Tom Petty

 

I can't decide whether or not I like Tom Petty.  He's certainly written a few songs I'd consider 'good'.  And in the 90's, he really made a splash.  But his voice can be a little grating.  His songs a little boring.  And I could be out of line in saying this, but here goes: he looks like he might smell a little weird in person.  With that out of the way, I feel I should tip my hat to the man - at least for tonight - for he wrote a line in one of his songs that reads as follows: "The waiting is the hardest part."  In that, he couldn't be more right!  *digress*

I've recently made some fairly significant changes in my life.  I've started running three days a week.  Eating better and dressing nicer.  Most recently, I've started looking very closely at improving my ability to operate in social situations.  Conversations.  Interpersonal relationships [read: marriage, esp.] - a total paradigm shift!  All in all, the changes I've made to date have produced favorable results - of both intrinsic and extrinsic value.  However, at the end of every day I can't help but feel that I'm still coming up short.  That's because the one person for whom I'm doing all of this - the person who alerted me to the presence of the mountain I referenced in yesterday's entry - needs to see that I can maintain these changes over a period of time.  That's where Tom Petty's immortal words of wisdom keep coming back to haunt me.  Waiting for this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.  Much harder than making any one (or all) of these changes.  But I will press ever onward... in the key of G.

The Bluest of Clear Skies

Imagine you're flying an airplane.  Passing through a cloud (and I don't mean one of those piddly little 'looks-like-a-giraffe' type clouds either, but a miles-deep, vista spanning sea of a fuckin' cloud).  Looking back, you can't remember how it was you came to pass into the cloud, or how long it's been since you last had a lick of visibility.  The turbulence is so frequent and predictable that even the most jarring of bumps doesn't cause you to stir, and the amped up whirring of the plane's engine sounds a soothing lullaby to your pressure-popped ears.  Got it?  Good!  Now you know where I've been for the about the last 5 years...

That said, I have since emerged from the fluffy white mass... but only just in time to (potentially) avoid hitting the top of a mountain I should've seen coming.  And thank God, too.  Because if I hadn't realized that mountain was there, I'd have lost at least the better half of who I am.  But on the night before Christmas, I was given a gift.  A chance.  It may be my last, but it's all I can ask for at this point.  I know now: had I been flying just a little bit higher these past few years... trying just a little bit harder... I'd be sailing right over obstacles like this!  Above the fog and through the clearest and bluest of skies!  I know because I can now see beyond the mountain.  And for the first time in all my years, I can truly see beyond myself.  I just hope and pray that it's not too late for me to pull out of this one!