haunted by memories

I am haunted by memories. Melancholia, like moonlight on night water, whispers its old lament and I am wrapped in the odd comfort of longing and regret. What if I had chosen differently? Where would I be today? Instead of here, sitting outside on a lonely evening watching myself smoke another cigarette. Its seductive smoke, spiraling up in slow motion and my every movement languid and succulent feeling. There can be a holiness in this kind of soft slow suffering. A yearning for that other life, almost like prayer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be Who You Be

Be Who You Be Your shadow self, that constant critic, will keep putting you down and making you feel unworthy of love and happiness and health as long as you allow it by not accepting the authentic you in this moment. Tell shame to shut up and perfection to piss off. Tell what might have been and what should become to go sit on Sissyphus' rock and let you be ok with what is. Hiding in the history of who you once were will only keep you drained. Rewriting the reality of your present will only sap your energy. Wishing for perfection tomorrow will only hobble you from your best possible future. I am what I am. You are what you are. It is what it is. Be who you be.

Distraction, avoidance, procrastination.

I somehow completely forgot I started this Blog.

I wonder if that is important, at least the "Why" aspects of that question.

Invictus - THE POEM

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley; 1849-1903

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.




AUTHOR: Louis Untermeyer, ed., 1885–1977.
TITLE: Modern British poetry, edited by Louis Untermeyer.
PUBLISHED: New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.
PHYSICAL DETAILS: 2 p. l., iii–xxv, 234 p. 19 cm.
ISBN: 1-58734-063-1.
CITATION: Untermeyer, Louis. Modern British Poetry. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/103/. [Date of Printout].
ON-LINE ED.: Published January 1999 by Bartleby.com; © Copyright Bartleby.com, Inc. (Terms of Use).

Obvious Epiphanies: You will never have what you want if you always put off working on it.

When I was on the phone right now with my oldest son, I said the following that he thought was quotable, if obvious:

"You will never have what you want, if you always put off working on it."

Swimming Up a Waterfall

I "suffer" from depression.  Suffer is a good word for it, although that is a bit too emotionally, dramatically, energetically charged in some ways. My depression causes me to not have that much energy. I "struggle" with my depression. Again, too much dynamism.

For me, the most accurate description would be that I am burdened by depressive pressure always exerting itself on my nature. I want sunshine, but I seem to always be peering at it through mist or fog. I squint at the life in front of me, searching for gaps in the grey and looking for the rays of light.

But it is a difficult thing to do at times. The marathonish nature of it takes its toll and my spiritual eyes get tired, so from time to time I close them and nap. "Nap Time" for me is sometimes not a restorative thing, but a hellish nonexistential sort of place where I am impotent and paralyzed and stuck and hopeless and cowardly and apathetic and pathetic. Finding my way back from there, avoiding that grey world, staying in the sun and fighting to live a FULL life is so damn difficult for me. Trying to do that while a full time homemaker with a cluttered chaotic home and five fantastic intelligent strong willed very different from each other kids and a workaholic husband who travels out of town on a regular basis and a demanding amazing extended family is almost impossible for me at times. Being a perfectionist on top of it all that is a cross between Martha Stewart and Roseanne Barr and Oprah Winfrey?

It is like trying to swim up a waterfall.