Monday, April 20, 2015

April 20: Disappointment, Windmills, "Ives" Dip

Today, I received disappointing news.

Not the kind of disappointing news that ends marriages or shortens lives.  It wasn't catastrophic disappointing news.  As disappointment goes, it ranks up there with a rejection of a manuscript by a publisher or the need to have a strange mole removed from a shoulder.  It was a medium-sized disappointment.  A blow to the ego more than anything else.

I am not going to spend this entire post lamenting this disappointment (not that I'm above wallowing).  No, today's setback is just me tilting at another windmill.  I set myself up for failure all the time.  I engage in some kind of endeavor, convince myself that success is inevitable, and then find myself flat on my back in the mud, staring up at the stars.

I have to stop dreaming the impossible dreams.  It's something I've done my whole life, and it hasn't served me well up to this point.  Perhaps I simply need to ground myself in reality.  I'm a decent poet.  I have a not-very-important job in a medical office.  I'm a contingent instructor at a university where both the administration and full-time faculty count me as pariah.  I live paycheck-to-paycheck.  That's reality.  Dreaming is too expensive a pastime.  This morning, I had to have some of my teeth drilled down by my dentist because I've been grinding them in my sleep, giving myself jaw-aches and headaches.  That's what dreaming has gotten me.

So, I relinquish windmills this evening.  It's time for me to embrace my truths.  Maybe my teeth will stop hurting, and my bruised self-esteem will begin to heal.  And that's my question for Ives this evening:

Should I stop dreaming my impossible dreams?

And the answer:

". . . Just remember, if you don't take care of business, no one else will.  Do you really think God gives a shit?"

 Saint Marty knows God gives a shit, but He sometimes has a pretty funny way of showing it.

I'm retiring my lance

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