A Game Of Shadows

Based On Events From Last Night: March 8, 2022

It always ends the same way: I reach my "breaking point" and begin to lose sight of what's important...and the future that I dread to own.

Last night, I got into yelling at my niece and nephew to stop running in the living room. Of course, the only reason I am telling them is because the floor apparently causes sound for the person living above me, and apparently someone else, too. I don't give a damn for that person, outside of their beings neighbors of mine, which of course ends up taking precedence.

The obvious truth, if you knew me, is that I would never limit the kids from doing whatever makes them happy. Yet, there comes times like this that warrant the opposite, and I honestly do not like it.

Last night, though, I got more carried away than I should have. It might not sound like I did, but I did.

They were running around a bit, having fun, him chasing her as she pulled a blanket across the floor. My mind got in the way of my heart. After a few runs and laughs, I demanded she bring him into the other room and watch their movie. She's watched the same movie or so for the past week, so she may be driven to it but bored of it simultaneously. Perhaps. I don't know.

But they are back and I was sitting in my room, on my computer, trying to write. She was being playful with me from the shadows, and I was in effect being a dick to her.

I love the both of them very much. I am so thankful to have them in my life. For all the trials and tribulations I suffered in the first 26 years of my life--all the opportunities I goofed, or missed--I would never give a single one of them up if it meant never having them in my life.

So, in the shadows last night, between my room and the kitchen light, I glimpsed her hair, making her skull look lopsided in the dark.

Beauty in the unsocially-acceptable like that always opens my heart and mind, and makes me sad.

But it is always what you do that makes the difference for another.

It is always what you see that stays with you.

I let my love and care for her become overshadowed by fear of the unknown above me, and the foolish words that probably didn't even claim for importance as they faced me upon the page before me and the canvas of time that lie just ahead.

As I listened to Ian Cussick's "The Great Escape", I fell upon thinking about last night in more depth and focus, and by the time the eponymous song came around, the tears had begun to flow and I had felt the pain of irreparable ages mingle with the images that I was instrumental in visualizing and locking my mind onto.

If there is anything positive to be said here, it is that situations like this make me experience music at a deeper level as a side effect. Well, they open my senses in a more widespread manner than when I am listening to an album on its own, with no prior reason than simply to appreciate the beauty of it.

Now, as "Journey Out Of The Body" is beginning to play...

Now...

Now I am contemplating using the timing as a predetermined reason for me to finish this bit with flair--

And: the chorus.

I love you kids so much. I love you all. Forever.

And if the images stay--

Let them stay to remind me of you, always;

And to always keep me loving you more and more, like you deserve.

You deserve it all.

It all.

I love you.