Life is an odd thing. It has its way of presenting itself to you in the simplest forms, and at other times, it can seem so complex. You can live your life everyday as if you know where you're headed, know the answers to the questions that have never been presented before you, or for that matter, never concern yourself with the thoughts that the minds of the outside world ponder. If you can get to that point, block it all out, live in the singular, rather than in the plural as the majority tend to live, then you can live a simple life. One by which you can be happy, flourish during the times that you grace, and create whatever your heart endeavors, but at some climatic point you'll have to come to terms with reality.
I live that odd life, and teeter the lines of the one that most others lead. I've purposely pushed away lovers when they wanted to start to get serious, have children, and live the white picket fence dream. Don't get me wrong, it's a dream that I've wanted as well, but one I've never seen myself a part of. It's as if when that dream is in full effect I'm on the outside looking in. The only fear I reserve toward it is that I may have to grow up, stop saying the terrible things that we're supposed to not say, thinking the way that I do about the world so that I can properly teach my children how to perceive it as that world comes toward them, and throw away who I've become over the course of my life.
I once had a conversation with a girl that I had formally slept with about similar issues. My laid back demeanor, my screw it mentality, and easy going attitude were things that she attributed to a defense mechanism within myself. I considered what she thought, respected her perceptions and assessment because I cared and respected her as a woman, but discounted her rundown. Since that conversation I've thought about that issue many times. It's a talk that I've had with many of my partners in the past before her, but one that I had never put much thought behind. This time it was an eye opening experience. It didn't bring about some sort of life altering epiphany or change my mind on how I should carry out the rest of my days, but what it did do for me was help me understand what the other world thinks. The one that carries on outside of my own. It made me realize that things didn't feel so bad until the sun went down, and that cool dark blanket finally settled as it does every night upon our hot city asphalt streets. When that sun went down and the phones stopped ringing for the evening, the flickering images from the television ceased to pattern the walls with the vast colors of the rainbow, and the lights from the houses on my block retreated to darkness as their residents retreated to their bedrooms, I stayed up. I stayed up as I always do. The last one left, the one that the neighbors wonder, "What is he always up to?" I was up reading, writing, and trying to either figure it all out, because when the sun is shining things just don't seem to be as significant, but when that sun goes down then things seem to change, and contemplation for the day is what I'm stuck with.
Photo courtesy of Damian Gerlach
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