It is early on a Sunday morning. The sunrise is new to the sky and the world is quiet like a church before members of the clergy arrive to prepare for the congregation.
The sun is up and so am I.
I am driving west to say the least and making my way into “The City that Never Sleeps” to pull a wage and pay down the bills which continue to pile up every month.
The quiet is loud for some reason, as if to mean the soft eeriness of the moment is fitting and matching of news, which came to me last night.
I could call the news unexpected and yet, I assume there is something more cosmic to the ideas of personal foreshadowing.
I say there are signs and that there are messages that forewarn us about how something is on the way.
I could feel this too.
There was something missing or out of place, as if the spiritual world was reaching out to me.
I could feel this, as if something out there was trying to tell me, “keep an open mind, kid” and how something is about to change.
I believe in things like this. Or like the dreams we have of those who we haven’t seen in so long and somehow, the next day, the news of that person comes to light
I am driving along and sitting in silence with no music or radio to intercept the quiet. The sky above Manhattan is beautiful, of course.
All the scenery is perfect for the moment.
Beautiful . . .
Then again, the world is a beautiful place. Life is precious and meaningful, despite our best efforts to argue and complain or to self-destruct and molest the best things that the world has to offer.
Life is precious.
Of course.
Everyone knows this.
Or so I think.
Life is also too short and of course, there are times and people who might assume that life is not short enough.
I know.
I understand this as well.
Life happens in stages.
We grow.
We experience the good and the bad and the perfectly indifferent only to realize this later in life, nothing was ever indifferent.
Everything comes with memories.
We live and we learn.
We go through the phases of youth which evolve to young adulthood and somehow, age steps in.
Life changes.
So does out body.
We find our way through the so-called mid-life crisis.
This of course is a sign that age is taking hold and that lo and behold; the downswing of the upswing has taken up speed.
I am not speeding as I drive or thinking much about anything at the moment. I am driving in the odd or quasi state of semiconsciousness, which is not to say that my reflexes are not aware.
I am very aware, yet, I am not involved and my mind is elsewhere.
My thoughts are taken in by the gravitational pull of the moment and I am elsewhere in the sense that I am quietly moving and processing the hours which went behind me.
I suppose this is the best definition of what it means to operate on autopilot.
I know where to turn and when to change lanes.
I know when to break or when to speed up and go.
I am sitting in the solace of a quiet like the ones that come before the storm. But more, I am processing the sad tragic news of someone’s death, which I admit to our mutual troubles and distance. And so, I do not pretend to act so destroyed and still; I am
a little
Family is family.
Life is life.
Death is death.
I say this because to me, all debts must be settled at the end of business day.
This means there are no more complaints. There is no more resentment.
That chapter is closed.
All else that was behind us is behind us and all the confusion and the dust is settled.
There is nothing else to this.
No bitterness.
No complaints, just a quiet restoration and a whispered and verbal agreement to wish someone goodbye, despite the life they left behind.
It is no secret that we all have our toxic challenges and there is no reason to deny that at some point, walking away is the only sane adjustment we can make.
Of course, there is always someone who comes around to try and build a bridge or make peace, which is fine.
“But that’s your family . . .”
I get that.
But what about sanity?
What about the need to be well?
Or what about the need to move on?
What about the need to amend oneself and to do this, what about the personal need to improve and walk away?
What about peace?
I like peace too.
But in the interest of sanity and wellbeing, sometimes walking away is all we can do to maintain a semblance of a better life, regardless of our family connections.
I head over the bridge from one side to the next, and I do this with no objection.
After all, this is life.
My life.
I have been doing this for decades.
I am somehow moving back and forth as I drive, or traversing like a skier down a slope and wondering about the traffic of my life itself, which is still going on, despite the changes of who goes or stays, who leaves or dies.
Life is still going on.
The traffic lights still work and rest assured, my bills still need to be paid.
Life is too short to mourn the living and life is too precious to waste another minute in the cobwebs of emotional confusion.
I agree.
I have to overcome some things.
Absolutely.
Life is too short to be caught in the crosshairs of emotional warfare and live in the arguments about “this and that,” and life is too meaningful to waste away –
or die alone.
Walk on, I say . . .
Go in peace.
I offer my apologies
but more –
I offer my hope for your peace
Say hello to Heaven for us.
Tell my Old Man that I made my way downtown to pull a wage and score another trick or two.
Tell my Mom I love her.
Tell your Father and your Mother you’re home.
And say hello to Robbie for me
And Christine too.
I know they were probably the first to welcome you home.
The chapter closes
a new one opens
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
The Lard giveth
The Lord taketh away.
So be it
The Written Addiction 