Getting Into It
Ah, how time flies. It is already the end of February, and I have been home for two months, though it seems like more. I have stopped comparing most things to “when I was in South America,” and I’m ready to press on with all those projects I’ve been dreaming up. In fact, I have been moving forward already with some. The family house is still as cluttered as always, but I’ve made chips in each area that needs sorting, which is everywhere, actually. I’ve been working on songs, and, for the first time recently, I heard a song that’s been going through my head for two years played by a real band, the West Rockers. My voice still needs work, but I’m beltin’ out the words anyway. Lovin’ it.
Writing a piece and being happy with it, and then performing it, is one of the few things I truly enjoy. It’s not always so easy to find those things in life. So much of the time is spent doing things that we think will make us happy, but really they just pass the time. This leads me to ask…what is happiness? Is it staying content from moment to moment and passing the time painlessly? Is it being able to appreciate your surroundings, throwing your head back in laughter, or just cracking a smile? I often find it hard to buy into the simplicity of all the little possible manifestations of happiness; following any one action of happiness and making a habit of it, I fear, would lead to complacency.
What is our mark on the world, when so many joyous moments can be fleeting? I think part of what would make me happiest would be knowing that I didn’t have to end when my time is up. Perhaps it is in the creation of new songs, poems, and stories that I find happiness, because they are theoretically things that will outlast me. I am arrogantly happy to think that I’d go on forever in what I produce. Reminds me of what must be part of the drive to have kids. I want to capture all the laughter, and I find there’s sometimes a tear in my eye when I see the smiles of those I love.
Being home has brought me closer to what has been bugging me for the last handful of years: the fact that we are not immortal. When you’re young you don’t always connect with death, and it wasn’t until I was 23 that my father died. Since then, I’ve been fairly afraid of the thought of death. I hadn’t yet found what makes me happy before he passed. Although I had known people who died before he did, I was never as close to any of them as I was to him; so his death was really the big reality check about losing someone you love deeply. It made me truly, in my gut, realize that I will die someday too. Scared the shit out of me. Made me want to run away from the thought. That raw grief brought on such unhappiness that all I’ve been trying to do since then is simply get happy. I’ve been fighting this whole time to define happiness. Perhaps happiness for me has become trying to be immortal–trying to defy what caused me so much sadness.
Yeah, I know I don’t have super powers. I know I expect too much of myself. (I know I’m not delusional.) So why pursue such thoughts about what makes me happy? Well, damn, something’s gotta give. There is something to this whole thinking about immortality; I think it’s wrapped up in my desire to make an impact on the world. At some point I have to start making sense to me…and after some years of post-tramatic fear, I feel that point is near. Not that I have all the answers, but I think I’ve stopped trying to find them. This has made all the difference in trying to accept me for who I am and be happy with myself.
Life’s all just one big puzzle. (No huge revelation there.) Reflecting on the past seems to help me move forward. So be it. Avoiding death? Impossible…yes, quite a stretch. At the very least I can understand how I fit together. There are so many pieces that make us all up. We need to respect those pieces; let them marinate in some big ol’ soul searching stew, in which at any minute a tasty carrot can float by, be scooped out and relished. Morsel after morsel of emotion and moments that make us feel alive. Little bites that eventually add up to a full meal. Even I can only eat so much, which means, theoretically, someday I’ll be satisfied.
