There's A Pony In Here Somewhere

Yeah, I don't know where these things come from...

These days I sometimes feel like the guy who brings a severed human head to the office Christmas party.

Just go with it. I believe I have a point here…

I try to keep quiet about the continuing Situation. My thinking: if there was a “sell by” date for my personal drama(s), we’re likely long past it, and I don’t want to be the guy who disperses crowds at parties when he enters the room. So, I keep silent until the Xteenth person who knows a bit about what’s going on asks me, “How are you doing, man?” And I’m just so tired of spackling on a smile and saying, “I’m great!” that I just say what’s on my mind. And when my friend freezes in the middle of the act of raising a beer bottle to his mouth, or, more comically, stops chewing that canapé in mid-chomp, his eyes wide, his smile etched into a rictus, that’s when I remember, “This is why I should never speak.”

Hey, that reminds me - if you ever want to get away, and I mean really, really far away, to a remote and silent place where you won’t be disturbed for hours, I have a place for you. It’s my department’s group chatbox after I tell a joke. It’s like the island of Tristan da Cunha up in there.

Of course, keeping silent is stupid. Repression is only appropriate for radical, counter-cultural movements. And blabbing about all your problems is vulgaire. (I’m aware that I’m basically 41 blog posts into doing just that, but hey, something something “my truth.”)  But somewhere in the middle is…something you have to do. 

I was thinking about these things while having breakfast with a buddy yesterday morning. Our buddyship is the product of the Transitive Property of Marriage - our wives had become friends, therefore we were now friends. But unlike so many other uncomfortably arranged friendships, he and I hit it off right away. Our senses of humor align so well as to create instant common ground, which is really weird because he’s good and upright and moral, and I’m basically the Devil’s drinking buddy. Somebody should probably warn him.

Anyway, we got together for breakfast at this great local greasy spoon, had some laughs and traded jokes. (My new favorite is, “That was a lot of crap, but there’s got to be a pony in there somewhere.”) But then he did it: “So, how are you doing?” He asked.

I told him what was going on, kind of from a 30,000-foot level, in the way you might describe the quirky bathroom decor of a Nashville Holiday Inn. Gauging by his apparently stunned reaction, it might have come off more like I’d just confessed to hauling a body in my trunk. 

Apparently my normal is not…strictly normal.

I kid. A little bit. Everybody goes through “stuff” and may never find the pony, but the point is to keep looking. The key, in theory, is that you should know what a pony looks like.

[Editor’s Note: this week’s theme was supposed to be about courage and conflict resolution, but you keep writing about horses. What gives?]

And there, finally, is the point. In marriage counseling the other day, my guy asked something that revealed a bottomless void within. (I realize that casually mentioning marriage counseling might be one of those record-scratching party-stoppers, but whatever. It’s Friday and I’ve exceeded my hauling capacity for diversions and evasions). He asked me, “What do you want?”

I had no idea. I looked around the room, and then at my boots, and eventually within. 

“I have no idea,” I said. And then, “Actually, I’ve always known. I want to live in a lighthouse with a big, round fort at the top, lined with books, and a cot in an alcove facing the sea. It should also have a moat encircled by claymores and concertina wire.”

He just looked at me and then flipped his notebook shut one-handed. “That’ll be enough for today.”

“A pony?” I said.

But that was it for the day. 

I have plans. Loads of plans. Paper notebooks, legal pads, journals and digital note-taking apps with thousands of scraps of ambitions. They’re all great ideas. They all have merit. They’re all distractions.

The “It” is coming into focus, though. Or rather, it’s resolving into being. I believe, or I hope, that it harmonizes with the duties and responsibilities of a married, Christian man. I mean, if this thing can only be achieved apart from my vocation, then it’s clearly not from Him. So, I don’t have to worry about that. 

So, I guess what I’m saying is that as this Thing resolves into being, I don’t need to worry about what others think. Not so much, anyway. I don’t need to put a Santa hat on my severed human head. It’s fine just the way it is.

Think about it.