Round X

I woke up this morning and realized I’m in the throes of a crisis.

An existential fucking crisis.

Another one.

At age 38.

Fuck.

Deflated. That’s how I feel. At least, that’s the nicest way I can describe it without being melodramatic and setting off alarms and having to deal with the way people treat you. You know the way. Well, maybe you don’t.

But yes. I feel deflated, as in, having lost form and function — a vacuum. I know that no one is technically too old to do a full ten rounds with Søren; but for me, here, now, it feels overwhelming to be standing on the precipice of an abyss from whose depth no man returns the same.

Or at all.

I would have liked — you woulda’ thought! — that by now, after all that, I’d have a grip on my emotions. Have better command of my actions; my goodness, my reactions! But this morning, doing an internal survey in the sober light of day, there was nothing there to change, save, or say.

The inherent flaw that plagues my mind is precisely that, fundamental, colouring scenes with sinister hues. It can’t be cured, or fought, or ignored. Not for long. No more than you can ignore a hunger or a burning or the sound of the spring lambs summarily being slaughtered before dawn.

Few will ever understand how wicked and twisted it can be to live on the edge of ecstasy and strife. A perverted dance, between the polarities of self-love and loathing, talent and trifles, promise and petulance — cursed and blessed in equal measure, ambling down the path of life.

More like lost.

Like a Beduin in a sandstorm, a thirtysomething cringy cliche. A machomanchild who still hasn’t figured out how to sort, scoop, and stack the rudimentary blocks of being an adult. A time bomb waiting by the road to posture and bluster, wail and wither and end without a bang.

Only a whimper.

And so it goes! So spin the wheels of the Great Game. A Game of Thrones. Of love, jealousy, betrayal, and rivers you n’er dare cross. A game of loss. Of longing and trudging through six feet of shit and mud and snow just to open your eyes the next day and have to do it again.

Sublime.