COMPELLED
I didn’t wake with any ideas. Just a feeling. No messing around. Just getting straight to it. To this. Weird how that happens. Awake maybe 4 seconds. No topics, no ideas, no during the internet. Just compelled to write. Now.
The house is now thawed and power restored to the grid we are on 4 full days and a new furnace later and we are back in business. I didn’t want that new car. Heat’s so much cooler and I’ve been driving a cargo van for three years anyhow. No point in changing that now.
The force by which I was awakened to start this is only outshined by my vivid dreams. A trip to a mall that was on the beach in Bay St. Louis with a floating surf shop and huge waves due to a storm. Buying a reflective messenger bag, some shorts and something else at a different surf shop for a total of $293. How I can remember that is mind boggling. A planned trip to New Orleans for a Mardi Gras outing in the empty city with friends (we didn’t go). All of this rushing out and up with an internal “fffffffwwwwhoooop” sound as the vacuum from my mind and the beginning of the morning converge in a split second. Compelled.
One would think that urge to create was so forceful that there would be something behind it. Lurking. Waiting for me to withdraw it from the darkness of the morning, but I don’t yet know what it is. I’m just following orders at this point. Like a husband stopping at the store to pick up whatever he’s been asked. Maybe I’ll impulse buy some leftover valentines candy at the checkout. Who knows. Choice is a relative thing some days. Some days we are just pressed forward. You guessed it. Compelled by something.
Today marks day three of the new writing rules and of course a mountain was made internally of a molehill. The compiling of the words isn’t nearly as hard as finding substance to prop them up with. This won’t last forever. Hell, maybe I’ll start a list of things I want to write about? Novel, I know. I’ve considered, briefly, one of those creative writing decks, but that feels cheap to me. My ego, peacocking, three foot feathers all over the den, no ideas to be found.
Compelled, I keep pressing onward. Forward. The only way. No one ever presses backwards, that’s just dumb. There’s always plenty to consider and a shovel with which to dig. You just have to be willing to unearth and then discuss what has bubbled up. That can be scary and I’ll fully admit to walking straight by something uncovered, the subject either too faceted or simply more than you need to hear about on an early Friday morning.
With the deep freezing of the whole state of Louisiana this week, meeting contractors and the like, there’s been a lot of time for introspection. Time really that I’m not sure I need or had to dedicate. More focused inwardness is like a one sided war. The ammunition, doubt, shortcomings, created or actual,a constant barrage of second guessing and pushing myself and second guessing those actions and on and on and on. When I think these things out loud they almost are immediately followed with “but everyone’s like this, right?”. I’m always left with yes. Your version of me, packaged differently on the outside, fraught on the inside. That’s why we return here together. For solace. Or at least mutual recognition. That always feels good.
I feel like despite our crunchy candy shell, we are all filled with the same melty chocolatey center. Like original M&M’s, not those new fangled pretzel, caramel ones. Those, while tasty, were made for serial killers or petulant high school girls, who want “MORE! MORE! MORE!” A modern day Veruca Salt with a Range Rover, a sensible vehicle for any 16 year old, if you have the means. Wasn’t color enough to entertain our candy? Apparently not.
For the last month or so I’ve been thinking, a lot. One of the thoughts that comes a lot is “What am I brave enough to do?” And following soon thereafter and intrinsically related “What am I brave enough to be?”
That last one is a doozy. For me it implies some sort of perfection. In everything. Of making the hard choices at every turn (easier than you’d think) AND following through to the end, the hardest thing on earth. Follow through...(or is it thru?)
That’s what I’m compelled to push us towards today. The follow through. The doing of the things we’ve agreed to do. This is the stuff right? For me it is. I’m a notorious starter and I’m really good at it. Starting, it turns out is a lot easier than we think. At least it is for me. It’s the day in, day out monotony that’s the hard part. The hard choices of how we spend our subsequent time doing.
Starting is like infatuation and that’s why those who have trouble jumping are so enamored with it when they finally make choices to do different and scary things. It’s 7th grade hand holding. It’s the intense anxiety right before that first kiss. And it’s intoxicating.
If starting is like a first kiss, then follow through is when your relationship is at that turning point where you may “take a break”. Only the relationships that matter survive this. As such, those are the things we should work the hardest to finish. But shiny and new is shiny and new. It’s short term luster always outshines the need to wash the car and bring back what brought you here in the first place.
This is where I am on most days. Fighting to finish. Shit. Fighting to just keep up with all the starting. Sometimes to the point of inaction. Sometimes to the applause of the crowd.
So I come here in the mornings before the weight settles and I remind you that if you’re here too that we are in it together. That this is what we asked for or what we get regardless. And that that, is good.
#hugsandhi5s
Make no mistake. Finishing is hard.
Here’s some of the questions that are a constant loop for me.
1. PHYSICALLY- I’ve purported to be a slightly above average exerciser for two decades. How many times have I dedicated myself to doing EVERYTHING needed to bey best? Eating? strength training? Massage and recovery? 2021 me has had one beer, I have yet to decide if I’ll have another
2. BUSINESS-I’m committed to 4 others to put on races. To that end there are ways we have agreed to do things that don’t jive with my nature. Am I doing what I can EVERY DAY to be true to those things. Am I holding up my end of the business? This is one of the hardest things on my daily.
3. BUSINESS 2: I have two restaurants,5 employees. Investors. Are they set up for success? Am I doing everything to the best of my ability and if not,have I correctly farmed that out.
4. FAMILY- Am I a present and engaged husband, son, and father? I listed the things as they came to me and clearly the fact that FAMILY is listed fourth is an issue. I could have moved this to portray a more desirable outcome, but that’s disingenuous. I imagine not in the right place for a lot of us.
5. OTHER-What’s the lens I can pass everything else through? Music? Writing? Social. Etc.
A quick glance at the above tells you it’s hard. Very hard (TWSS).
