/
The exact location in this dream doesn't matter. What does matter is that I am free to walk where I wish, do what I wish. I am smiling wider than I have in some time. I have no deadlines to meet. I have no responsibilities. I am merely ... here. Who cares if a grizzly bear has caught my scent and has been tracking me for seven miles, waiting to pounce as I nod off beneath a sky rich with a million stars?
/
Thoughts of being mauled aside, I am optimistic today, and I think this represents a turning point -- a change in my mental state. Or maybe I'm just having a good morning. It could be the endorphins, after all. Or maybe it's the promise of freshly brewed coffee. Whatever it is, I am ready for a change. And better yet, I can begin to envision the change and the aftermath and the idea of being happy again. (Yay, me!) For so long I have settled for a life that I did not design. For so long I have followed someone else's footsteps. For so long I have done what I'm "supposed" to do. I'm sick of following the rules. The rules don't matter.
/
I don't know how I ended up here, especially considering my late teens and early 20s. I played bass in a punk-rock band and surrounded myself with people who did what they wanted, where they wanted, why they wanted. Punks, yes. Anarchists, sure. They didn't care about labels or anything like that. They were just living and doing exactly what they wanted to do. I was different from them, however. I had a good time touring and recording and rehearsing and just having friends, but I yearned for something more than the life I had been living. I just didn't know what it was then. And I knew that punk rock and I were parting ways. So I grew up, got a job I didn't want and did everything else I was supposed to do, only because it was what I was supposed to do. I became my father ... minus the children, of course.
/I lived much too cautiously for my first 25 years. I settled for jobs that were below my abilities. I lived with my parents for longer than I should have. I was the good guy, the nice guy, the safe guy, the polite guy. I always did the right thing, and now I can't imagine why. I didn't realize the freedom that I had. Even after I moved out, I stayed close to home because ... why go anyplace else? I always wanted to leave, to live somewhere else, to meet different people. Philadelphia is a great city, but it never quite fit me, or me it. But I stayed, because I was supposed to. Because it was safe. Because everybody else did the same. I let the current take me. But then, one by one, everybody else moved away and did different things, experimented, tested themselves, tried on new lifestyles. But here I was, still plugging away at jobs I didn't really want, working hard and beginning to earn decent money ... but being bored as hell.
/
I was always ready for a change, always hungry to make it happen. Fear and other things got in the way. I see now that giving in to fear has hobbled me and kept me from growing. So I'm not going to be afraid anymore.
