It drives me

I'm going to add this personal post to a mostly vanilla web-page. Funny as I type this, I'm thinking it's a good analogy for what I'm about to discuss.

Some songs I keep around be cause they make me happy, some because they make me remember. The one I'll share with you today does something I'm going to try to explain, but I may fail miserably. Wish me luck.

The song: Head Downby Nine Inch Nails

First I'll try to explain it, then I may share along with the lyrics what is going on in my head as I listen to the song.

The two very different sounds during the song play at picking the edges of a scab I don't think is ready to come off. Sometimes I really do wonder if all of this is real. What do I mean by this? Well... During my deployments I knew in no uncertain terms that it was VERY real. there were zero layers of bullshit. War, is as real as life can be. Here, and now, as I listen to this song while running on a treadmill at a hotel in Rawlins, WY I get goosebumps across my sweating body as I really wonder just what the hell I'm doing here. As the song progresses, there are two very opposing sounds. Chaos, and metallic tones of something dirty, gritty, and raw. While in the refrain a silky soft melody settles in as we ask ourselves if this is real...

Now, all that being said, there is a silver lining. There are a few, OK, three people who know either some of the real me, or in the case of one, all of me.

This is new

This is real

I have never been able to be this honest with someone in my past.

This has given me hope that the scab I mention may some day fall away on it's own

This has given me hope that even if it doesn't, that's OK, and I'm OK.

So it's a tough song to listen to. I only listen while running, and it drives me. I'm not sure why, but it does. I choose to keep it on my playlist for the same reason we tongue a sore tooth. It hurts, but for some reason, we like that, even crave it once in a while.

So as I ran on that treadmill, I thought, I wonder if this would be helpful for anyone. Or perhaps helpful for me to share. Hell I dunno, but why not.

Something I read the other day just popped into my head as I'm finishing this up, something like this:

If you act like you, then you will meet and be with people who like YOU. Not a fake idea of you, or some image of you, but actually YOU.

Great advice I think, and for some reason in today's world hard advice to follow.

I have what you could call a cronicly terrible memmory, I'm sure there is something not quite right with the way my mind removes whole sections of my life. That being said:

Some moments in life are so powerfull, so wrought with feeling, and energy, that they sear themselvs into our memory. We can smell the air, feel the wind, and hear the laughter years and years after the moment has passed.
You can see one of those moments in my life above.
Another I recall is cruising home on my bicycle as fast as I could (I was about 7 I think) I knew I was almost late as I was turning into our driveway, but the smell of summer in the air, the sound of my bike whizzing on the pavement, and knowing I was pedaling for all I was worth was one of those moments for me.

Even the thief knowen to us all as time has a challange ahead of him to steal away these precious well worn memories. We think of them, and it re-news not just us as we do so, but the path to them, and thier stregnth. I pray time is never able to remove these from my mind.