First Things First...

I have to write.  I just have to.  At least I think I do.  It's because I think all the fucking time.  Too much.  What was, what could have been, what should have been, what will be...  blah, blah, blah... My brain creates visions, and then it makes connections between them and the next thing.  On and on.  

And in doing all this thinking, I am expending some degree of energy.  Very little energy, but some energy nonetheless.  And my brain, drug addled and self obsessed though it may be, perceives this endless brainbabble  as actually doing the thing I am thinking about.

I sense that this hearkens back to my childhood when a trip to Disneyland was out of the fucking question, or even a video game console or some such thing. My mind would create such strong imagery - experiencing the world through PBS and Encyclopedia Brittanica.  I would build these complex universes - like a post apocalyptic preteen mountain lifestyle where the nukes would fly and I would have time to commit a B & E at the Pioneer sporting goods store next to the Bakery and IGA on the hill (Hintonites know of which I speak) and take to the wilderness with plenty of guns, ammo, snare wire and dehydrated stroganoff.

There was a certain solace in knowing that I could succeed in this world - a world of bears and deer, trout and weather and solitude.  That perhaps one of the sweet girls I admired at Mountainview Elementary or Overlander Junior High would see my survival talents and come live in my cabin and we would procreate and eat wondrous meals and hibernate away from the nuclear winter that was sure to come.  

This was a far better reality than the one I was experiencing.  I did not feel worthy of anything special or nice or wondrous.  Much of this came from me not wanting to impose anything further on my mom, who, bless her heart, did the level best she could with what she had at the time.  So my "not asking for anything" was a little bit that I could do to be small and less of a burden.

I lived instead in my mind.  In the books that I spent hours with.  

This kind of escapist thought became my reprieve. 

It has now become my deepest weakness.

These thoughts continue.  Imagining what I will do, and doing nothing of the sort.  The thoughts include several things that are related to my achieving my own self respect.  Things like working on the relationships with my sons, long absent from my life; strengthening my financial situation, staying sober, etc.  All the wreckage from 30 years of pretty much being high, drunk, self obsessed or draped in lies. 

I picture the time spent on these precious tasks, see the sun and rain and all the details in between, and the rainbow at the end, all in a matter of seconds, and my feelings seem to evolve as though I've actually done it.

This is fucked.

Fucked because I imagine all these character building exercises and imagine that I've become the character that they've built.

Then carry this zhǐlǎohǔ or  紙老虎 or paper tiger of personality shift around like a plastic dollar store police badge of accomplishment.

I can't continue this any longer.  I am 42 not 12.  I can not keep building escapist cabins in the bush and feeling like I'm Grizzly Adams when I am trapped in a suburban crackhead nightmare of bullshittery and strained talents.

I paint pictures that are pretty black and white, but the reality is that there are moments of clarity, moments of truth that I do walk through.  Too few though. 

I need more.  

I have a feeling that these incessant thoughts need to be exposed and shown the light of day lest they continue to commit perjury in the psychic court of my life.

Perhaps they can live here in this little homely blog.  

...

I speak of these things today because I have been spending a lot of time writing the next chapter of my life in my mind.  Imagining my way out of this nonsense and into the next phase of wellness, growth, sobriety, career fulfillment, etc...   It has become a bit of a din, (or is that djinn?)

This transitional thinking hedges on being a "plan for recovery and healing" but mostly it is a creatively visualized reality that resonates like my nuclear hermit plan from my childhood.  Real tween the ears but nowhere else.

As such, I sense myself going through the mock changes, see the physical changes in my appearance from working out every day, sense the integrity and honesty taking root in my consciousness, my sense of self becoming humble, kind, real and firmly ensconced in a sustainable home we've built ourselves, with me in the garden, or polishing solar panels, fit and brown and handsome as all get out. 

So I paint a picture out of the madness into a sane and respectable life, look at it for a few minutes, commit to "do the work."  Maybe even put in a few days towards the goalposts...  Then, quietly, like a thief in the night, my penchant for the silky stroke of the pipe comes stealing into my thoughts.  

Poof.

Gone.

Back to the drawing board, square one, whatever you want to call it.

I have been recently obsessing about my current situation, financial, spiritual, career wise, all of the above.  Trying to duct tape and band aid and shuck and jive my way to the path to enlightenment and truth, sobriety and respect.

Looking at consolidation loans, career changes, geographical changes, whatever. Madly trying to fix what I've broke;  what has been broken for so long.

Fuck it.

I have all the tools right here right now.  Within my arms' reach; within the scope of my imaginings and the frame of my doings.  I just need to get out of my own way.

"I suffer from figureitoutism," says a dear friend of mine.  

Me too Al.

Let the brain exercise here on the keys when it starts to get noisy in there...  When I start conjecturing and posturing and reaping the spoils of my imagined efforts.  

Just do what's in front of you says I to me.  First things first, the rest will come when it's sposed to.

Unless God went and left when I was out chasing my tail.  Though I'm pretty sure the Universal Love that I call God doesn't leave.  Never.  I just turn away every now and again perhaps because I don't feel worth the love that flows so freely.

Anyways, that's a story for another day.

xox
S.