Gloomy Sunday.

It is hard to explain, the way I feel exactly.
Maybe caught between now and never,
but more realistically jammed between here and forever.

It is the weekend, the first weekend of the school year to be exact. I had a good first week. I dove in, hit the books, and emerged no worse for the ware come Friday afternoon.
In fact, I may have ended better than I started, which seems odd, but may very well be the reason for education. The fact that I have usually ended up feeling lost, disillusioned or left behind after most weeks of schooling has little to do with academic rigor or challenge.
As I left the campus this weekend, I smiled to myself as I subconsciously identified plant species as I drove the few miles back into town. That was a new addition to my mental significance, and a welcome one to say the least.
I need to shave my face. It has only been three short days, but already I have some semblance of a beard starting to form an invasive itch on my face. It is similar to the way the Crown Vetch takes over the tall grass prairie I suppose, eventually this growth could swallow my smile and eyes, making me unidentifiable to most.
My clothes are clean, my vehicle is spot less, and my living quarters are in fine shape; none of those things are comfort to me right now. Usually those are my ingredients for the ideal day, but today, I woke up to the hum of the radiator. After I emerged in the light, Billie Holliday was crooning "Gloomy Sunday" from the television speakers as I sipped my coffee. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48cTUnUtzx4)

I feel in limbo, somewhere I have remained for months on end now. Stuck between where I am going, where I would like to be, and what can be judged feasible for me at this point in time.
I hope to not accumulate regrets of inaction, mental dynamite stacked and dried inside the cranial cavity to remind what could have been, what shouldn't have been, and what now could never be.
That is the hardest part of getting older for me, at least on the surface. The realization that I have passed particular courses of action without bestowing the my greatest efforts or any affection. Some doors have now closed forever, and I do not have the tact or specialization needed to pick the locks of time and opportunity wasted.

Now I have reached the point where the fates have aligned. I have found my calling, I have met my soul mate. I wake each day with a purpose, all though I do not know what that purpose will be someday, I know where it will be and how I must approach my personal education to prepare for what will be the great challenges of my lifetime. There is not a whole lot of mystery left. I searched and formulated, I backed out and jumped at opportunities, I changed course again and again until I have arrived here. This is it. I will either sink or swim, either rescue myself or drown within this sea.
I have those who care about me, yes. I have those who used to be familiar. I am ever worried that the faces of today will fade and turn like those of yesterday all ready have.
So many people have become strangers now, and I don't go out of my way to connect. I know that the lives we all left behind have not caught up with us yet. Maybe someday they will: in a super market, at a classic car show. We will look up from our candy heists or candy apple and chrome machines and for one second there will be recognition. We will look and wonder, "Is that who it used to be?" Under a straw hat fedora or from behind Ray-ban frames there will be pain in our eyes as we consider what we once held so dear: those late morning guitar strummings in the basement of your parents house, those late night Ultimate Warrior anthology digestions, or even the runs to the top of the slide, just to throw up down it.
So many people have come and gone as I have changed cars on the freight that will someday turn westbound. Whenever I retrace my steps, I realize those who I had considered abandoned by me in my strides forward were really just heading in their own direction. Leaving me behind. Closing the circuits. Cutting communication. Making for one Gloomy Sunday.


(If you read this, and you are now feeling worse for the wear....watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hyoszso38E), it will make you feel better or smile or something similar.)