It’s been five years since I’ve posted anything. I took the liberty of going back and reading all of my previous blog posts. Some, those you can see, I kept. Others I saved but will keep hidden. They just didn’t have a place here anymore. They were too specific about my work then, whatever I was writing offline. Books, mostly.
At any rate, I’m 44.
Yeah.
For my 40th birthday, I went to dinner with a bunch of friends and then to a surprise party of sorts in the top floor of a barn. There was music, candles flickering in corners. I remember the air tasted like permission. That was four years ago.
So, what have I been doing? I’m healthy of body and mind, fine as fine can be.
However, wouldn’t it be something if I could sit here and tell you my life had come off the rails completely, and that the rusty tracks beneath my hellbent locomotive tonnage finally broke? That I went careening off the side of some ledge into a beautiful fiery explosion? That’s typically where people hit rock bottom. That’s where you can start something.
In reality, the unfortunate position I have found myself, is inside a humble white box called “routine,” and doesn’t that get us all? It must.
Routine is comfortable and complacent. Routine is financially and emotionally affordable. Routine is sought-after, it’s maybe even admirable. It asks nothing of you except everything.
So, then, what’s the deal?
Routine has left me without a blog post for five years. Do you know how many Amazon boxes have come to my house since my last post? Can you guess how many beers I’ve consumed since the last time I sat down to write anything of merit? How many paychecks have I earned (and spent) in the time since we last spoke?
I’ve got a cyclical nature—we all do. For some, it’s a wash of “delicates,” and rather swift. Monday comes as quickly as it leaves, and as you get the kids off to school, you log into your Zoom meeting and email cleansing for most of the day. Before long, it’s dinner, an hour of “me” time, and then sleep, perchance, to dream. For others, like me, it’s a fiery circle I have to not only find but jump through, half hoping the flames catch my coat as I tumble to the ground in chaotic inferno. Shielding your children’s eyes, you tell the little ones, “That’s not how the show is supposed to happen!”
I don’t know? I come as advertised, and you read the sign out front. You bought the tickets.
It’s 6:22 in the morning and I’m laughing. I can’t believe it’s been five years and I’m typing the same shit that I used to drum up. Maybe it’s not the same. Maybe it’s wearing the same coat, slouched on a different bench.
I want to get out and see you. I miss you. Those beers we used to have—each and every one of you? I miss that. That was the best part of you. Sure, you slurred some words, but for fuck’s sake, you were real.
Now what do you exercise?
That which precludes you?
A routine?
Barry