A Glimpse

From the pages of my paper journal-- this entry was written at s ome point in early 2005. I'm not sure exactly when as I didn't date the entries in this particular written journal. It was more an exercise in stream of consciousness writing:

Sometimes I don't understand at all. I don't know where it comes from. why it strikes me when it does. I'll see something and the words will just come to me. A lot of people imagine scenes-- like they're dreaming a film. Sure it's like that for me sometimes. But a lot more often than not, instead of images my imagination brings me words. It often comes at the most inopportune or inconvenient of times.

I'll be watching a movie or I'll be at work and I'll suddenly see myself somewhere else-- but not just see-- I'll feel it and the words to describe it will flood into my head. It could be two PM on a bright sunny afternoon. I'll be at work typing away or answering the phone. And suddenly I'll be at White Castle at two AM on a cold winter's night. My eyes stinging from the all too bright flourescent lights, the steady bustle of late-night patrons stumbling in to satisfy whatever strange food jones would compel them to seek White Castle ast such a twilight hour.

Or I'll be sweating on a hot summer's day enjoying a gentle breeze off of Lake Erie as I admire the Marblehead Lighthouse and children fishing off the rocks with their parents. My heart and soul visiting different times and places even as my body goes through whatever motions exist in my present reality.

Something inevitably jars me into the present and at that moment I find myself wondering when I stopped living my life and started just letting it happen around me. I get pissed at myself but in that anger I find a small semblance of happiness. After all-- if I still have the energy to get angry, I still have the energy to change things-- to start living again-- to stop the wasting of life and resume the living of it. Too many times I've said I would change and reverted to the status quo. And now, now I realize that I have to jump on this while I still ahve it in me to do so.

If I don't-- well there's no "don't" because that would mean regret and if I had to face a regret in my life that was that big-- I don't know that I'd have the energy or will to live at all.