The Triangle of the Sads

The sads clung to me yesterday in three ways, much like an Alcoholics Anonymous sign over the door to a meeting, and not even having the Big Book thrown at me could save my miserable self.

Age has been a recent subject as I just had a birthday, and the damnable Beatles tune with lyrics that will not leave my head, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me…” keeps rolling around my balding cranium. I made no plans for this.

For this, and is this all there is? The stones I travel over look and feel like the same ones from years ago, and I can no longer see the turn lane, the path off, the road away from this turnstile life.

For going in circles, I find myself lost on a well-known and well-worn treadmill. I cannot remember choosing this, but I must have, for here I am, like a hamster, trundling and trundling.

Along with self-agism, I am distraught at the shape of my nation. I have always loved the United States, its worts, diseases, and the beauty that those things made of this country.

Daily, from my post, I watch people hate on her, destroy her, tear her asunder as if she were the worst place on Earth. I cannot imagine this blue-green globe without her or her shining light.

While I ain’t no quitter, I don’t see a way out of this. Sure, hire a new guy the same as the old guy, and maybe the nation will be able to gain her footing again, but after four years, what then?

We have control of nothing. Spy agencies spy on us, courts and the justice system abuse us, politicians lie to us, and we leave half our hard-earned in their care so they can spit on us and laugh in our faces.

After nearly five decades of trying to make a living in a business that half the nation does not trust, the other half hates when the truth comes out, has worn me down. Still, I write and share, if only to please myself.

Then there are those days when even friends question the truth. The disbelief, disgust, and distrust raging from those I thought I knew. Some of it is direct, but the worst comes as a side shot, a glancing blow, spinning one’s compass, creating confusion that not even the Northwind can quickly gather its direction from.

Somewhere in there is that driver, the desire to succeed, to find fortune, perhaps recognition, fame, become a household name, or not. Sorrily, I cannot even begin to put success into a series of words I could understand.

What I do know of fame and fortune is that I have been within fingertip reach of both, and for reasons only the Holy Spirit knows, I have never attained it myself. Again, that son-of-a-bitch Beatles tune rings between my ears: “Will you still need me will you still feed me when I’m sixty-four.”

Then again, I’m a nothing in the business, or so I have been told. On the brightside, nothing is something, no?

Age will capture us like a drunk in port, and we’ll end up shanghi’d to work the ship across Styx. And I know nothing I can do will better my country, save for faith in God, and he’s busy trying to right the ship of Liberty, Justice, and the American way. But the attacks on the truth, on someone working hard and honest, like the output or not, is something I have a hard time with.

That hurt is the base of the proverbial triangle, and there is no crawling up and over as it sits flat, unyielding, and disassociating. At least I can say to myself, for myself, Semper Scripto, always writing.

Rant done. So please excuse me — I have some road pavers to sweep and a Big Book’s scattered pages to pick up.