5/5/2005 - How Do I Say How I Feel

I am engorged.
I am a cup overflowing.
A cornucopia of nonsense.
I am swollen with fear.

What am I doing?
Where am I going?
What am I seeing?
Who am I being?


My life is an open ended question, and I have the answer inside me somewhere, if only I could find it.

It occurred to me that I am not motivated by the pursuit of happiness but by a desire for fulfillment. I have come to realize that the two are not one in the same. This is why they are two different words.

I am being led into unknown territory by an invisible leash pulled by an unknown force.
I don't like to call it God.
I don't even like to call it a Concept.

I was listening to a story on NPR about Laney who finds her calling.

"I know what I'm going to do!"
"What is that?"
"I'm going to play the drums!"
"The drums? How did this come about?"
"I don't know, I was in the music store, and I saw them, and they were beautiful and shining at me, and red, and I realized, I am a drummer, this is my purpose in life"
"But where are you going to get drums?"
"I don't know!"
"How are you going to afford them?"
"I don't know!"
"How are you going to learn them?"
"I don't know!"
"What are you going to do, then?"
"I don't know! I don't know! All I know is I am (insert many drummers' names here), I have it inside me, and I am a rockstar!"

At this time I'm realizing I am being silly because tears are welling but not falling and I feel my heart become full and lift itself up in my chest, pulling again against some unknown force (neither God nor Concept). I am driving home and I feel its pull, and I am wondering where it is in such a hurry to go.

The tension drives me mad, and the tears threaten to form. I am changing lanes and trying to function as an element of the Highway Machine, but find it impossible to focus. Don't they know that my heart is trying to fly away, even as it is tethered to an anchor, and that the anchor is somewhere inside me? Don't they know how terribly distracting it is?

The story on the radio has switched gears and a woman with a Jewish accent is going on about the show Roseanne and she is slightly annoying, talking about scriptwriting and Mel Brooks. The pull starts to fade.

I am left with the words echoing in my head. Recycling back, periodically pulling. Periodically lifting me up to tiptoe on the convex layer of oxygen molecules that hold together what would otherwise be an unapologetic outpouring of atoms. I am doing this consciously. Bringing myself to the brink.

"What are you doing?"
"I don't know!"
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know!"
"Why are you doing this?"
"I don't know! I don't know! I don't know where I am going, or why I am doing this. I don't know what is right and wrong. I don't know how to go about it. But this is me. This is me. This is ME."

I think about it over and over again. About the joy and terror of replying "I don't know" and the overwhelming right-ness of it. I step out of my car and lock the door. I walk toward my apartment and think about how this is the last day I will be at my apartment. I think about last night and saying goodbye and my last weekly Thursday seeing Keegan's band play- one of the few rituals in my life. I think about how much more you appreciate people, and places and experiences when you experience them for the last time.

I think about how I was sad when I turned ten, because I would no longer have a one digit age.

I think about crying when I graduated the fifth grade, knowing I would never be 10 and in elementary school, and reading Tom Sawyer under my desk while the teacher talked. How I would never see so-and-so again and how I would forget their name some day.

I am so very sensitive about things. I always remember feeling silly about it. About being sad and crying. But as I let two tears run down my face as I am walking to my apartment door I am not really feeling silly or sad; instead I am understanding something a little better about myself because I feel so strong, even though I am shaking and almost crying, and truly terrified. I feel a strength unparalleled. I feel a push, even as my heart pulls.

I realize I love this fullness I am feeling. I love that I can feel it. I love it's touch, and the invisible leash and my intangible force. It is beyond me. I love it so much I can barely contain it.