Clean Up After Your Plans

More of my rumin- ations.

I'm going back now. Back to where I was menaced by two things:

1) a Five Year Plan and, 2) Plans in general.

PLANS. The menace of mankind. We believe in these things as if we have the power to control life. We make plans for that dream vacation as if that nightmare ailment will not strike us down. We plan for that promotion, just before the big layoffs. We choose to live in the creature comforts of a home, just before the mortgage rate is driven up by inflation. It's all a fact of life that we don't control even the littlest things. That time we burned dinner, that time we fucked up fucking that woman, that time we failed that absurdly easy test, that time our child spilled the last of his fucking milk for crissakes! We control ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

So why do we make plans as if we do?

The truth is that we make plans to make us feel safe and secure. It means that we DO have control over our lives and that everything isn't just a RANDOM group of events that happens whether we like it or not. We convince ourselves that life cannot be that RANDOM, not at all. Or else we would be facing the unbelievable, that we live in a constant state of chaos.

We believe that we have some control, any. We get up, go to work, punch that clock, go home when done. We watch television, or go out and do something we feel constructive or entertaining or meaningful, and then we do it again. Before we know it, on one sunny day, some nut loses control in the mall and starts firing indiscriminately into the crowds and you're struck in the back. Or the Staten Island Ferry misses the pier and you lose both legs. Yeah, just that random, just that stochastic.

So then, if we look at even the littlest of things being out of our control, how do we juggle the impossible feat of FIVE YEARS of our lives. How do we even know that we'll be alive in five years? We could be hit by a car between then and now. If it's so hard to plan for today, what makes us think that we can plan for five years from now? Kind of like a fucking stretch, no?

I know that I'm harping on this five year thing, but it is a thorn in my motherfucking side. It annoys me that I'm asked to come up with the damn near impossible. And because I can't I'm some sort of nut or something. Here comes more motherfucking LAMICTAL! I'm not saying that I shouldn't aim for something, because that would literally mean aimlessness. A 'Buzzard' I do not want to become. You see, I have my living examples as to who to imitate and who not to.

But my aims are normally in smaller, more controllable pieces. I move grains of sand, not bricks. This way I can be assured of progress, of doing something that I believe that I can control more than others. My speed is slower than most, because I'm not trying to do any heavy lifting. I'm just doing that which I can manage. That which I'm capable of. And then there are the occasional things that drop my way that I had no control of, but is life changing and life affirming. Things that are unbelievable, things that you couldn't even plan for. But they occur, believe me. Trust me on this one. Good things do happen. Fantastic things do rear their heads. Just as something unbelievably horrible can happen to you, also can something unimaginably good. I'm no pessimist.

My future hangs in the balance here. I take this seriously. I don't want to go back to my old life. That is now dead. I'll not make plans to go back. I'll not make plans to go forward with something I don't want to do. I'm at the lowest rung of the social ladder here, there is nothing here that I 'have' to do. Honestly. I say that with laughter in my voice.

I want to be a writer, and every thing no matter how miniscule that I can do to get there, I will. I will succeed in the microcosm, on the cellular level. Which will make for a much, much more stable climb out of he hole I'm in. It makes it harder to topple. And if something tragic happens, or more tragic happens, I'll be pleased to say that I tried my damnest, I just didn't plan.

"What you're telling me about your life is tragic, Mr. Hobobob," Nurse G says to me, puzzled and perplexed. "And yet you say it with a broad smile on your face."

What do you want me to do, Nurse, G? Cry? Do you want me to sit here sobbing, reaching out for a tissue? Sorry, I've paid the price of admission. I've already been on the ride. I'm tired of this game. So I'll walk proud away from it. I'll walk proud in one direction, one foot slightly before the other towards the sunrise.

I guess that's my plan.

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