Thoughts on aging in the coming age

It’s cold, 39 degrees. I turned on my heat this morning, I’ve tried to not think about it. But like the moon landing, I couldn’t help it,

I think…

What must it be like to go so far. To only find dust, and isolation?

for four years, I’ve tried to watch and observe…

I was married, I’m now divorced…

Women without men are an idea, women with men are a complication…

We altogether are a complication. A mood in itself.

We post on dating apps, photos of ourselves in Egypt and camping and we want a man with a car, a house, a job, a pleasant disposition. And he has to make us laugh…

But he’s too short, he’s too round, his eyebrows are too thick…

I can’t take you to Egypt, I hate camping…I like my solitude…

I haven’t played a video game since 2004

Can I just cook you dinner, play a record, dance with you and tell you, you’re the nicest thing I’ve ever seen?

We want absolutes

But we want to be accepted

But we have requirements

—///

You reach a certain age, maybe it’s just me…

You reach a place, you take stock of your life…

What have you really achieved?

Are you what you want?

How does one maintain faith?

It feels so far away…

How did the astronauts handle

Something so grand

Becoming “fake.”

How does one live ….

Age to age …

—-///

Tuesday

We vote

I’ve watched

As we use an algorithm

I’ve watched as we do not talk

To each other

I’ve asked myself how our children

And our youth will remember this

What have we taught them

Shown them

What example

What do they consider presidential?

Honorable ?

Decent?

What is life?

What does a leader look like?

Empathy?

To our children

To the young people

To the rest of the world

I think about how I grew and changed

And what I have been impressed with

Over time

And my heart has ached for so long

For the young people

Globally

For what the new leaders

Across the globe

What impressions are we leaving

What are we saying?

—///

Tomorrow and I feel

Really

through most of December

The world will be on its toes

The money making machine of american headlines

—–///

But how do we go from here?

We’ve screamed

We’ve marched

We’ve demonstrated

We’ve left our kids at home

We’ve thrown more work on them

We’re gutted

Outed

It’s not the degrees

It’s the regular jobs that carry us

The ones we looked down on

It’s not the student debt

Or the bank account

It’s the ability to stay calm

Under pressure

It’s the ability to process information

The ability to think

And make a decision

—-///

Something is amiss

within my faith

—–///

Within myself

—-///

I seek solitude

—-///

We used to have Hollywood as a job

Now it’s a bubble that tells us what we should do,

Social media

This algorithm

Marches

demands rights

And puts our vulgarity on our forehead like we are screwing on the table at thanksgiving…

And vulgarly demands that the family and the world be ok with it…

It leaves nothing to the imagination.

We can’t miss a paycheck

If we do we are homeless

None of the people I know

None of the minorities I know

Are even resembling of this nature

—////

Yet we continue to use the algorithm

When it doesn’t even reflect us

We say everyone has shown their true colours this year, that’s just not true

Everyone has always shown us their colours…we just didn’t want to hear them or see them…because we wanted them to be what we wanted them to be.

The algorithm simply shows us what we want to see…

We wanted the same for us too…

This is the crisis…

The crisis of ….

Of humankind.

—-///

To be without faith

Without honor

Without drive

Without ambition

Without privacy

Is to be empty

Void

Surely there is something left of honor

Of privacy

Of respect

Of character

Of faith…

I do not know

I look to the sky

And I pray

But I can’t find anything

You see

Truth is something we are meant to discern not the media or the newspaper or social media or apps

Or smoke signals

But our eyes and hearts and minds

—///

What is presidential?

What is decency ?

What is character ?

—///

I envy the self that writes this and does not know of tomorrow or election results or headlines

So much of our government relies on the honor system

And if it is abused

So much can go away and be re written

And we understand so little of this

—-//

Space is cold

It’s vast and it’s dark

And so is my heart

It began years ago

In small stages

Small misgivings

I wanted a family

I wanted a home

I wanted to love and cherish and be loved and cherish

I wanted to take care of someone

To have this purpose

And

Now

I only want this solitude

To disappear

To fade away

To understand what purpose is …

The world is raging

I hope we can find ourselves

I hope we can stop for a moment

I hope we can look up

And ask for help.

Death is real and random

We are but a moment

And hate

And greed

And this crisis

Is too much

Maybe you reach a certain age

And it happens to everyone

Where they feel like the new generation has everything wrong

Only

Now

Right now

I feel like none of us are ourselves

I feel like we’ve all been duped

Even the best of us…

Maybe it’s just me….

I feel like we are in a bad dream

And the acid rain is falling

And the church bells are ringing

And the boots are on the ground

And the ashes are drifting like snow

From the ovens over the ridge

And

They are about to show us the ovens

Used to cook our brothers

And we are about to hold napkins over our mouthes and breathe

“I didn’t know, I didn’t believe….”

“But…”

And

I fear

What reason did we have to build this machine?

What purpose?

What crisis

How did we get here

—-///

You reach a point

And you ask

What have I really achieved

I’m not any of the things I wanted to be

I’m still empty

I’m still void

After such ambition

Of youth

Do we look back

Only to see the void

Quiet

Coldness of life

And see

Ourselves?

We can’t stand the silence

We can’t even sit with it

We can’t even walk with it

Or drive with it …

We can’t sit with ourselves ….

God help us.