The greyness of ok. Of getting up in the morning because I have to, because I have set goals for myself and I am striving to fulfill them. I don’t seem to take much pleasure in the things I do, even the things I ought to . . . no, things I do enjoy . . . everything just feels muted. Soft pastels. Grey shades.

Moments occur, moments of laughter. Moments of joy. When Hope came downstairs when Jay was reading her a bedtime story, came downstairs just to hug me good night. Yeah, that was a lovely moment. Times spent with friends and family, moments of grace. Laughter. Safety. Love.

And I feel . . . sometimes deeply. I get weepy while watching TED talks sometimes, or seeing moments of beauty and grace in this world. I find myself wanting to cry at moments of honesty and connection. So it’s not like I’m shut down, not by a long shot. I feel . . . I just don’t seem to feel entirely connected to my own life, to my own possibilities. Everything is ok. But ok isn’t enough, is it? I mean, it’s so much better than bad, so much better than pain, so much better than complete emptiness or depression. It’s so much better than so many people’s lives. But . . . no, I can have more. I deserve more. I don’t know why or who, but the ok-ness seems connected to a lack of faith in myself . . . not that’s not quite right . . . or maybe it is. The thing is . . . the thing is that I stopped believing, not in myself, but in the potential for me to be someone greater than myself, in the potential to take the me of now and go meet the me that is even better.

I’d forgotten that I am invited, by anyone, to do anything:

So here I am, wondering, what next, how to take the grey of ok and paint my life in brighter colors, splashes of vibrant blue and orange and crimson and yellow; how to embrace potential, change, growth, challenge, and creativity with excitement and energy; how to stop being tired, stop being in physical pain (mostly the muscles in my upper back and neck, and on a very regular basis), stop settling for bad skin and the 20-30 pounds of too heavy; how to stop settling, period.

Look, yeah, the alienation bit, the loneliness, kinda sucks at times. Sometimes worse than others. There’s this quote which I absolutely, one-hundred percent grok:

”Loneliness isn’t a need for company, but a longing for kindred souls.” Marylin French

Yeah, I see other people who have found their groups of kindred souls, especially creative kindred souls and I feel jealous of what they have because, for whatever reason, I haven’t really found my creative kin and god how I yearn for that: to have other artists to create with, to inspire, to challenge, to make me come alive with ideas and problems and anxieties and solutions and beauty and art and to collaborate and make things that mean things and that mark this world in some real and important, even if small, way. Partners-in-crime. Compadres.

I’ve been waiting in the grey for them to come along. To spark the sky with either sunrise or sunset instead of this dreary, fine, ok fog. But that’s not working. And time is ticking. Ticking. Ticking.

Away.

“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day”

No more waiting. It’s time to start painting in the colors of my life, going outside the lines if I want to. I know I need some help to do this and that it won’t happen overnight and that, as Jen texted last night ODAAT (which, if you are like me and had no frakin’ clue what that meant, it’s “one day at a time”).

If I had the hair to comb, this would be the song I would leave you with:

But I don’t. And can’t really comb my hair in any style (which, I’ll be honest, is the worst thing about the whole bald thing: you can’t fuck around with your look). So instead, I’ll leave you with song I’ll hopefully feel, deeply and intensely, sometime sooner rather than . . . well, never.