October 5, 2018

October 5, 2018

I hear about my friends and their lives now. They have kids and houses, and good jobs with 401Ks. I feel so far behind. I’ll be 31 and starting over from the bottom with nothing. In some ways I think it’s a blessing. When you’re starting from the bottom with nothing, life is so full of potential. I have this hunger — for life, for love, for challenge, for redemption, for experience — that burns inside me, not like a fire that flares up and dies, but like coals that have been stoked for years so they burn hot and steady. I remember when I was “free” before all this, I was in a prison of my own making, ruled by fears, driven by expectations, controlled by addictions, and it took me losing my freedom to know what freedom is. It took me knowing death to understand what life really is.

I’ve been thinking about going on a journey when I get off parole. I have this fantasy of drifting around the country for awhile, taking jobs here and there; maybe go work on the oil platforms in Alaska or a bait shop down in the Bayou, meet new people, make new friends, just experience life in all its glory.

Then write about it.

I figure I have to do it now while I have nothing tying me down, no kids, no wife, just open horizons and a fire inside me