Enough

 I find myself in a weird position in life, a thing that gets magnified at work everyday when I talk to folks who are hustling to get by and hope to get ahead as the future rolls on. Seeking promotions, more money, more everything and while I understand it, hell it was me not so long ago, I find my hustle, my need for more has dissipated into the ether of my years and now all I seek is contentment, routine and just what I have. 

Enough.

I don't know how it came to be. We struggled for decades just to keep our heads above water, not always succeeding, but always striving for more and better...until now. I find myself at the crossroads of somewhat middle age, okay, two thirds age, but what I am after now more than anything is not trying to get more, to look at what other people have and wonder why I don't. I find myself looking in the mirror and occasionally smiling with a chuckle that I'm still standing and honestly it's fucking bizarre to be happy after years of Darkness. I won't lie, I still struggle with that feeling of losing hope, wondering about why I chased everyone away amd if I can ever find friends like that again, but for the most part and with a little help, I am okay.

The hustle of my younger years has left, I am more interested in the quality of my time, not how many hours I worked last week trying to squeeze one more dollar into my pocket. I seek no promotions, I don't want more responsibility and while I would not say no to a raise, I figure it will come when it comes and as long as I have enough, I'll make due until it isn't and then the conversation will be how to make what I have be enough for what I need. I sought to be something I thought I should be for so long, more money by working harder, longer and more than anyone else didn't get me a damn thing short of burnout and lost time doing what makes me happy. I do what I need to do at work for what they pay me to do, nothing more, nothing less. The exchange has finally become clear...only took me 35+ years...

Now I seek the minimum that I must do so that the time I have left on this planet can be spent seeking a sliver of the happiness I thought all that working could bring me. The time I lost giving to work will never come back and while it did indeed get me a chance to be here, at what cost did it come? 

I've got enough, now to figure out how to make that the thing that makes me happy so that whatever time I have left I can have fewer days under the clouds of my own demise and more sunshine giving me hope.

Polk

March 21st, 2024

On 51

   Looking back on another year around the sun and while my 50th year was a shifting sand dune on which I climbed, stumbled down and rose again, I find myself at much the same spot as last year, albeit with a little more chill in my life. 

  To be honest, not much has changed in the last year, I continued to be somewhat of a recluse outside of working, only stepping out a handful of times for dinner with Kat and only twice to have a quick beer with someone other than her. My circle has shrunk pretty small, I spend more time with Oreo, Marbles and Simcoe than any human and while I may have periods of deep introspection on what caused this loneliness, I can only quote Jimmy Buffett, "But I know, it's my own damn fault...". I watched it happen in real time and hardly recognize myself some days, who is that man in the mirror every morning, practicing his smile and covering his growing fear that it is all coming down to whether he can truly change or continue this slow and steady decline into his winter years. 51 ain't old, but I feel every year, the last decade weighs heavier than my waistline and I struggle with the notion that it was all for nothing, the past is best left undisturbed, lest it drag me down with it.

  I had high hopes for last year, even with the changing of jobs, a summer with a decent stretch of time off and a new job that is lower stress, I still find myself at the same place, with the same thoughts and the same problems. It's a simple fix, but I am either too lazy or too afraid to get moving again. There will come a time when my body decides for me that it has had enough of my inaction and that is the scariest part of what I think about as the lights dim and sleep approaches. I do not want to go gentle into that good night, I want to rage against the dying light, but I also seek solitude and routine, rest and normalcy. 

  I am not an adventurer anymore, nor a glad hander, party guy who has a thousand acquaintances and no lasting friendships. I have seen the top of the mountain, done almost everything I wanted to do when it comes to beer and life. yet I ponder what I could seek that would bring me joy and wonder again. What is it that I want and what am I willing to do to get there? I find myself writing notes to myself at all hours of the day, tucking them into my lunch bag at work for future reference when I am home, jotting down random thoughts that could be the next great idea. I have a dozen half written posts on the go and twice as many little niblets of knowledge that are just outside of my eye line, perhaps I shall find them all one day and inside them the answer I seek. 

  I was once inspired to write about anything that came into my head, sometimes about beer and then my life. I find so much malaise seeps in to my days, but not enough to trigger a full blown descent into depression, just enough to sap whatever inspiration I have found. I push on but also push away from a community I do not fit in anymore, drinking alone and staying home don't sell as well as being out and about. I miss it sometimes, but am I willing to push back against my own routine that I have wrapped around myself as a shield against the world? I don't know, but I will keep hoping that I can find that thing, that divine light I once grasped briefly and let slip away.

Polk

March 18th, 2024