my fifth step

[honeydumplin]

A common theme without a doubt, was this feeling that somewhere
over the horizon, happiness awaited, chasing the very thing that
I never wanted to catch. The concept of success was an illusion lacking
the desire to be achieved. Failure became a comfortable venue for
playing the role of the victim, even though the search for pity
was as vacant as my commitment to finding a state of genuine
contentment.

Moments of contentment were reserved for some cynically regarded,
high-class rich dude, pondering a sunset aboard his yacht, or for
people who were frozen in time, on a movie screen or in a book,
never prepared for tomorrow. This twisted, limited attitude was that
I didn't make enough money to enjoy the day as much as the next guy.

I did little to prepare for anything. A whole approach oblivious
to the moment, oriented around the appearance of actually enjoying it.
It didn't matter what kind of torment I carried around inside, as
long as I came across as being capable of having a good time. And
as it turned out, I didn't want that responsibility that came with having
much money. All I wanted was to look like I might be that guy
standing on the yacht, looking at the sunset, with a drink in his hand.

I have had, what my dear mother called golden opportunities, pass
right in front of me, and would be too afraid, and/or too blind to see them.
Even when things took a turn for the better during the darker times,
I had become so accustomed to self-sabotage that I was
fully convinced that something would happened to mess it up,
pushing the the envelope further to see if I could get by with
a more and more of the antics, that I'd gotten by with before.

When I left A-school, my test scores allowed the benefit
of choosing one of the top five billets. I chose VF-45 in Key West,
and arrived there in October of '93. It was common knowledge
that the squadron was in the process of decommissioning, but
that did nothing to stop most from wanting to go there.

Beautiful girls. Tropical breezes. Paradise. It sounded like
a happening place. Besides, it might just be what would
allow me to get back on track once and for all, and prove to
all those people how wrong they were about my never
amounting to anything.

Well I got down there, and after a few trips up and down
Duval, and few more drinks, I went back to the motel
for a decent night's rest. My hopes of starting a new
chapter were just around the corner.

The next morning, a young sailor girl driving a
duty van came to pick me up, but if no one knew any
better, they would have thought that I was headed
to Guantanamo. My happy and joyful spirits from
the previous night had begun to fade away. It was as if
someone had given me their ice cream cone to hold,
while it melted.

Here I was, in my late twenties with this whole beautiful world
at my fingertips, and no capability at all to enjoy it.
No way to cope. No where left to run. No joy at all.
Just sadness, and melancholy.

This song by REM came on the radio called, "Everybody Hurts",
and boy did I get caught in the those lyrics. I got homesick,
depressed, and big old tears started creeping out of the
corners of my eyes.

The girl driving picking up on this, asked if I was okay. I said
I was fine—the line that I so often used to avoid
anything beneath the surface.