Love, Life and Things That Go Bump in the Night

Don’t ask about the title….I have no idea. Anyhow. Another of my short stories got published this past Sunday. Take a look if you dare….The Drain

The trip to Maryland went well. Got to see my aunt, my grandma, a couple of my second cousins, and my first cousin. It was a regular family reunion! It was good. The drive…not so much.

Writing is going slow. I need to pick it up, because I have a crapton of ideas roaming through my head that are just begging to be released. I don’t know though. To be honest, I like keep them chained in the dark corner. They get fed three times a day, can get to a bucket to pee in. They have everything they need. I don’t know why they are pissing and moaning so loudly. If they keep it up, I will need to smack ’em around a bit to keep them quiet.

Work is going well. Thinking about putting Subway in my next short story. My next short is kind of a sci-fi horror. I have been writing on it for a while. Actually, it’s a story I wrote waaaay back when I was sixteen. Funny story actually. Several months ago, I asked my mom if she had a desk that she wasn’t using. Something I could use when I write. We went up to the attic to see what was hanging out up there and there it was. My mom’s old desk that I used when I was in school. I had my step father help me to bring it down stairs and I cleaned it up. There were some things in the drawers, old papers and all. Some of the things in there were my step brother’s and step sister’s, but I came across a manilla folder. I opened it and there, nestled amid school-time poetry, was a 12 page story I wrote in high school.

Now, please understand, I had been thinking about this story off and on for the last five years, so finding this small piece of treasure was quite shocking. What did finding it tell me? That it was time to rewrite it. So that’s what I am doing. I am rewriting the story. Bringing it up to date. I think the readers will say “wtf?” if I leave the “walkman” in there. I need to change it to something more current. 😉

Life is in a bit of a turmoil for me at the moment. I am at a crossroads. Not necessarily with what I want to do with my life, because I already know what I want to do with my life. No. The crossroads is more of a spiritual crossroads. More of an emotional crossroads. I am thinking more about the state of the world. How we, as a society, are focusing on insignificant things. I know. I know. What is insignificant is quite relative. But, seriously, worried about what other people are doing, not doing, saying, not saying, etc. Where does that really get us? Nowhere. It gets us nowhere. Let’s focus on bettering our own lives.

Why is that such a “bad” thing to say? Why is that such a “selfish” thing to say? Don’t we always say “You have to love yourself in order to love others”? We aren’t loving ourselves and we are making others around us miserable. Why do we have to get the best because our neighbor has it. Why are we so worried about one upping those around us? This is why we, as a society, are so miserable. Because we have to much. And we look down at those who don’t have what we have. When did possessions determine our place in the world?

If you focus on your own marriage, then you won’t have time to focus on mine (or lack there of). If you focus on being happy within yourself, then you wouldn’t have to worry about my happiness. Because what it all boils down to is this….nothing and no one can make me happy but me. Are you so miserable in your life that you have to “one up me” by making me miserable as well? How did we get there??

We escaped England because of persecution. Yup. Mainly religious, but that created ripples….it also involved moral persecution, emotional persecution and, yes, even physical persecution. So what are we doing now a few hundred years later? We are going out of our way to persecute each other….for the same damn things! When are we going to stop? We are only going to stop when we destroy everything and everyone around us. But we aren’t going to see it. We will blame it on everyone but ourselves. We will even blame it on whatever higher power we put our faith in. In reality….WE did it. WE destroyed everything around us, but we are too egotistical to see it. And THAT, my friends, is the real tragedy.

Wake up and stop all the hatred. Stop the accusing. Start loving yourself so you can love others around you.