I’ve never needed help sleeping. I’ve always been an anywhere, anytime, no matter how I’ve already had kind of sleeper. Insomnia, trouble resting - those concepts have always been rather foreign to me. Yet I’m finding myself in bed and struggling to turn off thoughts (about work and spreadsheets, none the less) enough to fall asleep. When I do doze off I’m shaken awake to more things to add to a mental to-do list that seems bound to get lost in the shuffle anyway. There must be something better out there than this. My head aches from a literal overload of information and entirely too many things that have to be done between yesterday and a month from now. I’m willing time to fly but begging it to slow down to buy me more hours I get things done. Mostly I just want to sleep and have a night away from it all. Nice fantasy, right? Stress will meet me in my dreams.
I crave being somewhere with people who want to celebrate and jump for joy with me. Instead I’m at home with my parents who are incredible people with such different views from mine that it’s impossible to avoid the collision of the opposition, especially on a night like this. Lecture from dad, random two cents from my mom. I’m all for people feeling what they feel and vocalizing it as such but it’s rained on my parade and that’s really frustrating. I long to be up in Bellingham with my brother, dancing in the streets as parades for Obama happen. Instead I’m online jumping for joy in text and yellow smiley faces. It’s better than nothing. The real glory isn’t in the celebration but in the actual fact. I’m still leery to put all my eggs in the basket until after it’s all really real and he’s been sworn in to office in January. There are too many things that can change, recounts, what have you. It wouldn’t be the first time.
McCain reminds me of my grandfather. Tonight, as I watched him give his speech, I almost found myself endeared to him. He’s like the grandfather who took you camping, taught you how to fish and took you to see your favorite team play ball. He loved you, he took care of you, by all accounts and purposes in your childhood memory, he was an amazing man. But he taught you the N word and he asked your guy friends wearing makeup in high school if they were “one of those”. Horribly racist and homophobic but still comes across like the sweet old man that you can’t help but be drawn to. That was my grandfather and to a lesser degree that is McCain.
While my Facebook may be exploding tonight with cheers of joy from Obama supporters, disappointment from McCain supporters and the call for the need to pray from the Christian friends I have, we are still entering this new reality. Support it or don’t, this is how it will be and it’s time to adapt. Change is inevitable and Obama is standing on the edge of a huge mess that he probably will spend the next four years trying to clean up. Maybe he’ll succeed. Maybe he’ll fail. The fact is that someone new is in the seat to at least make the attempt, for better or for worse. When you’re down, all you can really do is move up, right? That’s my story, at least, and I’m sticking to it.
My eyes are struggling to stay open but my mind is not even close to shutting down. Which one is going to win out? My wet hair says that the mind needs to win, at least for another hour or so. If I fall asleep with a wet head, I’m going to hate myself in the morning. That’s what happens when I put off taking a shower until 11pm. The cats are wide awake. Why is it that they’ll sleep all day while we’re up and around and the moment the house is ready to shut down for the night, they decide that it’s time to play? One terrorizes the other. The game of cat and mouse is so outdated. In this house it’s the game of cat and scaredy cat. One day the little one is going to get hers and on that day I’m just going to sit back and laugh. It’s another week, nose to the grind. I need December 11th to come. No more event, no more school. It’ll be a nice, smooth sail into January before winter quarter begins. I’m craving that kind of simplicity. I need it right now. The countdown is on for my 27th birthday party. I still don’t know where and I still don’t know who but that doesn’t matter. I just want to do something. I’m feeling so alive these days even if I’ve got heavy eyelids and a constant headache. At least I’m feeling it all at a ten and not through the faint film of a dissatisfied heart and a discontent mind.
What is it about music that puts the movement in my legs, the energy in my arms and the inspiration in my head? I can’t sing. I can’t play an instrument. I don’t write lyrics. I’m not a performer and am actually quite terrified of any real spotlight. Despite all of these truths, it’s when I’m listening to live music that I feel most alive. It’s when I’m driving down the road, stereo at 40 and something amazing blaring out a rolled down window that the life inside of me springs alert. Music has been the fuel for my biggest decisions in life. Maybe that’s cliche and stupid but it doesn’t make it any less honest. I was burned out on a job that felt like beating my head against the wall and I saw The Elected play at Neumo’s on Capitol Hill and made the decision to quit, put the kid in daycare and reevaluate what I wanted to be doing. I may not be doing exactly that, this might not be my dream but I don’t feel like I’m trapped inside of a box that I’ll never get out of anymore. I don’t remember what band it was and I couldn’t tell you where they played but my determination to make my life better came from seeing people on a stage living out their dreams. Sometimes they’re bands that chill me to the core, whose lyrics move me and whose talent blow me away. Other times they’re bands that know how to laugh at life, have fun and get your ass shaking. Sometimes the band is a combination of the two. It doesn’t matter which way they affect me; the point is that they do. I’m inspired by people who are willing to live life on the open road with a few dollars to their name in order to die knowing that they did everything they could to do exactly what they wanted to be doing. My dreams aren’t part of a four walled office working for a big corporation but what comes from doing this office gig is that I make the money I need to live out my dreams in my own time. School kills me sometimes but I’m doing it so that I can make a little more to give us our house, keep food on the table and keep concert tickets in the palm of my hand. I may not get to live out those dreams and fantasies; life with a child makes it so that I’m not just living for myself anymore. But what I do have is someone else living out theirs and it’s that example, feeding off of that energy and being part of it — even if just for one night — that makes me go on. It keeps me alive. It makes me feel. It inspires and it moves. So thank you, music men and music women. Thank you for being everything you love in the world and in turn giving me so much of what I love.
I write and I write often. Despite that, I don’t often write for myself. My professional side knows how to spin an impressive email and that part of me gets utilized every day. My creative side gets shown off when I spin fiction in a ridiculous hobby. I use my “skills,” for lack of a better word, but I rarely do that for myself and the things on my mind about my life, where I’ve been, where I’m going and how I’m dealing with it all. LiveJournal has always been my blog spot of choice but I find it difficult to really get down to it there, for reasons beyond my understanding. MySpace is a great place but it’s too social for my tastes and I don’t feel like I can write there and actually let loose and be myself. How will this be any different? Maybe it won’t be. I’m sure as hell going to try.
