Cracks

Have you ever had one of those weeks that seems to defy any and all description? You know, you sit there late on a Friday night sorting through all the adjectives, adverbs and nouns in your small, insignificant brain and not one word seems to be able to pinpoint the exact word to sum up the codified rollercoaster of life you’ve been leading? Yup, that is where yours truly finds himself tonight.

            To begin with, last week a buddy of mine with a tortured soul came down for a visit. He stayed for a week with a mutual friend of ours. We spent over fifty hours together catching up on the years that have passed like so much water going under a bridge. On the other hand, we worked together and tried our best to keep our sanity and keep our personal demons at bay.

            The week ended with me and a bunch of knuckleheads grilling steaks and all the trimmings for fajitas in a garage. To say the in-between was anything but mediocrity on a level playing field would be a lie.

            Now, I’m almost twelve days into a nonstop work week and I’m looking forward to a day off yet I can’t seem to shake the feeling that there are many things still left undone. Cracks so to speak. Cracks in your life that you don’t really see nor that you ever see until you are falling down them and the only thought in your head is “How the hell did this happen?”

            Now, I’m not saying I’m falling, but I do know I’m standing at the precipice of a void, but then again, I always feel as if I’m staring into the senseless, bubbling turmoil that reaps nothing but havoc. All of this has made me realize a few things.

            While I like to live as much as a hermit as I can, and I try to keep most people at bay, sometimes, those unseen cracks not only allow things out, but allow things in. My realization is that I have a crack, a chink in my personal armor that keeps people at bay. My gruff demeanor, my snarky wit, my insensitivity to people who can’t seem to do for themselves has all been a good defense but some people slip in. They get under my skin and I find myself searching for the company of people who have endeared themselves to me.

            My pal who visited whom I haven’t seen in three years is one of them, the garage gang is a slew of others, a few of my work mates are more. Yet while all this is happening I know there are peoples whose company I yearn for, people with whom I’ve found myself thinking of more often these days and when those thought come, as they inevitably do, I feel a mist descending upon my like the dew on a cool spring morning.

            Then, there are those who seem to be able to look beyond my barriers, my façade and instinctively know what’s going on inside my mind. I had lunch with one of those people today. I call him “Friend” even though we don’t hang out much and our lives are so filled with duties that seem to pull us in a hundred directions at once, when we do get together, well, no matter what I say or how I say it, he knows how to read what I mean. He is one of those unseen creatures that have slipped through an unseen crack. For that I’m grateful. But guess what, especially since you are reading this… I’m shoring up those cracks as fast as I discover them. Not to keep folks out, but to keep myself as sane as possible and to keep my focus on what needs to be done.

            Now this may be some cloudy thinking, as cloudy as the evening is that I’m writing this, but, it is something I need to do. Am I saying I’m shutting down any and all hopes of creating new friendships? Nope, I’m not. What I am saying is that I need to find the faults in my philosophies and try to fix them. Is this flip-flopping? Nah, nothing so extreme. I consider it my own personal preventive maintenance from a future of standing in a suit at a graveside and wondering “Why did this happen and what the hell am I doing here? Why are there so many assholes still walking and talking on this earth yet here lies the physical manifestation of a once animate person who I cared for and loved?” I get pissed I guess is what I’m trying to say.

            For I know, like we all do, that life truly is a terminal illness. We only have ourselves to rely on and the few people we allow inside our walls. But when those wall are faulty or when the people we’ve come to rely upon start to disappear, what do we have left? We have our own selves and our own philosophies and theologies. I’ll take all my personal knowledge and mistakes and forge them into a working, living, breathing formula for the existence I have left. After all, it’s worked for me thus far in my life.

            So to you my dear reader, I ask this, “What works for you in your life to keep and maintain your sanity when you are bombarded with a metric-ton of crap that has been dumped into your life on a weekly basis?

            I look forward to hearing your answers.