On the Inside

First off, thanks to everyone for the "Welcome Back"!! I was afraid you'd all wandered off to find more entertaining pastures during my abscence. Oh, and Lynn, my first official fan, now has her own blog, called "Spilling Ink in Public" (cool name!) which I have linked to over on the side. Just wanted to bring that out from the comments and onto the front page.

So, I had a 2,800 word day on "First" today . . . and it was fun! Seriuosly, I just started writing without setting any limits, deadlines, or goals. All I wanted to do was just let it flow and have fun while I was doing it. That worked nicely. It felt really good to just let it all go at the speed it wanted and in the direction it wanted. I stayed within my outline but I still got some real unexpected results. That's what makes this gig so cool, ain't it?

So SRH says he's interested in seeing what the "interior" changes I've gone through recently are. Shit, dude, that makes two of us! I don't know what they are really, except that I feel calmer inside right now than I have in many, many, years . . . mayber calmer than ever in my life. Generally speaking, I have always been a pretty stressed guy on the inside. I've always been good about staying calm where folks can see but inside . . . volcano waiting to go all BOOM and stuff!!! I have never liked myself very much and I've always been disappointed in what I've accomplished in my life. somehow I keep feeling that I should have been more, should have done more . . . I always felt like a fraud; that I was playing a charade. I had to make everyone think I was a succesful, hard-working, guy with his head on straight and solid plans for any eventuality.

Guess what?

I'm not.

I'm a friggin' chuckle-head who is stumbling along trying to do the right thing as best I can. I screw up (a lot, just ask The Wife!) I fail, and I have no better idea of how to run my life than anyone else. Right now, I'm alright with that. For some reason, the competitiveness that I've always had with myself seems to have gone away and I am looking at things in a much more relaxed light. Even the rampant insanity at work doesn't seem to bother me all that much. I just take one thing at a time, do it , and let the other stuff wait for when I can get to it. I'm not killing myself anymore trying to get everything done at once. Same is true in my regular life. I'm just doing what I can and not sweating the rest of it. The problems will still be there tomorrow . . . I can stress over them then.

See, I have a great family, and a good life. I'm not in need of anything and I can afford to get most of the toys I want, when I want. That's not too shabby for a schmuck who was on his own at 14 and never graduated high school (story for another day!). Believe it or not I've just come to realize that over the last few weeks. The voices in my head were so loud and intent on screaming: "More, More! Faster and Farther!" that I never took a moment to stop and see where I actually was. Do I want to go further? Sure I do . . . that's part of life, I guess. Only the dead are satisfied, but I think I want to stop running and start strolling through life for a bit. I have this nagging feeling I've missed a lot of really cool stuff along my way because of how fast I was running.

Yea . . . walking for a bit will be nice.

Later!