We Become Merlin, Lord Of The Geeks...

the Man is no longer a Man
in this day and age
he is a strange Middle-Aged Boy
an Aging Adolescent
hair going grey
with the hours whittled away
on Xbox video games

the Man that is a Man
is of a bygone age
The Real Man in the films of old
Age-ed Anachronism
strong and proud and brave
standing tall to face the day
and keep the wolves at bay

that I am a Man-who-is-not-a-Man
a product of this modern age
has vexed my Heart and Soul
my Arrested Ascension
how can I always play
when a Real Man works all day
but really who's to say?

the Boy is also a Man
in our culture at this stage
in truth both young and old
Advancing Adolescence
we get to play our lives away
yet still have bills to pay
the balance of the middle way

I am a Boy and I am a Man
by internal and external age
work only to play is my road
an Admirable Aspiration
that I get to live My Way
a little boyhood every day
is the great gift of this age

Fuck it
I'll be okay

I'll Stand Before The Lord Of Song...

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not someone who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a lonely Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

          -"Hallelujah"
            Leonard Cohen, Various Positions

Chutes and Ladders...

Just a brief synopsis of my day...

In preparation for the upgrade of my work PC (currently my only working computer, since my laptop is in the shop being repaired) from Windows XP to Windows 7 tomorrow, I had a bunch of files to backup, and one program (Quicken) to upgrade, since the version of Quicken that I've been using to manage my personal finances for the last ten years is not compatible with Win7.

I'd already bought the latest version of Quicken, so the upgrade installation should only take about an hour.  Decided to do that first, only to discover that the CD-ROM drive on my PC is apparently broken.  Luckily managed to scrounge a portable CD-ROM from the Help Desk that plugs in on a USB.  After running for a half-hour, the installation program suddenly shuts down with an error message.  Had to restart my computer and do it again; another half an hour, but this time it works.  But when I start up the new program, it tells me that I can't covert data from my old version (2002) to the new version (2012).  I'll need to download and install an intermediate version (2004), convert my data from 2002 to 2004, then re-install 2012, and then finally convert my data from 2004 to 2012.  Ugh, ok.  Luckily, they offered a free version of 2004 for download.

So, downloaded that, but it took me a half dozen tries to install it.  Kept getting error messages, had to uninstall 2012 first (another half-hour), but it eventually worked, and I managed to convert my data to 2004 format.  Then I spent another half-hour installing 2012, only to have it fail with the same error message again.  Had to restart my machine (all told, had to restart my machine six times - at about ten minutes a piece, that's an hour I spent restarting my machine alone!), and install it again.  Another half-hour, but this time it worked.

But then when I went to run it, it told me that I couldn't use my data because it was for a Deluxe version of Quicken.  (Apparently the "free" version of 2004 that they offered was the Quicken 2004 Deluxe.)  And so, in order to be able to use my data that I had just spent over four hours trying to convert, I would need to upgrade to the Deluxe version of 2012, at a cost of $60.  I'd already spent $30 on the version I'd just spent all day trying to install!  I then spent an hour on the phone with an argumentative gentleman from New Delhi at Quicken Customer Service trying to find a way around this, to no avail.  Ended up having to upgrade to the Deluxe version, even though I didn't want it, just to save my data.  Spent another half an hour installing it and converting my data (FINALLY!).

All told, I ended up spending almost seven hours of my day just trying to install this one fucking program.  In my entire life using computers, I have never had this much difficulty installing a program, ever.  Not even close.

And I couldn't use my computer for anything else the whole time it was installing (so that would be all day), so I still had all the rest of my work to do!  But I was out of time, because I had to rush home to try and see the Transit of Venus.

Venus crosses the face of the Sun (from our point of view on Earth) twice about every hundred years or so.  The last time it happened was in 2004.  The next time it will happen, after today, is 2117.  Literally, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  And I am lucky to live within walking distance of an elementary school science lab/planetarium that had set up telescopes with special filters to allow the public to view the transit from 6-8p today.

But it was cloudy.  From horizon to horizon, grey fluffballs of clouds covering the entire sky.

Anticipating a long wait, we brought along one of our two folding camp chairs.  Removing it from it's carrying pouch, She discovered a hidden treasure inside.  A sword, with a crystal handle, and a brass hilt.  This sword had been an important magickal item to me for years.  I used it in various Solar rituals.  It had also been one of the treasures offered up in our wedding ceremony.  I had lost it years ago.  So long ago in fact, that it has been years since I even considered it lost; for many years now I have simply assumed that it was gone, and that I would never see it again.

And then, suddenly, as I'm waiting, desperately, for the Sun to appear from behind the curtain of clouds, so that I could watch this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of our closest neighbor planet floating across its immense, bright face, my long-lost Magickal Sun Sword simply appears out of nowhere.  Almost as if by magick.

Surely, this was a sign that my luck was turning.

And, sure enough, with less than fifteen minutes before the Sun disappeared behind the horizon, there was a sudden break in the clouds!  And She managed to secure us a spot near the front of the line!!  (You have my eternal gratitude for this, Precious. You saved me from disappointment and disaster.)

And so, for about ten seconds, I was able to look through a telescope's eyepiece, and directly into the face of our Star.  And there she was - Venus.  A small, black dot, floating against a backdrop of the enormous, white circle of the Sun.  I saw it with my own eyes.

I will remember those ten seconds for the rest of my life.

And then I got to drive all the way back to my office to finish up the file backup preparations for tomorrow that I hadn't had a chance to do earlier.  And now I'm done, and it's time to go home.  And by the time I get there, it will be past my bedtime.

But I don't even care.

Today was a great day.

Hope and Regret, part 3...

On the heels of all of these thoughts on my addiction and recovery and sobriety, I started thinking about how I feel about my history of using.  And I feel a need to state here, strongly and clearly, and in no uncertain terms, that I have no regrets about my past behavior.  None.  If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't do it any differently.  Even the very worst moments, where I hurt myself badly or scared myself half-to-death or nearly died, I'm still grateful for.  Because each and every one of them taught me valuable lessons that I wouldn't have learned any other way, and I have in each instance become a better person for having learned them.

And those scary moments were few and far between.  The vast majority of the years I spent drunk and high, I laughed my ass off and just had a wonderful time.  I learned a lot about myself through those experiences, and I feel lucky and privileged to have had the chance to spend so much of my life feeling happy and stimulated and satisfied.  I've had a great run of it up to this point.  But it's just becoming a little old, a little stale, a little tired.  And so am I.  After all these years, it's taking more and more of a toll on me than it ever has before, right as I'm getting less and less out of it than I used to.  And as I get older, and my priorities for what I want out of life shift from more immediate pleasures to bigger-and-better things, it's just becoming less and less worth it for me to keep going like this.

And I always knew that it would have to end one day.  And I always knew there would be a price to pay for all those years of self-indulgence.  And I always knew that this was that price.  And I always knew that one day I would pay it.  And now that this day seems to finally be coming around, I am paying it.  Gladly.

But I'm still glad I did it, too.

And I wouldn't change a thing.

Hope and Regret, part 2...

And speaking of breaking the cycle, the 2nd, and possibly most, important thing I learned in my session this week, was the existence of an organization called SMART Recovery.

I've considered going to AA or NA meetings before, but having some past experience with them and knowing the gist of what they're like and how they work, I've never really felt like they would be a good fit for me.  The central core of the X-Anonymous twelve-step programs starts with two things:  1) submit your will to a Higher Power, and 2) admit that you are powerless over your addiction.  The rest of the program builds off of those two ideas, so if you can't do those, then the rest of the program isn't going to be much help for you, either.  And neither of those ideas really work for me.  More to the point, they're basically the exact opposite of what I feel I need in order to get and stay sober.

I don't believe in a sentient being that controls the Universe, so the entire concept of "Higher Power" would be difficult for me right from the start.  I could use Tao, but that wouldn't really work, either.  Because Tao is not a sentient force, it's just a pattern.  It's the pattern of Nature seen throughout the Universe.  It is the Set of All Things.  It is the Universe, and everything it in, and everything outside of it (if there is anything outside of it) and the motion of all things that repeats in the same way from the spinning of galaxies down to the spinning of electrons.  It is the cyclical pattern of motion that is all creations, that spurs all nothings to become some-things.  So, it's not really a Power, and it's not really Higher, either, since there is nothing that is not Tao.  And how would I "submit my will" to it, exactly?  How can I submit to something that I'm already a part of, merely by virtue of my existence?  And then there's just the whole idea of submitting my Will, at all, which I'm not real keen on.

Which actually ties in with the 2nd step, admitting that you're powerless over your addiction.  Submitting my Will, admitting I am powerless... these are not things that I've ever been good at.  In fact, I have spent the majority of my adult life strengthening my Will, to the point that I was able to convince myself that I can actually bend Reality to it.  "Powerless" is not something I ever want to feel, or believe I should ever have to feel.  And more to the point, it's not something I believe I am.

I'm not powerless over my addiction.  That fact is self-evident.  If I were powerless, then I would've ended up deranged and out-of-control, like my mother, or her mother before her.  Or like one of those poor, pathetic people on Intervention, who are incapable of caring about anything beyond their drug use.  I have never been like that.  Throughout my entire history of using, I have always carefully monitored myself, my cravings, the amount of my intake; constantly limiting the amount I use to "just enough;" never letting myself use as much as I really want; dialing back my use whenever the cravings started to become more intense; etc.  I used always knowing that I was an addict, and that I was walking a fine line between having fun and losing it all, and always on the lookout for signs that it was getting out-of-hand.  (That's one of the reasons I'm actually feeling kind of done with all of it at this point.  That kind of constant self-intervention takes a lot out of you, and it's getting to the point that getting high is no longer worth the effort it takes to maintain anymore.)  In my entire history, I've only ever let myself use with abandon, to my heart's content, a couple of times.  And every one of those times, things quickly got out of hand, and I scared the shit out myself, and ended up getting my shit together in a new and better way as a result.  And even at my worst, even when I've hurt myself badly with liver damage and ulcers and near-overdoses, I've still never been even half as bad as my mother, or my grandmother, or the sick souls on TV, or any of the people whose stories I heard in those church basements as a child.  So, if I have to start that program by admitting that I am powerless over my addiction, then I have to base that entire program on a lie.  And what is the point in that?

And, honestly, if we're really "powerless," then what are we even doing in recovery?  If we were truly powerless over our addictions, then wouldn't we be out getting drunk and high right now?  For me, my sense of my own power, my sense of my internal strength, my strength of Will, is exactly what I've used to keep from going off the deep end my whole life, and exactly what I've relied on to get sober.  So why on Earth would I want to just abandon that??  The whole idea just seems completely counter-productive to me.

And adding to all that the fact that my mother used to take me with her to AA and NA meetings when I was a kid, and that she left one of those meetings and went straight to the hotel room where she took her life, it would be a significant understatement to say that I have some emotional baggage associated with those programs.  And if I went, the only reason I'd be going would be to try to get and stay sober.  I really wouldn't want to also have to work through a bunch of my childhood mommy-issues at the same time.   So, for all of these reasons, I've never really considered the X-Anonymous twelve-step groups to be a valid option for me in my recovery.

So I always assumed I would just have to do this on my own.  I thought that the X-A groups were the only ones out there, and since those wouldn't work for me, then it must be up to just me doing the work, and the best help I could hope for would be the occasional 1-on-1 counseling session.  And I was ok with that, honestly.  But then my counselor tells me about this other recovery group called SMART Recovery.

They're basically an alternative to the twelve-steppers, that emphasizes scientific methods of recovery (constantly evolving as the science of recovery evolves; none of that watered-down, psuedo-JudeoChristian psychology "Higher Power" bullshit), self-empowerment as the main recovery tool (as opposed to submitting your Will and pretending to be powerless - more pseudo-JudeoChristian nonsense; and none of this Will-undermining "my addiction is a disease and I am sick and I will always be sick" crap, either), and recognizing that there is no one right way to become sober that will work for everyone - that everyone is unique and different and that each individual has their own best method of recovery - and so the key to recovery is finding your personal method and working it (which is completely in-line with the way I have lived the entire rest of my life; SMART Recovery is to traditional recovery what Chaos Magick is to traditional Western occultism - find what works best for you, and use it).  They try to get at the root of addictive behavior itself and deal with that, using modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy methods, rather than focusing on the particular substance or thing one is addicted to.  (SMART stands for "Self-Management And Recovery Training".)  As such, they aren't just for alcoholics or drug-users, but accept any kind of addict at all.  A meeting could include people ranging from alcoholics, to drug-users, to sex addicts, or gambling addicts, or hoarders, or anyone else who would fall under the category of "I'm exhibiting compulsive behavior that I would like to stop."

I was astounded that I'd never heard of this before.  They sound perfectly tailored for me.  I found out there's a meeting in my area, and I'm going to attend my first one next week.  I'm going to try to reserve judgement, though.  In my experience, things that sound too-good-to-be-true usually are.  And while the base description sounds fantastic, some of the material I've found on their website absolutely screams "MOTIVATIONAL SEMINAR," and that could be a big turn-off for me.  So, I'm going to keep my expectations low, attend a few of the meetings, and get a sense of what they're really like.  It'd be nice if they turned out to be even half as great as they sound, and it'd be nice if I could actually get some extra help from them.  But it would be just that - extra.  So if they turn out to be not-quite-right for me, then oh, well.  I still have no problem doing all of this on my own.

And no reason to believe that I can't.


concluded in part three tomorrow...

Hope and Regret, part 1...

(When I originally wrote this piece, it turned out to be a lot longer than I'd anticipated, and it just seemed like way too much to include in one posting.  So, I've decided to break it up into three parts.)


I learned at least two really important things at my counseling session this week.

First of all, I was reminded of something that I had previously known, but apparently forgotten.  That this thing I'm going through right now, this period of depression and low-energy/motivation, is a really common psycho-emotional/bio-chemical reaction in addicts, in response to a relapse.  It's almost textbook.  Basically, once you've sobered up a bit, then the crash from even just a little bit of use is much more pronounced, and much more noticeable.  (It's always there, really - it's just that when you're getting high all the time, it's a lot harder to notice it.)  And so that's what's happening with me right now.

I've learned that lesson before.  I used to know this.  So I kind of felt like an idiot for somehow managing to forget it.  But I was also very glad to be made aware of it again.  Oddly, it made me feel better somehow to know that this was a common phenomena, that many other people have gone, and are going, through it, that it's been studied and cataloged.  Made me less sad about giving up what I'd lost.

Speaking of which, I was reminded of something about that, as well.  That period of time in early sobriety, where life is beautiful and being clean just feels so good and everything comes so easily and naturally - that period that just ended for me after Walpurgisnacht, what I've been calling my "state of grace" - in recovery-speak, that period is called "the pink cloud."  Also common, also well-studied and cataloged by men in white coats.

And also another trap.  At least for me, anyways.  Because, when I think about it, I realize that the pink cloud is just another high.  I can see the pattern in my behavior so clearly now.  I use until I get bored with it, or until it becomes so much less fun than it once was that it's no longer worth the price I'm paying for it in terms of health, energy, etc.  Then I sober up and ride the pink cloud for all it's worth for as long as I can.  And then as soon as that wears off, as soon as that becomes so much less fun than it once was that it's no longer worth the price I'm paying for it in terms of effort and sacrifice, then I start using again.  And round and round we go on the merry-go-round of rotating knives.  Basically, I've been cycling back and forth between being high on drugs, and being high on life.  But no matter what, I've always been high.

So, that's what I'm trying to work on now.  Breaking that cycle.  And not just learning how to live a life without using, but learning how to live my life, truly sober - meaning not high on anything at all, completely regardless of whether that thing is seen as a positive or negative influence.  Figuring out how to live my life completely down to earth.  (And figuring out what "down to earth" even means for me.)

Takin' it back to formula.


continued in part two tomorrow...

Pleasuring Myself, continued...

A reader left this comment on my post from yesterday, and I wanted to respond to it here, because I think it raises some interesting points that got me thinking about it a bit more:

Well I think the goal is to be happy moment by moment as much as you can. So what's the problem with pleasuring yourself? Just strive for getting outside your own ego as much as you can, and then you're still moving forward, I say. 

I'm not sure I can agree with that.  I'm not sure I should agree with that, for my own safety.

See, my problem is that, more often than not, that instinct or drive or need to pleasure myself, to make myself happy, has led me to do stupid, self-destructive things.  On more than one occasion now, it has come close to killing me.  And it's a virtual certainty that, if left unchecked, someday it will succeed.  So pleasuring myself is my problem.  And so I feel that, for my own good, I can't allow myself to just try to be as happy as possible moment-to-moment.  Because what happens when the thing that will make me happy is also something that hurts me in some way?

So I feel like I need to do something to correct that behavior, that need to pleasure myself.  And right now, I'm not sure that I actually am.  Yes, it's true that I'm no longer indulging in those self-destructive pastimes at the moment, and that I've replaced them with more self-constructive activities, but I don't feel that I can take any credit for that.  Because I didn't do anything to foster that change.  The circumstances around me have changed, but I'm still responding to them in the same way I always have before.  I still feel just as strong of a need to pleasure myself, it's just that the methods in which I want to achieve that pleasure are now different.  As I said yesterday:  before I wanted to get high and get off, so that's what I did, and now I want to meditate and study mathematics, so that's what I'm doing.

The root cause of my self-destructive behavior lies in that need to make myself feel as good as possible for as much of the time as possible.  Yes, I'm now indulging that need in a constructive manner, but since I had no hand it actually making that happen and am only following where the flow takes me, then how can I trust in that and believe that I am now somehow "better?"  I have put no Will into this.  I am not behaving any differently, not really.  I'm just responding to different stimulus in the same manner as before.  So, what happens when the novelty wears off?  What happens when I suddenly find that I'm not deriving the same amount of joy and satisfaction out of these healthy activities as I once did?

What happens when I finally do want to get high again?

Because that day will come, no question.  And if I haven't done anything to correct the root cause of that desire, then how will I be able to resist it?  And I guess that's the problem in a nutshell:  I'm not resisting.  Because for me, there's nothing to resist.

Most people in my situation (newly-sober addicts) are in a constant battle against their own desires.  They are struggling against themselves to try and resist the urge to do the one thing they want to do more than anything else.  And their entire recovery is built around that internal conflict.  I know that I am an addict because I have experienced that conflict for more of my life than I care to admit, and because most of the times that I have fought those urges, I have lost.  But that is not my experience now; that is not what I'm going through today.  I'm not getting high right now because I do not want to get high right now.  I am sober because, right now, I want to be sober.  I have no urges to resist or fight against.  They just disappeared, and I ran with it.  And so that makes me feel like I'm not really doing the work.  Like I'm not really getting any better.  That I just got lucky.  That I had a brief window of opportunity, and I seized on it.

But this is not going to last forever.  Eventually, the winds of my desire are bound to blow back in the other direction again.  And I'm going to need to know ahead of time how to respond when that happens, or else it's going to catch me off guard and I'm going to fall right back into the same self-destructive patterns that I feel so blessedly and falsely liberated from right now.  But how can I possibly prepare for that?  Should I be resisting every pleasurable desire I have, irrespective of de-structive vs. con-structive?  Do I need to be living a monastic life?  (Frankly, I'd rather OD.)

Maybe I just need to cross that bridge when I come to it.  Maybe there's no point in worrying about it.  Maybe I should just accept this period of productive activity for what it is, and be grateful that it came so easily to me.  Maybe I should just focus on how lucky I am that I don't have to go through that struggle the way so many other addicts do.

And it would be so easy to do all of that, if only I felt in any way responsible for this change of fortune.  If I just felt that I had some hand in bringing this release about, then I would know that I actually am resisting, that I am doing the work - just in my own unique way, outside the range of the typical experience.  The same way I seem to do just about everything else.

Maybe that is true.

Could that be true?

No, I don't think so.  I've fought hard before, and I've won.  And I've fought hard, and lost.  But this time, I wasn't even fighting at all.  I had given in to my desires 100%.  And even though I knew I was hurting myself badly I still didn't try to resist.  I just didn't have it in me.  But then I hit a bottom I hadn't even seen coming.  And it scared the shit out of me.  And I responded to that fear by running as fast as I could in the opposite direction.  Basically, I scared myself straight.

How can I take credit for that?

I can't.  I didn't really do anything.  I got lucky.

But what I can do?  I can be grateful.  And oh, how I am.

And I can look on the bright side.  I can make the most of it.  I can do everything in my power to get as much out of this experience as I possibly can, for as long as it lasts.  And if I'm lucky, and smart, then the things I learn during this temporary reprieve will prepare me to know what to do and how to respond when that inevitable day finally arrives, and my desires shift their poles again.

And that's gotta be enough.

My Precious...

I keep forgetting that this all started with Her.

Amid all the psychodrama and melodramatic, existential bullshit at my latest rock bottom, I keep losing sight of how I ended up there in the first place.  Of the reason why I started running head-long toward the dark at the end of the tunnel at all.  And equally, in the effervescence of all of my recently re-discovered joys, in the heady excitement of my bright, shiny new serenity, I also keep losing sight of the fact that, that reason is now gone.  That I got what I wanted all along.

That I'm so in love with Her.

Yes, it's Spring, and that certainly has to be factored into the equation.  But that doesn't make anything I'm feeling less relevant, or any less real.  For months, and maybe longer, I felt like I'd lost her.  (I realize now, I'd actually lost myself.)  I couldn't find any reason to be with her, except momentum.  I couldn't find any joy in her company, in her touch, or in her place in my life.  I realize now that I couldn't find any joy in anything in my life just then, but at the time I was completely focused on her.  I thought that We were the problem, that something was wrong with Us that needed to be fixed.  That if she could only change, or if I could only learn to be happy without the things I felt I needed from her, then everything would be better.  But it never was.  It was never good enough.  Nothing was ever good enough.  And I only ended up more unhappy, and more lost.

I believe my biggest flaw (and I have so many), is how I respond in these situations.  When I cannot find joy in my life, when I feel lost and alone, when I begin to struggle to find a reason to keep going, I force-feed myself artificial pleasure in the form of deadly poisons.  Now, to be fair, most of the time it's not like that.  In fact, I'd say 99% of the time it's just a little here, a little there - just having a good time and blowing off a little steam.  And nothing that's even really dangerous, let alone deadly.  Under any other circumstance, it's all innocent and under control.  No, not "under control," because the truth is that for most of the time, there's nothing there that even needs to be controlled in the first place.  But then there's that fatal 1% of the time, when I feel like I have nothing.  And believing I have nothing, and feeling that it's all downhill from there anyways, then I might as well enjoy the ride.  And that's when I push the plunger on my self-destruct button.

And that's exactly what I did here.  I'd made her my entire life, in about the most self-destructive, co-dependent manner imaginable.  And so when I felt like I'd lost her, I felt like I'd lost everything.  I hadn't, but I couldn't see that from the bottom of the hole I had dug myself into.  And when I finally hit bottom, I wasn't even thinking of saving myself from myself.  I still hadn't even realized that I was the problem.  I thought I was trying to save my marriage.  I thought I was trying to find a way to live with her.  But I was just trying to find a way to live.

And now I'm so happy, and so overjoyed with every second of every day, blah blah blah.  The high of the near-death experience.  And it's all such a big distraction, so constantly overwhelming, that I keep forgetting to pay attention specifically to all that I've re-gained with her.

My heart beats faster when I think of her now.  It actually skips when she kisses me.  Can you fucking believe that?  I didn't think that was possible anymore!  Everything she does makes me happy right now.  Even the things I used to think I couldn't stand.  I don't know how I ever felt any other way than I do right now.  I'm so grateful for the gift of her life, and the fact that she actually, improbably, inexplicably, wants to share it with me.  I look forward to seeing her every day in a way I only distantly remember feeling, long ago.  I ache softly inside when I have to leave her.  When I make her laugh, I own the fucking world.  And when my hands are on her hips, and I pull her to me, and feel every curve of her pressed against my body, I am lost again.  But no longer in darkness.  Lost in the cloudy depths of her palest-blue eyes.  Lost in the scent of her skin.  Lost in my lust to reunite with the other half of me.  Lost in the warm, comfortable weight of the life we've made, wrapped around us, holding us tightly together.  Lost in my joy of Her.

I hold no delusions that this will last forever.  Rule #1:  everything, everyone, everywhere, ends.  But because I know that right now, I am more grateful than I ever thought possible, for every single second I get to be with her.  And I remember now, what I had so tragically forgotten:

That She is the single greatest thing that has ever happened to me.

And that no matter whatever else I may be in my life, the one and only thing I will always be, forever, is Her's.

The New Commute...

I started taking a new route to work this week.

I've known about this route for years - a snaking backroad through farm country that leads straight from my home to my office - but I've always been told it takes about 90 minutes to traverse, so I've never bothered with it.  Taking the more direct route down the clogged and congested 6-lane commuter highway, I-270, takes me 90 minutes on the absolute worst days.  Usually only takes me about 45 minutes to an hour, on average.  And my top priority was always to minimize the amount of time my commute took above all else.  As far as I was concerned, an hour and a half to two hours a day in shitty traffic on a big highway was much preferable to three hours a day in shitty traffic on a country two-lane.

I realize now, as I so often have, what a fucking idiot I am.

I don't know why I decided to take the back way on Monday morning.  The pull of the Tao in my gut urged me in that direction just then, and so I followed the flow.  It took me 45 minutes.  And I know for a fact that was a heavy traffic day.  So far this week, it has taken me an average of one hour to make the trip either way.

And it is a beautiful drive.  Farms and orchards and tiny, old towns the whole way.  Great views in every direction the entire route.  Forest trails and nature preserves and river walks one after another.  Blooming dogwood trees and cherry trees and pear trees every-fucking-where I look.  It even smells wonderful!

And it's fun to drive!  All twisty and curvy and up and down and around.  Definitely a driving enthusiast's road.  (And, of course, I love driving.  A good driving road is one of my favorite pleasures in life.)  Yeah, it's only a two-lane, so every once in a while you get stuck behind a slow truck or something, but there's plenty of places to pass.  And getting to overtake someone every once in a while just makes it that much more exciting and fun to drive!  And when you can't pass, well, it just forces you to slow down and relax and enjoy the ride (not to mention the view).

Aaand... because all of that wasn't good enough - turns out I get a lot better gas mileage on this road.  So it's actually saving me money, too!

I mean, it's like a dream-come-true!  It's more fun, less expensive, takes about the same amount of time, and rather than being an exercise in frustration and aggravation and aggression and terror and psycho-drivers and gridlock and exhaust fumes and assholes talking on cell phones and not paying attention to what they're doing and why don't you hang the fuck up and drive you stupid motherfucking piece of shit!!...  Instead I get what amounts to a driving meditation to begin and end my day.

I am trying not to grieve too hard for the decade I wasted on that asphalt Styx we call I-270.  I am instead trying to concentrate on how grateful I am to have found this oasis of a commute at all, ever.  How lucky I am, to never have to feel that stress and pain again.

The sight of rolling green hills, the purr of my engine as I round another bend, and the smell of cherry blossoms are making that pretty easy for me right now, I must say.