Sun 5 Apr 2009
My Cheatin’ Heart
Posted by Cobban under The Basics
[2] Comments
I’m sorry blog. I’ve been cheating on you. I’ve got this thing on the side with a site called Facebook. At least you’re hearing it from me and not from someone in town. Please try to understand. It’s just that lately, I don’t really have anything worthwhile to say to you. Facebook makes it so much easier to post random little expressions as opposed to taking the time to compose my thoughts into actual paragraphs. With my schedule and your being so demanding with my time, I just had to go to a site that understood my needs. Please don’t cry. This isn’t easy for me either. Hey, at least only my “friends” can see my posts. It’s not like I’m flaunting this affair around town…no, please, I want people to keep reading you. I need you.
When I was growing up, my mother had a plaque in the kitchen that read “The Hurrier I Go, The Behinder I Get.” I never understood what that meant until I got older. As you age, you begin to slow down. Then a friend or family member dies and there is a harsh slap-in-the-face reminder that time is ticking away so you try to go faster. It’s like speedballing. No wonder it killed Belushi.
I want to compose music, write that screenplay, go to the gym more often, learn Italian…but my fucking job keeps getting in the way.
Holy shit! I can’t believe I just typed that!
I love my job. I love that I have a job…but I hate the passage of time occurring right before my eyes when I have so much more to do. With the losses Ray and I have experienced these past few years, I feel like I’m running as fast as I can hearing the Grim Reaper’s sickle swooshing right behind my head. When Brooke died at forty-seven, it was like he got a chunk of my hair.
I got word yesterday that a woman I knew casually at work passed away from a brain tumor. My first thought was, “Did she ever get to all the things she wanted to?” Probably not. The whole thing is kind of amplified by Brooke’s death. I know she didn’t get to do everything she wanted because that’s all we talked about–the myriad things we wanted to experience before we died.
The key thing I guess, is to keep on going. Stop focusing on time itself and keep practicing my guitar. Keep going to the gym. Keep trying to figure out how to get the music out of my head and into a song that I can share with others. I’d rather people remember me as someone who died trying instead of someone who sat around thinking about it.
My aunt had that same plaque in her kitchen – it’s been a long time since I’d last seen that. And as for Facebook… really… you slut.
One of the reasons I’ve been pushing myself to travel so much the last few years, including the AZ trip last summer, is that my mother always talked about some of the places she wanted to go see – St. Peter’s in Rome being high on the list. They could have done it anytime after my dad retired in 1991 – they had the money – but they kept putting it off. I finally made them start traveling some with me, in 1998, but we were in DC (actually, Arlington, right near the Pentagon) on 9/11 and my mother refused to fly after that. Now, even though we might talk her onto a plane, her hip bothers her for walking more than a block or two, and St. Peter’s, heck Rome in general, requires a LOT of walking.
I don’t want to regret not having at least tried to go everywhere I really want. I probably can’t do it all, but I can sure have fun trying, and if I’m lucky, I’ll still be trying when I go.