More fire, evacuation dreams

 

It's becoming such a common theme, it is hard to find anything remarkable or different about them. The column of smoke rising up in the distance, the wind blowing fiercely and the panicky feeling that it is already too late to gather up the animals, as I must flee with only moments to spare. 

I keep having the same thoughts and paralyzing feelings as I did when I was forced to flee in 2017. There's just not enough time to salvage anything. But there's the guilt as well, because every second I spent deliberating whether or not to attempt it was time I could have spent actually saving something or someone. I always wind up leaving everything and just getting my own cowardly ass out. Shit, if it's just a dream why can't I at least die a hero's death and attempt to save the kitties?

Meanwhile, I'm trying, in my real life to salvage what I can of my relationship with Lesa. I keep having my doubts, but I won't let on to her this time. I just feel like there's a whole other life that she's got going on down there that I'll never be a part of, and I can only engage with her in the nice, pleasant side of our little fantasy life of pillow talk and sweet dream wishes. 

I know how ugly insecurity looks to the outsider. It is jealousy's creepy cousin. It just makes a person look selfish and weak, probably because that's truly what they are, if they are honest about it.

Lesa is going to go out to a concert with Danny and his girl gang of friends. They've had this whole life together, and I'm just an outsider looking in with a sense of longing to belong to something. I really have no place in that world. It was forged through decades of sticking together through all kinds of times. I'll always be playing catch up and never achieve that kind of long-term camaraderie. 

I will have to settle for whatever it is that I actually can be to her: a long-distance secret love, her "what if" wish for a plan B or her cheerleader/admirer from afar. I feel I've lost the privilege of confiding my deepest, most honest thoughts to her when I questioned her her roughly a few weeks ago, as to the nature and future of our relationship. It caused her to pull back, seeing just how insecure I really was and how that could cause me to be unstable and, ultimately, not very lovable.

I may have regained the ground that I'd lost by back pedaling and relinquishing my right to speak as freely as I want with her. I suppose I needed to come up against a boundary somewhere. No one should have to endure the entire contents of my addled brain at any one time. I was just a little too unfiltered and put my not so best foot forward. 

It's a shame, because I was feeling like I could confide anything to her without judgment. That is too lofty an ideal to hold about anyone. It sounds nice, but in reality, we all have judgements all the time, whether we express them or not. So a constant stream of negativity will surely tip the scales of someone's opinion about you no matter how kind and forgiving a person they are.

So, once again, this blog is a place to which I can retreat and let my darkness roam about unbridled. I can explore every nook and cranny without anyone's recrimination. 

Well, there's a couple of outliers that I've foolishly given access to, but I've already written off any hopes of impressing them with a facade of virtue. I can belch and fart around them, so to speak, because they already know I'm a pig. Not a pig they'd care to be around, but one they don't mind calling a friend and playing nice with on Facebook. 

I still feel that the more one truly knows me, the more unlikely it is that they will like me, let alone love me. That kind of unconditional love doesn't exist in this world, and may not even in the God realm, if He's as persnickety as the Bible makes him out to be. Oh, well, I'm gonna make nice and pretend I'm a good person, in hopes that one day I may turn into one. 

If I apply enough coats of paint to the bullshit that I am on the inside, perhaps it will eventually form an outer layer of substance that makes up more of my being than that evil, rotten core that I'm painting over. I'm pretty sure that core will never go away, though, and will always try to seep out through the cracks in my pretty, "nice guy" paint job. 

That's what happens when you do a half-ass renovation and don't just raze the whole lot to the ground. Trying to salvage the good part of the ego and build on it just doesn't work. At some point you have to say, "This whole apple barrel is too questionable to be of any use." 

I suppose if someone had enough time to sort through each and every apple and discard the wormy parts, they could make a jar of applesauce or two. But that's a lot of work, and I'm not sure I am worth the effort. The apples just aren't that sweet.

So today I'm going to clean up some space in the garage and move the majority of Sharon' horse tack from the guest bedroom. It is my goal to make that room inhabitable again. That way I can feel like I've got some kind of level of control over my space and can offer a place to guests that isn't awkward like, "Here, sleep on my ratty old couch that I sleep on. Or the bed my wife died in."

I could use a fire to come and rid me of all my contaminated possessions, but I'd be paralyzed trying to decide what I'm going to try to salvage. It's difficult for a hoarder and a sentimental sloth to part with anything willingly. So a fire would be the kind of incentive to just abandon all that and leave with only my life and nothing else. Just my true core and none of the accessories or attachments.

I'm still gonna have my morning fun, on account of it's Saturday. And I'm still lazy enough to sit here and document my folly, so, I'd say I'm ignoring the fire for the moment and just fiddling while my empire is in peril. 

Yep. Just being aware of shit isn't really working out as a religion that transforms anything. But it is the easiest one to adhere to for the someone who is an apparent conscienceless sociopath like myself. And I'm quite aware of my self-deriding tone, in all its passive-aggressive, narcissistic, attention-seeking glory. And I'll do something about it just as soon as it bugs me enough to do so.