Friday, December 23, 2011

Livin' Dyin' Tryin'

Panic washed over me in a surprise wave as the feeling in the pit of my stomach made me suddenly realize that I hadn't felt this way in years. That I hadn't felt anything in sometime. I sat and thought resolutely trying to remember  the last time I felt the emotions that most would call normal. My ice cubes now melted as I nursed my drink, I paid little attention to the T.V. I was watching from across the bar, but my eyes remained glued.

It had been a long time under the water of work and life, and I was finally catching a breath. As relieving as that can sound, it's now allowing me time to think, time for those feelings to bubble to the surface, to pop open; for me to address them. 

I must have gotten so involved in work, so involved in keeping busy and making plans, making reservations, returning video tapes, that I simply didn't realize what I had been putting aside, why I hadn't been feeling. I felt vulnerable a year ago, I shut down, increased my work load, kept busy, kept distracted, focused elsewhere. Everything had been the same, but different, but mostly the same. I was unsure of why I now ran from the feelings that I had coveted, been so proud of having for so many years. Been so proud of the mastery of them. I hadn't allowed myself to come into contact with them even when I tried to squeeze them in, force them out, search and find them. 

I struggle to place a finger on the constant up and down of my now free flowing emotions, now unlocked from their cage way down in my subconscious. It had been a lie, counterfeiting myself all the way to self imprisonment. I look around the bar, and though I know I'm not crazy, I feel my vulnerability at it's peak and I try to take the target off of my back. 

I dispatch my plans on the account of the new found confusion and head toward home. I find myself sad and excited in a strange ecstasy of something I'd missing; living. It's cold, but I roll down the windows and turn up the radio, '... I don't want a lot for Christmas...'


baby all I want for Christmas is you