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There are songs that come on the radio at the right moment and they stick to your emotions. Your guts burn, you break a little and the songs kinda glues the pieces back together again. You probably cry and feel a little more alive than usual. Maybe you redouble your resolve, or your resolve just shatters.

 

I had that with this Coldplay song on our way home today. I am tired of being in charge of fixing. Even if it is my job. There is a point at which people get to retire… to take a sabbatical at the very least. I would like a sabbatical. I would like a life of my own and a pat on the head just for leading that life of my own. I am pretty tired of the adrenaline, and the alertness that comes with all of the worry for others’ well being. Sure it grounds me, and maybe defines me, but I would like it to be all about my family for a while… I would like to just try that.

I woke at about 3:00 this morning from a dream. I had given my guitar, my beautiful guitar, to a man behind a counter. I gave him that guitar because I felt guilty having such a nice thing. An object that gives me so much joy. He handed me a fifty dollar bill. I knew that I couldn’t buy another guitar that was even playable for that, but I gave my guitar to him because I felt ashamed of having something nice for myself when I could do something else with it. I don’t even know what, just something utilitarian and humble. I felt sick but it felt like I deserved to lose my guitar.

He sat the guitar on the counter and started to pull pieces of it apart. Dream rules applied as he pulled the soundboard apart as though it were composed of strips of wood. The tuning pegs fell apart with just a touch to each of them, and the strings sprang and broke with just a brush of his hand. I grabbed for the guitar with regret and tried to strum at the low E string, the only string remaining and the guitar would barely even murmur any longer. I was crushed. I asked for the guitar back and the man just shook his head and put his hand out to take it back from me. It felt like he was breaking it just because he could. Just because it was in his power to do so.

I deserve more than allowing my most prized intimacies to be deconstructed by others. It isn’t my job to give and give and give and open up my doors, my family, my heart to people who won’t do productive things with their lives, who won’t love me back, who won’t build me up as I build them. I don’t have to be that person. No one has to be that person. People seem squeezed by their lives now. Lots of people leading normal lives with little problems feel like tiny mice in the strong fist of a mean little boy… like they want to bite and scuttle and frantically fight for their very lives over little tiny things. Like our American lives are squeezing the breath from them. But even at a low ebb our lives are great things, invulnerable things if we believe them to be so.

I am charting a course towards integrity , toward a life of kindness for kindness’ sake. I am going to re-double my commitment to being good, joyful, loving and the best person that I can be. But I am not going to hand my guitar over to anyone so they can destroy it just because. I think I have been in that bad practice for far too long. Break your own things if you must, although I’d rather you fixed them and joined me in the band.

Fix You

 

 

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