Today I chalked a line from the Ike Reilly song “Devil’s Valentine.”
What makes this lyric powerful is how it rejects both extremes.
Dreams give us hope, and fear is what keeps us up all night. In the middle is a pile of bills, a broken promise, an empty beer bottle, and a career that never quite panned out the way I imagined.
I will never be free of fear, and I will never fully realize those dreams. Most of life is lived on the road between fear and desire.
That is pretty much how I ended up in the Divorced Dad District.
I dreamt about a different life, and I had the fear of losing everything. Somewhere between stop signs, life happened.
I raise the ShepKids on dreams and fear, but they don’t know it.
Every morning, somewhere between a Hail Mary and an Our Father, I tell the devil to go fuck himself.
I chalk on this blackboard, I stand at a trading desk, I pay an overdue bill, I wonder what I’m missing out on, and I wait for another sunset.
Somewhere in between it all, I better figure things out before I become part of someone else's prayer.
One day we all become the name spoken after grace at dinner, the face in a photograph on a dresser, the person somebody misses when a song comes on the radio.
I’m not living a dream, but I’m not having a nightmare either. I’m just breathing in and out the life that was given to me by two people who left before I was ready to let them go.
I’m not sure I would have understood what Ike Reilly was talking about when I was twenty-five, but standing on the doorstep of sixty…
…it makes a lot more sense.
That is why I don’t worry too much about the story my pillow tells.
Okay, Chalkheads…
It is Saturday, and we are moving into the middle of June. This time of year brings long days and short shadows. Perfect for finding the gusto, astonishment, and smiling back at the sun.
