Spirits in My Head

I suffered some pain recently.

That’s one hell of an intro.

My favorite meal is hotdogs and French fries.

I feel better about that second one.

But in all honesty, my brain is having a hard time focusing, and it’s hard.

My buddy Brock interrupted me while I was trying to get into it. I’ll blame my inability to share and this stalling on him. Yeah. I watched a montage of Formula One crashes. One word… Halos. That’s funny because as I’m writing this, I’m listening to “Spirits” by the Strumbellas.

Okay. Enough stalling. I’ve been having these weird dreams about people who were really close to me. When you make a close friend, and all you want to do is hang out with them non-stop. I’ve had many of those because as a person, I love intensely. Not really much to hold back. Hell, I turned my editor into a close friend because I’m honest and open with my feelings about everything. (It drives Jackie crazy.)

But lately, these dreams have been of people I have lost. And not that friend you meet at a party and you’re like, “Let’s get brunch, or go to that beer festival, or paint a bunch of rabbits in blue and let them loose on Broadway while they are still wet,” but the close ones. The friends that if you don’t text every day you feel like you have just been sent to Antarctica alone with a weeks’ worth of MRE’s and only Timberlands for your tootsies. (I don’t care what you say, my feet are never warm in those bastards.)

Transparency here, I fear being alone. That’s probably one of my biggest fears. Or the biggest. Don’t get me wrong. I love being in my office, writing this for whomever will read it and relate, but right now, Meredith and Jackie are talking downstairs, drinking wine and laughing. Their voices bring comfort.

But these dreams, like all vivid dreams, are dropping me in this replay of moments when I knew things had to end. When these friendships had to end. If I could, I never would have lost any one of them. We all make choices that alienate some and make us appealable to others, and I have this terrible ability to remember SO MUCH of everything. Emotions matter. As a writer, I strive to recreate the feelings of characters in the minds of others. That means I have to be so mindful of the entire spectrum, and practice those to make sure I am honest with what I convey.

It’s painful sometimes.

Putting yourself out there for others takes its toll somedays.

So yeah. These damned dreams have me lost to these spirits, these shadows of people I have loved deeply, and now, are gone. It is life. (I’m not sniffling over my keyboard.) I just have to relive all those moments where I realized, or acted, when these relationships turned sour and had to be an adult about it. I had to protect myself, and that is ironic. YES! Irony used correctly!

Protecting yourself leads to pain. I’ll live.

Thanks for listening.

Or reading, I guess.

“I’ve got guns in my head and they won’t go, Spirits in my head and they won’t go.”

Let’s end with a joke.

A Jew, a Muslim, a Protestant, and a Catholic are all shipwrecked and stranded on a deserted Island. (This is where Tiarra and Haley are screaming, “NO, JON! DON’T!) The Catholic walks off and starts reciting the rosary non-stop, clutching prayer beads. The Protestant falls to her knees and starts praying, asking for grace and salvation. The Muslim distances himself and prostrates, praying to Allah. The Jew starts throwing seashells into the ocean. Everyone looks at him and the Protestant yells, “Why aren’t you covering your base?! We’re all doing our duty!” (If you know the punchline, don’t spoil it for everyone.) The Jew shrugs, “I’ve donated $50,000 to the Jewish Federation over the past ten years. They’ll find me.”

See! Funny! Harmless! Spiritual?

Have a good week, everyone, and thank you.

“But the gun still rattles, the gun still rattles, Oh-oh!”