The birds are twittering with great veracity outside. They tend to start in around 4am. Sometimes they drive me nuts, especially when it is a mockingbird that has learned to imitate car alarms and iPhone rings, sometimes it is comforting. Maybe nobody remembers that scene in The Accidental Tourist where Macon talks about the night and how at times one could feel they were the sole living person but something about that stuck to me. While I am not prone the intense, crying-piteously-for-myself bouts of loneliness, I have been struck by the notion of loneliness- mostly in the way of feeling that people just don't get me. That notion that feels like a heavy sigh that I am just different from other people and the sometimes wistful sigh that I could just be elated to watch Dancing with the Stars and punch the clock of my time on this earth.
And that's okay because really, I don't need people to get me. I get me most of the time and that is what counts. The hard part is when you begin to feel like life is a boxing match and you are always bobbing and weaving, ducking and moving, dancing faster and faster- trying not to let it hit you like a wet sheet or a truck or the concrete water after jumping off a bridge- that we are always alone, no matter what, and the ultimate lesson is to figure out, not how to connect with others or love others, but how all that comes together, falls into place, when you connect with yourself, when you are accountable and when you can look yourself in the eyes in the mirror or in the dark of the night and still love yourself.
The birds, though. Why do they always sing? Maybe they just know that is what they are here for. I am beginning to understand what I am here for but I have been avoiding it because I know that fulfilling my purpose will not be easy. I'm procrastinating because I feel like I must be a baby turtle trying to make it across the highway, pulled by some force I don't understand, unknowing entirely but compelled anyway.
As I lighten my load, both literally and figuratively- letting go of books and boxes, of things, letting go of the past, letting go of parts of me that serve only to hold me down and back, the pull is so strong it hurts. I wonder if I will sing, be like the birds, doing only what I know to do because that is what I become, what I AM.
No, don't call in the folks with the white coats. You can't fix what isn't broken. And while sometimes it is hard being me, that is just what I am and like the river that always runs back to it's bed, no matter how anyone tries to change me, I'm still just going to be me.
"Men are that they might know joy..." The birds understand, why is it so hard for us people?
Even Kitteh understands- lolling on my electric blanket, warm and loved. We all are just who we are and I am grateful for that if nothing else.
So the birds, yep, they can be comforting. I'm not alone. But I am.
Here wanes my philosophical meanderings. It is a new day and I'm still here.
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