diamonds from ash

i hoped when i started this site that people would look at it. maybe that was the problem.

there is simply too much i do not understand.

i don’t pretend to be smart or wise. i’ve been called both before and i can only imagine it flattery, because whatever intelligence or wisdom i supposedly have has never seemed to do all that much good. it certainly hasn’t made me any happier or more content for knowing the things i do, for being exposed to what i have been, and for having to make sense of it all somehow. i don’t think suffering automatically translates to wisdom any more than pain automatically turns into growth. there’s a process that needs to happen in both cases and all too often i think i’ve missed out on it.

but there are no second chances when it comes to the passage of time. once an opportunity is missed it cannot be reclaimed, not in the same way. and i find myself too often reaching back into the past, trying to figure out where things went wrong, trying to salvage some usable lesson, some truth, and only getting hurt more for it.

is it any wonder, then, that i’d rather simply not think for a while? maybe for a very long while?

not thinking is a luxury i can ill afford, living alone as i do. there’s too much to be done. i can’t run an extra load of laundry just to pile it up and flop onto it for a catnap, as much as my entire being yearns for it. i have to be responsible. i have to do dishes, laundry, shopping, cleaning. there’s always something to do, to be done, to fix. so little time to rest unless it’s time for bed. because if i’m not making progress i feel like i’m backsliding into old awful habits, the ones that got me into this mess in the first place. not caring. feeling nothing, feeling empty. letting everything go, letting it get worse daily.

i was doing so well until the world started turning dark.

i was so close.

i’m trying my hardest just to keep it together. i can barely write any longer. i had to stop everything else just so i could focus long enough to get these words out, and they’re not even the ones i want to write. i have so many worlds inside me, so many ideas, eagerly desiring their freedom.

and yet it’s all i can do just to wake up and keep things moving. stay on schedule. go to appointments. make phone calls. do all the adult things. there’s no space, no bandwidth, for anything beyond that unless i shove it all out of the way and put it off just to write a long and rambling screed that i doubt anyone will even read at this point.

but this is another type of routine, and it has its own importance. it is necessary, i think, in its own way.

i send the words out, and they return void.

life goes on. it will. it has to.