Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Landslide

As I drove to work this morning Fleetwood Mac's hit Landslide came on the radio. Stevie Nick's acknowledgment, "I'm getting older too," resonated in the truck cabin, the melancholy way she accepeted it, like a love that is over.

"I'm getting older too." It's the mantra of the schizophrenic age in which I find myself; over a quarter century old, caught between twin impulses. - to settle down, find stability and start a family, or flee, run, seek out the new and mysterious.

I sat at my desk and twin monitors stared back. Reports, quotes, orders, specs, configurations, skus blinked by. Each voice on the phone anxious, convinced their deal was of the utmost importance. I was struck with the absurdity of it all. Of the neatly lined hushed rows of souls transfixed by computers, locked to the phones. Could anything be as inconsequential?

It's not that I'm unhappy. It's the lack of anything significant - the feeling that days tick by and no movement is made, no hills conquered, no love burning.

I've had brief encounters with love and lust over the past two years. A fluttering of feelings quickly scorched to ash. Vagueness. I experienced a hint of something real that fizzled with inaction, miscommunication, and stupidity. It ended with her boarding a red-eye flight to Australia, someone else's kiss on her lips, while I sat at home and smoked another bowl while Townes Van Zandt played in my head.

I don't know if I'm propelled by the desire to flee what it is that I've created or simply to accept Fate's invitation for something new.

Life is plagued/blessed by dualism everywhere - so why not both?

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