symbols, synonyms and rituals.

In any given interaction, usually several, mostly all, my mind existed in the realm built on nothing other than gasoline fumes. That see through wall. Just beyond that I felt I might see what the other is doing, thinking, planning, not planning, and sometimes even beyond that, just past the scope of even pseudo-reality, what I'd like the other to be doing, thinking, planning and not planning, all of that stuff a well person disregards. The stuff a mindful person would watch bend gravity the way dandelion fluff does as it lazily follows an invisible conveyer belt, in this moment, then not. 

I also noticed the less favorable the result the more I pressed forward, in the past. And like two weeks ago. Also, last year.

I'm giving it my full attention now. I am far more interested in solitude and slow time than I've admittedly ever been.

***       

It’s dark outside. I'm in the kitchen listening to my kids talk to their dad and their dad’s girlfriend, and that woman’s kids, on the phone. I let that sound wash over me. That sound; it feels like it belongs in a layer of one of my old pseudo-realities but it is rightfully here. It is the way things are now. It is real. It is new.

I think of where I was for all those years and where I stand now. 

An unpleasant feeling is creeping up through me, I know it. It used to be my catalyst. My catalyst to indulge, my catalyst to visit delirium, my catalyst to resist reality. To become flustered. To eventually set the fires that I used to set, create an environment where sabotage and destruction rule. Burn it all down but not before I build it up.

That feeling now, I acknowledge it and I move on. I bee line it to the bathroom. Turn the shower on as hot as I can make it and I send my kids to bed. I stand there letting water burn my hands and my arms, my toes. I think fuck it and I step in and I let the water bring me back. To right now, or right then.

Soon my mind is orbiting away from that feeling. I am aware that I exist, here and now, there and then. I will exist tomorrow, with patience, tomorrow will come. One day at a time, I will continue to exist, so I let the uneasy feelings run through my blonde hair. They touch my neck, and fall over the soft edge of my shoulders, stream down my lean arms. They build up and then drip off my fingertips and ride down my legs, circle the drain and head earthward.

I am present again. I kiss my dreaming kids and proceed to join in that after dark ritual. One more day down.