Just Life

I know I don't have all the answers. Hell I don't even understand half the questions. It nags at you and try as you might you can't scratch the itch. I always thought I had a pretty good grasp on what life was all about, I really did, well, better than most did anyways. I thought I had all the answers and I'd solved all the questions. But that nagging itch remained. Well it's more of a lead weight I suppose than an itch.

I've had all summer to wonder about life and love and happiness and all that stuff, but I've come out of it worse than I've gone in. Sucks, it really does. But, in a way it's satisfying to know, looking back, how far I've come. I'm still not genuinely happy about everything yet, but I'm resigned to it not being so. And good for that, I suppose one is only completely happy when life has been lived and is over. At 19, that would be one of the worst things to happen.

I do conflict over a few little things too. I've always said, if only to myself, that I'm not long for this world. Not that I'd do anything stupid or something. But, I've always kind of expected that I wouldn't be in it for the long haul. Then again there's the part of me that wants to stick around and finish my book and watch my family grow up and move on. There's a big part of my mind that wouldn't give up on living, wouldn't accept that fate, even if it did manifest itself. A part of my mind doesn't ever want to die and part thinks that it's far overdue.

I mentioned that I'd like to live to see my family grow and move on. I didn't mention myself. And I didn't mention a spouse or children. And there we come to conflict two. I do mean it when I say I so completely want to be the most kickass grandfather in the history of man. Oh, you'd better believe I'll say what I believe and believe what I say. And I definitely want to show my parents up by having kids and being a whole hell of a lot better to them than they've been to me. I do want that, even more than life itself sometimes. There's the part of me that just wants to hug and hold my kids as babies, watch them grow and help them along their way. But then there's the other part of me that looks to the future and sees me alone. Not lonesome or something, just alone, having never married, having never had children. Content with the quiet and single life. Alone. In a good way. If you can understand that.

It's maddening! It really is. I can't understand it. And, modesty aside, I understand most things quite easily. I look at the here and now and dream of the future and desire that it falls into place of it's own accord. Yet I know that given the chance I'd do anything I could to guide it along.

Just when you think you've got it all figured out, you realize you've got comparatively nothing done next to the new things that popped up. Every time the biggest questions get answered in my head others pop up, sometimes even old ones again. It's maddening!

Some nights my head gets bogged down so badly with this stuff that I lie there in bed for hours just trying to make sense of all of it. Because that's when it all comes to me, isn't it. Right when I have to get to bed. These are the sort of silly thoughts that pop up when you're at your weakest... Damn, there I go again. Let me start over... These are the sort of silly thoughts that pop up when I'm at my weakest, most penetrable. And I'm not talking about suicide. Not ever. I'm talking about baseless insecurities and fears. Things that'll rob from me the little good that I have in my life. Stupidity is what it is. Sheer stupidity.

I now believe that the only people who are truly sane are those who are completely insane. Those who break the mold that we've sunk ourselves, I've sunk myself, into for all these years. I look back to when I was eight or ten and things were so much simpler then. We never wondered whether something someone said had some hidden meaning behind it, questioned ourselves, had baseless fear run rampant through our minds... my mind at its weakest points. Insecurity, that's what it is. I don't trust people. Then again, how could I. The things I've seen and felt detrimented that. My past drives me mad every day. Every day. And that little voice that manifested itself back in those days still shines through at times. It pours doubt and fear into me. It fights back the ages for which I've tried to kill it. And it fights dirty.

But, so do I. They say that there are no atheists in the foxholes. Well, perhaps that's true. But I don't think it has anything to do with a god or a religion. In the trenches they are stripped of their happiness, their love, of everything that is good for them. They face the same harsh reality that I face many-a-day. Every painful, fearful, embarrassing, hurtful event in their lives flash past their eyes, perhaps unbeknownst them even. All they can focus on is fighting it, fighting to stay alive. Fighting for their lives. I too fight for my life. Not literally, figuratively. I fight every day to push away doubt and depression, fear and pain. I push as hard as I can and then some more. Because I have to. Because I refuse to relive my past. I refuse to let it keep me down. I refuse.

I'm stubborn, and it knows it. That's why it hasn't got to me yet. Why I could never really let it get me for that long. I'm just to goddamned stubborn. So, I'm heading back to school tomorrow and back to a world which I much prefer. Yet I can't help but wonder what the future holds, even as early as twelve hours from now. I can only wonder. But come what may, and I know that there I have it better than anyone here ever thinks they deserve. But that's not going to stop anything, not a damn thing. I'll move on, and too answer more of my questions and in doing so add even more, but such is life, and I'm content with living mine. And that is the bottom line motherfucker!