Reality

Welcome to the "real world"
Tragedy
Hardship
Loss
Shadow
Sadness
Emotional slavery
Psychological leash
Tethered to the deadwood tree
Despair the currency of this reality
Opacity impairing the truth
Who does reality serve if not ourselves

Where lies happiness
Frivolity
Connection
Hope
Love
Down the road less travelled
The winding way
Hiding behind shadows of ourselves
As if lurking and unwanted
Places we cannot reach
Unwittingly bound in this reality
Guilt ridden and blind
Groping aimlessly through life
Snatching joy in pieces
Holidays but once each year
Wistfully recalled while looking the other way
Heart strings tugged
Tears to the eye
Despair for fleeting feelings seemed lost

Reality is our making
Bars erected to our own design
The jailor within known well
We can remain resigned to our manufactured fate
And wallow in self pity until our physical death
No real lessons learned
Or,
Bribe the jailor to leave the door ajar
See and feel beyond
Let our gaze remain adrift
While we frolic in places where we choose not to look
Experience happiness for what it is,
Not what we think it ought to be
Inadvertently the bar has been set too high
In order that we may fail and blame not ourselves,
But our circumstances
The bar need not be lowered, only removed
Like our reality
Happiness is what we make it
Live life as we would rather
Replace the jailhouse with a loom
Weave a life of joy
And create a tapestry of such vibrant colour
That any glancing at it would have tears of despair replaced by tears of joy

I have been thinking that I have been doing well in living as I would rather, but, of course, I keep looking the other way...or do I?

A variety of circumstances lately have had me looking inside again only to find that I am still not living as I might. Living for the now has been a good start as it lets me experience time in a seemingly expanded mode. Every weekend feels like a long weekend, every evening feels like a day. The best part is that time does not drag out but just feels fuller than it used to without seeming to pass by like a speeding train. So I suppose I can consider that a level of progress as others about me still complain how fast the time goes and that time off is fleeting and how unsatisfied they are in general.

Interestingly I seem to tally time as time spent outside of work. Being that I work in a family business I might expect more overlap, but business is business most times and that is not where I really want to be. Not counting it perhaps forces my time sense to fill the gaps as if they did not exist, ignoring the reality and focusing more on the creation of happiness.

So I suppose that this poem reflects where I have been and, more or less, where I am now rather than where I am trying to come from. Sort of a "Been there, done that and have the T-shirt to prove it" thing and a reminder that there is more yet to come.

Jeff.