There is a wind outside that is restless, and stirs.
I am tired, but I suffer the giddy anxiety of a test that I am ill prepared for, one that I will have to rely on wits and, more importantly, luck to pass. It's the same feeling I had when in college, and Mountain Dew actually worked to keep me up and studying all night (although the buzzy state of mind I'd be in the next day wasn't exactly conducive to lucid thought).
I wonder what I am doing, where I am going... Can I really pass this test? And even if I do, can I afford to go to school, for another stupid degree? And if I do, and if I get a job teaching, can I really do it? Do it well? And if I do it, can I manage everything else in my life appropriately (particularly raising Willow and Aiden), or will I perform this stutter-step dance through it all, same way that I "studied" for this upcoming test? Confronting waterfalls only when one foot has already slipped off the brink...
... a digression here...
In life, there are so many wants, but truly, time is limited. Time, and its physical, embodied expression within human flesh, attention. I heard someone say that Love IS attention... And if this is so, then it puts a natural limitation on what a person may love in life. For attention requires time, and time, as I stated, is limited. Well, not time itself, but MY time, the time that I have, the endurance I may maintain, my patience... We are finite beings, and (perhaps by definition of finitude) this limitation is most evident with regards to TIME. How much can one take, how much can one give... capacities limited most prominently by time.
If you love something, you must devote time to it, and therein lies the crux... For we live in a world of endless opportunity, in fact, opportunity is always exploding in our eyes, our ears...
... another (dangerous) digression...
When I was a little younger (and don't get me wrong, it's not as though this danger is beyond me), the attraction and fascination of other LIVES (not to mention other faces, other BODIES) was devastating, destructive... I think, if I were a normal "red-blooded" male, I would have succumbed to temptation long ago... if not for several key "genetic abberations": 1) I am a social blockhead, and can neither read nor send "signals"; and 2) I am stupidly (but with Lynn, fortunately) faithful, like a dog (BTW, the whole "faithful dog" thing's a myth; you can command loyalty of a dog within a week after its old owner's death, if you have enough steaks handy. Same with men? Same with ME?).
...but back to the issue of time. I am grateful to be with Lynn, because it frees me, paradoxically by focusing me... So much time would be wasted if we just kept looking at all the open doors and windows for the right framed scenery... You can only live in one room, you see, and you can only look at the world through one windowframe... The fear that you are missing out, that there is a better place, a better view, well, some of it may be true, but mostly it's just that which consoles the lost and the damned and the loveless... I should know, because, for a long time (up until Lynn) that's exactly what I was, lost, damned... Mewling like a kitten for some affection... Not realizing how (simultaneously) ordinary and wonderful love actually could be.
... Speaking of time. I have to get up at 6. I just needed to kill some, to get me tired... THIS IS NOT WORKING. Oh well, good night.
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