Straight Edge Life

Urgh. It’s late. Too friggin’ late. I’m exhausted, pooped, wiped out. If I were a mountain biker I would say I’ve bonked. If I were a climber I’d say I’m flamed. Bottom line is, I’m ready for bed. But tonight has been the night from hell. Right now, before bed, I need a few minutes just to chill. Work actually went surprisingly well tonight. I cranked through a pretty big list of bugs on my never-ending big project in record time. And that actually feels pretty good. What didn’t go well, what sucked was my personal life.

I am a magnet to the iron of chaos. Tonight, two friends came to me with two questions. One was impossible to answer. The other was so obvious and easy to answer that it revealed a much much deeper problem that needed to be dealt with first. So I spent the evening telling a good friend to start building up her self-confidence enough that she can get the guts to do what she needs to do, the inevitable, and end a friendship with someone who has treated her with disrespect for years, while trying to diffuse another friend’s desperation and urgency of my second friend’s impossible question with calming words and questions of my own. They two were run-away trains, and I have no idea whether I actually helped slow either one down or not. Hopefully now, they are both asleep. God knows I would like to be.

But I think about this a lot. It’s often when I’m the weakest that I give the best advice. I’m not able to filter my thoughts so I just forget about being polite, tactful, or delicate… I just tell it like I see it. And although I’m frequently stunned by the things I say, people keep coming back for more. Sadists I say. All of ‘em. And when I’m strong I tend to have a lot of people around me, none of whom ask me a damn thing. What gives? I have no idea. That’s why I think about this a lot.

I’ve got this vacation approaching and it’s making me nuts. I can think of almost nothing besides the long, long, long drive ahead of me. I had an opportunity to go to Turkey, but now I’m going to take a roadtrip. I’ll get more shooting done and I’ll get more time alone. As exotic as Turkey is, that’s not what I’m looking for right now. I simply need a lonely highway, a desert sky, and as much hard drive space as I can manage for my photos. I feel like I’m ready to be done mourning the end of my marriage and the loss of my mom. I feel like I’m ready to start figuring out what to do with all these things I’m feeling (how nice it is to feel again, let me tell you…). And I don’t expect to sit in the lotus position on top of a rock in the desert and figure this shit out. I plan to go do stuff. I plan to go enjoy myself in one of my favorite places on the globe. No, I plan to go enjoy myself in in my very favorite place on the globe. Because it’s only through doing things that I find strength.