My solemn vow to myself, to my journal, and to the rich, meditative world I try to enter at least once daily has been to leave behind the fear and loathing that dredged its wake in the path toward a positive future. I wanted to leave it in 2011 (to once again write that it was a really rocky year would only be beating a dead horse, and if any one's still reading me here, they've got to be just as tired of hearing my complaints as I am of enduring them): the general malaise and pessimistic attitude more than anything else, but in order to do so, I absolutely have to be able to move through the course of at least a single week in my life without doing so in a constant state of stress over financial discord. I don't understand how a man such as myself can be depositing the biggest hourly rate of his life into his checking account on the first and the fifteenth of every month and still find himself in such a ceaseless of fiduciary muck. I don't go out to dinner, don't spend money on clothes or unnecessary expenditures. I haven't partied in nearly seven years, haven't been living above my means by any means. Yet every single dime (and -more often than not; in fact, twice every month- several pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars and larger into the brightest and most frightening shade of red I think I've ever seen in my life) coming in has a destination long before its even a thought in my checking account.
More than anything, the situation scares me because it's really the only thing that's not going well in my life. I can honestly write that I have a career, not a job. I have something that I feel tremendously passionate about and endlessly driven to succeed at from the moment I open my eyes in the morning to the prayer-laden minutes of slipping-into-sleep at night. The people in my self-created family of friends are companions, full of truth and honesty. They are the people I can share with. No judgment. No critical assertions. I've been writing every day, filling my journals and working through the plot points of short stories and lines of inspired poetry. I'm covering canvas after canvas with the colors and shapes of ideas just as broad and distinct as the words that I turn into Oliver-esque phrase-ology. And the frosting on the cake of everything that's real and good and wholesome is the fact that there's this guy... well, a man, really... who -as undeserving of affection and promises as I feel- actually seems to like me for me, for all of my faults and in spite of my oft-times flawed spirit and inconsistent modalities. Not a drain or somebody who wants something each and every time we talk or get together. Somebody who really listens to me and allows me to express myself and be honest and actually seems keen to take things as slowly as my fragile emotional spirit require just now.
Why, with everything that's good and right where it needs to be, do I have this one aspect of my life that overwhelms all the rest and prevents me from enjoying the moments and being happy and worry-free? As determined as I am in every area of my life, I find myself incapable of seeing the forest for the trees in the here and now of bank accounts and past due payments. I am literally having to hold my breath and cross my fingers in the hopes that my car's not repossessed or that I have enough to afford gas for another week and that the utilities I pay for won't get disconnected and that my medical payments can wait just one more pay period (and these can really begin to accumulate with an unholy, upwardly momentous drive that makes one's head spin)...
I've written it before, in my discussions of karma and deserved-ness and hard work and dedication and dreams and climbing on the eternal StairMaster of working to live. I think that my thoughts on karma before were inspired by the fact that I honestly wonder whether or not all this is comeuppance and my just desserts for all those years when I wasn't working to live, but working to party. If so, how long does the punishment last? And when do things start to turn around?
I think sometimes that if I only had X amount of extra dollars thrown at me, things would be all right. At least I'd be able to make ends meet, and I wouldn't owe and be two or three weeks into nights of no more than four (sometimes five) hours of restless sleep. But then I also wonder whether or not it would change anything at all other than prevent me from worrying for a little while. What's really funny to me is that I'm actually typing this out somewhere that's not one of my ink-burdened journals, in a forum that's still entirely public and not shrouded in privacy. In doing things differently, I stopped going to meetings, the format where I once was able to share so frequently and openly and without judgment and disdain - until I met with judgment and disdain and became unable to associate myself. But my blog's a place -a non-Facebook, non-anonymous, but somehow still safe forum- where I can say what I have to say and hope to exorcise the burdens and demons of everything that's bearing down on my chest.
I can always hope that some multi-millionaire will read my post and feel generous and suddenly throw hundreds of thousands of dollars in my direction (yeah, of course much more than I need and far greater than I'm sure I deserve). So, if you're reading from your lavishly furnished, but lonely apartment in Paris or New York and you're feeling particularly in need of some casual philanthropy, I'll gladly sign an acknowledgment of your donation for end-of-2012 tax purposes. If not, oh well.
I guess I feel better for having written some of this out. Lighter maybe. The fear's still there, but pain shared is pain lessened. At least that's what we always said in the "anonymous" rooms of the A and/or N fellowships.
Maybe it's a silly and outdated ideology romanticized by Scarlet, but tomorrow is, afterall, another day. Something good's gotta happen, right?
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