InOutUpDown

"Something something this is the end beautiful fri...something something the end (pukes)"

-Jim Morrison (while drunk)

Today is the day. Well i guess yesterday was the day too, and I can cop to hundreds of other days in my life upon which I have assessed a level of importance somewhere above shit Tuesday Panda Express bellyache ten hour shifts at the Boise Towne Square Mall. A lot of things went into hyper-shift tailspin mode in the past couple months, leaving me breathless and crumpled laughing on floors across the valley. As of last month, my marriage to my beautiful ex-wife ended. While it hurt to admit to the idea that two people who made such a powerful commitment, without hate or malice, can just find out that they don't belong together, shoulder to shoulder and facing the great Abyss, despair does not even factor in. I am beyond grateful for the close friendship I have acquired in the process, and wish her nothing but grace-filled luck and unadulterated happiness for the rest of her life. This life is too simple and short for directed anger, petty personal pimples on the great rock face. Conquer the sword with the sweet rejection of its nature.

In this spirit, I find myself flying, bouncing, consistently on the go and over the ledge. I am excited and borderline neurotic over the coming months and years, as I feel a rocket lodged in my gut, ready to push me to ends and extremes I'm not yet comfortable with. I'm not sure I belong anywhere, with anyone, in any predetermined context except the skin attached to my odd, angular bone structure. I don't imagine that I am going to be bucking the death trend, the mortal answer, the last rites. With the luck us Lees have, I don't see 50 years of age as a give-in, nor do I see it as likely. While this realization makes the big Emptiness seem a little too close to ignore completely, it makes the next step the most crucial of all, then the next, then the next, til the ground disappears beneath my feet which disappear as well.

Within the next 365 days I must:

1) Forget love, forget the need to be consistently validated by someone else. I believe that no sexual practice, no smile across the table at the coffee shop, no human being can hit my heart true and on target without me knowing what that organ is really up to when it smacks my ribcage like an epileptic monkey in a glass cage.

2) Finally, finally, try and share my writing with some institution within the literary world. I've been a giant, quivering, bullshitter with a blatant fear of moderate or extreme success and rejection. I want this. I want to actually be able to not scoff at myself when I deem myself to be a writer.

3) Skydive. Spiraling toward the ground seems to be a logical step to internal satisfaction.

4) Plot my escape. Boise is beautiful. Boise is somewhere I will always cherish, for the memories made, the lives intertwined, and the doors which opened. It doesn't fit. It's not for me, not forever, and not for long. A few dollars in my pocket and a notebook in my backpack, and the great World is mine to play and pause, reflect and perish.

5) Denounce insecurity. The little voices hang out on the hairs of my neck, whispering "no good" and "ugly" and "unlovable," are starting to subside, starting to muzzle themselves for their final sleep. I must finish the job, execution-style.

Five attainable goals. One year to begin the Inevitable Descent with a bang. This blog will be here to chronicle the crash, and survey the wreckage. Farewell for now.