“Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I'm so smart I can negate any dream.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Sitting here staring out the window at 6:35 central time, my constant companion tinnitus ringing monotonously in my ears.
A runner trots past my window and up the hill. I ran yesterday, and should probably be out there right now pounding pavement before my day gets swallowed in depositions and conference calls. I know better than to believe I'll take an evening run. Once P gets home, I just want to hang out with her. It is debilitating.
Dean jumps up into the chair where I'll spend the day on Zoom. He's feeling this malaise as well.
I ponder for a moment whether anyone would notice if I just tied my bowtie around his neck and set him up in front of the computer to defend this deposition in a couple hours while I go nap. It's probably too late to teach him the primary skill of a lawyer defending a deposition--the ability to say "object to the form of the question" at random intervals.
Why this weariness? Having a nightcap after supper probably didn't help, but that doesn't seem to be the issue. Spending my weekend in an intense training environment, then flying solo halfway across the country in an unfamiliar airplane probably explains a great deal. I started the week exhausted, and have never really caught up. Another long flight is two days down the road, and I'm already a little fidgety about the weather creeping across the midwest right now, heading toward our path of flight back to the Gulf coast. I love to fly, but am reaching an age where the demand to be present for several hours at the controls can be draining. Shorter trips are better.
The shifting landscape of our lives, P and I, is also taking its toll. This time last year I would have never predicted I'd be living in an old house in upstate New York, and now that we appear at the back end of this experience there are big decisions to be made, commitments to take on or forgo. Not committing is a choice, as well. We love it here, work is there, and we find ourselves discerning a path that allows us to live in both worlds. This entails risk and debt and the possibility of an unrecoverable misstep if we choose poorly.
I don't see us ever completely leaving Corning, but that choice involves investment and infrastructure that are funded by my work back in Florida. The airplane is a first step, allowing a safe and fast means of getting back-and-forth. Next is figuring out where we'll drop our bags when we're here. We have a plan for that, an opportunity that literally chased us down the sidewalk.
But I find myself feeling like Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams, about to walk into the unknown and his destiny, all hiding there in the cornfield. "There is something out there, Ray, and if I have the courage to go through with this, what a story it'll make."
Looking back over these posts, it already has. And it's only going to get better, if we have the courage to go through with it.
No wonder I'm so listless. Too many tabs open in this tired old brain.
Time to go get ready for this deposition.
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