And life goes on......

You've got so many dreams

That you don't know where to put 'em

So you'd better turn a few of 'em loose

Your body's got a feeling that it's starting to rust

You'd better rev it up and put it to use

Fire Inc. Nowhere Fast

First of all, thanks for all the encouragement and supportive comments during my late summer hiatus (otherwise known as irresponsibly fucking around, consequences be damned). In my last post, having fallen [HARD] off of my pink cloud, I cursed gravity; i.e. what goes up, must come down. Now, having skulked around on the outer margins of respectable and polite society for the last six weeks, I can only hope that there is nowhere else to go but up.

In any event, I think the following parable (which is a paraphrase, author unknown) provides an apt framework to describe where I currently find myself in my life journey.

An Autobiography in Five Short Chapters:

1. I walked down a street. I saw a hole. I fell in. It was not my fault.

2. The next day, I walked down the same street. I saw the same hole and I fell in… again. Though I am not surprised, it is my fault.

3. On the third day, I walked down the same street. I saw the same hole. This time, I tried to jump over. I fell in… again. I am undeterred.

4. On the fourth day, I walked down the same street. I saw the hole. This time, I tried to go around it. I fell in again. I know that I am beaten.

5. On the fifth day, I took a different street.

Following years of hard fought for gains and up until August of this year, I felt like I was safely on “the different street”. It has been, all things considered, a great year in my life. To wit:

• I quit smoking (over 10 months now);
• I have lost some weight (not as much as I need or want to but considering that most people gain weight when they quit smoking, I’m doing ok);
• I am arguably fitter now, than at any time during the last 5-7 years;
• I have been employed at my current place of employment longer than at any other job during my career – almost 3.5 years (caveat: this is a double edged sword as I fear that each and every day will be my last swimming as I do in a sea of sharks);
• I started this blog and connected with some amazing and interesting bloggers;
• I finished my kitchen reno which enabled me to open my home for dinner parties and the like;
• Family relationships are great and relatively stress free;
• I had one of the best vacations of my life this past May;
• I’m running stronger and longer on my treadmill than ever before and simply cannot believe how clear my lungs feel since quitting smoking (who knew?);
• I have become politically active and am working on the campaign of a man who could become Canada’s next Prime Minister (trust me, the World will be better for it if they do elect this man);
• I started playing tennis again and discovered that age aside, it is possible that I was hitting better than I ever did; and
• I started yoga and regained flexibility that I had thought was lost to age forever.
  

Apparently not.

Despite this veritable embarrassment of riches that is my life, I marched right back down the street with the hole, looked right into it and said ‘yee haw giddy up’ and I dove right in head-fucking-first. I was not shocked, nor was I stunned. In fact, I knew well of the dangers lurking in that hole but I jumped in anyway.

Explanation:

Why you ask would I do something so magnificently stupid? Ask my heart. [Now before I go on, please remember that there is good news in all of this and the fact that I am writing this at all is somewhat of a miracle - so the last thing I need or want is sympathy or pity... understanding is welcome]

Ask my broken heart that has probably mended by now but is terrified of being broken again.

You see, at some point in my life, as the result of witnessing the deaths of too many friends of HIV/AIDS, the death of my Father and a couple of cherished pets, the shocking loss of a job by a knife in the back, coupled with the excrutiating pain of unrequited love, I decided that I couldn't go on. All of this exacerbated by addiction to one thing or another (thankfully not nearly as bad as it could have been). At the time, with my heart blown to smithereens, I was down... and so I thought, for the count. I just couldn't imagine how I was going to get up... yet again.... and try to make something of my life.

Well, thankfully, with the passage of time, the intervention of some very good people (professional and otherwise), I made a very conscious decision that I WAS GOING TO LIVE.

Having made that decision and with a lot of hard work, I have arrived to my present state and have been known to run around strewing daisies about and shouting about my happiness from the rooftoops. However, it's not the full, unvarnished truth.

Yes, I am happy on the outside. But my heart has always wanted and needed more and I have been too afraid of being hurt all over again to risk anything even remotely resemembling vulnerabiltiy or intimacy. So it's happy as a pig in shit versus soul sucking loneliness. And around about the first week of August, I came to the crossroads at which point I decided that I simply had to admit to this and to do something about it. And, so in the face of so doing, I jumped into the hole, apparently preferring misery over the potential for happiness.

blah blah blah blah...... and so it goes..... boo fucking hoo......

It's time to get over it.

And this my blog friends is where we start over in September of 2006. I think that I've crawled back out of the hole (not so much worse for the wear thank-God) and I'm looking for another street which will be, in part, represented by my continued workouts (albeit with more focus on running for health and happiness vs the former heroic marathon goal). Professionally, the fall season is going to be a roller coaster of busy busy with the added burden of a course in securities law and the potential for attendance at the Liberal Leadership convention in Montreal at the end of November.

Further, I have decided to take a page out of K and M's book and try internet dating to see where that might lead. Who knows perhaps I'll end up with the love of my life in some far off distant land?

So, stay tuned. In the coming weeks, I intend to start posting details of my workouts and I might even start posting my weight as a measure to hold myself accountable.

[having just reread what I've written, I will probably need to fill in a few details here and there that I glossed over in my haste to get this posted.... ahem K.....]

I hope you have all been well and I look forward on catching up with all of your blogs!

P.S. The video is from the 80's movie Streets of Fire which is appropriate in that it was introduced to me by the all time unrequited love of my life... during the early 90's when I was in peak athletic shape, I used to workout all the time to this music but only recently rediscovered the lyrics. Indeed.... you've got so many dreams....