“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way”
So much time spent in autopilot, in survival mode. Driven by fear and doubt and accumulated rage unshown and unacknowledged. Spinning wheels in place, so locked in on the minutiae that everything else blurred into background noise. Time blindness. Time lost. Time wasted. No sense of progress because progress requires movement in time, not mindless repetition along a nondescript space masquerading as a road. Not even aware enough of the surroundings to consider the possibility of stepping off. And then the rare occasion of insight only to have it blinded by desire and ambition or overwhelmed by fear and possibility. Isolation driven by the shame screaming back from all the warped mirrors. Mirages of the future to nebulously out of reach, no more than Tantalus' impossible temptations. Stuck for so long that even possible branches become sources of doubt and fear. Familiarity breeds contempt... but there is at least comfort in the devil you know.
“Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”
Comparison is the thief of joy, judging your distance traveled to that of others. But distance tells only a piece of the tale. Roadblocks, curves, obstacles... and the invisible boulders and shackles you drag behind you. Procrastination to avoid failure, to avoid stumbling, to avoid ridicule... even if only from yourself. Even if it drowns out the offers of help and words of encouragement. Shame and doubt can drown out the loudest of cheers. And you find yourself so bogged down in the mire before you realize no one else is even around to notice. Isolation as protection, and stagnation. Fear as the devil on your shoulder. Doubts, shame, fear, and simple inertia keep you from moving forward or reaching out for even the proffered hands that do exist.
“And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death”
Time waits for no man, and it continues along indifferent to whether or not you're ready. Wasted time. Failures, doubts, and missed opportunities distracting you in the guise of familiarity and nostalgia. Time can't be regained. There's no rewind button or respawn point. It keeps ticking, and it's up to you to make the most of it. The limited resource, and there's no real way to regain what's been used up. So how do you make the most of what's left? Progress. What does that even look like? Is it truly never too late to begin? Pride vs shame. Hope vs doubt. Movement vs apathy. Purpose vs distraction.
“Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say”
Desperation at the blurred movement flying by out the windows. How much has been missed? How did you end up here? How do you shake the stagnation? How do you find your path forward when you look up and realized you've been wandering around inside the dark wood that you don't even know which way is forward and which is back? How do you find your voice when it's been little more than a jumbled mess near gibberish locked away inside your own head for so long? How do you break the shackles of existing habits when they've been forged over so much time? How do you do those things that seem to be automatic to everyone else you see?
“Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire”
I don't know what home looks like anymore. A roof. A bed. A necessity. But... missing so much. Empty of meaning. Empty of me. But then that would require knowing "me," and I'm not sure there is much of a "me" anymore. Rest... what does that feel like? Recharge and recover. I can't remember that last time I was able to consistently do that. So many obstacles of my making even beyond those out of my control, all piled together like some never-ending mound of rubble. Greyness. Isolation drives away color alongside the connections. The cost of so-called safety and protection. Protection from what? Possibility...
“Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spell”
Falling to knees, but all out of faith. Faith in oneself. There are few voices out there talking, and to much shame to listen to the ones that are. The tolling of the bell. The ticking of the clock. The beating the heart. Finding a way back on track. Or just crawling out of the muck and mire to find some breathing room. Start somewhere. Find a voice. Find the words, any words. Drown out the voices on the inside or find a way to get them out so they can no longer take up room or drain energy. Find out which are real and which are warped shadow remnants of the buried things. Find words. Start there. If there is no path, write one. Words used to have power and meaning. They can again.
Loading comments...