Rebuilding a Mystery
Since the beginning of January of this year I have been in a state of limbo. Just after New Years Day I was making plans to leave the state of New Hampshire and look at my options. At that time there were things going on that were quite intense and extremely detrimental to my overall well being. In fact, in early January I had given notice that I would be leaving at some point in February.
That got a bit reversed for complicated reasons that led me deep into an abyss of such proportions that over the past couple of months I've gained a great deal of momentum simply from a statement repeated to me by people who do not know each other and do not talk to each other. That statement was some variation of "If it was anyone but you, they wouldn't have made it out in one piece." It might not make sense to some people, but to have people show that degree of faith in me was a major component in my personal recovery. It rates right up there with a certain mantra I turn to whenever I feel like throwing in my cards and disappearing into the bathroom, never to return.
That mantra is, "If you give up, then what are the rest of us supposed to do?" And in my realigning of my personal mythology, recalling the source of this mantra made appointing a new muse in the hierarchy of my mythology a fairly simple matter.
And now things are being finalized. I've given written notice at my job that my last night of work will be June 27th with plans to leave New Hampshire on Friday the 29th. And, instead of a straight shot back to Florida, I'm going to be making the trip in leaps and bounds. I already have tentative plans to make as many as six stops along the way, possibly more. It will be much easier on my withered constitution right now to drive a few hours and stop for a while than it would be to drive all day and night until I am so exhausted I seek out a motel for the night, my usual method in the past.
A few noders are already on the potential stop list. My route will take me through Connecticut, just north of The City on Interstate 84 before cutting south on Interstate 81 through Pennsylvania and Virginia before I cut back over to the godforsaken road of pure, unadulterated evil that is Interstate 95. So, if you find yourself not far from this route and would like to make me a steak and sacrifice your youngest daughter to me, let me know and we'll try to work something out. I've made this drive so many times in my life that I greet this trip with much distain, but in treating it like some kind of tour it is far more palatable.
Things are very much in a jumbled state of random uncertainties as far as the table being set down in Orlando. All kinds of options and variables of various sizes, shapes and forms... which, when it comes down to it means I'll only be flying slightly less blind into things than I did during my original arrival in 1997. Sometimes it becomes necessary to trust your instincts, your gut, the voices in your head and just go. The reasons for me staying up here in the hinterlands have been going out the window one by one over what seems to be a drawn out period of time, but in reality has only been a few months. Feels like it has been much longer since the beginning of this year than it has been. More like two years than five months. That kind of ugliness I can do without.
And so, just less than ten years later, I am back on the road to where I once belonged. There is a sense that I am being called home. When I came back north I convinced myself that this was home and I was returning in some kind of triumph, but I was deluding myself for reasons that had to do with proving I could do what I knew could not be done. And I no longer belong up here, this much I now know. The pettiness and backbiting I remember well from those I was close to more than a decade or so has come back to haunt me. Subtle manipulations, promises made and never held to, people who pretend to have your best interests at heart but throw you under the bus if they can gain something from doing so... these things exist everywhere, but here in New England it seems to surround me like the plague. I once told a friend in Florida that New Englanders have a system. They use the summer to collect whatever resources they can to avoid freezing to death in the winter. People usually wait until spring to dump their lovers. It is getting too warm to not sleep alone and no one up here has really figured out central air conditioning yet. They've barely figured out how to heat their homes without going bankrupt.
Of course, this is just circumstantial prejudice. There is nothing that different in people here than anywhere else, but it all relates in a way to personal attitude, and I have not maintained a positive attitude about being here. And as long as that focus remains negative and focused on not wanting to be here, things will continue in a negative vein until the destruct cycles get out of control. And I simply cannot feel positive about being here. I came here with a singularity of purpose, no matter how I tried to convince myself there were other reasons, and when that purpose led to disaster... it became progressively more difficult to convince myself there were reasons to stay and good elements to my being here. It just became eventually a counting off of time, as I was most certain I would not be staying through another winter. I hate winter. Passionately.
Negativity, with all its angles, from the external to the internal, is an abyss from which it is difficult to escape, and sometimes the only escape is to leave completely, to change, to start over, to reboot from last save. I've been calling my return to Orlando a reboot from last save for several weeks now.
My angels are still in Orlando. They wait for me, they anticipate my return. I must believe this. When I did not believe, they proved me wrong. And now all the dreams tell me of the journey back. All my visions are overwhelmed with tales of going back. Going back to where I once belonged. It may not mean much, but I am being called back. I sense it on a different level. What I needed to do for myself, to clear that pointless devotion to the self this all brought me to, has followed to its conclusion. And now I will be able to face the future without the past holding me back.
Debts have been paid. Accounts have been closed. It is time for the final blasphemy to begin.
Once upon a time I measured myself against you, but that was when I thought you offered something other than what you were capable of. And in the end you will find your own way outside of what we were, and that is how it needs to be.
Then again, we'll see each other again. You are the reason I'm stuck in samsara. I still have to figure out how to change your course. It just isn't possible in this lifetime. Next time around, Marci, things will be different. I can only be who I am. I can't save you from yourself.
Once upon a time I moved from New England to Florida based on nothing aside from faith in a completely insane story and my life changed for the better. At the time I was facing a completely different junction than I do now. At that time I was having it pounded into my head that I needed to believe in myself. And it culminated in the week I spent in the apartment of Christine Lisl, who I swear upon all that I hold holy I still love to this day, when every time I turned on her television I ended up seeing the video for this song... or turned on the radio and heard this song... which is why returning to Orlando is what I consider "Rebuilding a Mystery," simply because back in 1997, I had reason to believe Sarah McLachlin had written this song about me. And so now, broken and ready to return, I am taking up the wheel once again.
Whether it was written about me or not really does not matter, because at times it does matter. As was once told to me by someone I still dearly love, "No song could have been written about you that would have been so on the ball." And that is where the meaning comes into play.
You come out at night
That's when the energy comes
And the dark side's light
And the vampires roam
You strut your rasta wear
And your suicide poem
And a cross from a faith that died
Before Jesus came
You're building a mystery
And if I rebuild it, they will come.
You're a beautiful
A beautiful fucked up man
You're setting up your
Razor wire shrine
Cause you're working
Building a mystery
Holding on and holding it in
Yeah you're working
Building a mystery
And choosing so carefully
It will be rebuilt. And it will be stronger than it ever was before. I am fucked up enough to believe that.