Monday, April 20, 2020

I gotta make it, these people depend on me

Fight Song

Rachel Platten


Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion

And all those things I didn't say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?

This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me

Losing friends and I'm chasing sleep
Everybody's worried about me
In too deep
Say I'm in too deep (in too deep)
And it's been two years I miss my home
But there's a fire burning in my bones
Still believe
Yeah, I still believe

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Thousand yard stare

I feel like I died a long time ago. The Steven of the 20s, the smart one, the successful one. I remember writing that I had no hope.

And I feel like I died again two years ago, when I took two jobs.
When I began rationalizing "I have to take care of the moneymaker." When I accepted that my contribution to the family was reduced to 💰, even if it was large amounts of money.

And I died again during the holiday season, when my schedule didn't change - both jobs on my birthday (let's not talk about birthdays), both jobs on Christmas. It's not a holiday if I don't truly celebrate it, if I have to ration my waking hours for the evening and night of work.
And once again, I hate the holiday season - the cheap fake Hallmark, the chase of the gift, and a terribly unsatisfying payoff.

4/27/2019: " I am not worried about Atlas shrugging
I'm worried that someday poor Atlas will just drop dead."

5/6/2019: "Anyone else wonder how in the hell you got from where you were 15 years ago to where you are now?"

7/19/2019: "Something has to change."

8/27/2019: " I feel like I need to get back into the game. I don't know if there's room, and I don't know if I can make it work. But..."

8/27/2019: "Trying to properly set my sleep schedule based on my totally screwed up work schedule sometimes goes sideways, and I'm awake when I need to be sleeping, and..."

9/22/2019: "The problem with being a overworked isolated reticent introvert
Is that you'd never be able to tell if I was giving you the silent treatment."

1/1/2020: "Just busy giving life the ol' John Henry."
(Yeah. Compared my life to the black folk hero who worked himself to death.)

1/22/2020: "It 's easy when you're ¾ dead and numb on the inside."
(And again and again)

1/24/2020: "I have learned how much I can endure.
I haven't yet learned how long I can endure it."
(Ha!)

2/12/2020: "So much work.
There is no rest until death."

Pearls

It's not that I have nothing to say.
It's that I've learned - over and over again - that not everything I think is worth saying will be appreciated.
And there's a difference between honest disagreement, pointing out flaws in an argument, and just making it clear that you should've just kept your month shut.

Some people don't want to have their urban legends debunked.
Some people will laugh at you when you tell them about the scariest day in your life.
Some people will tell you that your describing the challenges is just listening to the enemy.

Maybe I don't have nothing to say
But there's very little left I'm willing to risk putting out there.