hitting 36, mistakes made, paths followed and pictures taken down.
I watched the dull light creep up on the bathroom floor. Not that I was just waking up, I was passing time in between sleep, waiting for the light of a new day. It wasn’t sunlight, I knew it wasn’t moon light, and it lacked the brightness of the awakening sun. I sprawled my legs across the bed and didn’t feel her leg or foot. “Fuck” she’s still gone, I was hoping like in my dreams she had realized this is where we are supposed to be. Locked together in life in a house we turned into a home, but she wasn’t.
I lay in bed and thought about the day, I knew I should make some coffee, I knew I should begin moving, I knew I should ride my bike. I looked over at her pillows, untouched from the shape of her pretty head. The covers not filling the shapes I love. There were no dogs on the bed, and the house, was silent. I had turned 36 over the night, and she wasn’t here to kiss me good morning.
I walked to the kitchen and made coffee, no food, the idea of eating had gone since she packed some things together and left. I walked outside and watched the balloon of sun coming over the horizon. Hanging low until filling itself full of hot air and gaining elevation. I pressed the button to open the garage door, the first noise of the morning other than the train of thoughts and emotions that where wrapped in my head and those of the coffee pot. I looked around the garage at all we had acquired, sweat, time, money, pride, joy, togetherness but mainly love. A love of each other, and a passion to share it outdoors and with others. But when I think back to her and our time, I think of passion, not only in that sense, but magnetic, electric and bonding passion
I had built a family I had always wanted, surrounded myself with friends and even let them into the cavernous recesses of my deepest thoughts and emotions. Giving those areas light is sometimes dark, the muted voices have a hard time learning to speak and are afraid to get hurt, but they also no longer want to be hidden. There has been so much personal growth in every area of my life, she being the axis and I happily spun around in the orbit of love, gratitude and fear of not wanting to fuck that up.
I’ve been known to test until it breaks, I certainly didn’t want this to snap, and I’m hoping with a little time wounds can heal, and the love we shared will overcome any scar or imperfections, but that is out of my hands. To be honest, I don’t know how to stop loving or wanting if it’s good, even if that good is the last thread hanging precariously into unknown depths. They say visualization is key to any successful person, and I cans see my future, the eyes of my child, and decades of wide smiles, endless adventures and full hearts, sounds nice to me.
She had given me a picture awhile back, had it framed the words in latin “vincit qui se vincit” meaning, “he conquers, who conquers himself” with the tag line that she always puts-always in your corner~A. I had always thought like many of the great writing maniacs that spun tales, loved and trotted around always with an undying affection of somebody unattainable, and usually for a time they were theirs, but couldn’t put it together. I had spent my entire life not wanting to go home; it wasn’t home to me, not filled with my belongings, certainly not filled with the love of my life. The idea though always covered me in warmth, reaching out and touching somebody who has seen me through my worst and built it together with me. I was more comfortable on a river bank, on the ocean or drifting through rentals or down countless trails and roads along the divide.
I’m conquering myself, and have. No longer haunted by ideals I know nothing about, gone is that vast feeling of being misunderstood. I have carved with my hands and crafted the life I’m meant to lead, part of me always wanted her to witness the creation as it happened and see the transformation, but the past pain, mixed with the lack of empathy and current hurt was more than she could bare. I thought all her things made it the home it was, but I was wrong, it was the people inside and the everyday effort it took to create that synergy. It was the giving of me to her, my friends, and reconnecting with my parents and understanding more about my childhood, and knowledge of time and maturity.
Driven by forces we can feel but not see, that is what got me down the divide, that and the inability to quit mixed with plan ole stubbornness and the thought of the goal attained, everything is extravagant, everything is beautiful, and everything isn’t always easy. I had always thought my life would be about some exotic adventure, jet setting planes, bike boxes in airports, new faces, fresh scars and life learned. But I have become wrong, all of that is great and amazing, my greatest adventure is in the day to day, creating, understanding, being on a steady platform for all of those travels mentioned to be attainable.
In the conversations with friends and time spent with those we care about doing something we love, that, that is life, and that is a great one. She packed her clothes, took the dogs and pictures off the wall but the home remained to my surprise. And yeah, while I cried like a lost kid when I got home and felt the emptiness of what we use to share, I understood something about myself. I am not the man I was, the shell has been filled, and with quality this time instead of whiskey and falseness.
We should all become fuller, deeper breaths, greater sights and an ever improving love. With someone, about something, but growth is where it’s at. A continuing revelation that we are amazing, life is amazing; it’s our choices to make it what it is. I continue to make the choice of loving her, my life, my friends and continue to follow this passion. Understanding our faults our future, the greatest burden is the realization that we are not perfect and we can either choose to see them and deal accordingly or turn a blind eye and continue on the path that doesn’t fulfill us.
There are a lot of quotes that I love, and write down and look at when needing a mantra. “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” From sir Albert Einstein.
I can relate to that, and I think most can but then I remember Henry Ford who said.
“I never failed; I just found a 100 different ways that didn’t work”
Meaning, he tried, he got slapped in the face, but he kept seeing the greater good and understood the drive and end game, and he changed history. He knew the end result would be different but changing, patterns, thoughts and actions that take grit normally unseen.
We need to see empathy and feel the gratitude that accompanies it. Life is a series of endeavors that we deem either this is how we want our life to be, and allowing us to be the forces for that. I never thought I was a force, I thought I had ideas and actions, but they need a nudge, those with a greater nudge tend to have greater actions. I am indeed a force and I was an idiot not to see it a long time ago.
I get mistaken for cocky and arrogant, but that usually comes from insecure people, and it drives me crazy. I am sure that I’m different, and know factually I’ve done things a small majority can and has. But I don’t live in the thou greater than you, I share, I indulge, I support and I listen. I found that I provide, more than financially, but stability, strength, prosperity, and I enjoy when people download to me, absorbing their fears, faults and taking their stress, I like that, to make them lighter gives me a great pride.
I thought I was haunted once, never being able to attain what I wanted, that was a young man, unsure of himself and deeming me worthy of friends, love and a partner who offered as much in a healthy role. Four years since I’ve moved away from my beloved hometown, what I have accomplished with virtually nothing but determination, love and a blind faith is pretty fucking amazing, and I have all of you to thank for that.
I turned 36, rolled with the sun on my back, headed for the dirt and single track that offered an escape to a troubled, questionable kid, and as an adult those paths have lead me to the man I am, and a direction that fulfills me and those I love. Turning away from the pavement and hearing the earth under me, the fragility of my heart beat, and gained a rhythm emptying the sad blood that coagulated in my body.
Time is limited, ride, love, learn, dance drink it in. Everything has a center, we cannot lose sight of that, no matter what we hear or think, and the center is always the true north, it’s the loss to those who don’t see that in life and especially in people, past the exterior, past the humbleness of hurt, get to the core, we don’t have time to fuck around in life, we need to see the coreness of people, places, love and gratitude.
So here’s to pushing 40, further receding hairlines, gray hairs, a great path and a further understanding, don’t ever lose sight, of what you want, who you are and all the gains you’ve made. Get your center locked and you’ll be alright.
Spells, heart, and the future.
The places we dwell and casting of spells, hooks and barbs catch and release us.
The kisses we steal and the touches reveal, burnt flesh left empty without.
Molecules of lust become what we must, linger in vague and wanting.
Head over heels, description fails, reconnect with the yearning.
Love as I though, my heart will grow, and shatter what was once before.
My hands they lay empty but without shake, I move in the direction I’ve created.
Friends became family, a house became home, and a man finally became grounded.
The roots that he laid, found a way, but she had left before knowing.
In fits of life, becoming what might, some aren’t strong enough to see.
Struggles they hold, but steadfast we’re bold, the sun always arises.
Moonlight shows shape, a single form in sheets, tangled in a mess of wanting.
Love is still, a beat remains but it thumps along in a different chord.
Over high water through windy night, never lose sight of all we are wanting.
In a digital time these photos will never age, but the memory fades without them.
The man that I am was too strong for the fragility of your egos.
Never cast aside love, to burn down a truss, of a home that you need.
We are who we become, what’s done is done, but I still love without limit.
Put aside pain for a life of gains, this is what’s upon us.
Under stars banner we seek a truth, but some can’t speak a word.
Gifts are those, were legends go, love is all that we need, in a time of falseness true character is revealed, and men of steel resolve will always come across them.
theJonnyP 