No holding back.
What do I mean by that?
Well, it is a bit of a long history with me. I'm 62 years old now and one has to ask the question of whether it is plausible to return to being the person I originally was from birth. Is it silly for someone 'my age' to act with the same naive enthusiasm as I had as a youth or is it necessary to 'act my age' and contain myself as I have been over the years?
While my father was more of a buoyant type by nature, my Mom and my brother were both reserved. It seems like my entire life I was being told to calm down or not act "that way." All throughout life, I've presented myself with the proper decorum and it is possible that my deliverance from the well-behaved world was in the theater which asked me to 'act out' because the last thing folks want on stage is a boring actor.
"Don't Do That"
These are the three words I remember hearing most in my childhood. On one hand, my folks always supported me and told me I could do or be anything I wanted to be, but on the other, they had lists of things they didn't think were proper for me to be. Playing in a rock and roll band was one of those things. They didn't want me playing in bars and clubs, and touring, getting into drugs, and all sorts of debauchery which they considered a sure thing in rock music.
How to be authentically me has a lot to do with knowing what that actually is for me. It has been so long since I lived without hearing the voices of my family yelling at me "Don't do that." Even now, these years of caretaking have really sucked the soul out of me. It was sucked already years ago though and I want it back. Some of it was caused by the loss of my ability to sing and express myself onstage. But, still, I want it back.
Breaking out of the corset of life I have been stifled by seems almost impossible. There is nobody telling me "Don't do that" anymore, but I've learned it so well it is difficult to imagine living without that corset?
A large part of me wants to burst. It's as if I have been packing in all of my frustrations for so long that I may be taken to the looney bin if I were to let it out.
Everyone plays life so damned safe. It makes me want to throw up. But I am probably seeing them through my eyes and they are perfectly fine with it. I don't know.
All I know is that for me to be a normal person again I have to start breaking out of those barriers that have been so firmly planted in my way. I cannot blame anyone else but myself for allowing myself to become so disempowered.
Tiredness and fatigue are a constant reminder of my humanity. I'm now falling asleep trying to type this. I can barely keep my eyes open.
So, when I am down, I am down. Nobody else to tell me when to go to bed when to get up, what to do, where to go, what to say. I have complete control over my life and am really challenged to find out who the heck I am, or better put, how the heck I am.
Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse.