas, when i asked you to sing a certain song that reminded me of how i wished i could be there. i don't know if you did...you never told me. but i heard that song a couple of days ago and now i'm back to wishing all over again. wishing i was someone else, wishing i hadn't made the mistake i made. wishing i could skip to the end of this story to see how it all turns out.

i know this is all seasonal. if i can make it until the spring, i'll feel so much better. but this is only december, and spring is so far away, and once i get there...so what? i'll still be wishing i could have that second chance. you will still be as distant. i should admire the ability to cut losses and move on, but i just can't. i've lost and lost and lost my whole life, and i've reached a point where i'm not willing to lose any more. i will hold on to hope, even if there is none. if i lose, i will grieve the loss with every breath and every step. i will be faithful and true to the memory for as long as i live. if God wants me to change, then he will have to change me. i'm through letting go.

where you go

where you go
i cannot follow.

without your forgiveness
nothing else matters.

you might have been
the closeness i needed.

you were always
just out of reach.

our time is over.
no more waiting.

perfect gifts

i hate lists.

ever since i can remember, and especially since i've been married, gift giving has been all about lists. "send me your Christmas list"..."what do you want for your birthday?"..."why did you get me that? that wasn't on my list..." makes me sick. i hate the notion of obliging someone else to buy me something, the notion of being obliged, the notion that it has to have been pre-suggested, the notion that it all has to be reciprocated, has to "come out even". i hate it that Christmas really does have a meaning, and that the meaning is drowned in the noise of merchandising.

i hate the fact that for 20 years i have wrapped the receipt with the present for every Christmas present i buy my wife, because as often as not she returns it. i hate it that she rattles off lists with details, specific and vague, and then expects that somehow i can find exactly that thing. i hate it that she will go shopping, for herself actually, and lay her hands and eyes on the very thing she desires, and then come back home to tell me what it was and where it is. or where it was, most usually. i hate combing stores and shelves and aisles searching for the thing, only to find that "sorry, we're all sold out" or "are you sure you saw it here?" or what the hell ever.

but the thing i hate the most is the reminder. lists remind me that i don't know her and she doesn't know me. if we knew each other, if we cared for each other enough, you think we would be able to know what the other would like, or need. maybe even want those things for them as much as they want it for themselves, instead of "i know you want it but that's not what i want to give you." so we do the lists.

lists are practical, yeah. but secretly i still wish for things to be different. maybe i was affected too much by O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi as a child. i miss the times when i was eager to find presents for everyone. i miss the days when i was spontaneous, extravaggant, generous and thoughtful. my gifts once were perfect. now they are clumsy, abortive, half-baked, half-hearted attempts to conform to social norms. somewhere along the way i resigned myself to go along with the list-makers.


but something happened this week. i got a package from a far off place. i wasn't expecting it. someone who knows me, a little better than most, maybe...thought about me. she remembered i like planes, and she saw something that she knew i would like. so she just gave it to me. a gift -- a generous, thoughtful, perfect gift.
it's for Christmas, so i haven't opened it yet, but from the little card she taped to the front of it i have a good idea of what it is. every day i read the card, and i feel...excitement! it excites me that someone in the world thought of me, thought enough of me to imagine what i would like, and was so right. so i'm like a little kid, waiting for Christmas. i already have the best gift.

addictions

they're not all the same.

i've heard that withdrawal from alcohol addiction can actually kill you. one of only two substances that are that way. sorry, i don't remember what the other one is. but for all those that won't kill you, they say cold turkey is the most effective way to quit.

i smoked when i was a teenager, but never got addicted. the cigarettes gave me headaches, made me feel sick. when the subject of quitting came up, i said i could quit at any time. "everybody says that but then they can't really do it." smart ass. i quit just to prove him wrong.

at times i drank too much, drank myself incredibly sick. at the very least, i would spend the next whole day literally nursing a liter of coca-cola. back then it came in glass bottles. i would put it in the freezer until ice just began to form in it, then i would lie in bed and slowly sip the icy cold, carbonated, caramel-colored liquid until my stomache agreed not to throw everything back up. but i never needed to drink. never felt like i couldn't live without a drink. i just always thought "why the hell not?" finally i got so drunk that the hangover really felt like i was dying, and it dawned on me: alcohol is a poison. they use it to kill things. after that, i decided to drink but not get drunk. not so unlike the decision to eat, but stop before i was stuffed. still, after i got married my wife was just so goddam certain that i was going to be an alcoholic, just like my parents. she was so convinced that she convinced our daughter who then burst into tears when i drank my annual beer at the lake, and i had to promise her i wouldn't drink anymore so she wouldn't have to worry.

addictions tarnish what otherwise would shine. my flaws keep me from being confident, keep me from thinking too much of myself. keep me from being proud. but even when i think i have my addictions under control, i find myself getting edgy, and deep inside i know why. i've never done drugs, but i have been hooked. forget the nicotine, the caffeine, the booze...

i think i'm addicted to...





you.