Day: September 30, 2024

Predawn I have my coffee. Our dog is sitting near the backdoor entrance to our shared office space. In the distance I can hear the hum of AC units beginning to churn as the weather boils up towards what always promises to be a hot desert day. Even in this I am grateful. I can hear the sound of cars streaming along the highway a few blocks away and I am grateful not to be part of that commuter rush. There was a time I would rise early in the morning and join the stream, desperate to make it to the office early enough to have time to relax before I started teaching. Now I am relaxed before I start teaching. I made a million choices in my life; a series of variable encounters that led me to this. I am fortunate to have been able to be anyone or anything. I toyed with the idea of being a stage performer, singing along with a group of very talented men. I tried my hand at athletics before dropping out under a veil of laziness. I was going to be an engineer. I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to be a great many things. I am what I am now.

Some my choice matrix as a series of failures. It could be seen very much that way. I see it as a series of chances taken or not taken. I see it as allowing the thin winds of fate to blow me in the direction I thought it meant to lead me, though not quite understanding why or especially where. I have slowly shifted my way across the United States, moving from one coast and meaning to terminate the movements on the other. Each stop represents a fundamental phase of my life. Perhaps this is what the last post hinted at so strongly. My time in the southwest is nearing an end, as so is this phase of life. Soon I will be along a different coast and what will come of that?

This phase of my life is marked with a lack of energy and a longing for things that I grew up with. Everything in the southwest is geared towards leisure; towards a post-life life–a retirement or even luxury party phase. This is a place where athletes go when they cannot play any longer. This is a place where elderly people come to retire. This is not a place where someone comes when they are craving the frenetic creative energy of a major city. Perhaps this is why I leave so often, as if I am a thirsty man seeking a well to quench my needs for interaction beyond these placid mornings.

I mean to be a better me. It will require a better tomorrow that starts with me, but has the help of place. Here I am surviving, but sinking as if in quicksand. Elsewhere… who knows?

I don’t have a title for this one. I do have a slew of things surging through my head, but nothing as coherent as to form a general idea. I could go with the classic “Some thoughts” but I thought I’d hold that one back for the list-style thinking that I learned from Peter King. No, this is more of a random stream of consciousness stemming from the collisions of realization I’ve had about a few things over the past 24 hours. The prime one being that I am old. I am nearly 50 years old, which argues that I have lived longer than I will live, which is not a wonderful feeling. That sense of finality is troubling to me because I don’t want to be old and I certainly don’t want to be dead. I want to be vibrant and vital and have meaningful days (with occasional lapses into nothing but frivolity). But not the ‘old fat guy on the beach’ vibe that I always found terrible. Yet I am primed to be him sooner than I imagine.

So what can be done? Not a lot. Maybe a lot. There are things I can overcome and things I need to accept. For example, I am lazy, therefore I need to accept tighter reins on my freetime, so that I can be productive. I also need to not be topped out where I am right now. I ought to be doing more than I am professionally. I ought to be strengthening my resume as a professor and an author. I enjoy teaching (if just slightly less lately), and the pay is good so there is little need to not to save for publishing a legit best seller or getting some other sort of writing gig.

The other thing I need to accept finally is not being a coach. I struggle with trying to be a student of the game but not actually being as engaged in that world. It simply will not work. In short, I need to move down the path and devote myself to the things I claim to devote myself to. This matters. I ought to make sure I match words to action.