a *tentative* sketch

"Who do I want to be? What do I want to do?" These questions aren't separate but integrated, and my attempts to stitch together some answer highlights that despite many things being concrete in who I want to be and what I want to do, some things are still pretty vague. Where I want to live, how I want to use my writing addiction, things like that are peripheral, shifting like polymorphs under the weight of "the core of it all", whatever that might be. Scouring this blog's posts over the last five years, I see again and again this dream resurfacing, then killed; there's hope in one post, and a damning denial of hope in the next. It's a constant wrestling, but beyond that wrestling lies the reality that there really is something I want to be, something I want to do; and I'm attempting, quite tentatively, a sketch of all that, bearing in mind that this is all it is: a sketch. 

So: "Who do I want to be?" There are all the classic answers, of course: a loving husband and a loving father (hopefully in that order), and a cherished friend. I want to be passionate, dedicated, devout and crazy, "a little bit off" (but in the good way like you want). I want to be known as genuine, real, honest and caring, a generous person with a hint of eccentricity and a deep well of devotion and loyalty. "What do I want to do?" Being honest with myself, I'm not really sure of all that; the pendulum could swing in either direction, throwing the entire sketch askew. Reshape the question into "What kind of life do I want?" and the answer becomes clearer: as I've said before, my heart-shaped desire is "a simple life in a simple love with a simple girl" (you could add "in a simple town" as well, but I think that's just a bit overkill). A quiet life in a quiet town sharing life's highs & lows with my heart-warming comrade, supporting and encouraging one another, weeping and celebrating and laughing and enduring together. This lies at the heart of what I want, at the core of who I want to be; and it's not just a selfish "I don't want to be alone forever": if that were the case, I could've easily be done and married by now. What I want is connection, intimacy, friendship and love. 

I've pictured this life in a variety of ways down the years: in one image, I'm sitting on the front porch at sunset, sitting in the rocking chair smoking a pipe while she's curled up in the hammock reading a book, the trees rising thick and darkening 'round the house. In another I'm standing out on the balcony, looking out over the sleeping city, and she's wrapping her arms around me, holding me tight. Head further south for #3, where we stand in the Blue Ridge Mountains drinking hot coffee at the break of dawn, smoke still rising from the cabin's chimney where the embers smolder in their lair. Head far northwest to Ketchikan, Alaska, and we're walking the boardwalks, admiring the fishing trawlers, dots of rain falling in our hair, her hand in mine and the quiet broken only by the cries of the sea-birds and the waves breaking against the piers. The scenery changes, but the heart of it all remains the same; and though these little "prophetic flashes" (as I'd hope them to be) don't delve into too much detail, the mere imaginings swell my heart with all sorts of feelings that could make easily make one nauseous afterwards. 

And this is the heart of it: I want a life of love, laughter, endurance and companionship with a woman who will "protect me and reconnect me to the beauty that I'm missin'," a woman to whom I can give my heart and my body and confess my love, a woman who will make me "know my name as it's called again." I long to find someone with whom I can connect, and share life with, and love, and to quote The Hush Sound (rather than The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons, who have already been echoed), I wish that "like vines we intertwine, carelessly growing up and growing old." This dream can be denied and ignored, but it can't be killed. This dream is, as I've written before, not some peripheral burden to my personality but integral to the core of who I am. Seeking to discard this dream would be nothing short of psychological self-surgery rendering me dismembered. Though it's a quest not at all certain, it's a quest worth pursuing, with determination and a stoic hope. But how to purse this, practically? My brain's geared towards the abstract and theoretical, and this question causes me more grief than those preceding it.