I can’t tell you how many times in the last few years I’ve put my head in my hands, warm tears streaming through my fingers, and asked myself What am I gonna do?
Some nights I have come here, to the studio, with every intention of putting in a full night’s code, or mixing that new idea down, and ended up laying on my back, staring at the lights overhead and listening to my heart beat.
Somehow I’ve been waiting for something to happen, for something to give. I can officially announce that something has certainly given, and taken, and given again. I realize that this movement I’ve been awaiting wasn’t actually intended to come from something. Something has been waiting for me. Ok, yes… it’s obvious now, and maybe that’s no deep insight, but for years this simple idea has eluded me, baffled me, hurt me deeply.
But what am I going to do?
Today in conversation with my son’s preschool director I asked the questions What will happen next time? Surely this is going to happen again, and what I want to know is how can we be a part of the solution? This has to change. Where is this going to end? The director looked at me with her dark, twinkling eyes and said “That’s a very good question. How do you want it to end?” We brainstormed about this, and came up with positive, assertive, and proactive solutions. It was a good conversation.
Back here in the studio, work to do, and a thousand feeling inside of me, I begin my nightly ritual of booting up the machines, and staring at the wall. Listening to the exhaust fan porting my cigarette smoke outside, and feeling my fingers go numb in the cold. My head slips between my fingers, and I say it: What am I gonna do?
The truth is I know exactly what I am going to do. I do, there’s no question about it in my mind. I know who I am, what I believe, and where I’m headed. The next seven months are fairly well planned. A lot of work, a lot of change, and a lot of adjustment. I may not be dancing with joy about all of it, but I am pretty pleased about a lot of it. So if that’s the case, then what’s the real question?
The question is How do you want it to end?
I want a happy ending. I do. No Greek tragedy for me, and no Baroque poison either please. I don’t want an Olde English head nodding lesson in breeding or commerce either. And I definitely don’t want to flicker out like some unnoticed wus. No, a happy ending it is. I want to proceed with dignity, and with love. I want to be true to my heart, and follow the things that are simply right.
When my son was born I asked my mentor what I was going to do about the potential for genetic transmission of addiction and alcoholism. He chuckled, and asked “Do you love your son?” to which I replied without a second thought “Yes!” And with a grin he advised me “Then you already know everything you need to know. If you love your son, then all you have to do is behave like someone who loves him. He’s going to be just fine.”
He’s right you know… that’s all I have really had to do. It’s really all I have to give. Everything else I’ve tried seems to cause a lot of trouble and ends up hurting me the most. So I give in to love, and offer it openly with every scrap of my heart.
That’s the way I want this to end.
How do you want it to end?
12 Comments
What makes you think there is an “end”?
I am not a hostage, or a victim. I am a willing participant. I simply can not live for the responses and reactions of others. You may not have all of that power.
And so I choose my role, my words, my destiny. What may feel like an avalanche is the result of choices I have made, and it’s wonderful to know that I have a say in how all of this turns out.
I am actually dazzled by the idea. My life isn’t wrote, or pre destined. Karma offers me a crossroads, and the choice is mine, not yours.
isn’t it interesting, and powerful, to consider the avalanche as you call it, all being the result of choices we’ve made in life. what a creative power we have to mold and shape life. it leaves me in awe, sometimes even a dreadful awe when i let myself wallow in fear that my intentions, conscious and unsconcious, might be unclear or unsound. every single thought has creative power. it’s can also be very relieving, and exciting at the same time. excitement about the endless possibility… and freedom and joy that comes with the release of toxic emotions stemming from the belief that creation and momentum exists out there instead of in our own minds.
i’m tired of the greek tradgedy of my life. of just reacting to circumstances and then blaming the circumstances.
i want the happy ending.
six years ago i decided to let life teach me what i needed to know. i just didn’t expect it to be so, you know, like… hard. : )
here’s to strenght to make the right choices when the wrong ones taste so sweet.
Do our “wrong” choices really taste sweet?
Are you talking about how if feels good to you to choose pain? Or are you talking about how irresistable it can be to choose to proceed against our better judgement? You know… like when we don’t really listen to our hearts?
There have been too many times in my life where I wanted something so badly that I did not listen to my heart. These have always been both the singularly most terribly painful, humilliating moments of my life. And yet, lessons I never forget.
I wonder….
I wonder if this isn’t a choice as well?
unfortunatly, there is a certain pleasure when i feel pain but i was more referring to when you see what is best for you and your growth but the temptation of the pleasures of old habits threaten to push you down the wrong path.
i’ve been out of a painful end of a relationship only two weeks and i had two conversations with a ‘pretty girl’. i already saw my self up to my old tricks. trying to impress, present her with the bright shiny image that i know now is definitely not me. it would be so easy to lose myself in this ‘next’ distraction. it would be sweet. and later probably bitter. but i’d know that it is not what my heart wants.
thats the sweetness of wrong choices i was talking about.
Ah…
yes, the actor. Is that how you want it to end? I’ve been down that road, and find that the moment where the real me comes out is a priceless one. there’s nothing quite like it. that dance is the ballet of self hatred. I know each step so well that i begin the dance without a second thought. funny, because the second thought is usually more honest when i have my ballet slippers on.
take this for what it’s worth my friend:
maybe try being honest. just be beautiful, flawed, broken you. therein lies the only road to loving yourself. from there, anything is possible.
I admire your courage to be honest. follow that road… wherever it leads you.
thank you sunshine.
however you did get me thinking with the choosing pain because it is pleasurable comment.
that would explain why i formed a relationship with someone who would hurt me. i wanted them to hurt me. its like i hid my masocistic desires from myself. ??? i guess then i got to feel so selfrightous when she cheated on me. makes it easier to forgive hurt when i see that i wanted it in the first place.
sorry.
i’m really looking foward to dancing with you at cielo and then miami!
peace and thank you sunshine
Where does the path to yourself lead? How does not learn to tune into the frequency if the heart to hear its true message? It seems so elusive to hear it speak with all the noise and distractions that surround!
But I guess people spend their whole lives trying to hear its voice and decipher its message……
But recently, I have found that the only real, honest, meaningful way to know how you want it to end is to have begun to comprehend this voice, this strange alien language that should come to our lips as readily as breath….
I get so overwhelmed sometimes, because I feel so young and that I have so much ot learn and so much loneliness to face ahead, yet I do not want to dishonor the journey…
Is this path really so hard or are these simply the aches of growth and change?
I suppose everything is a lesson. Maybe everything is true. Maybe nothing is.
The power of any given moment is amazing, when the fear of future events, and regret of past experiences fall away. In a moment I am awake, right here, vibrant and amazed. The best thing about any given moment is that there is nothing wrong.
That said, it takes practise, and patience, and kindness to join the world in the here and now. What you will find, I don’t know. That’s for you.
But the void is waiting…
That’s what I meant. I hope you are having an excellent journey.
I hope that you are too!
* huge happy smile *