With The High Beams On

I had to work late last night. Really late. After dropping off one of my colleagues at his house at 3:50 am…I began the quiet, solitary drive back to my apartment some 20 minutes away. It had been raining during parts of the evening so the roads were slick and black. After a balmy couple of days, a slight chill had entered the air, causing steam to rise from the patches in the asphalt where the sun had left its warm mark hours earlier. With my high beams illuminating the scene, it looked like upside down rain as the mist rose up into the darkness, forming dozens of mini storm clouds right before me. I love that feeling on a cool, quiet evening when it feels like I’m the only person awake for miles…when the moonlight is just right and I’m in that state of tiredness where I’m not drowsy, but ‘dazed’. If only I could capture that feeling and carry it around with me in my pocket for those moments during the day when it feels like I’m being covered in an avalanche of people. I spend a lot of time by myself…sometimes by choice…occasionally not…and its precisely these moments when I’m alone…be it for only 10 minutes, an entire hour…or simply a blink of the eye…that I live for. I know there are much bigger and better things to be had in this life…but when you feel like your always coming up short, always on the losing end, you learn to snatch whatever victory you can wherever you can…no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Sometimes, its all I have.

As it stands, I’ve been going through a really rough patch recently. I’ve got a pretty good handle on what it is that’s troubling me so much…a volatile mixture of career and personal uncertainty, with a dash of heartache is polluting my heart and mind and has been off and on for some time now. Usually the ride is an up and down affair…never up for too long…never down long either…but this last trench seems like it was dug out of the Grand Canyon. I’m still waiting for the nose to start pointing up again. This tired despair has rendered me void of almost all creativity and interest in virtually anything whatsoever. Thus no blog. For the past week or so I’ve been like a zombie…dragging my half conscious carcass around with me wherever I go. However, that’s not the worst part…the worst part is the energy I expend putting on a brave (and friendly) face at work. I’m not naturally a cheerful, happy person, (this much is clear by now, right?) but I’ve always seen my job as a challenge…an opportunity for me to ‘grow’ as a person…become more personable…more approachable…a challenge I was up for. And while I have surprised myself with my ability to navigate my way through a never-ending carousel of personalities…the toll it takes on my soul cannot be ignored. I fear eventually I just won’t be able to wear the mask anymore…the façade will crumble and the curtain pulled back to reveal the real me…the frustrated, angry, fed up underachiever who can’t seem to catch a break no matter what he tries. He wouldn't last 2 days.

All I can do is try. Put my best foot forward, be as true to myself as I can, and hope that light bulb goes off soon…cause sometimes it gets awfully dark in here…even with the high beams on.