To Begin Anew

Writing about our life is not easy. It is like looking up from your dinner to find your hot date has spinach on her teeth. You tell her, because you want to be honest, but you do it in a classy, clever way that won't make her hate you for seeing her with spinach on her teeth.

Our life is not easy, nor always happy. We are Five Happiness because we always try to remember who we want to be, though it's not always who we are. We get caught in the trap of wanting, and forget that we set the trap in the first place. We forget about the needs we have. We gloss over the simple and the necessary and jump to the complicated desires which require we step in the mud.

One of the intentions we hold foremost in our minds preparing for our jump into hyperspace (read: East coast) is paring down our lives to remember who we want to be and what we hold around ourselves and in our environment. For instance; I, who have been performing theater for most of my life, realized as a product of our discussions, I don't really enjoy it anymore. What a revelation. Trying so hard to make something the focus of your life when it is a falsehood is like running a car with the idea of gas. Getting out and walking feels like the best thing in the world. Like the diver taking off the lead vest, without the bends.

That's not to say I won't act again. But it opens up a huge space in my life. Now, I plan to get my master's degree, to be the creative designer geek I have always played at in my head, but never pulled into a form or shape I could set in my sight. Excitement where there was dread! Form from the void! That is creativity: Living purposefully. I have my wife to thank for these revelations. She who daily looks into the face of the future and wipes it clean of spit and goo. She sees things much clearer than I, especially after quitting her job of 16 years. That takes guts. Being an adult takes guts. This adulthood thing may actually be worth something. (Though Felicity and I agree, we're still 26 on the inside.)

I leave you, mon lectur, with this image. Destroy your ambition. As Anne Sexton wrote, "...ambition is the death of the poem." I believe it can also be the death of the life well lived. She was a student of Rilke in this sentiment. Strive to be a beginner. That way, everything is new.