I'm Not Done.....Yet

Two days ago my life, and that of my best friend....nearly came to a bitter and sad end.


We were in a really bad car accident.


Round and round we spun after being hit.  The car slid down a "hill" and came to stop in a ditch.


People say that in moments like this your life flashes before your eyes.  


That did not happen to me.  


I had a completely different experience.


I remember it so vividly and so clearly.  


Since it happened, I have been reliving and having flash-backs of that moment.  I have remembered, with perfect clarity, all the things that went through my mind during that moment.


The first thing that happened as the car began to spin out of control was I got a picture of my nephew's, Nathanael, face.  I saw him clearly in my mind.  It was like he was looking strait at me.  He is one of the most significant people in my life so I'm not surprised that I saw him, but I was surprised to see him in THIS moment.  He looked neither sad nor happy.  It was just his face.  The way I know him to look.  I wonder if my mind was trying to keep his image there so that I would never forget him.  So that if I...died...no matter where I would go after...he would always be a part of me.  I don't believe in ghost's or in things like that but I have to wonder if I had died...to think of it makes me cry...but if I had....Would he remember me, always?


Would he know how much I loved him? Would he know how happy I was to see him on the day he was born?  Would he know that for me, he was the greatest gift I could have ever received? I know I'm not his mother.  But he and I share a special bond I have never had with anyone.  I remember on the night he was born I stayed in the hospital all night long holding him and singing to him.  I talked to him and told him stories.  He would look at me, with those same wondering eyes he has today, and I just knew he understood me, even as small as he was.  I wonder if that day had been my last, as the years go by, would he remember me? Would he think about me?  Would he know that he changed my life and made me a better person?


I don't know why my brain didn't show me my Niece...perhaps there wasn't enough time.  I love her just as much.  She also changed my life.  Maybe his image in my head involves them both.  While he taught me about unconditional love when he was born, when she was born, she taught me about unconditional joy.  Aliyah is just that...joy.  She is a child that loves to laugh and have fun.  She never stops playing.  Sometimes it gets her into trouble. lol But I hope she never looses that.  I hope she feels free to play all her life.  Thinking of what might of happened I wonder if she knows just how special she is to me? On the night of her birth, just as I did with her brother, I stayed in the hospital and held her all night long.  Singing, talking, rocking her.  I remember how peacefully she slept.  I remember thinking that I had never seen such a beautiful baby....and in my life, I have seen many.  I remember praying for her.  I mostly remember the prayer.  I remember I asked God to protect her because I knew one day she would grow up...and like a boy...and maybe that boy would hurt her, like I've been hurt, oh, so many times.  I prayed that He would help her through that, and if He could...help her avoid it.  But that's unrealistic.  We all go through that.  I watched her sleep and prayed so earnestly to God that He would protect her heart from shattering...being broken may be unavoidable...but that He could in some way keep her from ever feeling like her heart was shattered.


As the car spun round and round the image of my Nephew's face became clearer and clearer.  Suddenly, the spinning felt like it was in slow motion.  I heard the screeching tires and the sound of honking horns.  I heard the voice of my best friend and my voice as we screamed for our lives.  But the car, to me, moved as it was in slow motion.  Each 360 degree turn went slower and slower...it felt as if this car would never stop turning. Suddenly I heard a voice in my head...it was my own.


I shudder when I think about what I heard. Quite clearly and directly I heard my voice say to me, "The car is going to flip over now, and you are going to die." I did not shout it.  I was not loud.  It was a very calm and matter of fact voice, even for me.  All at once my heart ached and I whispered the words, "Help us Jesus".  I reached out and grabbed what I thought to be my friend's wrist...I'm not sure if I actually did that...and I'm afraid to ask her...but in my memory of that moment I did.  I found that I was bracing myself, getting ready for some type of impact.  I heard my voice again, "You'll see the grass soon, don't be afraid."  Immediately after that, a wall of dirt and grass came shooting up the side of the car I was on and everything went black for a moment.  "This is it", I heard myself whisper.


But it was not.


The car stopped moving.


My senses cleared and I looked around.  My body shot out of the car as quickly as I could open the door.  I stood up blinking in the sun surrounded by the dust from the dirt that covered everything.  In a moment my best friend was standing in front of me yelling at me if I was ok.  I responded.  I watched as people from other cars jumped out and ran to us.  I watched them run over to the woman's car who hit us...her car had flipped over many times, enough to land her on the other side of the high way.  


I looked down and saw the tall grass I was standing in moving gently in the breeze.  I looked down at my hands.  I looked down at my body.  I looked at my best friend to see if I saw an visual marks that we had just been in an accident....nothing.  Then when we looked at each other again...


We started laughing.


It was a nervous laughter that comes before you start to cry.  She teared up a bit as she realized she was ok.  I teared up for the same reason.  We were alive.  How that happened was amazing to me...especially because while in the car...I KNEW I was going to die.  I was bracing myself for it.  And the only thing in my mind at that moment...the only mental picture I had...the only thing that apparently my mind thinks of in a life or death moment is the image of something that truly matters...something my mind feels is more important than anything else.


That was represented clearly by the face of my Nephew, Nathanael. 


When my sister-in-law and brother were pregnant with him and deciding on a name, they chose Nathanael Seth because his name in Hebrew means, "Gift of God" and "Appointed son of God".  


In retrospect, sitting here, sore but without a scratch on me, typing on my laptop, like I did before this accident many times, I have to wonder.  Nathanael's face represents all that God wanted to teach me in that moment.  That the important things that matter in our lives are what life is worth living for.  And that is a gift to us, God's children.  The people I love most in the world.  They are the one's that matter.  They are the one's I should focus time and energy to.  They are the one's who will keep my name alive forever and I should invest my time in them, that is truly my gift on this planet, a gift from God, my Father.  All the other crap I worry about.  All the other people who don't deserve the time and energy I invest in...they don't matter.  


Standing up next to that car after that crash, I realized one more thing.  It could have been so easy for my life to end that day.  I was in the perfect situation for it.  It could have been easy for my head to hit the window or for my neck to snap.  In an instant, I would be gone.  Maybe I would not have even felt it.  So why didn't it end?  Why didn't my best friends life end?  


Because its not over for us.  


Because we're not done with whatever it is we have yet to do here.


Because there is still time to do all those things we have yet to accomplish.


I don't know what she was thinking when this was all happening.  I wonder if she'll ever know that as my best friend she is more than just that to me...she is like a sister.  I wonder if she'll ever know that I am so grateful I didn't loose her and that she is in that list of "People that Matter" to me.  But most importantly I wonder if she knows that her life was spared because its not over for her yet.  Earlier in the car ride, she and I spoke about plans she had for her future. Things she was planning and wanted to do.  I smile now because I know that she'll get to do those things.  All of them.  And I'll be around to see her do them! I wonder if she realizes how close she came to loosing that.  I am so happy that I will still have more adventures with her.


I end this post with this thought:  Whatever direction or goal I am meant to achieve...I am so blessed that I am being given the opportunity to achieve it.  Whatever "thing" I have yet to do...I am so grateful I am being given the chance to do it.  Maybe its fall in love, maybe its finish something I started, maybe its do something "great" or "important" for the world, maybe it to have a baby.  Whatever it is....


I am so thankful for being given the gift of completion.  


And I am forever grateful to the God who surrounded us while we spun round and round in that car and never let us fall.  

I am truly thankful.

If ever I needed to be reminded...

Today...above all...I needed to hear this...

Be reminded...

And NEVER let myself forget it again.

Terrified

I have a very dear friend of mine who is going through something that I really can't imagine going through.  With all the things I have faced in my life so far - THIS - would literally send me to a mental institution.

My friend.

Her husband was unfaithful.

I know that in our very sad culture today, this is almost becoming a norm.  How many movies on the sappy girl network Lifetime are there about this one thing? The story is always the same.  The "good wife" the "happy kids" the "doting husband".  And its not just the men either.  I know that.  I know someone VERY close to me who was unfaithful to her husband.  Its not a man or woman thing.  Its an unfaithful thing. All these relationships started out blissful, happy...

And then it all begins.

The "I've gotta work late" story, the "Go on without me I'll see you guys there" lines, the, "So what I started working out, you want me to be healthy don't you?"...so on and so forth.  It amazes me that its all so similar.  Its almost as if some book gets passed around..."How to cheat 101".

Her story is the same.

I remember hearing once a famous phrase that said, "The measure of a man is seen in the countenance of his wife's face"...or something like that.  There was a time when her face shown a happiness and contentment that was envious.  I remember how much she laughed and how youthful she looked.  I remember how she would often boast with pride of the success of her marriage.  But it was not fake in any way or even came off as her trying to convince herself that she was happy.  I mean, she was TRULY happy and TRULY convinced that her husband was amazing and that her life was great.  She never said they were perfect but she was just...well, damn...happy.

24 years I believe is what they were married for.  TWENTY-FOUR YEARS.  I say that number and its amazing.  That is a full grown adult.  Then when I contemplated the "age" of that relationship that way it made me think.  It made me think about a relationship that was together for that long.  Do relationships grow and develop the way people do?  For example...

 When you first start a new relationship in many ways it carries on like an infant.  It needs to be nurtured and time needs to be spent with it so that it can grow and mature.  As these two people are "making it work" there will be times of "spit up" where things need to be cleaned up and times when there is shit shooting out all over the place.  The couple who wants to "keep this baby going" will become experts at handling all the crap that comes out, just as new parents become confident in the way they handle their baby.  The first few weeks new parents have a newborn at home, they are clumsy, tired and overwhelmed by this new person.  They overreact to every little thing that the new baby does.  They obsess and worry over his/her safety and health.  They baby proof EVERYTHING and take classes and read books and devote so much time to creating the safest and most wonderful environment for their baby to thrive.  They become those people who talk about their baby's poop like its made out of gold! They share stories about what the baby did to their friends and set up online blogs and photo collages of the little ones achievements.  They announce to the world with baby announcements, emails and updates on how the little one is progressing.  They spend thousands of dollars on making sure their baby looks good and is dressed in the best.  They buy every new gadget so that others can envy how well their baby is taken care of.

Isn't this exactly what a new relationship does?  At the beginning.  Think about your own relationship and how it was in the beginning.  How you nurtured it and worked to make it grow healthy and strong.  How much money you poured into it to keep it going.  Gasoline to drive to and from their house.  Trips you went on.  Food you bought to make romantic dinners or restaurants you kept in business for all the dates you went there for.  How many flowers and jewelry and sappy love cards did you buy to bring a sense of happiness and joy to that person?  Think about all the crap you had to clean up during a fight.  Remember all the slammed doors and hang ups you went through that during the make-up after you actually said, "this made us stronger".  Remember how sometimes you felt tired, overwhelmed and clumsy. Remember how you would talk about that person all the time.  Every time you saw a tree you would say mushy crap like, "She has a tree in front of her house".  Or when you heard someone breathe you said, "OMG, he breathes too!".  How many photo collages of your trips to Disney did you force your friends to sit through and watch?  All this you did at the beginning, while your infantile relationship grew in leaps and bounds.

As it developed and got stronger it then became...more...independent.

Now, just as a baby begins to walk unassisted, your relationship begins to walk and then run unassisted.  Now having an anniversary for the first time you wore blue at the same time is not as important.  You don't take as many pictures as before because you're busier...running after a toddler.  Toddlers are interesting creatures aren't they.  They learn to assert themselves and have a freer will...a stronger sense of self.  Now they are not an extension of their parents but they are a person all on their own.  They can be left unattended for small bits of time.  They can play on their own for small spurts.  They are more inquisitive about life out of mom and dads arms.




A relationship is the same.  Now she can go out with her friends a little more without feeling guilty that he is home watching TV.  He plans trips to Vegas with the boys for fun.  But just as a toddler runs back at full tilt and jumps into mommy or daddy's arms when its time to go home, the toddler couple runs back to each other and say things like, "I missed you" after only be away for a few hours.  The couple still enjoys and "needs" the other.  They are still a vital unit.  They still need to be nurtured and taught. And when the temper tantrums show up someone is going to have to be the adult and set the rules.

And time goes on...




The relationship grows just as the child grows.  The bones get longer...the child gets taller.  The needs change and the wants become different.  But adolescence brings on this state of acceptance and obedience. Hormones have not yet come into play so children "tend" to be more accepting of the limitations imposed on them by their parents.

This is when a man's friends call him "whooped" or "all wifed up".  This is when the woman is known as "wifey" or "a girl that keeps her man in check".  Whats amazing is that they may not even be married.  But it is a sort of "marriage rehearsal".  The couple settles in.

And there is this stage of peace.

And then it happens.

Routine

School starts.  Morning lunches need to be packed.  Waking up, everyday at the same time so no one is late needs to be enforced so the day runs smoothly.  The laying out of clothes the night before begins.  The, "But we always have waffles on Wednesday mornings" becomes the standard.  Kisses at the door in order.  Someone jumps on a school bus while the other takes a car to the office.  The day is divided up into an timed ordered fashion.  Who picks up who? What after school activity is it we are headed to today?  Its Thursday so its meatloaf night has been cemented into our consciousness.  Homework before TV.  DAD'S HOME! Dinner gets served.  "Eat your peas" gets stated at least once a week.  Kisses before bed.  Lights out and dishes done by 9:30pm.  Everyone to bed, showered and perfumed.  And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  

Everyday....just the same....all the time....routine....sameness....exactness.

But "stray from the path just a little" (that's for my LOTR fans)...
And then frustration creeps in.  Something begins to change inside of the relationship.  Routine is a funny thing.  In most cases it brings a sense of order and security.  Knowing what to do when and how makes most people feel good because it takes the guessing and uncertainty out of things.  People who are fans of order and steps LOVE the concept of routine.  But as humans are we really supposed to follow routines?  In a relationship a routine can be helpful but a strangeness comes upon the relationship.

Routine becomes...

Boring

Because as the relationship grows, just as an adolescent grows up into double digits a chemical reaction begins within that child's body.  That reaction breaks the body of its routine and things start to change.  When we speak of children we call this "Puberty".  Now, rebellion, the concept of freedom, the idea that "I'm not a kid anymore so you can't tell me what to do" sets in.  The physical body dramatically changes too.  In the relationship there are drastic differences that begin.  But here we are dealing with two people existing in this teenage relationship.  Now independence is struggled for.  Now eye-rolling and tuning each other out happens more often than it should.

On the great side, sex becomes more adventurous and even more fun to some degree.  A woman feels more secure in the relationship so she may be more open to try new things.  The man is running on sex-drive speed so he's open to getting it whenever and wherever...just like a teenager lol.  But blemishes come with growing up.  Now the teenager discovers girls...or boys....and starts looking around.  Now everywhere they look there are opportunities and experiences.  So much is going on inside of the teenager.  Do they follow these urges?  Or do they practice self-control and learn to just deal with it?  Do they become the rebel and turn their back on everyone and run in different directions? Or do they stay the course?  The relationship suffers the same questions.  I've been with you for a while...we've grown together in many ways....we have so many memories...but now....maybe I'm feeling different.  Now the routine we've been following is not as exciting as it used to be.  Now, the routine means we schedule everything and I don't want to live a life where someone has my day to day doings up on some dry erase board in the kitchen.  Maybe today I wanna do something different.  Maybe today I need more excitement.  Maybe today I want something amazing to happen.  Something.  Anything.

This is a precarious place for any relationship.  After all....remember its two people here...not just one teenager.  This "teenager" relationship is starting to question itself.  If they push through it...adulthood is on the horizon.  When comparing age with numbers I think this can be true of the couple that's together 15 months or 15 years.  Of course the latter would have more to loose wouldn't they? But essentially this "puberty" of the relationship is hard none the less.  Do we blame the routine?  I dare say, yes, to some degree.  I think as women the routine equates to safety with us.  It means to us, "I've settled him down, he's here to stay".  But does he really want to be "settled"?  And if he does, will he feel like that always?  I hate the phrase, "Settling Down".  It's a horrible phrase to use in relationships.  It feels like "tethered down" or "broken down" or "forced into/broken into submission".  We need to find a new phrase.  Because teenagers hate the concept of being forced to do anything.  And if you push someone too hard...they'll run...as fast as they can.  Far, Far Away.  That's what we do when we are teenagers...it almost can't be helped.  The romances of an actual teen relationship are also deep and dramatic and soap-operaesque.  "Teen" relationships (for adults) can be just as dramatic and wild.  Many people in relationships reach "teen status" and it dissolves.  The pulling of strong chemical changes within the body of that relationship pull it apart.  The routine begins to be resented and someone begins to bail looking for spontaneity.

But what about those relationships that keep going.  They make it out of that wild confusing time and make it to adulthood.  Now marriage and/or future begin to be discussed and the couple embarks on a different journey.  If the couple was actually married and came out of the transitions their "teen" relationship encountered they probably are deep into their routined life.  Hopefully it remains strong and continues to blossom.

 But what about people like my friend?

What happened in the 20's?  Well, think about your twenties.  You are legal baby! You can drink, go clubbing, live on your own, invest, get bank loans, get credit cards, travel without parental consent...you are all grown up.  Now, no one can tell you what to do.  No one has a hold on what you do with your life.  You are your own maker.  In a relationship this "adult" relationship changes once more.  The sense of adult entitlement has crept in.  "Why does she always have to tell me what to wear?  I'm an adult. Who does she think she is, my mother?" Or how about "Man I miss being single and doing all that stuff I used to do".  I've also heard married people say, "He's so boring and doesn't like to do anything!"  Debts begin to accrue - emotional and financial.  Things change.  But the routine is so in place and the things we've become "used to" are so ingrained that you'll hear things like, "That didn't bother you before!" or "But we've always done..."

All this thought about how the relationship changes is not meant to be linked to the literal age of the relationship...I hope by now you can guess how this is a metaphor for what takes place in different stages of relationships and not the chronological and/or numerical age of the relationship.

It just makes me wonder if the routine we embraced and needed at one point of the relationship created the environment where boredom was bred.  What if what makes a man want to leave a wife of 24 years happened because he just got bored?  Not necessarily of her...but of the routine.  Yes, the female inside of me is yelling at me saying, "THAT IS NO EXCUSE".  And I wholeheartedly agree.  What about love? What about commitment? What about honoring your words and your promises?

Removing all those questions can't you see how perhaps routine and sameness bred a place that became stagnant and unchanging?  Anything that is stagnant can become suffocating.  A dark muddy puddle of gross water.  There is no air...and no escape.  What if someone spoke up and said, "I just need to go back to the place when this was about fun and laughter and not bills, soccer on Thursdays and mowing the lawn every other week happens."  What if women still dressed up occasionally and wore sexy things every now and then like you did in the beginning?  What if a guy showered and shaved and bought stupid flowers and took you out dancing on a Tuesday? What if we tried to keep things fresh and new?  As best we could.  Is it practical to ask these questions? I mean I get that growing up means taking on things like "responsibility" and all that crap.  It means you pay bills and have rents and mortgages and blah freakin blah...I get that.  But when did responsibility and routine translate to boredom and sameness?  Does it HAVE to be that way?  Does it? Well...DOES IT???

I am a realist, I know that even with the best of intentions things can still fall apart.  What's that famous saying..."The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Ultimately it takes work.

Hard work. Keeping two people together through the "growth spurts" of life is hard.  There is no exact recipe.  There is no "right way".  And that thought terrifies me.  I am not married.  Looking around, there are not many good examples of married people in my life.  Unfortunately marriage is just not looking as appealing as it did a few years ago to me.  But I still want it.  I still hope for having that one person grow old with me.  I still believe deep down in my heart that it CAN happen.

I just can't shake that terrifying fear that after you invest so much of your heart...dammit and your freakin life... into someone...they grow up....and grow away...and want someone or something more exciting than you.  You can't spare yourself from that possibility. You can't save yourself from that.  It might happen even if you are the one on the side of the relationship that thinks things are great! Shit, it might happen even if you think you have done all the "right" things!

I weep for my friend.

Her body is frail now.  She looks sad.  She is thin and weak.  A breeze might knock her over.  She looks like a woman who has lost her love.  And she did.  She misses their routine...and he is running from it like a mad man.  He refuses to return home.  She can't understand why.  I think because he's tired of the routine.  He's become a different person.  That's not her fault.  She is not to blame.  No one deserves being deceived in such a manner.  But can a person who is ready to be that "adult" in the relationship, who is diligent and committed, be with a person who is longing for a "teen" approach to their life?

I don't think so.

I worry about her future.  I know she is scared.  After so long with the same one person how or why would you even conceive of being with another?  Its like starting your life all over again.

To my married or "in a relationship" readers all I can say is that I pray you hear my words.  That you rethink the routine.  I mean it couldn't hurt to try.  Try going back.  Back to the time when you had no routines and things were fun.  Remind each other why you got together in the first place.  Be the "new" he or she is looking for.  I mean after some time we all want a new pair of shoes....a newer car....a newer house....yes, I am aware that these are things...not people.....I realize that people matter more than those things.  But can't you see what I am saying?  Can't you see that being the "new" means you are always fresh always exciting.  I don't know if that will save anyone.  Or save a relationship broken apart.

All I'm saying is that through constant prayer for yourself and for you partner and the occasional breaking of your routine....well....maybe, just maybe it might do something....

New

As for me...here's hoping.

E=MC2

Albert Einstein was a pretty cool cat.

I never really knew just how similar I am to him.  Ok, so clearly my brain is not necessarily classified as being "genius".  Although I may beg to differ in some circumstances lol.


I watched this documentary on him and on his discovery of his theory of Relativity. Well...I guess its not really a theory anymore...but none the less...it was how he came up with the idea in the first place.


So the story goes that he got on this bus and was the sole occupant.  As the bus moved forward he happened to look behind him and there was a large clock he saw.  He instantly wondered what it would be like to move forward while riding a beam of light  and if that changed time at all.  So ok, I'm not even gonna try to pretend that I am smart enough to understand exactly what the idea was or how he came up with the whole space-time thing and bending of light and planetary orbits and how that affects time...etc, etc.  Lets just say that this patent clerk sitting on a bus imagining himself riding a beam of light was pretty cool in and of itself.


That's when I realized that me and Al are not that different.  He obviously had an incredible imagination.  He actually saw himself riding that light.  Sitting on it just as he was the bus chair that was moving away from that grand clock.  Moving forward.  And he could see time change.  And it made him wonder how that happened and if it could be explained.  And his mind never let him let go of that image...seeing himself...straddling light...shooting forward...making time...change.  This image, this dream...it changed his life.


Imagine if you were sitting next to some random man on a bus and he turns to you and says, "Can you imagine that instead of sitting here we were strapped to a beam of light?"  You would probably move to another seat immediately lol.


But his dream.  This wild vision. It birthed in his soul a need to find out what it meant.  He then embarked on this journey of not just scientific discovery but of personal discovery.  Now, truthfully, from what I know about him...he was pretty much an asshole when it came to relationships.  It can be argued that people of such vast intellect just do not posses the ability to relate on an emotional level with us stupid people.  Therein lies our definitive difference.  People like Al are ruled by their mind...there is some break or lack that finds it difficult to tap into the heart whereas those of us lead by our heart are too clouded with emotions to settle our minds down enough to have the focused thoughts necessary to truly think in a clear pattern.  Like what you would need for physics for example.  So while I share in his ability to dream and be imaginative with an almost wild sense...I am different in that I am a heart case while he was clearly a head case.  This is most evident in the existence of the contract he asked his wife to sign requiring her to not just do menial tasks of everyday housework but to agree not to expect affection, attention or physical intimacy from him.  My favorite part was when he required that she not speak to him unless he spoke to her first or to include in their conversation any topics that he was not interested in.  Yeah, nice try lol.


Anyways...


So here's Al...on this bus...riding his beam of light and dreaming.  Dreaming and thinking.  It is said that Al was such an amazing thinker he could sit for hours and days and weeks in the deepest of thought.  Obsessing about an equation.  It makes me wonder if Al had Asbergers. Hmmm.  But he was so driven to find out and figure out how his beam riding could be possible and if it were true that it governed his every thought and consumed him.  What must those days have been like for him?  I can imagine.  There are things that have happened in my life that literally grounded me and forced me to pass enumerable amounts of time deep in thought.  In specific thoughts.  There is a toll it puts on the body.  The stress of the mind.  Your mind goes round and round on this thought.  It, to some degree, changes your body.  Your mind takes over and it is almost like having an out of body experience.  History tells us that he would spend countless hours in his study breaking only to play on his violin, which he said helped him think.  He would play Mozart.

Caught up, in the deep recesses of his mind.  Searching and probing and questioning and thinking and wondering.  This exercise of his mind pulling and stretching his brain to limits most of us will never achieve.  Never escaping from the original dream...riding the light.  I can admire him for this.  While his personal life practically disgusts me his intellectual life makes him soar to mythical proportions.  His personal relationships, that is, with women were so deplorable I think that had it not have been for his scientific discovery Al would be just another asshole guy.  I mean the guy eventually agreed to marry his cousin but remained an unfaithful womanizer for as long as his pecker allowed.  He bargained his way out of his first marriage and pretty much had no emotionally loving significant anything.  And that is sad.


So I write about Al today because I wanted to find a way to humanize and relate to this genius.  And I can.  I can relate to dreaming.  And to being absorbed by a thought that consumes your very soul.  But the biggest lesson I can learn from him is in his failure as a human being.  At the end of the day we can speak of the scientist whose work changed...well...everything.  But the man.  The human.  What can be said of him?  Which do I prefer then?  That at the end of my life the work of my hands and the things I produce, should they be the things that speak for me?  Is my measure of worth wrapped in the dreams I was able to produce into reality?  Or is the work of my heart and who I have been to other people more important?   Some might argue that without his inability to connect to love he may not have possessed the commitment to thought and that would have been the greatest travesty to science and knowledge.  Maybe that's true.  But what about the people who were closest to him.  Can they say they would trade his accomplishments for a moment of true heart connection?  Who knows.


All I know is that I wanna be the Al that rides beams of light...with those I love riding right alongside of me.

Silence is not a term I know very well.  


Even in the places of most quiet I find that there is still the noise of my thoughts.  


I have gone back and forth over what to write about.  There has recently been certain occurrences that merit some type of literary acknowledgement but I have not brought myself to the place where I am able to put words to them.  All I know is that while there is a lot of quiet around me...there is a hell of a lot of noise.


The noise is coming from a place deep inside.  A place of longing.  A place that recognizes that the silence and quiet are only a mask and that bubbling under the surface there is more.  Lots more.  But what that "more" is I am not quite sure of yet.  


My whole life has been filled with moments of searching and understanding.  Trying to understand, is most accurate.  Trying to understand why somehow I always feel one...step...behind.  When I was younger I noticed how, when walking in a group, I never actually walked IN the group...but always a few paces behind.  I remember once as a teenager remarking this to friend.  I can't remember what she said but I remember the exact place in the school hallway I was when I said it.  I remember where she was standing and where the others were standing and how I, noticeably, was out of sync with the rest.  I remember feeling that sense of frustration of "catching up" but not ever really being able to do so because even as I remarked at how fast they always seemed to walk...whatever it was this friend said back to me...was said, BACK to me.  


In my memory now it all fades away and I can't recall what her words to my frustration were or even what my response to her words were.  All I remember is noticing that I was always behind.  Upon graduation, higher levels of learning and other "achievements" in life, that feeling of staying behind has never left me.  Even now, having reached a place in my professional life some would say was "successful"...I know the truth.  I know I am far from that success.  Oh, so far.  


And I know that sitting here...in the quiet...with only the distant voices being raised from my TV  and the louder tap, tap, tap strokes of the keys of my laptop, this seeming quiet is a veil that covers a loud roar.  


I feel that there is so much more to me than I have let out.  


I feel that there is so much more to me than I have let others see.


I feel that there is some great purpose or happening that I am compelled to accomplish or reach or attain or do...but for the life of me I don't know what that is.


Is it to write a book?  I have started and stopped this idea so many times.  Is it to write a song? I have so many.  Is it to achieve some noticed physical work or to discover something others only scoffed at.  I don't know.  


But whatever it is I am supposed to do.  It gets...fuzzy.  It gets....out of reach.  


Because my feet just aren't fast enough to get me there.


Therein lies the dilemma. 


Health, happiness, future...all one step out of reach it seems.  Sometimes I get so close I feel feel it and even smell it.  Sometimes those things I long for are so tantalizingly close I feel that I am just a breath away. Then suddenly the room gets dark again and all color fades out and I am back in the familiar behind spot...just shy of whatever it was I was reaching for.  Back in that hallway at school...trying to keep up.   This can be rather depressing lol.


But something deep in my heart never lets me get to the point where I am left bereft of hope.  Something pushes me to keep going and keep reaching.  Because...it has to be better than this.


This...present....has to be better.  This place I am in...has to be better than this.  Not that its horrible.  Not that its great either.  But it just has to be better.  


A fear has just been revealed.  What if, upon reaching the "better" it is not the "best"?  And I become one of those people always wanting the more out of a life filled with more? 


 I don't think I could ever be one of those. 


 All I know is that these words go out across the universe.  One day someone reading this will know the feeling.  They will identify with these sullen words and say, yes, I know what she feels like.  


And maybe they will stop by and have coffee...and we can have a chat about it.


That would be nice.