Safe Haven

I'm not sure if it's the stress, or the nostalgic desire for something simple in life, but lately I’ve been looking towards [insert national chain] employees with a certain unwarranted envy. The simplicity of stocking a shelf, the simplicity of pulling out a cart and hauling a customer's television from the back of the store to the front of the store. The simplicity of ringing an item into the computer and throwing it into a bag all seem to point to two things that seem to be lacking in my life: stability and routine.

Though, with all nostalgic dreams, the fantasy never seems to stack up to the reality. I thought about the practicality of it, running the numbers, multiplying out an estimated $9.00*40*.71 and I'm reminded of a haunting quote by a fellow commissioned based sales rep; it began with me staring into the monthly numbers report while he crept up behind me and chimed in, "You can stare all you want, but the numbers aren't going to change." And with that the nostalgic dream of simplicity is gone. Back to the commissioned environment, back into the classroom, back into graduate school - all in the name of making a decent buck and exchanging happiness and safety in return. I think, more than anything, I’m looking for a safety net, a fallout shelter that beckons protection so that in the event of not hitting a monthly quota, failing to understand how the theorem works, or improperly explaining how to solve a problem I can simply have a plan B to run to. Strangely enough, I think Holden Caulfield thought the same thing:

I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone. They'd let me put gas and oil in their stupid cars, and they'd pay me a salary and all for it, and I'd build me a little cabin somewhere with the dough I made and live there for the rest of my life. I'd build it right near the woods, but not right in them, because I'd want it to be sunny as hell all the time. I'd cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I'd meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we'd get married. She'd come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she'd have to write it on a goddam piece of paper, like everybody else.

What scares me most is that there is no safety net, that failure is simply not an option, as the game ends when you run out of money, out of hope, out of dreams, out of [insert here]. Doing something for its own sake is one thing, but having to rely on the outcome of that thing is totally different. Maybe this is overreacting, or maybe it's a bit of last-minute anxiety before the storm, but I think more than anything I yearn for something simple, something safe, something that beckons out "If you fail, I’ll be here for you." I'm sure time will wash away all these feelings, but for now there simply is no place like a safe haven.

The Thin Line between Love and Obsession

"On the surface Don Quixote is a complex novel that is written in an ambiguous fashion; a fashion that many readers have found fault with, writing off the book to be a narrative of two idiots roaming the countryside in a completely random fashion, thereby eliminating the possibility of any meaningful whole. Though mostly false, it is quite understandable how many readers arrive at such a notion seeing the structure of the story is riddled with seemingly independent events and occurrences that often leave the reader oblivious to the nature of the book. The exploits of Quixote are impossible to predict, while the frequent deviation of the author into seemingly independent side stories baffle the reader to such an extent that the story becomes merely an account of two wonderers without any greater moral bearing or significance. Whereas the wonderers of Don Quixote spend their days within the secluded countryside of the Sierras..."

Then suddenly, in the midst of it all that thin line between love and obsession seemed to slowly fade off into oblivion as my mind brought back the fateful thought that marked my loneliness, my destitution. Like a ray of light sent directly from the sun itself, her presence made its way within my mind, causing me to abandon all care for the superficial paper that would act as a testament to the mundane tasks that marked my existence. Her face, her beauty, suddenly my mind could focus upon no other as my existence immediately took a backseat to the mere thought of her. Papers, exams, responsibilities - what were responsibilities if they did not involve her? What was anything if it didn’t involve her? What was the purpose of existence if it didn't involve her? Her hair, her eyes, her picturesque skin tone all conspired together to lull me off towards distant fantasies so far removed from the present reality of isolation.

"I love you. I want to love you. I need you." though the words just didn’t seem to capture the moment, they didn’t seem to stress the intense admiration for the object that now occupied my hopeless thoughts. "I want nothing more than your happiness; I want nothing more than to dry your tears of pain and present you with everything that I have" though that too seemed quite superficial as it had been state before, and done a thousand times over through the eons by such desperate men who thought they had as much love and admiration for a woman as I.

While my heart longed for the appropriate words, the beautifully haunting images of her eyes seem to tranquil my worries, ease my sorrows though all that remained of them now where the distant memories of a time long past, a time unbearably long. "The most beautiful of eyes" I would recant in a desperate attempt to conjure up more than a mere mental image of them, "...and her hair, her face, her countenance " I would speak out as if words had the power to create images, to ease the sorrow, or to pass the time.

…AlL This While the Paper Lay UnToucheD.

I FalL Forever

The professor continued to speak of things I needed to hear, things I wanted to hear, but things I didn’t hear. Instead, I merely cast my eyes down upon my page and my pen began to freely write across the tablet spilling out thoughts long suppressed. It hurt to think such thoughts, but it hurt even more see them manifest out on the white page in the middle of the populated room. I felt as if I were bleeding, bleeding right there across the page, saturating it with everything that I am. Though it all hurt, it hurt to see every word work its way across the page, it hurt even more to think of Ashley, it hurt to hear her name, it hurt to think of it, and it hurt to say it.

AlL I know is that I'm tired of being alone.