Puzzle Pieces

It’s late October and the windows stay open all night, fan on low blowing in the nights air. This seems normal for October around here, yet when the cold is here it never gets cold enough. Our fall into winter is like a slow crawl from summer to less summer. Yes the leaves change and pumpkin spice fills the air from the surrounding Starbucks but there is no bite from the arriving winter. I dream of cold days, fall’s colors crisp beneath my feet, crunching all the golden leaves. Frost so thick one would think a light snow fell over night, maybe my image of fall is not normal, maybe it’s made of too much dreaming. I can’t rightly remember the last time I felt fall, most likely it was when I was a child. I remember being in the 6th grade and my mother had just come home from a trip to England, she went after the divorce. It seems common for people to take trips after divorces, like I can’t run from my life but I can pretend for 10 to 14 days.

She had come back with some clothes, an odd pull-over jacket of sorts with long sleeves and high neck and some fingerless gloves. I knew nothing of style back then, so I wore them regularly, they held me close in a sense and I had some pride that my mother thought of me or cared about me. I didn’t really feel loved much as a child, it was there but the actions never matched to the words, nor the words to the actions. But I wore these warm clothes that fall, even when it wasn’t cold enough to dawn them. I still do the same today, I had bought a jacket last winter, one that drew me back to my teenage years, yet it really never seems to be cold enough to wear a denim jacket with wool lining. I still wear it on occasion, I am so very fond of it. Now considering I only wear Levi’s and combining that with a Levi jacket, well, I’ve been told it could resemble a denim track suit so be cautions when I wear it. Yet I throw caution to the wind because fashion has no bounds and I relish in my denim track suit.

My coming trip has been on my mind something fierce, the fear of leaving comes in and out like the swell of the ocean, like the waves that hit you when you’re on X – except the fluttering joy is not there most times. Although when I let go of the fear, of thoughts of the future, I am there, in the moment and my heart swoons over the adventure ahead. When I let go of everything I know or think I know and be what is in me, well the happiness and joy are all consuming. It’s the feeling of falling in love. You know I spent some time with someone the other night and we dillied over some thoughts about an us and I felt alive inside. My stomach has not dropped from thought or conversation like that in forever. I can say I have stared at her lips for many a day now and to think there could be a time when I might actually get to kiss them… The same feeling as taking this trip, the feeling of being alive, being in love. The feeling where fear and happiness clash and form a moment I have waited patiently for, the moment where I feel my life’s purpose is being met.

Some people know what they were meant to do, some people save lives, play sports, fix cars, paint pictures, act, so on and so forth and the joy brought to them is ethereal. Mine is wandering, mine is writing. As a whole I think ours is helping one another, ours is falling in love. I think these are the two things all people have in common; they are the two things that draw us to one another. Those with less ego and self-centeredness are more likely to be the constant helper of others, but that aside, even the most self-obsessed feels the need to help others even if it’s for filling their ego. And sometimes we are not sure why we are doing it, sometimes we think our intentions are pure till we tell everyone around us how we donated money or went out of our way to help someone or we tell them ‘I’m here to help you’ with my unsolicited advice. But I digress, I would rather focus on the love portion of this, not the poor eyesight we all have.

Thinking back to 30 minutes ago I had lit some incense and the open window caught my eye. It’s October I thought and I’ll be wearing shorts today, that seems so wrong. Then inspiration hit, the need to get these thoughts, this voice out of my head. There must be 10 different things going on at once in there, all the while searching out the one that makes me feel the less alone and it’s memories, moments I choose to focus on over my lifetime that brought me joy, that brought me love. Even the sad one’s bring me as much happiness as the happy one’s. It hurts to think of the painful neglected times I had through my life but I hold no resentment for them any longer. I cherish them in fact. These are parts of my life, my experience’s, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful – they are all one in the same. I have accepted what was and it makes all the things that have happened in my life something beautiful, even the tragedies.

I want to make memories with my life, I want to love more and hurt less, I want to have the faith of a preacher and the willingness of a child, one that has yet to experience the trials of living. When my hour of death is upon me I want to know I was love, I was kindness, I followed my dreams, I helped people, that I cared more for your happiness then mine. My happiness comes from my connection to you, to existence. Truth is today could be my last day on earth, I could walk out my door this morning and never make it back here tonight. I won’t be thinking of how I should of worked harder or made more money or had a nicer car. I’ll be thinking of my daughter, my parents and sister. I’ll be thinking of the people that made a difference in my life, the ones that I cherished, the ones that loved me. I won’t be thinking of the dreams I didn’t accomplish or the fears I had, I’ll be thinking of the times I lived and loved unbound.

In this moment, this mindset, there is no question about leaving, there is no fear of it. There is no future, no past – nothing is existing accept right now. Me and this computer, this cup of coffee and this moment. The feeling I had last night in that conversation isn’t even here, the sadness brought up by thinking of my mother and that hideous jacket thing is gone. I’m detached, no not detached, they are still a part of me but they are not me. I am so grateful to feel all the things I do. I know in the moments of depression and angst, spinning circles in my little apartment – those times I do not cherish, but they are a means to an end and must transpire. I am not well; I have never considered myself to be. The roll-a-coaster of emotions that flow through me is ridiculous, but I am not alone in this am I. My mind is a jumbled mess that lives in daydreams and fear, visions of love and the catastrophe of self-obsession. I trust no feelings nor any thoughts but will follow them both because that is what I know, it is who I am.