Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Skewed.

I woke up one morning last week, and my perspective was crooked.

It's been askew ever since.

Two paths lie before me, two paths through the world, and I can see each of them, simultaneously, with crystalline precision. The colors and textures of each road lay before me, tantalizingly full and rich. I can smell and taste and feel each way ahead with perfect clarity.

One eye is trained on each option, assessing, seeking. And each of my eyes have learned to operate independent of the other. They do not see in tandem, anymore; rather, each one is complete unto itself. Like the tracks that stretch before me, each of my eyes is wholly cut off from the other. There is no place where the paths meet, or cross, or where one could move from one to another.

No, once I set foot on either of these paths, the other will be lost.

Neither path is without darknesses, without those places where the trees grow tall and thick and gnarled, where branches overhang and scrape the ground and whether or not you make it past them will depend on your flexibility. I can see the difficulties.

But I can't tell how long the dark places stretch, or how quickly the difficulties arise. I can't tell how long those bucolic sunlit scenes that beckon to me last. I can see happiness and I can see sadness, but I don't know when or how much.

It's the combination of your two eyes, you see, that allow you to percieve such things, and I no longer have one pair of eyes, I have two eyes. I have two eyes.

This is why my perspective is skewed. This is why I cannot move forward, this is the source of my paralysis.

I can see two different versions of my best self.

How can I possibly choose between them?

I keep bumping into things in the here and now, because my eyes are divorced from each other. I keep banging the tender parts of myself into harsh corners and sharp edges because I can't tell where I end and where the world begins.

8 comments:

  1. I know a good optomitrist.

    Maybe your path is the one that isn't so clearly marked and well traveled. Maybe you need to grab your machete and hack away your own new path of adventure and mystery.

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  2. I think I'll end up lost. I get lost pretty easily these days; it's easy to do when you can't really see.

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  3. Or maybe you will discover something fucking unbelievable. Don't use your eyes. Use your heart. Follow your gut.

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  4. This is the crux of my dilemma. All parts of me pull in all directions. All parts of me want all possibilities. All parts of me want all the choices on offer. My gut, my head, my heart, my eyes; they're all warring internally. My being is a battlefield, and I win and I lose with every second of every day.

    (Do I win the prize for cryptic melodrama yet?)

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  5. Seriously! Your blog page is well titled. Well, I find it funny that I could possibly even tell you what to do. Considering how well we know each other. Are you in a hurry? What about living in the moment? What about a buddhist kick in the pants? Vodka?

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  6. I'm a whiskey girl. And, I am living in the moment, but the moment is volatile. The moment is wont to explode. I live dangerously.

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  7. Whiskey girls living dangerously and about to explode are known to be quite entertaining. So there is that. I like it. You should use your whole last comment as your calling card. Put it on your Facebook, tweet it, throw it on a dating profile, etc.

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  8. That is the best suggestion I've gotten all month. Thanks, man.

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