1.4.16 Finding the way home

     Sometimes when I have enough sustained contact with others, even loved ones, like, let's say three hours? I begin to feel pretty ambivalent. About humans. About human frailty.

Now, I wonder if I'm just unrealistic, floating along with unhindered idealism and Pollyanaish delusion, til I bump into the Real World... or if it's just normal, the ongoing and incessant distance between what people think we all are, what we lull ourselves into assuming people are (ourselves included) and what the gig really truly is.

     Lots of times I kind of figure I'm old enough to really face facts and deal with what is and not mess around avoiding the weird messy crap that inevitably comes up. With miscommunications. With human reactivity.With feeling compelled to change plans held dear, to avoid conflict. I mean, at this age, I was figuring I was well on my way to getting pretty clear. Which is accurate. It's just that, to interact with others, it gets really so messy. The needs.

     The misinterpretations. The compromises to keep from having others feel like their toes are stepped on.

     At times, I wonder if the peripatetic ideal reality of no stress and no conflict and everyone understanding what it's actually like to BE each other...if , in that make believe la la land, if one can actually be straight and honest and still loving and considerate. Meaning, that land where nothing intense or possibly life threatening or really really stressful is happening. Or at stake.

     And, too , now I'm actually feeling pretty pissy. And sheepish. And all. Because before some more shit hit the fan a few years back, I was getting my game back. Recovering from the really dramatic unbelievable only-in-Sylvester-Stallone- movies crap that had been going down with certain rather problematic loved ones for awhile. Like, a decade.

In fact, like many of you, there had been such drama and such scary horrible stuff that finally had been dust settling, and i was actually feeling pretty cocky about the whole deal. Kind of like, Woo Hoo lookit what I dealt with and settled and see how fine I'm still doing HA! Accolades and self congratulation and all.

     Til I realized I'd been made. Burnt. Used up. Crap. And now I know that this happens to big bunches of us, in various flavors of the month, in differing ways that end up with us either pretty cooked and hiding it pretty well, or crashed out on the floor of life, no hiding possible.

     All of which are excuses some of us (me, and maybe you) make for not really having such clear cool clarity any more, about this stuff. Not really having the energy and the physical capacity to keep all this stuff together. Right? And BE real clear and cut through crap and let go of other's compensatory, co-dependent intensity, and just be our self and be clear with others and then carry on and let them manage or not, as we exit the area.

     Instead, sometimes we end up feeling, once again, all too human. All too vulnerable. To other's conflicts and wishful thinking and their need for us to participate in creating the illusion of the pretty picture. Instead of just calling it for what it is, being ourselves, and then just plain dealing with the whole thing.

     I'm singing the inimitable Stevie Winwood anthem, right? Of I'm tired and I'm wasted and I can't find my way home. Only the wasted is simply tired out to the bone.