Conceptualizing The Plan

Standing by Houston, standing by.
expecting clean first stage separation.
Will commence the appropriate countdown.

I did the SHOUT OUT by myself today. It wasn't all that hard. But it wasn't all that full either. There were only about ten people there, which didn't cause my meters to go off the scale. It still terrifies me, but I go through it. I think to those outside looking in, I look pretty calm, cool, and collected. But on the inside, all the engineers are running riot.

I took a hot shower today and trimmed my beard. I don't know why I'm still wearing one of these things. I don't know if it makes me look handsomer or dumber. I never get compliments on it. I never even get negative comments on it, so that I would shave the damn thing off! I look at my face in the mirror. Nothing is changed. Just harder edged, more grizzled no thanks to this fucking crazy assed beard, but other than that, nothing has changed. No new lines. No hanging skin.

But I know it's coming. I remember thinking that I would be young forever. Well, now I'm thinking that I'm going to be close to middle age all of my life. Oh no. There comes the onset of age. Growing old. I feel it in the center of my joints. Not yet radiating outwards. I wonder what I'm going to be when I grow old. Decrepit. On the streets? I dunno. I just know, if everything goes according to my five year principle, I'm in deep, deep trouble.

I leave the bathroom and walk down the hall, dressed in my long pullover-tee. I am allowing my body to air dry, which is cool in the hot summer months in my room. The reason why? Because it is as hot as a bastid in there. You could faint being in there too long. Recently I've had the air conditioner on, keeping the room at a constant 80 degrees. But when it gets colder than that, the air/conditioner is useless. I don't know about now, now that it's getting cold. It's not cold today though so, wheee!

My five year principle is simple. Nothing about you remains the same in five years. Not you, not where you are, not your clothes or your predicament. For better or for worse. Good Karma or bad. Nothing remains the same, given five years. Sometimes shorter than five, sometimes longer. Of course if you own a house, with a 30 year mortgage, your living circumstances MIGHT not change much in five years plus. But the things in it will change. And at the very least, you will change.

I thought of my five year plan right before my wife left me actually (I like to say that instead of divorced me, because she left me first, and then the divorce papers came via county sheriff). I was watching this show about job interview online and they had an employer asking the question, where do you think you'll be in five years? Do you have a five year plan? And you know what my smart assed answer would be. 'I'd be sitting in your seat in five years'. I smile. Well, then my wife left and I realized that I didn't have a five year plan. Then I got evicted, and I still didn't have a plan. I lived on the streets, and then it was 'Fuck the Plan'. Things kept getting progressively worse so I was under the impression that without a five year plan...you'll go to Hell in a hand basket.

That was until the Q came along with new digs, and gear. I got an upgrade on everything that you need in the streets, and I still didn't have a fucking plan. Then Dr. A. got me into a great shelter. I know I bitched about it much, but there was a lot to bitch about. Still it was one of the best run shelters in the city. I'd have to admit. So, I slept there in a men's shelter for a year, staring at the ceiling and slowly unraveling but keeping the edges together somehow, holding myself from coming apart. And after a year and some days, they had an SRO for me. I packed my shit and now I'm living in an SRO. One of the best in the whole damn city. Without a five year plan, but realizing that things will change in five years, depending on how stable your life is.

But my life has been on an upwards course every five years. Things are becoming survivable, liveable, sustainable. In other words, better and better. Who knows, as I sit in my little room, maybe my exile from humanity is quickly coming to an end. Maybe I will be allowed back in, supporting myself (through my writing that is...but at this point I'll take almost anything), with a gorgeous woman, money in the checking account, new gear, the works.

Maybe that's not asking for too much. There was once a time...true story...that I was sleeping on a collection of benches fashioned into a bed in front of the Manhattan Public Library...you know the one...it looks like a museum with the lions out front and all. We call it the Big House. Well, I'm sleeping outside of the Big House and staring at the stars and saying to myself. This is my life now.

NO! I had no concept of what my life would be like. I'm laying in a warm bed now, with a roof over my head and a door I can lock and I say: This is my life now.

NO! I have no concept of what my life will BE like. None whatsoever. And with that being the case, I will stay restless. I will be the shark in the water. Never stopping, it can't stop moving or it will suffocate. Always hungry, always searching.

Yeah. I'm a shark alright.

Like the Hell I am.


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