safety

sometimes i see you on the periphery of my life, i don't even look up long anymore. i just keep driving. it will take more than a flyby to get my attention. i'm pretty much over it.

at the hudson yesterday i saw this bird, flying high, higher than usual, higher than most. sure enough, it was a bald eagle. just winding its way higher and higher making the most graceful spirals through the sky following the course of the river.

we have not long before we must choose some road. right now, it's about taking care of me, putting humpty dumpty back together again. or at least gathering up as many scattered bits as i can and making a mosaic. i'm everywhere. demands are still more than i can manage, but it's sometimes easier. honesty helps.

my boss asked,

why do you take things out on me?

because you're safe.

which is a good and bad thing. but we're both short of boundaries in the same ways and so we muddle through. it's figuring out how everyone else fits in the puzzle that is my dilemma. not that i fret over it, just that i have to do something with those pieces. i must grow. i must develop the vision. i must move forward.

more often than not, healing the broken bone means more pain, setting it aright. filling the decayed tooth means grinding out the infected site, and beyond, into the healthy portion.

last night we were driving through the mountains, not him, someone else, and he asked why i tan so much in the summer.

i'm not saying i'm impervious to damage. if that's what you mean.

right.

i bake myself from the outside, while you bake yourself from the inside.

for you see, those i love now, all seem to smoke. i even took a drag recently, first time in a great while and i had a day from hell. it was not horrible. i can see how people find it to lean on. i'm not so wobbly as all that now, and it's foolish to pick up that kind of habit now. plus, i'm privy to plenty of second hand smoke, if i want to vicariously smoke now, i can. it's everywhere.

i don't know how to help those i love. and they don't know how to help me. all we can do, i think, is as little damage to each other along the way. we're all fucked up in different ways. the trick is, the key is,

finding someone who's not afraid of your shit. and loves you even when they know the worst thing about you.

or so i'm told.

and i tend to believe it.