The sound fog makes.
Sometimes Im struck with this sense that I’m getting old and I’m a fuck up and I need to get it together etc etc. I think about it some more and realize, I’ve still got a handful of years before I reach 30, which in itself is not old by any means. Then I think about my friends that seem to be doing much better than I am yknow? They’re getting married or climbing the ladder in their chosen profession etc etc. Meanwhile Im hopping from place to place constantly starting over. Then I huff some copium and tell myself weelllll my family couldn’t really afford to send me to college like theirs did, or buy me a car, or pay my phone bill, etc etc. I’ve had to do it all mostly on my own while handling a boatload of crazy shit happening outside of my control and blah blah blah. I’ll say I don’t even want to get married anyways, and when I tell the stories about all the cool places I’ve been to and lived in precisely because Im a fuck up that keeps hopping from place to place they’re a little envious yknow? So on and so forth. These sorts of things to make myself feel better. Usually it works. There’s one thing I can’t quite get over though, the fact that I abandoned my childhood dreams. I wanted to be an astronaut, I wanted to live in certain parts of the world permanently, etc etc. Today my dream is to somehow find another apartment for myself and own an air fryer. For now anyway. I’ll tell myself, well with my health issues, and the way a lot of things out of my control went, I never would have qualified for the astronaut program anyway, and I just didn’t know any better as a kid so, maybe I shouldn’t hang myself over the fantasies of my boyhood. That’s fair, but I’m still disappointed in myself. I do sincerely believe that it’s never too late. That I can try again, and I will, but there’s always this after taste of regret. I got where I was going, yet another fresh start, only to discover the situation was terrible. It’s not my fault, I was mislead, but part of me constantly says that I could have planned better, that I should have seen it coming. If I’m being fair to myself, considering the urgency and frenzy of trying to run away, I did pretty well actually. I did okay. I’ll have to leave, I’ll have to start over. I’ve done it before and can do it again, even if it doesn’t feel great to so constantly be in this position. Once more into the pale, no clue where Im going to end up or what I’m going to do, but I go anyway.
Post script
On the way home from this morning’s 7-11 run, I spotted a bee on the side walk. It seemed disoriented, and was incapable of flying. I tried for a while to pick it up, but it protested, only coming to rest when my hand cast a shadow over it. Poor fucker may have just been exhausted from the heat and strong winds. The plastic cover of my PB & Strawberry sandwich ended up making for a serviceable and gentle enough implement with which I was able to scoop him up and place him in the adjacent grass. I figured he was probably dead anyway but it’d be better for him to die in some grass, his passing witnessed by dandelions as opposed to being crushed under the feet of some boorish tourist who never watched where they were stepping. As I walked away, I hoped he wouldn’t struggle his way back on to the sidewalk. In hindsight, I should have taken him further into the lawn, placed him under the shade of a the banana tree growing there, and left some of my Lychee juice in the cap for him. Again, realizing all this after the fact has left that same taste in my mouth, regret. I’m tempted to go back and see if I can find him now. I wonder if one bee makes up for the several ants I drowned in my sink earlier this week. I wonder if I’m struggling to crawl on to the side walk and be destroyed myself. I hope someone with a more level head and proper foresight would come to my rescue.
