I’ve been thinking a lot these past few years.
The things I want to do with my life.
I sometimes wonder if my mind wonders due to my travels in my 20’s.
Or if it has a legitimate desire….need for me to do the things I dream about.
Writing for a living, God knows my Uncle is making quite a career of writing…
So why can’t I?
I told my father once, when I was younger, that I wanted to become a writer, he told me to find a real job, and get life in order.
So I did, time after time, yet it always ended in the same way, my being on my own (Women do not like it when you sit up all night writing)
Plus every job I got I grew bored with, within weeks if not days…
Yet still I held onto this ideology that I had to live the “Normal” life.
I went from job to job, and in the end country to country trying to find that one thing, several times I thought I found it, only to see it walk away, or watch it grow smaller as I turned around while keeping one foot in front of the other.
I grew older, believing that if you were to become a writer, you had to start at an early age, you had to become dedicated to the cause, and surge forward Agent in hand.
Now as I sit at the ripe age of 41, I know that’s all a crock of bullshit.
you can become a writer whenever the hell you bloody well please!
You don’t need to aspire to become the next Steven King, to do so spells your doom.
Just aspire to become the next you, that one thing you always wanted to be.
My mind has been telling me it’s time, as is my body.
My joints crunch before their time, my back cries like it is really that of an 80 year old man in the middle of his coldest winter.
My mind wonders from work more, and more, venturing down the path of the things I create without even thinking about them.
One piece of advice my father gave me a few years before he passed away was this….actually he gave me two pieces of advice.
One was “Always look after your feet son, without them you’re fucked, and if you mess them up I’ll give you a belt to the head” (It was said with love)
Two was “In our line of work (Construction/Maintenance) once you know your body can’t take it anymore…move on to smoother things, before you break that which can’t be fixed anymore”
I think of him often, not in that melancholy way, he was a hard man but fair at the end of the day, you fucked up, you got a beating. End of story, but as I’m getting older his words that back in the day didn’t really mean shit to a guy that didn’t have any aches or pains now ring so very true, I know he regretted telling me not to write once my Uncle really took off, and he saw the value of the mind for its true worth.
Can’t fault the guy, he was old, old school….you went to work, you got married, had the kids, and supported your family, grow old, and retire someplace warm, good life all round time for another pint!
That’s the way it was.
Yet now, while my mind has been telling me it’s time, I feel my body doing just as my father said it would do (Don’t you hate it when they end up being right?)
So how do you know?
Do you wait like I have, and let your mind wonder the hills and valleys of your mind, while the body gets beat down by everyday living?
Or do you just say fuck it….. and do what the hell you want to do, and screw what everyone else says?
Personally I’d go with fuck what everyone says (Unless they are telling you to do what you love mind you) and just take that step off the cliff and feel the wind racing through your hair, as it dries your lips, and forces your eyes to tear up in exhilaration, mixed with that dangerous heart pounding excitement that only the unknown actions in life can bring!!
Or you can be woken up to that nasty fucking buzzing little shit of an alarm clock, and make the trek, in your car….or the train….or a bus with all the other rats looking for that piece of cheese…
which lets be honest, if that cheese was worth something, the corporate bastards would have sold it for 50X more, taken a nice cut, and passed the rest to the share holders…
Maybe I’m jaded.
I like realist personally…
but it’s true, we must do what we crave, without passion…..we become automatons, without truly knowing what love is….how the fuck can we love life, let alone ourselves or anyone else for that matter?
Don’t sit in a cubical and read this, then go for the group lunch I see every fucking day that people do…..
Know it’s time….break away, and experience life like it should have always been experienced…
Just remember to protect your feet…my father was right……..fucker….
CD