tangledupinblue

Why do we often treat the very best things in life with the trepidation of a vampire regarding an invitation to a high noon outdoor garlic fair?

It's counter-intuitive -- and it's exceptionally strange that we are self-preservationalist to the point of riddling our psyches and even our bodies with self-inflicted wounds.

Sometimes I think that people say 'goodbye' soley because the prospect of being on the receiving end of "goodbye" down the road is too unbearable.

It certainly isn't necessarily because it's time to say goodbye.

"All is gone all is gone admit it take flight.
I gagged in contradiction tears blinding my sight.
My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night . . . "

In some faint way, it seems like a suicide driven by a fear of death. It's the uncertainty of when death is riding by that makes you say 'Fuck it, let's do it now. I can't wait no more.'

Maybe it's worth being the 'victor' or being able to prepare yourself to leave someone or something, even if it means leaving too soon, and sometimes you just think the damage would be too violent if you were left alone and unprepared.

Boxers always get starched by the punch they don't see.

Now then, how willing are you to cut something short in the name of being the one to end it?

Is something good worth bailing on out of fear of being the (involuntary) bailee?

And what of that unique brand of bailor who not only wants to bail but can't so they passive-aggressively force you into bailing, thus allowing them to say "AHA! I knew I should have bailed!"

"With unsuspecting consciousness I possessed in my grip
a magnificent mantlepiece though its heart being chipped."

See, I have seen this all before, and lived a great deal of it, not just in love, but in school, career, everything.

Things get to close to 'normal', too close to copacetic, and it's my nature to look around and look for the wrecking ball that's cartoonishly flying at me. In fact, for a good while it was my nature to say, "fuck it" and save the demolition company the trouble, and just wreck it first.

"There is no normal life Wyatt, just life"

But I think the difference between being a boy and being a man, or at least a meaningful distinction, is not letting your fears of what someone else may do to you color the way you treat that person. If you care for them, then just fucking care. And if you can't strap it on, then don't get into to it. Because there will be, oh yes, there will be plenty of moments no matter how far along the way you've ridden where you look around, see the mountain, the bottomland, the stream, the What Dreams May Come sky, and say

"This Can't be Real"

And then you got to either make a stand and realize that good things aren't bad. Sounds simple, right?

Good things aren't bad.

Again it's taking them as they are.

Love, success, friendship -- these things are not all set-ups.

You can look at it that way. Sure.

I once had a dog, Ilsa



She was the sweetest dog you'll ever want to meet, just damn, wow, great dog. And she died. Had her put to sleep in my arms because she was too sick.

And if you don't know what that feels like, go watch "Soldier in the Rain"

"Here Donald, Here Boy"

And that moment ranks down there with the saddest feeling I've ever had, and it still raises up and pops me one from time to time.

See, I could make the argument that the whole arc of my life with Ilsa was most notably a driveway to that end point of her death. The whole thing was a set-up to that excruciating day.

Yeah, well you'd call me an idiot prbably to characterize the story of a boy and his dog that way, right?

But think of how many people we routinely shut out of our lives based on the same premise.

Hell, I know that I've sworn off women from time to time swearing "I'll never go through that again."

But, you know, if you never go around again, the last loss will be your lasting impression.

I have two great dogs now.



They never took Ilsa's place, but they make me happy in a different way and I would have been a fool to have mourned one quadripedial love forever to the exclusion of all others.

This is all so roundabout, but, Jesus folks, all of life is a lead-in and a set-up for death if you want to see it that way, and all your relationships will end.

They all will. One of you will go first. It's just that simple.

I just don't get it.

"In these days, Rick, isolationism is no longer a practical foreign policy."

I just guess what I am will always be, at it's bottom, what I am. Optimistic to a fault.

But at least, I'll stand and deliver rather than bail out because of some vague uneasy feeling that things couldn't possibly work out this well.

That dog don't hunt.

"My friends from the prison, they ask unto me.
'How good, how good does it feel to be free?'
And I answer them most mysteriously
'Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?'"

Until that time Maxwell, until that time

This is Trash