Can't sleep

With insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is just a copy of a copy of a copy.

I understand that feeling now. Lying here, unable to sleep. Everything feels so far away. The past and the future melt into nothing and all that is left is right now... Stretching on into eternity.

Now I Am Free

A man,

Shackled and toiling in the hot summer sun

Looks upon the great work he has done and feels nothing

This man,

Works his whole life to pay a debt

Dropped onto him upon birth

Like original sin

That man,

Sweating and working and wasting away in the broiling heat

Sows his last seeds

Lays his last bricks

Shines his last shoes

To earn back money he never spent

To cover a balance he never owed

An old man,

Buys some hard earned land with his hard earned cash

To finally build a home of his own

This old man,

Planned to build his house by hand,

Brick by brick

Planned to grow his own food

Furrow by furrow

Planned to shine his own shoes to like new

Shoe by shoe

That old man,

Too old to build his own home

Or grow his own food

Or shine his own shoes

Exhausted from his lifetime of hard work

Lays down on the empty dirt plot of land he bought

And with a tear in his eye, he whispered to the earth,

“I will never lay another brick, even to build my own home

“I will never sow another seed, even to feed my own hunger

“I will never shine my own shoes, even to look out on all I have done and be proud

“I can no longer do these things I love for myself

“After a lifetime of doing them for someone else

“But at least,

“Now I am free.”

It is an amazing feeling when your life finally changes. Not one of those, “I just met the most amazing person...” or, “I just won $1 million dollars!” kind of 'changes,' but a profound change which rearranges everything in your world. I have come to realize that I have slowly burned, and subsequently watched burn, everything that mattered to me, and everything that was important and good in my life. But instead of trying to run foolishly into the fire and save what I can, I gladly watch it smolder, so that from the ashes it might be born anew, that I might be born anew, and that I might rebuilt all that was lost, all that I threw away, and that I may be what I was meant to be. So much more than I ever thought I would, but exactly what everyone thought I would be.

I only hope I will make them proud. And I'll do whatever it takes. Even if it kills me.

Motivation Is The Real Virtue, Not Patience

Some say that motivation is harder to find than it is to keep, but I disagree. Look around you, and you will find that motivation towards any number of goals is all around you. The trick is to hang onto that motivation and ride it all the way to your eventual goal.

To some, a panic attack would be a terrible experience, something they would never wish for. But after the first real one of my life last week, it is all I want. To feel that powerlessness. To be able to let go of all that I hang onto and let everything just fall.

The problem with walls, as history shows us, is that they are much easier to put up than to tear down. Emotionally it's worse. You block people out long enough, and you no longer remember how to open the gate, or under which circumstances you can do so. You fear so strongly letting your guard down because, well, if you hadn't been hurt in the past by letting your guard down, you wouldn't have built a wall in the first place. You need so much reassurance that you can trust people before you let them in, that they get sick of trying and leave. Or they are blindsided when the facade you had put up so that they would feel that you had let them in comes crumbling down and all that's left in front of them is heartbreak and cold hard stone.

And it isn't their fault. How could it be? They didn't cause you the pain which forced the wall up to begin with. They didn't fight the war, they may know about all the battles, but they aren't there to rub salt in your wounds, they're there to heal you up and make you all better and show you that the world isn't so bad. But by the time you're convinced they won't turn on you, they're already gone, having never set foot inside the wall it seems will never come down.

So, how does this tie to motivation? Well, when acceptance by another human being is what you live for, not the friend or family type, but the raw acceptance which only comes from the one you share your heart, soul, and love with, that quickly becomes the only motivation you'll ever need. Problem is, once it is inevitably gone, you realize that was the only form and source of motivation you had, and what's worse is that it was the wall that you so desperately cling to for safety which drove them away.

So the panic attack. I panicked since a class of mine which was do or die was completely out of my hands and not yet guaranteed on paper that I had passed, and I just lost all control. I truly panicked, and that panic lead to sadness, which brought the most wonderful gift ever: tears. Tears are a truly wonderful thing when they flow freely, especially when no matter how much every day hurts, that only happens every few months for about a minute. To want to cry and not be able to, well, there's nothing worse. Trust me.

I was finally set free. By the tears, by the panic, by the sudden loss of hope. Not hope for my class, for my life. Hope that it would be what I'd always wanted. Well, what I'd always hoped for. Wife and kids, that whole thing. That's what I consider to be the only way I can be a success. And what I had to accept that day, walking back in the cold, wasted cigarette in my hand burning to nothing, is that I had to let that go. I had to find any little motivation within myself and my own singular life, or it was never going to exist. It's not depressing, it's not emo, it is liberating. It isn't what I wanted for my life, not by a long shot, but eventually we all must accept our shortcomings and move forward with what we have, not what we want. I found my life's motivation, though I will always be sad to have had to let go of my one life's goal to have it.

Losing all hope is freedom, a wise man once said, and I have gained my freedom. I have learned that my wall was built for a reason, and sometimes, if we wait too long to tear our walls down, they stay there for good. Berlin tore down its wall and realized how much better it was without it. I guess I'm just like old China, a little stubborn, sometimes misunderstood and ridiculed, but mostly stuck behind the wall I built, which will never let the woman I love in.

~Rob

Music for the day:

"This is the day
Of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers
Wild gamblers
Thats all in the past

You call me a fool
You say its a crazy scheme
This ones for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
Ill make it this time
Im ready to cross that fine line

Ill learn to work the saxophone
Ill play just what I feel
Drink scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call alabama the crimson tide
Call me deacon blues

My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind

I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
Ill rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
Ill make it my home sweet home

Ill learn to work the saxophone
Ill play just what I feel
Drink scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call alabama the crimson tide
Call me deacon blues

This is the night
Of the expanding the man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
Ill be what I want to be

Ill learn to work the saxophone
Ill play just what I feel
Drink scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call alabama the crimson tide
Call me deacon blues" - Deacon Blues ~ Steely Dan

If Only She Knew

If only she knew, how much I think of her.
If only she knew, how much I check her profiles.
If only she knew, how often I have to look at her picture just to stay sane.
If only she knew, how much I love her.
If only she knew, how much I will always love her.
Maybe I'd have a second chance.

If only she understood, how much I care for her.
If only she understood, she's still holding my heart in her hands.
If only she understood, how much every text message means to me.
If only she understood, how much it hurts every day I don't hear from her.
If only she understood, how much effort it takes to put the phone down and not call her.
Maybe she wouldn't just walked right out of my life.

If only she saw, how much I write about her.
If only she saw, how much I dream about her.
If only she saw, how much I care for her.
If only she saw, how empty I am inside.
If only she saw, how cold I am without her.
Maybe she'd take a few minutes, to warm up my day.

If only she knew, maybe she would have stayed with me just a bit longer.
If only she knew, maybe she would want me back.
If only she knew, maybe she would stop running away from me.
If only she knew, maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad.
If only she knew,
Maybe I could finally let her go.

When You Put It That Way...The Fall Is The Easy Part

Know when to hold em` and when to fold em`. The key in poker, and a key to life. So simple, and yet it is one of the hardest to master. The problem of course is that you can hang on for months or years and not even realize it. You fall in love, and then, at the time you need them most, as you hang by a thread, they turn and walk away.

It's not their fault however. Well, not any more their fault than it is yours. You can only expect someone to love you so long until they see that they're above it, and above you. And when that really hurts is when they aren't superficial or egotistical. The hardest ones to let walk away are the ones who are caring, humble, and believe you're the greatest thing in the world right up to the end.

The other problem with this is that when you have that person, you're so happy, you don't realize how fragile you are, how close to that fall you're hanging. They walk away, the blinders come off, the fog settles, and you see how fucked you are.

When you're really screwed is when that rock starts to crumble and you're losing your grip. All the while, despite your depression, despite everything in your life, all you want is for them to be happy. Not in a stalker, 'I hope they come back to me' kind of way. In a caring and genuine kind of way.

Then it all falls apart as you realize that eventually, for them to be the kind of happy you're wishing for them, someone will take your place. Someone out there will make them so happy they forget all about you. Just a distant memory. Just an old Christmas present, just a dusty necklace in the back of an old jewelery box tucked away, deep and forgotten in a closet somewhere rarely heard from. You realize that this is just who you are. You care so much, that to let go, you have to have someone else to hold on to in order to not feel like you're betraying the one person who meant so much to you for so long.

Finally the rain comes, you let it all go, pour yourself out, but when you look up, you see you're all alone, no one is there to watch you fall apart, much less to put you back together.

And I'm done. I'm sick of this system. I'm sick of my losses holding me back and dictating my life. Does it make it easier to put myself out there? No, but that has nothing to do with some irrational fear of being hurt. When dealing with humans, pain is inevitable, and when you accept that, you're a lot happier due to good things happening around you. Maybe that sounds crazy, but think about it sometime. If you accept that people will cheat, and hurt your feelings, and tear you apart, and let you down, you no longer have to fear or dread those occurrences. Not only does it make life happier and more enjoyable, it also makes life easier, and sharing it even easier still.

So I let go. I let go of my past, I accept the fall, however far it may be. The pain of hitting bottom can't be nearly as bad the pain from hanging on. And who knows, maybe there will be someone unexpected waiting at the bottom to catch me with a smile. There's no doubt in my mind that there will be. All you have to ask yourself is if you can blindly believe in yourself to know you're worth being caught. If you have to think about it, take your time. The answer may surprise you. It surprised me.

Music for the day:

“I close my eyes and I keep seeing things:
Rainbow waterfalls,
Sunny liquid dreams.
Confusion creeps inside me rainin' down;
Got to get to you,
But I don't know how.

Call me, call me,
Let me know it's all right.
Call me, call me,
Don'cha think it's 'bout time?

Please won't you call and...

Ease my mind?
Reasons... for me to find you.
Peace of mind
What can I do...
...to get me to you?

I had your number quite some time ago,
Back when we were young,
But I had to go.
Ten thousand years I've searched it seems and now,
Got to get to you,
Won't you tell me how?

Call me, call me,
Let me know you are there.
Call me, call me,
I wanna know you still care.

C'mon now won't you...

Ease my mind?
Reasons for me to find you
Peace of mind
What can I do...
...to get me to you?

C'mon now won't you...

Ease my mind?
Reasons for me to find you(For me to find...)
Peace of mind(Ease...)
Reasons...for living my life.

Ease my mind...
Reasons... for me to know you.
Peace of mind
What can I do...
...to get me to you?”

-- Robert I is a fiction writer, sports analyst, poet, and political cynic. His Blog can be found through his facebook LiveBlog or at Our Lives In Retrospect. His sports writing can be found at Bleacher Report.

Love Is Lovelier The Second Time Around

Ryan Dempster moves from the closer's role to the starting role and flourishes. Don Imus makes a slightly racist and derogatory comment on the radio and is taken off the air, and then reinstated months later...though he did the same thing again shortly after his reinstatement, so maybe that's a bad analogy. Anyway, even Senator John McCain was raised from the dead to run for president in a party where the other candidates' campaigns were as dead as...well...he was.

Okay, so I'll admit that being old(really, REALLY old) doesn't qualify you as dead, but my point is that in the day of instant gratification and a world where first impressions reign supreme(and apparently one where the should also be a MAXIMUM age for a presidential candidate), second chances are making a comeback. In essence, the rebirth of the second chance is giving rebirth to second chances.

On the one hand there's a friendship long since believed dead and buried, reanimated and rejuvenated. A testament to the power that one comment can have, and the difference one heartfelt message from an individual to another can make.

On the other hand is a love given a second chance.

It's crazy how big a difference very small things not only can, but do make in our daily lives. And proof of the key of communication to relationships is ever present. If one person doesn't tell the other what they want out of a relationship, the latter will never truly know what the former wants and will act on their own judgment. However, of the same concept, if the latter is too stubborn or afraid of hurting the former's feelings to just admit that they don't know what the former wants, they are just guessing and many mixed signals are bound to occur until the whole relationship short circuits and explodes in a ball of flame. And it is also ever present in the fact that one small problem which is easily fixed, goes unnoticed by one, and is let go by the other in hopes it will resolve itself, but then grows into a tumor that takes the whole relationship down with it.

All of this brings me to the true key of love and relationships, and its not love, caring, understanding, or even communication. The key is based in all of these, but is so much more, and yet so much simpler than that. The key is, for lack of a better term, early diagnosis. That is to say, the key is to have the understanding in one another to recognize the problem, the love and caring to express the problem in a constructive way to the other person, and the communication to work the problem out not only while it is still small, but also still treatable.

But.

There's another cure in desperate yet hopeful times.

Every relationship or friendship comes with a reset button. You can't always use it, because it loses effectiveness. Its like an EMP. When used, it does its job, quickly and effectively, however, it needs to charge fully to have its full effectiveness, and if you use it continually on half charge, you lose faith in it and abandon it all together.

The reset button is the ultimate in second chances. It doesn't ask why, or how, it just does it. Your computer crashes, you press the reset button, and it doesn't protest. It powers off as soon as possible, and then, boots back up, ready to allow you to go back to killing that 64 elite that is driving you insane in Terokkar, if only you hadn't been nerfed last patch it wouldn't matter, and if Blizzard could just make the game run smoother....again neither here nor there.

So, in this day of second chances, in this era where the end isn't necessarily the end, and where everything is negotiable, I pay tribute to the second chances that I've both given and received, and in looking back upon all this, I realize that it was never really a second chance for these things, just a continuation of the chance they deserved to have in the first place.



Quotes And Thoughts For The Day:

"The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how...
The clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.

Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no.

I need you so much closer

I need you so much closer
So come on, come on"

~ Transatlanticism – Death Cab For Cutie


"Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can't help but ask myself how much I let the fear
Take the wheel and steer
It's driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately I'm beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
I'll be there

So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?
It's driven me before
And it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around
But lately I'm beginning to find that
When I drive myself my light is found

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there,

With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there,
I'll be there

Would you choose the water over wine
Hold the wheel and drive

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there

With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings,
I'll be there,
I'll be there”

~ Drive - Incubus


-- Robert I is a freelance fiction writer, sports analyst, poet, and political cynic. His Blog can be found through his facebook LiveBlog or at Our Lives In Retrospect. His sports writing can be found at Bleacher Report.