You have something of mine. Then again, it might be safe to say that perhaps I have something of yours as well. But don’t worry.
I’m keeping my promise and yes, I promise to keep this between the two of us; but more, I promise to keep this safe.
I give you my word.
Just so you know –
I have earned my place at the table. I have paid my dues and shoveled slop and garbage. I can say that I have been around. I have lived and I have lost and although I am alive, I find myself facing the worries of some lifeless idea that maybe I have yet to know what it means to really be alive.
Better yet, maybe I am afraid that I have not lived enough or that when the opportunity comes, I might pause or stall because I am either afraid that this isn’t real, or if this is real, I might be afraid to touch you, in fear that you might go away.
And yes, I am afraid.
I am afraid that I missed my chance, or when we talk about the choices we make and whether we head east or west, north or south, or if we face the crossroads of a decision and go left or right, I have decided that I want to rid myself from the distracting ideas that lead me to ask the question, “What if?”
What if?
I have worked most of my life away. I have given myself away to ideas that were never real. I have given in more than once. I have lost to the assumptions that all things can and will go wrong.
Eventually . . .
What if?
What if I’m wrong?
What if I let this bolt of lightening go and I never feel a charge like this again?
What if?
What if I hold on tight?
What if I hold on and refuse to let go, and next, I find myself, alive and well, and sitting in the sun of some obscure or remote place where only lovers go?
What if my dream has always been a reality and it was only a case of “Me vs. Me” that kept me from enjoying a life with you.
What if I dared? What if I acknowledged my fears and accepted them for what they were?
What if I stopped trying to cover myself up because I was too afraid to be seen as defective or ugly?
What if I’m not ugly?
You know?
Or even if I am, what if you think I’m beautiful?
What if I am as beautiful as the horizon to you.
And you know that I love this. The sunrise . .
How amazing –
I love when dawn shows up. The first light takes to the morning sky like a symphony in the clouds. I love the belt of color that separate land between heaven and the gold and different shades of color celebrate the fact that this is a new morning, and me and you?
We have another shot to make something happen.
I have lived. I have made money.
I have lost money. I have spent money without care and I have wasted time, energy, and resources. In all, I can see how this applied to life when my life was less-desired.
Do you understand?
Nothing can fill an unfillable void. No drugs. No fancy cars or high-priced items.
You can’t buy what it takes to fill this hole.
Trust me. I know.
I have been across the country. I have stayed in beautiful places yet, I have stayed in dives and trashy hotels, or motels with bricked walls, and with a bed like a cardboard box, pillows that smelled from cigarette smoke. I have spent nights in cheap motels because I was facing the edges of homeless consideration. I stayed at places where the pay-for-play hookers moan in rooms down the hall and, like a factory, they turn their tricks, one after another, and punching a clock the same as anyone else in a less-prestigious way.
I have flown in business class. I’ve seen great things. At the same time, I have never been to the places I have dreamed of.
I never took that drive that I’ve always hoped for, alone, but not in a way that would be an insult to you or to anyone else. No, this is something to me, like a trip to my own personal Mecca, or at least something of the sort.
I still haven’t fished the Gulf of Mexico.
But I will.
I never sat in that old convertible and drove through a West coast desert. I picture this from time to time.
The sky is blue with long-winger birds, black as ever, and circling overhead, hanging in the air like a kite mad from God, perfect and motionless, yet their long wings that hardly move are able to let them soar or fly high above us all.
I’d like to fly like this
(someday).
I want to let the sun touch my face in a land where I have never been before. Maybe I can take another shot at good old New Mexico, which is where my Mother comes from.
I was able to pull this trick last year. But there’s more to this for me.
I left too much in the line and there are more questions than answers.
This was a quick trip.
I made my way to a place where people go to be healed.
Why not? I need to be healed too.
I went to a place known as Chimayo, a church, which is said to have been built on sacred ground where the dirt can heal the sick.
I was not healed. Then again, maybe I was not sick. Or maybe the saying is true, “Some are sicker than others.” In my case, maybe I am not one of the “some.”
Or maybe there were some who needed more.
I have been to places like hospitals and emergency rooms where people are prioritized and seen according to the level of their traumas. And to me, maybe I was sicker than anyone else at that church.
Maybe I was hurting.
Or maybe there is a big difference between Park Avenue problems and park bench tragedies, and I was too stuck in my own nonsense to see that I have always had what I needed.
But hey, pain is pain, right?
Love is love. Life is life.
I am me and you are you.
I see what I see.
You see what you see.
And me?
I see what I have missed. I see families. I see fathers with their children.
I see people who have learned how to endure and overcome.
I see people who started at the bottom and worked their way to the top without bitching or complaining about the work it takes to make it to the big leagues.
I see people who dig ditches with pride and yes, they live like humble kings.
I see the other side too.
I see the ones who look to get over, and the ones who carry their scams, like a snake-oil salesman with a contract in the vest pocket because after all, there is a sucker born every minute. I know this for sure because I’ve been the sucker. And I’ve been the snake-oil salesman too.
I have met people who live their life with dignity and respect, and I have seen the other side of life.
I have seen the cons.
I have met with people who were nothing short of remorseless, emotionless and heartless, cold to the touch and with no reflection, like a vampire, hungry and empty of life.
I have met bad people
But I have seen the best too.
I have been as high as some of the best rooftops can take me.
I have been as low as holding cells beneath the courthouse, awaiting judgment, and hoping for bail.
I have run my course and yes, I have run in circles too.
I know misery all too well.
This is not to say that I don’t know about joy, because I do.
I know joy.
I know what happiness is too. I know that I have lived with an imbalance throughout my life. And like I said, I have paid my dues.
I won. I lost.
I gambled and I came up short.
I had nice things and like the return to dust, I know what It feels like to go from something to nothing.
Come to think of it –
I remember a movie from my youth. I have not seen this movie in decades now. The movie is called The Never Ending Story. I remember the ending more than anything. I remember the land was losing to an unstoppable force called The Nothing.
I remember there was a character known as The Rock Biter. He was larger than life. Big and strong, kindhearted and hopeful.
I have always wanted to be this way.
Loving over selfish.
Sharing over hoarding.
The Rock Biter was telling the hero of the film about his hands.
He said, “They look like big, good, strong hands, don’t they?”
Sometimes, no matter how big or strong we are, sometimes the things we want to hold the most can vanish or slip through our fingers. Life is precious and so are the memories we build or fail to.
I don’t want to lose anything else. And I don’t want to grip the world so tightly that I let everything slip through my fingers or lose you—again.
There is so much I haven’t seen and at the same time, I don’t have to go far to see them.
No.
Not at all — it’s all right here, in front of my face.
Then again, I think you already knew this,
at least I hope so.
I have been looking all over for you.
“I’m right here.” you say.
“I’ve always been right here.”
Did you bring it with you?
“Bring what?”
My heart . . .
“I have it right here, next to mine.”
Good.
Then we should go.
I have some things I’d like to show you.
There’s a cross-country train that I’d like to take with you –
to change my perspective
to see the world in a new way
and, of course,
to give hope that yes,
dreams really do come true.
We just have to hold on sometimes.
You know?
The Written Addiction 