On XL

 Something about lying on your back and gazing up into an unpolluted night sky makes you wonder what the fuck you're doing with your life.

Something about being on the road and not having any serious time restraints or deadlines really makes you question your choices and priorities.

Something about being in a car with your family for a week on vacation really makes you need a vacation.  

 Where did I go?  I have had so much on my mind, but no time or energy to blurt any of it out here.  That last post was a bit forced, if only to showcase this work that happened on our trip with a model who lived where we were going.  My mind, though, was not completely there.  Obviously I was grateful for the opportunity, but I didn’t set it up.  I did what I was asked to do, and even in that I failed a bit from what was expected of me.  I wasn’t there.  I was off in my cloud of trying to figure out how to not completely disappoint everyone around me by just being me.  

 More and more I am discovering that I am not enough.  Just being calm and cool isn’t enough.  Just doing my job isn’t enough.  Just trying everyday to make the most of this, and what I have access to, isn’t enough.  All of these open projects I have in my mind are starting to grind me down, and none of that became more apparent than on this milestone day for me.  An entire decade has passed from the goal I set for myself as a child, but I guess the greater milestone is that I’m still alive.  That is a complete mystery to me.  Well, the word alive is relative: I am a mumbling, murmuring, memory of my former, hopeful self, perpetually trying to find my feet on the surface of tumultuous seas.

 I suppose those are things that I’m not “allowed” to say, but if I don’t give any greater explanation than the literary vomit it’s ok, right?  I don’t know.  I don’t get to decide those things anymore.  I suppose I should consult with the peanut gallery.

I didn’t really have much time on this trip to contemplate 40.  Everything was crammed together.  The week before was spent getting as much done in the brewery as possible.  Even on the morning of Father’s day, when we set out, I was up at 5 to brew one last batch in the brewery, then worked lunch in the kitchen, then went home to finish cramming our preparations for some potential apocalypse in the car, then we were on the road for 6 hours.  

 There isn’t much time for reflection in there.  Not much processing was done.  It was all constant reaction to what is happening right in front of you.  If you reflect on your life at all, you open yourself up to an attack from forever neglected individual souls that need your attention.  That’s just life, right?  Upon our return, things weren’t much different.  I’ve been in the brewery every morning making up for lost time, coming home to individual souls who seem to have already forgotten that we just spent a week in a car together.  

 This is the first morning I’ve really had off in three weeks, but I’m still going in at 1 to cover the kitchen so a memorial can be attended (This was written three days ago. That’s how bad I’m sputtering).  Mortality: a swift slap in the face with a shovel.  The night before my big milestone, we splurged on local pizza and local beers, but the only local beers we could find were sours and IPAs, both of which turn my stomach, but that didn’t stop me from consuming most of them in my unconscious facing of another decade having passed, and my still not having accomplished what should be a simple task, making me a failure by the standard I set for myself.  

 That’s a lot to process, unconsciously.  So, with all the dignity of a fitting farewell to my 30s, I was forced awake in the wee hours of the morning, having thrown up all over the tent, in my sleep, and was choking on vomit, in my sleep…that’s how people die.  I joked later about my at least going out like a rockstar, and was met with a “that’s not funny.”  What’s funny is that I am completely conscious of what isn’t funny anymore, but I have always been capable of laughing at how stupid all of this is, especially myself.  “Let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged…” not funny.  

 So, I’ve still got a lot to wrap my head around, apparently, but that’s why this exists; that’s why I’ve been blogging for 8 (EIGHT[VIII]!) fucking years: for me to figure all this shit out; for me; I may entertain some; I may anger most; but this fucking place is mine; for me.  The needle on my tongue keeps skipping on this repetitive wax: if you don’t like my words, don’t read them.

 “Thomas Wolfe ate the world and vomited lava.  Dickens dined at a different table every hour of his life.  Molière, tasting society, turned to pick up his scalpel, as did Pope and Shaw.  Everywhere you look in the literary cosmos, the great ones are busy loving and hating.” Pg 9

Yet, I can write little to nothing without facing some sort of backlash from my immediate relationships.  Clearly I am not great enough, but we already knew that; the royal we.  

 Most shallow souls have trouble with the decade milestones because of aging.  I don’t give a shit about any of that.  All I give a shit about is what I’ve accomplished with my given time.  Each day that passes is a day wasted.  I put this upon myself, so I don’t expect anyone to understand, in fact, I expect no one to understand but the driven creatives, who, in most cases, are self-driven to madness because of what I am experiencing right now; that’s why most of them don’t make it that far in this clusterfuck journey of navigating everyone else’s bullshit.  

 What I wouldn't give to take the Euripides route, and live out the rest of my days in a cave above the ocean with a thousand journals and blatantly hating women and relationships, but I love my family too much.

30 was difficult for me because of a number of reasons, including accidentally killing someone, my computer crashing and negating a significant bulk of my work (id est, life), and losing my second wife, amongst many other things, but all of that could be summed up in the culmination of my self perpetuated misery, which I spent my 30s correcting, unbeknownst to most.  

 40 is… I don’t.  I had a decade to write, but I apparently just spent it trying not to die.  I am still waiting for my life to start.  I’m still waiting to wake up one morning and be an adult.  The endless hurricane of these last couple years feels like a decade stacked on top of that.  Where am I?  What am I doing?  Who am I?  What do I stand for?  I am pretty tired of people around me telling me what all the answers to those questions are.

 Laugh at it,

It will destroy you;

Focus on it,

It will destroy you.

The very core of my soul hurts.

That’s how I feel about 40.

The universe made me promises.  I made sacrifices.  I just kept working.  I am this person for a reason.  You can complain about me all you want; you can try to change me into the person you think I should be; you can punish me; you can break me; one thing will always remain constant: I am here for a reason; this tortured mind exists for a reason; this drive serves some purpose.

Fight it or nurture it.

You are an individual human soul who is free to do whatever you want… my philosophy for the better part of four decades, accidentally rejects that we are all the same organism, failing miserably at trying to make different realities work for us.  I'm just trying to document the beautiful things that I find in a world that doesn't want to be beautiful.

Wait…What’s happening?

I am pretty fucking tired of sitting down to write something, but something entirely different comes out.  I suppose that’s why I haven’t written any books yet.