too much in your own head

That's what he said. I never worry about you until you get too far into your own head...

Struck a chord. A thick heavy E chord. Ya know? The fatty on your guitar, the one that digs deep into your fingers as you depress, trying desperately to make something similar to music. You press. It hurts and you press harder still. Your feeble finger trying with all it's umph to make a good clean crisp noise. But it waivers. Your finger's strength fails and the sound is more of a rattling, gurgling annoyance. That's how I felt. That's what I feel now. I am trying to make music out of an old guitar. Out of tune. And my fingers are blistered to near oblivion. But still I press that thick string. That tightly wound steel that was made to make music.

Here I am way too far into my own head. Entirely too much these days. You see there are layers and layers of muck and mire I am trying to sort through. I am trying to find the solid ground... This last season of my life has brought so many changes. The rollercoaster of evisceration all began with my getting the boot from my beloved pastors. And sitting there in the aftermath of the cataclysm, I looked at what I was. Who I was. I saw who I really was underneath all I had pretended to be for so long. I had--and for the most part am still having-- one megalith of a question of faith. Trying to find the intersection of my faith and my reality...but this is another 47,000 blogs...one day, one day I will type it all out...but anyhoo...

Next stop folks: THE BLACK HOLE.

What the hell is the Black Hole? The black hole is where you find yourself when you feel free enough to live your life on your terms, and you do so only to feel as though you've made some enormous mistakes. Wondering so many times "where the fuck am I?! How did I get here? What am I doing? I should stop. Go back? No, not turning back...but then what? What now?!"

This my friends is me being too much in my own head. Pondering. Contemplating. Questioning. Answering. Only to question once more. Just figuring it all out. So I say. Guess it's just my way. My way of gathering my thoughts. Straightening them out, and starching them. Creasing them just right. Folding them perfectly. Making sure I no one sees the stains. What stains? Emotions. I hide in my thoughts. I think it through. I ponder every last drop out of it. It's avoidance. I avoid feeling it by thinking. Is this just another gift from dear ole Dad? Maybe... And that gets the thinking turbines turning all over again...

And then I remind myself to be patient. After all, twenty-something years of auto-protect cannot be turned off in 30 days. Approximately 30 days ago is when I started this Dad business. Trying to identify and sort out all the Daddy issues I have. But I know I've merely scratched the surface. Like the storm shutters at the flea market. Old and dirty. Layers of paint and dirt. Paint weather-worn and cracked. In places showing colors underneath, and other places tiny glimpses of the wood. In order to get to the wood-- the parts that make the shutters shutters--you have to take off years and years of paint. The very thing that protected the wood from years and years of storms, is making it an eyesore now. So let us begin. Stripping off the paint. Chemicals. Wire brushes. And finally sand paper...