the morning frost

it's still dark out when we rise, we eat and dress and the morning rush is upon us and hurriedly the kids run out the door and jump onto the bus and then all of a sudden it's quiet again. the silence is deafening. it could eat me alive if I let it. but I don't. slowly I go about, turning off lights and laying rest to the chaos that was present only moments ago. I want to go back to sleep, so very badly, but the dark room isn't always a safe haven and I need to do some marking. alas, the server is still down and I am locked out. I should have thought to download the files, but I didn't. how was I to know it would crash, anyways? good excuse to mindlessly peruse the interwebs and pay bills. money is such a fickle thing, just an illusion really - but the + dollars that appear on my bank app provides me with false gratification for the moment, and I'll take it because Tuesday mornings aren't my favorite. it is both validating and depressing to watch as the number on the screen get's smaller and smaller with every tap of my finger. I wonder what it feels like to never really have to worry about how much is there or if it's going to be enough. such a persuasive thing, money. if I were anybody else, I would have taken the opportunity to swim in it, but I can't fool my heart that way. the bills finally paid, I find myself restlessly attempting to log in again to start marking. no such luck, what now? suppose I should read the book, organize the office, clean, cook, what? all of the things that should be occupying my mind - and yet, I stay where I am and feel guilty instead. should should should. not feasible, not sustainable, not going to make it out alive this way. and I'm swallowing my words now, after countless conversations as I guide friends through rough patches with "the scenery is always changing". but is it? it feels incredibly stationary at the moment, and I am swarmed by the buzzing of little voices mocking me. ruthless as school yard children taunting, the voices know my weak spots and they have no mercy for my pleading today. I need to get out of these walls, but the frost on the ground is urging me back to sleep for wait of the sun to melt the cold. if only it were that simple.

that's how summer passed

the air is sharp, crisp. my favorite time in the 365 days that pass us by - the shift from heat and beach days to changing colors of the earth and chilly mornings. I am satisfied by the sound of shuffling leaves on the forest floor, for if only just that moment. this wandering mind has so often in the past left very little space for compensation. trial and error is a way of life, and it's hard to keep in check an ongoing expectation of who I presented in the first place. did you know I couldn't keep it up forever? but here I am, trying again. I so readily take it on as a fault of my own - an internal flaw that has shaped so much of my journey. This incessant need to create and destruct. but destruction of self just isn't flattering with an audience - and now the time has come to super glue the pieces back together so that I'm not always falling apart. It's a job, to be sure. and I suppose I told you this would make it better, in a moment of face swapping where the piece of me that sees the beauty in everything held the front stage and assured you of my disposition. confusing, to be certain - this shifting of persona that often takes place in the quiet space between seasons. but it would be a lonely life without you - and this isn't a game, is it? surely you know I am not playing. but when my mind is wandering, well, I can get into all sorts of trouble. and I lay quietly beside your resting spirit and I wonder if you know just how much I love every single thing about you. in the way that even the habits that make me feel crazy are appreciated because it all adds up to make you into the man I have fallen so deeply in with. it may seem so strange, but isn't that how we like it best anyhow? a whole lotta crazy with a good dash of oddity and strangeness for flavor? and I maybe let down some of the expectations that you had coming into this, and for that I feel a bit bad. but in all honesty, you knew better than to come with any illusions of me. we grow and we shift and the seasons change, and we'll take it on as it comes because that's how we roll. with the punches. and so summer has passed, and autumn is upon us, and more punches are rolling in... leave the illusions at the door - we've got so much more left to do together. still breathing.