Nine Months of Dreaming

Part 3

My grandkid's visited today. It's nice when they surprise me. I smiled to myself.

We should've skipped parenting and went straight to grand-parenting. I said to Sarah and chuckled. It has all the joys of kids, but without the headache.

Sometimes I forget I'm an old man. I'm reminded, not only by the mirror. All I need to do is move my bones. Those sons of bitches don't let me forget, but when I'm still, very still, time ceases to exist. For lack of better terms, I move to a place beyond time. A place where I just am, some call it the present. But I don't think a word can capture it. I was here when I was 4, and also 40. This place right now, it doesn't change. That's pleasure for an old man like me.

When I was young, I had an idea of what it was like to be old. Not old for a kid, which is 30, but old for an adult. I pictured old men wise and knowledgeable, at least the people who aren't born morons. I know I'm not a moron, but I don't feel wise. I'm not an expert in much, but I'm very knowledgeable about my life experience and myself. I'm certainly more stoic, but I don't think that makes me wise. I just don't give a damn. Maybe it's because I only have so many damns left to give, or because I simply don't have the energy.

Either way, it's an interesting way to exist.

Unlike my entire life, my calendar is empty. I believe it frees up space in my brain. I can see better, I notice what's around me. Not only to my surroundings, but I also can see what's going on inside my head.

I've always known that someday I'm going to die. We all fundamentally know this. But we don't understand or comprehend what it actually means. All we know is living, death isn't something we can fathom.

Even though we don't know death, some people give their respect to it. Sometimes it happens when you're young, and you're forced to bow down. But instead, you're sparred more time when on you're kneeling before it. But for most, you bow down when you know the end is near.

I heard a quote one time, it said we have two lives; one is when you're born, and the other is when you realize you're going to die. In my opinion, the second life is when you begin to live.

The trick is to learn to dance before the parties over. At least now, I can feel the rhythm of life, but I'm too weak to dance. So I'll sit in my chair and sway.

It's been 20 years since I lost Sarah. I still act as if she never left. And so I talk. And wait for a response. It feels too alien not to speak to her, so I just do what's habituated. I wonder if she does the same. Maybe we've had the same conversations when talking to ourselves. Or perhaps I'm just lonely.

She must have hated watching herself grow old. She always obsessed over physical looks, not mine, or others, only her own, her beautiful self. She treated her body like a form of art. A living breathing sculpture, Biology is the paint, and actions are the brush. But eventually, you lose grasp on the brush. And time takes over your canvas. Nobody enjoys what time creates.

I imagine with every year, her ass sagged closer to the floor, and no amount of squats could bring it back up. I wish I could have been there; to tell her she looks more beautiful than ever.

Eventually, Sarah would've gotten over it and just stopped giving a damn. I would have liked to see that day. The beauty radiated from that realization would be worth dying for. It's a shame.

My friends wanted to buy me an Artificial Intelligence with her personality and body. They said it would be indistinguishable from my wife, I mean X wife. But I had to decline. I believe honesty is sacred in life, and most importantly, honesty to yourself. Creating a reality for myself with its foundation in illusion seems like a jail cell. Maybe I'm the fool, perhaps it's all already illusion, and our only decision is to pick the best lie. Either way, I will choose the option that I believe to be true, even if I wish it wasn't.

I wish I applied that earlier in life. Practically every day for 40 years, I chose to do something I didn't enjoy, all for comfort. I don't understand what I was thinking, how simple it would have been. But in the moment, I felt trapped. No matter the situation, I couldn't find a way out. I was just too afraid to look for a door.

For years, I let painting sizzle on the backburner, until the flame finally went out. But the gas still leaked, filling my mind. Until one day, I tried to turn the flame back on, and my whole life exploded. When I avoided my truth, my entire life came to terms with it. If you avoid your truth, one of two catastrophes will happen. Either you resent it, and slowly die from the gas, or you attempt to turn the flame back on, and everything explodes.

When I turned it back on, I forgot about the life I constructed outside of painting. It still meant a lot to me. But my passion alienated everything else. It dissociated me; I went crazy. It created a lie that everything in my previous life was the enemy. I thought I had to choose between the life ahead of me and the life I left beyond. All I needed was a little reconstructing to fit in my passion. But my sick head fucked it all up, and that's how I lost Sarah.

If only I followed painting when I was young, and it was still on a simmer. I would have been able to keep my two loves, Sarah and art.

But it's alright. It's all alright. I'm here now, and that's all that matters. I gained one truth and lost another.

I think that's why Sarah was my greatest creation. My favorite human and my passion were combined. My two loves joined forces in my mind to create a masterpiece.

That's enough now, I get the point, it's time to sleep.