The old man tells me the biggest tell I have is the vein in my forehead.
“Any time I have seen you fight someone else that vein has been bulging.”
There might be some truth to that, he has known me since kindergarten but it is also true that it sometimes pops when my innards decide to mutiny.
We had another one of those mutinies the other day. The kind in which I wondered if I had consumed the spiciest Chicken Vindaloo ever made.
If that had been the case I might have felt some relief because I would have anticipated this moment would come and planned for it.
But I didn’t so I found myself staring at my reflection in a supermarket bathroom. The aforementioned vein was bulging, accented by several drops of sweat that would moments later roll down my head into my eye.
The Questions You Won’t Answer
I shouldn’t have been surprised that the stress of it all would catch up with me. Shouldn’t have been surprised when the reflection pointed his finger at me.
“This is because of the questions you won’t answer and your refusal to keep your nose where it doesn’t belong. There is a price to be paid and the bill has come due.”
I gave him a wry and knowing smile.
“I made the decision to see it through and through I will see it. Let the alien cut his way out of my belly or let him sleep. I will beat him down…again.”
You can call it silly the battle of heart and head and the idea that you can know things that seem to be diametrically opposed to reality.
If I was talking to someone else I would do so. I would say open your eyes and look around.
But not for me, not now and maybe not ever.
I know what I know and I know what I feel.
There is a north star I follow and a song that only I can hear. Maybe that means I am crazy and devoid of contact with reality.
Maybe that is why I feel disconnected or maybe it is just part of adjusting to a new life and no different than what others experience.
The thing about this disconnection is it is not something that I describe as being out of touch with reality.
It is more of an awareness of starting over and being a million miles away from friends and family. It is about not having found a new community to be a part of yet.
Those are not permanent feelings or conditions, but sometimes they feel like it.
That is the hard part of not being a student anymore because when you go to school you are guaranteed to meet people.
Show Your True Self
Fear and I have become rather intimate.
I have wrapped myself in its cold embrace and jumped over the cliff not knowing if I would learn to fly before we hit the ground.
It wasn’t as impulsive as you might think, instead it was instinctive.
I knew there was no way to outrun, avoid or hide so I hit it head on and tried to scare myself into comfort.
That is how I became familiar with the fear caused by frustration and the other caused by uncertainty.
When I held out my hand and said “take it and we’ll figure it out together” I knew rejection might come because of fear but not because of my own.
My fear and I do battle for mastery and sometimes I lose, but never forever and rarely for long.
It is why I can look at others and say show me your true self and I’ll show you mine. That is probably harder than almost anything.
That sort of nakedness makes people worry about being eviscerated by another but it also provides the ultimate support and protection if you let it.
Words I Might Have Come Up With
Sometimes I joke around and say I might have been the person to invent the light bulb but I didn’t get the chance because Thomas Edison was born a 100 years before me.
Or I say that I could have done what Marconi, Tesla or Bell did but didn’t again because of age.
But I can’t rest my hat on what I didn’t do because of age or say that I might have written Secret World but didn’t because Peter Gabriel beat me to it.
Sometimes you just have to go out and do it. I always liked this song, but the majesty of the lyrics has made me appreciate it even more.
I don’t know if this is the best copy of it, but it works for me.
Come to think of it I think the version from ’94 concert is probably better but I am not sure if it is online so I am sharing Shaking The Tree with you.
I like this song as well and it looks to me like they are having a lot of fun singing it. That is worth a lot.
It Is A Little Ugly In Here
Back in the land of digestive distress the mutiny is in full effect and this battle is…bad.
I tell the reflection to do his worse and he obliges by unleashing a scent that would make Satan smile.
Someone call the UN and tell them I found some missing biological weapons and to send help immediately.
Thirty-seven pounds and four gallons of sweat later it is over.
My over active imagination shares a news alert about how The International Community has ignored my cries for help followed by some very nasty tweets from our president about how badly I handled the situation.
The thought makes me chuckle and gives me an idea for a future post, but we’ll save the details for later.
