Peripheral Double Vision

I'm hearing lots of bottle rockets out there. It reminds me of four summers ago (wow..that long? Maybe it is only three summers ago...) when the neighbors set off fireworks that ignited the side of my home...

Fleeing with my kitties and photo albums into the street. Hanging out with the neighbors (they were all kind enough to gather in the smoke)...Good times. Good times...

That old saying, you can miss the forest for the trees...

I feel like I'm in a bad cartoon...think there was a Bugs Bunny kind of like it...trying to be what someone needs..marching back and forth, banging my drum, waving my flag, blowing my horn, waving, jumping up and down...but still out of line of vision somehow...overlooked...and then also trying to GET what I need in terms of connection, friendship, companionship...

She needs HIM to care, but he just doesn't really-and has a long history of proving that...and here I am being someone who cares NOW and has from day one...but I'm not HIM...miss the present trying to reconcile a past that won't reconcile, until the present also slips into the past...

...what a huge mix up, misfortune, helpless to change it, can't be the one to fill that yearning or soothe that pain...not MY itch to scratch- so to speak...

Despite the past, the present keeps on moving...and being my own person, I'm in need of my friend...my own reality and issues...trying not to need to much, but almost always finding that IF I do NEED my friend is not aware...or available...

I really can't be a consolation prize or an afterthought...at least I can't and feel very good about it..

I really don't want to go sit alone in my truck and watch fireworks all by myself. It makes what should be a fun thing into a sad thing, because the loneliness is amplified at those times... you wish you were sharing moments...things like that can screw up a perfectly beautiful sunset...wish she was with me...

I will learn how not to need...time to be whole as an alone person...my sunsets aren't shared, really. I am tired of bars and hangovers, but that is about the only place (aside from recovery on the floor with a good movie) that life is shared...we have both leaned too heavily on bars for entertainment and escape, I think...

so shift of focus...I will fill my life with other things, and maybe that will be the solution...not so much pressure on my friend to need to BE a friend...I won't hurt or be alone...one of those things about a college town, is that the friendships come and go as the students do...

I think I will play music again (as soon as I free my guitar)...I will join the gym in town where I work...I will go to Spokane and get to know the gals at the Spitfire, maybe play some music there...and I will build new friendships...go camping maybe, before winter is here...start a good book again...go climb the Butte...be ALIVE again and not full of regret...fill my lungs with air, not smoke...fill my heart with good friends and family...smiles and laughter aren't at the bottom of the bottle for sure...

I waited for summer when it was cold and dark...now it is half over and I haven't even LIVED any of it...waiting for her to be there, make plans that actually happen...love her so, but I'll just hope she eventually swings back around to me, and does not destroy herself in the journey...

I'm not a help for the pain, and to just be a witness to it starts to sink me too...and I think I should not be an accessory to another life, as I have my own...Ani DiFranco said it best..."I'm beyond your peripheral vision, so you might want to turn your head..."

Uh...HERE I am! Been here. Still here. Will continue to be here. If and when you care to join me, it will be a pleasant surprise. A nice development...hopefully won't have screwed up what you had while fitfully lamenting what you didn't...

Life is ironic that way...