Living Life...

I know I have been at this whole living thing for awhile now.  It isn’t like there has been anytime in my life thus far where I was not living.  However, there have definitely been times over the years the last 55 years where I have been moving more towards the grave and less towards the light.  

It wasn’t so much a choice but perhaps more of a default position.  I have long struggled with what to do with this life of mine.  What do I want, who am I, where do I want to be, how do I want to be?  Large looming questions of what the fuck I am supposed to do with all this life I have been granted, given?

Seems pathetic to say it has been a struggle.  There are a lot of shoulds that pop up right now...I should be grateful, I should know more, I should be more sure...I should, I should, I should.

The truth? I have done the best I can with what I have.  The entire time.  When I was drinking myself into an early grave, I was doing my best.  When I cut that shit out and tried to begin a life of purpose, I was doing my best.  I have always, no matter what done my best.

Life in all its vagaries and permutations, has often felt like a prison sentence and still more often felt like this giant expanse that I am perplexed as what to do with...so much life, so little and much time.

I feel now that I am on the brink again.  So much life to live and I feel compromised in my ability to live it.  Tethered to things and people who are important to me, and need me and I them.  Unsure of where to go and who I am in this ever changing landscape.  Unable to partner, reluctant to give up, unable to move forward.

Sometimes I feel like I am just killing time with routines and patterns that use up the time, mostly in productive ways, sometimes not so much.  I do spend an inordinate amount of time rotting playing bubble popper.  WTF?

I find myself asking the question, daily, what makes you happy?  I have a list.  And then I ask myself how much of my daily life involves these things?  There is a gap.  There is a space between what makes me happy and what takes up my time in this life.  And it is exactly in this gap that I find myself foundering...

I know what I want so why do I feel so baffled about how to get from here to there?

“They are only renting time and space to fill up with their dreams...And dreams are what they will have when they have gone...”  Shawn Colvin

This refrain keeps coming to me when my mind is idle, when I am in a meeting, when I am brushing my teeth.  It is haunting me really.  Is this what I am doing in this life?  Renting my time and my space only to fill it up with dreams instead of experiences?  Are dreams the only thing that will remain when I have gone?

Right now, I sit in my backyard, writing.  I can feel and hear the hum of life being lived all around me...and I think to myself, living life is about making minute changes to the everyday.  Changing the location where I write to give me a fresh perspective.  I like things the same so I can hate them.  Again, WTF?

It amazes me that I can be this old and feel so incompetent at this living of life thing...again, still.