Stepping outside

I'm picking through my dreams lately because there is a strange feeling in my chest. I feel as if something has been lifted and the only thing I can seem to think of is my father. When I sit down and actually think deep about it, it all makes sense. He is no longer as violent in my dreams and I feel much more at ease when I talk about him. Idk...just read if you must....;

In my dreams I look him in the eyes, deep and hard. I blame him for many of my failings. I just do. If he was faster in picking things up, I wouldn't have ever had to clean up after him all of these years. I simply would not have to. If he wasn't so god damned easy to distract, so fucking mercurial, I would not have to fight to finish up his work.

Even in dreams I can stare at him and see his mind wandering, moving on to new problems & possibilites. If he would just live up to his potential he might just change things. If he would just believe that...I mean it, really believe it. But his look eventually goes blank and all of my words bounce off.
He is not as worn as I thought he would be. It's been a long time since I have seen him clear like this. He's always on the move. I'm not sure what's holding him with me in my mind right now...but he's not talking. I see the long curls in his hair. He seems to grind his jaw a little bit. His eyes seem an empty pool of wonder and kindness if I look past the surface. But the surface is rough now, all waves crashing, winding pushing them in, bits of moisture left on the shoreline.
“What are you waiting for?” I ask as she runs his fingers across his damp forehead. I know what he will say. It will be about children and stability. It will be about circumstance and finance. It will be some shit about karma, and owing, and paying for his choices. But in this dream he says nothing.

God, how he pisses me off sometimes. I just want to grab his ass and shake some sense into him. I want to scream that this moment, this day, is another fading from his grasp. I want to pound in the fact that he controls his destiny, that he needs to reach if he wants to grasp. I want to beat a future into him. If I push him hard enough, I can make him right, I know it. But still....I can't do anything.

I reach my hand out to grab a hold of his. Nothing. No response. When the waves are gone, the deep and vulnerable tender eyes remain. It's as if he left me all over again, but this time it was for my best interest.
When I sit in front of him, legs crossed...looking down...it's then when he finally says to me “stop,” and I do because I'm growing.

after this, I woke up a little but only long enough to collect my thoughts and write them down.
<<>>

I lay back down only to find myself in another dream

I run my fingers through my wet hair and take in the features of my face. I would love to say that I know myself. I would love to tell you that I know where I'm going, or that I'll know when I'm going to grow up. I'm not quite there yet. I may never be.

Even in dreams I realize what's holding me back. I just never accept the fact that he is a much better man than I can ever give him credit for. My father's technique in life was sometimes poor, but his heart was always strong and kind. I don't know if I can ever give him my best and let him go. I almost always notice that I have that choice now. It's a gift I suppose, I'm just not really ready to use it and to set him free from my almighty grasp. I've kept his memory prisoner deep in my hear for sometime now.

For the past few years I've thought life was a riddle, a destination, a puzzle. Now i'm pretty sure that life is wonderful and I am simply the puzzled one. I also suspect that I'm supposed to be puzzled until I let go and just forgive. I don't fight it as hard as I use to though. Divinity it seems, might be somewhere inside me, and like Jeprody, it may come in the form of a question. One persons cosmic answer is another's question.

I try not to beat myself up much anymore about him. Lately I've tried to step outside of the moment, or the circumstance, or the emotion and see how things really look. At first I did it to get away from the moment, to escape. Somewhere along the line I realized that I can see more calmly and clearly from here.

I don't know how we get where we end up. But I know we are where we need to be for now. The past week has been nice to find that something is clearing up in my soul.
Life might have been easier if I would have just learned to ask myself to “Step outside”


I can't say how we get where we end up. I do know we are were we need to be. It was nice to find out this week that I'm not alone out here, outside. I tend to think I busted out alone. How arrogant is that....

Anyway, I'm not here to preach. But I will say that life might have been a little easier if I had learned earlier to ask myself to “Step outside."