You’d think that beginning would be the tough part. Meaning here. The abyss of a blank page, albeit in this case digital, staring not only back at, but seemingly right through you. Seeing all for what you are and are not, without an illusion left to shield you. And it matters, because if I don’t catch you here, I’ll likely never catch you at all.

But then, he thinks, there is that thing about endings. That how the lure might be able to briefly ensnare, but if follow through falls short, the prize is lost.

See: Santiago and the rather large fish.

How a story, a ramble, a song, etc, and so on- that if not concluded correctly for the circumstances of each expression, so much of the whole thing seems wasted. Even in dissonance, which I confess I like a bit of in my conclusions- an ending must hit right for any of the rest of it to work.

But then, he says, you damned fool- certainly it is the rest of it that matters. Not the origin or the demise of the story, but rather what the story is at its greater whole and essence. The meat of existence. The life occurring between birth and death, of which, I’m assuming, your humble narrator is right around the middle third. You know, the second act. The best act, in most stories, or at least the part with all the action. Right around when you start worrying about turning into a pumpkin, or whatnot.

So, to the heart of it all then, right?

At what point does hope become poison?

Is it still insane to want the impossible, knowing full well it can never be? Or is the knowledge of what can never be enough to keep on the ledge, just far enough away from the encroaching abyss? Hoping for a resurrection, knowing full well it will never occur?

Other people think like this, right? Surely I cannot be the only one. Just the only one thinking it to himself right here, right now.

Yet, I must confess, it has been a struggle to escape a series of cycling and recycled thoughts that don’t seem to have an answer besides some change or simply letting go. A bummer, for sure. This is not a system, however, that I am totally unacquainted with, though this batch is new and furious and particularly potent.

I suppose it is a good enough thing that I can still feel anything at all, after all the blows expertly landed by life thus far.

Might be that I am upset by the celebration of birth that I should be celebrating this week, and won’t be. Or is it that I am daunted and depressed by the other solar circuit anniversary the week after this? Hoping to dodge the broader psychological implications at play. Almost another year older and in so many ways I feel as though I haven’t grown at all.

Of course, I know this isn’t true, but humor me.

I haven’t had the best balance of brain chemicals in this most recent era. At least part of that is my own doing, being a creature of the occasional, or more than occasional, bad habit. But another part is the professional sleep deprivation required as part of the paycheck that I earn. Nothing like being exhausted to bring out the blue, am I right? And the poor rest habits seem to be something I’ve gotten so good at lately that I’ve been doing it on the side, for free, right here at home.

Somebody call the union. There’s a scab for these insomnia bouts about.

But reflecting back with some patience regarding myself, my moods are at least somewhat explicable. Perhaps being a bit too hard on myself, as always. Old news, as they say.

Speaking of which, meaning backwards reflection, I decided to feed the bad habit with some nostalgia fuel. Dug up an old blog, a decade gone, one donned in a name of the utmost hilarity in hindsight. So, I scanned through the ye olde incarnation of this very selfsame game, tune and words. The writings of someone only thinking himself the more than occasional pessimist, while always being quite the opposite. Pictures of the subway line bridge between Manhattan and Kings County. People on his mind that I no longer think of, with themes vague enough to still be ever present. These rambling from the last summer of my academic years. Still living in New York. I didn’t even go back upstate that summer, avoiding my hometown like a plague, which is a habit I still employ. I stayed on campus keeping a job where I fooled the higher ups into believing I was tremendously responsible. And I worked in a bar at night, for extra cash. An alter ego, almost.

Funny, in ways, how he, meaning me, used to think. Not seeing a way forward, and yet here we are, so very much forward from those days. And his total inability for accurate soothsaying. Entirely oblivious to the idea that he was three years away from becoming a father. Among a great many other things that have since gone down.

A fool, eternally, as always.

‘So cyclic be this spin of dread.’

One of the lines I pulled from the exploration of my past self’s mind. And it can so often feel like repeating, and yet I know that this all still so brand new. Perhaps I’ve felt comparable in ways, but I know the identity of thought is not identical to what is now. The characters are different, even when played by the same actors. And of course, the cast has grown and shrunk and back a forth again. Humans I didn’t know existed playing central roles, even if they are totally off stage at this point. While still plenty of the tried and true folks, even if retreated to the background when once they upstaged most everything.

‘Yet, I still want to have conversations that go perfectly nowhere.’

Another line, which might as well be a mantra of mine.

It’s funny enough, reading these words of a youth now faded and how despite everything changing, my mind has managed to stay so much of the same.

This would be a good enough spot for a transition to ponderings upon the future. An act of the present that is supposed to lead to one of those endings we were talking about earlier.

I am a man of both tremendous obligation and frivolous desire. Perhaps not frivolous, that is the wrong word. But despite the great many needs of my current life, I can so easily be consumed by the wants that are still unmet. And might be always that way. The idea of having a career and a child, and a mortgage, and so on, seemed so impossible to the kid writing with full bore hoping for the future, yet now they are a standard part of this existence. While still the successes that seemed so certain in those days still manage to elude me. Might be their ever-evolving state of being. Might be some baser mental trajectory, with the want for what was or what has yet to be constantly outweighing the sense of home with what actually is.

There was a conversation, a few days ago. With a person I had only met that day, though I was accompanied by another soul that I know quite well, or at least I believe that I do. Can only know someone else so much, I suppose, only residing in your own head and no one else’s.

But this other soul, the former mentioned, we talked for hours about some of the deepest thoughts and feelings and fears a human being can have. You see, we had a mutual friend. He’s gone now, though, for good. From this mortal plane, at least. I wish he had introduced us sooner, under better circumstances, but I try not to get mad at him.

That’s part of what we talked about, her and I, about our mutual friend who has left this life. How the spirit of someone goes on after they no longer do. Not saying as a ghost or some sort of specter, but as an idea, a feeling, an essence. As the favorite things we got from him are part of us now, for as long as we manage to go on ourselves.

From there, someone else can pick up the tendencies and tones and such.

I’ve been feeling moments like that, lately. Here and there, at least. Almost hearing his voice tell me what I need to hear, even when it seems impossibly difficult. Things that sound just like one of the last things he actually did say to me. On a day where I was feeling far from greatest, which certainly seems selfish and stupid in hindsight. One of the most talented musical men I’d ever met, even if he would never admit it himself, he told me:

‘Do you want to play some music? You don’t have to, but it’d be better if you did.’

He was right. That day and in so many other of these sorts of instances.

A possession of his has found a new home in my world. An instrument. Not an artifact, but something meant to stay so very much alive. It’s been cloudy and rainy all day here. And I have been physically tired and mentally a bit downtrodden.

So, I sat down and picked up the thing, and from it, something came forth. Not much, at least not yet, but at the same time an entirely new universe unto itself. And as this sonic exploration found its way into the present, from the window, crashed in some sunlight from beyond the overcast of varying grays.

I smiled. I laughed. I called my friend an asshole, while certain he can no longer hear me.

An ending?

Well, I suppose for now, we could. It is interesting, reading the words I wrote over a decade ago. In them, I was sure that this thought experiment was limited in its days. Over a decade ago, I believed the end of [insert day of week] [insert time of day] Thoughts was right around the corner. Like I said, I’m a shit soothsayer.

So changed after all this time, and still so much the same. A constant identity, only growing in scope and perspective. Still wanting the same, when framed vaguely enough. Desires for success more than I have, in means of creative and spiritual and such. Companionship, in friends and foes and the unmentionable otherwise.

Another line I read, that came from this very skull, all those years ago.

‘I just wish for someone to dance with.’

Doesn’t matter who he was thinking of then. Doesn’t matter of who he might or might not be thinking of now. What matters is the dancing, whoever choose to be company for it or not.

So, me thinks I might go do that, even if the only partner the evening finds me is my own shadow. That is the only person who knows all my horrible moves, anyway.