mister know-it-all is finally getting a clue the former smartest guy in the room is receiving his wake-up call the so-called genius who thought he was gonna save the world is beginning to realize that it's passed him by. tonight he dreamed of a reunion with all of his high school peers no one had changed too much then he woke up and realized everything had changed. while he'd been struggling with how it was and dreaming about how it oughta be everyone else had been getting on with it getting married having kids building careers making money growing up. now the arrogant aging wonder boy looks in that yearbook in his head and sees doctors lawyers businesspeople bosses owners academics masters of government and commerce kings and queens of the corporate world wily investors and more millionaires than he probably realizes. he jolts awake at four in the morning sweating heart pounding no wife no kids rented apartment lousy job a few thousand in the bank wondering if there's still time to turn it all around scared to death there isn't worried it's already too late worried that the same reverse jedi mind tricks that got him here will keep him here. so here I am at four AM in the dead quiet of the dark the only sound I can hear is the ringing in my own ears peter pan at midlife plus a few years wondering what the hell happened where it all went the former smartest guy in the room mister know-it-all a victim of my own inner hype narcissistic grandiose egotistic idealistic moralistic unrealistic overcompensating underperforming king of the world (population: one) slapped down by time and my own inflated pretensions. even my dreams lie to me now no one got older nothing has changed plenty of time left ... wake up sleepy man time is ticking am I gonna get real or am I just gonna get old or is it too damn late now anyway no matter what I do.
Tag Archives: midlife
breakdown years
I'm living in the breakdown years and I find myself wondering how I'm gonna go. will I age gracefully like an old oak tree or fall into shambles like an abandoned factory. will I crumble like some ancient monument to better days long forgotten or will I decay like a pile of mulch. will I slide to the bottom of that long hill gradually like a toboggan running out of speed or fall to earth in a flash like a satellite in fiery orbital decay. will my veins encase and suffocate me like overgrown vines wrapped around a junk car in the woods will my dna go haywire and change me into someone I no longer recognize. will I lose my heart will I lose my mind will I lose my way on the way to the exit. I'm still a lot more afraid of getting sick than I am of dying I hate the idea of having to endure some protracted illness that eats me up beats me down and leaves me hanging on to life like a broken door in a broken house hanging from the last screw in its last hinge. there's no shortage of horrible exit scenarios and given what a big deal it is and the fact that we only get to do it once I think we oughta have some say in how it happens. personally I think being struck by lightning is the way to go bang zap kaput flash-fried instant gratification you're done you're dust you're outta here but I understand that sort of thing can be very hard to arrange.
staring into black
sooner or later every man must stop fighting the stars. sooner or later his life will run him down and he will lose what he holds most dear. the one thing that has kept him going given him reason during the day and comfort during the hour of the wolf will slip from his grasp. no beacon no safe harbor dead-eyed stranger in the mirror old fool ground down by the days slack skin staring into black night after sleepless night alone and drowning in the far end of the pool.
obituary 12-11-11
Late last year, my biweekly men’s group decided that each of us would write his own obituary as a self-awareness exercise and bring it into the group for sharing and discussion. I wanted to write something grand that projected a wonderful future in which my struggles and sacrifices were validated and my dearest dreams came true in coming years, but for whatever reason, taking that approach did not feel authentic to me.
Creating a linear narrative with a list of accomplishments in the classic obituary format didn’t work for me either. As an alternative, I decided to approach the exercise as if my life had ended that very day and simply write whatever came to me in response to the event. Here is the result:
obituary 12-11-11 he was a horse of a different color he was an army of one he was a stone on a river bottom he was a bird that fell out of the nest. he was an A student he was the smartest guy in the class he was a tax deduction he was a paycheck. he was a castaway a fugitive a superhero a cowboy a jet pilot a soldier a time traveler a family of astronauts a secret identity. he was an alien from another planet who fell to earth. he felt confused a lot he felt like he didn't belong he felt like something was missing he couldn't wait to grow up even after he grew up. he fell in love with women who didn't love him back he fell in love with women who lied to him he fell in love with women who cheated on him he fell in love with women who didn't appreciate him he fell in love with women who couldn't see him or let him be who he was. he lived for 15 years without loving anyone at all (he never saw that one coming) he kept trying he got tired of trying and sometimes he stopped trying but he never stopped looking. he wanted to help he wanted to make a difference he wanted everything to be better for everybody he couldn't understand why people lied so much and so often when it took so little effort to tell the truth he couldn't understand why people were so mean to one another when it took so little effort to be kind. he was a prisoner he was a punching bag he was a scapegoat he was an exile. he was a flower in a jar a damaged romance a beast in the night a cave full of bats. he put it all on the line he gave everything he had to everything he did he lived at the edges of his edges he fell many times and was broken many times in many ways but he always got back up. he was a sand castle in a tsunami a beam of moonlight landing on a blade of grass an erupting volcano a still mountain stream a quiet moment that passed in the twilight. now the wave that brought him here has taken him back he was ahead of his time he was ahead of the pack he was never sure he mattered at all but he did.
For reasons I can’t fully articulate or even understand, this poem feels incredibly personal to me and I feel incredibly vulnerable, almost naked, sharing it. I declined to share it in the men’s group the first time we brought our obituaries in for discussion, saying I was unhappy with mine and planned to rewrite it. However, there was no rewrite because when I sat with the task, nothing else ever came through, and I finally decided that what I’d written must be what I was supposed to write at this time.
I would still like to write that rosy “dreams fulfilled late in life” obit, and maybe I will at some point, but I guess I had to write this one first.
5001
according to my calculations I've spent something like 5000 days of my life which is getting shorter all the time sitting in cubicles. so how's that new job going? god I just want to run out of here as fast as my legs can take me.
Poetry on video: “present time”
Today’s poem on video, “present time”, was written back in late November and recorded in early February, both of which feel like a lifetime ago as I’m writing today.
I suppose it’s appropriate that I post this video today as this is my last day of “strange freedom”, as I put it a little over nine months ago, before starting a new job tomorrow. I’d love to say I’m excited about it, but I’m not. Relieved that I’m not going to go completely broke, yes. Grateful that I have a way to support myself when so many do not, yes. Happy that I’m going to survive, yes. Excited, no.
These last nine months have been a wonderfully productive time for me. I’ve grown by leaps and bounds. It was absolutely necessary that I take this time with myself, for myself and my own work, and I have no doubt about that. Even so, it’s been a huge drain financially to go without an income for nine months. And once again I have failed, for whatever reason, to translate my most heartfelt passion into livelihood.
I still believe there is a need for what I have to offer. My life would actually be a lot easier if I didn’t believe it. But need and demand are not the same thing. There may be a need. I may be right about that. However, there doesn’t seem to be much of a demand. Or perhaps I just haven’t figured out how to deliver what I have to offer to those who would find it valuable. Or maybe I haven’t fully defined it yet.
When I left my last job nine months ago, in all the uncertainty I felt about what my future might hold, I was sure of one thing: by the time I either found another job or ran out of money, my second book would be out. But Scapegoat’s Cross remains as it has been ever since September 2009, a completed manuscript with no artwork and no path to publication. This is one of the most difficult realities I have to accept as I prepare to move back into cubicleland.
A couple of years ago, I wrote:
Writing, for me, has always had the qualities of a trance, a charm, a spell. It requires a suspension of disbelief on my part: the suspension of my disbelief in myself. It requires me to believe that what I have to say, and how I’m going to say it, will be meaningful and interesting to others. This is a fragile state, magical and mysterious, that can last for moments or months, in which every word matters and every thought or feeling might last forever, if only I’m quick enough to catch it.
At some point, the trance always ends; the charm fades; the spell is broken. My words, thoughts, and feelings seem ordinary again, and there’s nothing left to write.
I feel like that wonderful trance I’ve been in since Iron Man Family Outing began to resurrect itself in September 2007 may be coming to its end, not because I have nothing left to say or nothing left to give, but because the material realities of my life are beginning, once again, to overwhelm my inner vision. I’m simply not going to have the time, the energy, and the opportunity for writing, and for the deep self-work that is the foundation of the writing, and I know it.
Furthermore, I seem to have maxed out all of the channels I’ve been using to draw new folks to my work. Readership for Iron Man Family Outing seems to have peaked and, as I said previously, Scapegoat’s Cross is still dead in the water. The outer side of my work seems to have stagnated and now I can feel the inner side beginning to shut down as well.
Musician Joe Strummer once said, “Songs don’t tend to come to you if there’s no outlet for them.” This has certainly been true in my experience. When I feel I don’t have an appropriate outlet for my work, my creative flow just stops dead. Maybe that’s not happening now, but it sure feels that way to me.
In any case, today is my last day of freedom, freedom that no longer feels strange, but natural. Tomorrow will be different.
If, as I suspect, my well is running dry, I may not post again for a while. In the event that I’m correct about that, I’d like to leave everyone with these three thoughts:
- Men are hungry for ways to access their emotions safely. No man wants to open up and be shamed or scared into shutting back down again.
- Poetry is both undervalued and underutilized as a means to move into the heart of our experience, especially for men.
- The other men I’ve met (and I met some amazing men at Mike Lew’s male survivors workshop yesterday) who are working to recover from childhood abuse are some of the bravest men on the planet.
I hope I’ve done something to bring the truth of these three statements home to some other people. Men need understanding and encouragement if they are to do better. They need to be seen as they truly are. We all need that. We all deserve it.
I still believe there is a different life, a better life, a wholly and completely natural and heartfelt life that serves my needs as it serves the needs of others, waiting inside me to be lived. But I won’t be living it tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day. Perhaps that life is still out there somewhere in my future, but now there is only now.
Poetry on video: “tired of being a bullet”
Today’s poem on video, “tired of being a bullet”, is from my upcoming book Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within. It was inspired by a little butterfly that fluttered across the interstate in front of me one morning as I zoomed along in my metal shell on my way to yet another day of “aim and speed and straight lines” at work.
For more poetry on video, visit my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rickbeldenpoet.
Poetry on video: “lost man”
Today’s poem on video, “lost man”, is from my upcoming book Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within. This is the poem that opens the book.
For more poetry on video, visit my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rickbeldenpoet.
Poetry on video: “use everything”
Today’s poem on video is “use everything” from my upcoming book Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within.
This is one of my personal favorites from the new book and one I like to revisit whenever I feel like life’s getting to be a little too much.
For more poetry on video, visit my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rickbeldenpoet.
stranded in the ashes
stranded in the ashes stumbling in fear identity anxiety nervous riddle dreams. I need to hang on to something I need to let go of something but I don't know which is which. part of me wants to sleep part of me wants to run free on the playground to forget myself to dance the viper's dance to be married in the street to shed the heavy skin of my life the dead weight of what I regret the dark dread of what I avoid and be reborn in the fields.
