You may say I'm a dreamer

  

Give me mercy in a minute now

I’mma bleed a little poison out

I’’mma cry a little river down

Then I’m setting this whole thing on fire……

 

I was having a conversation with my dad this morning and he said to me “Craig, you’re a dreamer and I don’t know that that’s a bad thing. It’s pretty fucking amazing when you think about. I don’t think you could change if you wanted to. You only know how to be this way, to care not at all or with everything”. 

 

The conversation stuck with me throughout the day and kept replaying in my head over and over again. I went to the gym. Blared my favorite music, but yet those words continued to dominate my thoughts. Sweat pouring from me, lungs on fire, the concept 2 rower taunting me to pull harder, and the barbell sizing me up….I suddenly found peace. I think, at least for that moment, I realized my dad is right. One of the constant struggles I deal with is, as Brian Fallon said “I was born beside a river that flows to a raging sea, that will one day serve to quell or one day be the death of me”. That raging sea is the war that goes on between the dreamer in me and the cynic/realist. 

 

I am dreamer. I believe love is the ultimate irony of evolution. Some may argue that we are wired to love; it is part of us, to seek it out, to want or need companionship. I think there is some truth in that but for entirely different reasons. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes wrote the natural state of man is brutish…..it is the “war of every man against every man”. We evolved, formed groups and then societies for self preservation. Our instinct is to survive. I don’t know that is our nature to love. Self preservation, kill or be killed, drove our evolution.  Love is not that. It would not have served the self preservation instinct to value someone more than yourself; therefore love is above our nature. It transcends.

 

As I get older and more honest with myself I will admit despite the outward appearance I am hopeless and cheesy. I believe in love but I think our culture doesn’t love, love…rather it loves the idea of love; we want all the pleasure with none of the pain. I believe true love is not about you, it’s selfless. I root for the happy ending for everyone even though I know the world is a cold and cruel place. I believe amor vincit omnia. I believe you should only love/care irresponsibly. There is no halfway. I believe in cannonballs. I believe even the Hulk has kryptonite. I believe hugs are more curative than modern medicine, especially a hulkhug. I believe you can want to reach for someone’s hand and not ever want to let it go.  I believe that reaching for that hand doesn’t make you weak, instead it makes you stronger. Unquantifiably so. I believe people could be so much happier and healthier if they would look at someone they love (or care about) and see all the reasons why it would work out instead of focusing on the one or two reasons it might not. I believe we let our fear get in the way. I believe sometimes even the night looks lonely next to me. I believe if you roll over at night and upon seeing that person next to you, you smile because they are there, than you’re far better richer than if you ever hit Powerball. I believe you can find bed head and morning breath cute on the right person. I believe a smile from the right person can serve as evidence that god may exist. I believe music is powerful beyond measure. I believe I met “you” between the wax and the needle in the words of my favorite song. . I believe that our minds get in the way of our hearts. I believe nothing is never as easy as we are led to believe but we quit far too often. I believe if people were led by their heart, and not their mind, the world wouldn’t be so cruel and dark. I believe that for those I love I will be with you through the dark so that you do not have to go through the dark alone, or on your own. 

 

I believe we need to give a fuck, until we are out of fucks to give, and when we think we have run out we need to dig deep and find one more to give. Because you're never out of the fight. Never. I believe as long as I have the people I do in my corner than there is no one luckier than me. I believe (and hope) they know Id quite literally do anything for them. Any-fucking-thing.  I believe I’m a dreamer. I wouldn’t want it any other way and I hope some of you are dreamers too. The world has far too few. Being a dreamer does not mean you hold people to some impossible or unrealistic vision. Instead you see an imperfect person, perfectly.  It isn't easy. The down fall being when you fall, you do so with no parachute,  accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared (see I'm not meathead) hitting the concrete at terminal velocity and breaking ....completely. Even knowing that, I believe that being a dreamer is a tragically beautiful disaster, so dare to dream and if you come across a dreamer dare to share in the experience, embrace it. 

I have been struggling the last several weeks to write. I had so many thoughts in my head that they were tangled like a rats nest that could not be unwoven, let alone made sense of. I would put sentences down two or three at a time and completely lose my train of thought. It wasn't lack of motivation or passion, I'd like to believe I have never lacked either. It can just be incredibly difficult for me sometimes to think what I have to say is worth putting out there......but I saw jelly beans in the store a couple of weeks ago and it reminded me of my grandmother, who i love and miss so much, especially on days like today. In any event, gramma always had jelly beans or some other kind of candy lying around for us. It was impossible not to smile in her presence. She was the warmest person I ever knew and I swear she kept the candy there just to make us smile. In her dining room, on a small end table, there would routinely be a dish of jelly beans (or maybe spice drops) and I would constantly sneak in a handful when I could.....which reminds me of this beautiful / amazing person I know who once listed stealing office candy as one of her strengths but I digress.

One Easter my gramma and I were talking about jelly beans, and we both said black was our favorite (I was only 17 and had yet to puke my fucking brains out from sambuca at Providence College....it would take me years to go back to black jelly beans). It was funny because we were both saying how it was great having the black ones be our favorite because most people hated them, so we could eat all the other jelly beans (just like everyone else) and after a while there would be nothing but black ones left which would be perfect since it was our favorite. I was smiling about this memory and talking to someone who I really care about / admire when I told them i was struggling to write this post and i came across this video. It was as if gramma and this other incredible woman worked in cosmic unison and directed me to it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk

I was overcome with emotions that ran the gamut. Love. Regret. Loss. Self loathing and doubt. How had I been spending my time? Was it doing the right things? whatever the fuck that may be because I am not so sure I even know what they are anymore. I try really hard to do them...to be a good son, brother, friend, uncle, boyfriend, date, employee. But have I been doing them? I don't know but what I came to is this :


Worry less, do more.

 It's beauty outpaces it's simplicity. In so many ways each day is a jelly bean. Eat it. Enjoy it. Don't choke on it. You can't put it back in the jar. You can't ask for a different color if you get one you don't like. Those are like bad days. Chew it up. Don't waste time wishing you had a different color jelly bean. With a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work,  your jar will be filled with mostly your favorite color (for your sake i hope it doesn't remind you of puking till you hit bile)....but sooner than you think the jar will also be empty. Don't give up. Ever. Don't be afraid to be happy and to that end don't run from anything out of fear, ANYTHING, especially from love, people you care about and those who care about you. Like, no LOVE, the black jelly bean. See beauty where others miss it, find pleasure in things others won't try, appreciate genius in insanity, discover and celebrate a big heart where others would never think to look. We will never know what we have if we are afraid to have it and we can't spend our lives waiting to live....