Love is blind, and other illusions.

Sometimes I find myself in this place that feels like a total rejection of who I know myself to be; it's opposite day on Planet Em, and I am the sole occupant and player. The words run out, and I don't see the pictures my camera is supposed to make, and all I can do is try to distract myself with music and ...hang on. Put on a helmet, even. Perhaps a seat belt. As a creature of routine and optimism, it is hard for me to let go and settle in for the ride. It seems that fighting it makes the whole journey all the more difficult, though; I am ill-prepared for the self reflection and intimate examinations of my life that are sure to precede the self loathing, anger, cynicism, and hopelessness.

It starts like this: one day, I quietly realize I'm happy; dare I even say, content, with my life. Sure, there is room for improvement, but overall, the complaints are few and far between. I bask in the warm fuzzy glow of this comfortable life I have made, much like a cat lazing in the shaft of sunlight stretching across the floor on a summer afternoon. That is also the exact moment that I have come to dread, because without fail, I wake up and find myself in this place. It's like my subconscious pipes up with, "oh, feeling good, eh? Perhaps you can finally deal with this pile of bullshit you've been sweeping over into this corner? No? Just thought I'd ask; you don't have to get all hysterical."

Into the hysteria of it all, I descend, however; an unwilling participant to the whim of my id. The man behind the curtain is me, and he has been dazzling me with illusions long enough that I have momentarily forgotten that some of the reasons I sought out those illusions to begin with were pretty unbearable to live with out in the open every day. Facing them for even a few moments is still painful beyond comprehension. They seem insurmountable. So I make busy work until I'm too busy to remember what all the fuss was about, and pretty soon I have pulled the rabbit of happiness up out of the hat once more, and on with the show. Pomp and circumstance; smoke and mirrors.

When "it is what it is" describes the hobble-hop from one distraction to another, ever searching for the IT that my life is supposed to BE, and I still come up with an armload of nothing, it's hard to not imagine that somewhere along the way, things have gone horribly wrong at some point. That the common denominator is ME, and obviously I am the thing that has gone horribly wrong. After all, I am the architect of my own happiness and build my own future through the decisions I have made... right? So there is simply no one else to blame. Clearly I have forgotten to go along to get along until I march my tired ass to the slaughter house of old age.

Today I have been reading science-based studies on love, and what happens to our brains when we step in it, and if love is blind, why, and then what happens. How our brains do this thing where we can no longer make objective decisions regarding the subject of our affections because the reward for living in La La Land is supposed to outweigh the risk, and how the longer you get to know someone, the more you fall out of love, most of the time. Boredom, complacency, repetition, disillusionment; all of these things come crawling out of the woodwork to gnaw away at this thing that you thought was pretty darn great when you first stumbled upon it. How, without our genetically inclined need to procreate, or the endorphin rush of the shiny penny newness of lust, we probably wouldn't make it as a species. That seems to be all that holds us together; the search for immortality, and pleasure. I think much of this can also be applied to the way we view ourselves, too. We reach a point where we can no longer be objective about our own feelings, because there is too much at risk, like trading one happiness for another. You can have your cake, or you can eat it. We make trades on our comfort, while trying to walk the tightrope of commitment, or contentment. There is no fucking net.

And sometimes it all just. Seems. So. Dumb.

Send in the clowns.

I feel like the blink-blink-blink of the cursor on a blank page; waiting to span the syllables of something; some something that I hope turns out to have a decent, meaningful conclusion. I am going to carpe the shit of some diem, and tapdance my black letters all over this barren white; fill it up as I empty out.

That's what I feel.

The reality of the situation is that I also feel stuck in that short pause from blink to blink - there is no cursor, only the most cursory of allusions to a page, and the words are caught in my throat. "I wish I had an actual keyboard to type on; this tablet bullshit has worn thin," I think for the hundredth time. As true as that is, it also feels like an excuse to recuse myself from the task of facing my thoughts as they spill across the page. I don't want to look. Gawking at the corpse of your past is never easy; clumsy fingers reaching out to snatch you back to some point in time reminding you of what you had, or what you lost, or where you're still too angry and sick to peel back the bandages and assess the damage.

I have begun the ritual of writing: jamming some music into my ears to drown out the distracting silence, hot mug of tea near to hand, horrible cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. I am too old to be a hipster, but all of the cliches are there, earned honestly through my time so far on this planet. And I guess that's part of the big problem. I'm going to open my own little mental jewelry box where I've stored all of my most sacred thoughts, and instead of the ballerina popping up in endless pirouette to the musical chime, it's going to be some clown holding a busker's sign that says every negative thing we always tell ourselves; the music will be to the tune of sad trombone fanfare. Or, you know, that's what I tell myself.

The precursor to the big monsters in the closet is this. The modern dance of artistry looks a lot like bleeding feet en pointe; years of tiptoed survival summed up with a tidy satin bow. When the clown car is unpacked and the bruises and scrapes and scars are on full, naked, display, your inner ring leader takes a bow and you're left in charge of the popcorn mess in the aisles. The freak show you carry around in your brain still isn't sure you're capable of displaying their horrors properly, but you're all they've got; and so goes the dance; the show and telling of the soul.