I'm currently reading W. Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge" again for the first time in probably about 30 years and finding myself identifying greatly with both the young protagonist "Larry" as well as the older, wordly yet disingeuine "Elliott Templeton" as if I'm Larry trapped in Elliott's life. My life right now; while on a truly positive track for the first time in 38 years, if ever, is continually hampered and haunted by the past in very real and profound ways on a daily basis; the specifics of which are ancillary to the core of the conundrum I find myself in.
It just seems that with every step I take in a positive direction I am pulled back two or more steps as the result of some misstep(s) of my past life and the situation is frustrating at the very least and at times quite maddening in cause and effect. At first and even second glance it would seem that I will be stuck in this situation for the rest of my life and that I will never be able to climb out of the karmic hole I've dug and thrown myself into and that I may as well just toss dirt over myself and and make it my literal as well as figurative grave and give up yet the changes I've been through to date are preventing me from doing so. I've never been a quitter in my life yet I've never really completed anything for that matter either. I've been paying for my entire life by cashing yesterday's checks by funding them with tomorrow's promises and now that I've abruptly ceased doing so the caboose of my "train" is catching up with the engine by slamming into one freight car at a time over and over again....bam, bam, bam!
I don't know how many more freight cars there are left separating the caboose from the engine but I do know in the core of my being that I must keep a deathgrip on the handbrake of the engine as I quite clearly see the end of the tracks leading over the precipice of a bottomless chasm into which my train will surely catapult into and burst into flames should I ever go back onto the track my life was dead set upon a very short seven months ago...
It just seems that with every step I take in a positive direction I am pulled back two or more steps as the result of some misstep(s) of my past life and the situation is frustrating at the very least and at times quite maddening in cause and effect. At first and even second glance it would seem that I will be stuck in this situation for the rest of my life and that I will never be able to climb out of the karmic hole I've dug and thrown myself into and that I may as well just toss dirt over myself and and make it my literal as well as figurative grave and give up yet the changes I've been through to date are preventing me from doing so. I've never been a quitter in my life yet I've never really completed anything for that matter either. I've been paying for my entire life by cashing yesterday's checks by funding them with tomorrow's promises and now that I've abruptly ceased doing so the caboose of my "train" is catching up with the engine by slamming into one freight car at a time over and over again....bam, bam, bam!
I don't know how many more freight cars there are left separating the caboose from the engine but I do know in the core of my being that I must keep a deathgrip on the handbrake of the engine as I quite clearly see the end of the tracks leading over the precipice of a bottomless chasm into which my train will surely catapult into and burst into flames should I ever go back onto the track my life was dead set upon a very short seven months ago...
2 comments:
You've got a book in the making here. I read it from the first entry in July '08 thru the train cars. Clear, witty, literate, soulful. Like you, a classy work in progress.
I identify with you completely. Good luck. Just found your blog. Wonderful writing...
xo~Sadie
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