Headthegong.com

I’ve spent a lot of time in front of mirrors. Too much time. As a kid I would make faces, practice impressions, and make believe I was on TV. My sister and I sometimes played the “News Game,” whereby we would sit on my parents’ bed, facing their big dresser mirror, and pretend to be television news anchors. We’d begin by delivering the news straight-faced – “The weather will be sunny today; the Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-3 in extra innings” etc. Then, without warning, one of us would start acting like a maniac – screeching, laughing, making silly faces, bouncing around the bed – until the two of us burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Once puberty hit, I’d spend interminable stretches in front of the bathroom mirror, picking at zits and fooling with my hair. Even now my family makes fun of me for spending so much time staring at myself. My mother has often wondered aloud whether I’m afraid I might shrivel up and disappear if I lose sight of my own reflection.

Our host family in Mexico doesn’t have a mirror in their bathroom, so I didn’t shave at all during those difficult first days on the Pueblo. My beard grew in wild and itched like crazy. I was curious what it looked like, what I looked like, and as the days rolled by I wasn’t entirely sure I’d even recognize my reflection. It had a curiously unsettling effect on me, not being able to check in with myself each trip to the bathroom, just to give myself the old “thumbs up” or flash myself a goofy smile. Perhaps my Mom is right about me being afraid to lose myself. It’s true I used to have recurrent nightmares as a child, wherein my father’s face would suddenly change form in mid conversation. The change would be ever so slight, but enough that my Dad didn’t quite look like my Dad. This terrified me. A part of me seems to need reassurance that everything is as it should be, as I need it to be. Part of me needs to know I’m still me.

Of course, when you look at something everyday, it’s harder to notice the inevitable changes that come with the passage of time. My nephews grow up so quickly between visits, and old friends seem to age in unnatural quantum leaps. Now that I’m back in the cradle of civilization – i.e. Metuchen, NJ, U.S.A. – I’m once again confronted by my own reflection several times a day. And I do look different. Older. A bit more worn down. In need of a haircut, certainly. You’d think one’s reflection would be objective, showing the cold, hard facts, but I don’t think so. For me, the mirror has been a canvas upon which I cast my hopes and fears, creating a sense of illusion like any good stage magician. It’s a seductive and convincing illusion, but as with stage magic, at bottom I know it’s not real.

I’m discovering how mindfulness meditation can be a far more accurate and useful mirror, a perfect gauge of my state of mind and body. I wanted to say “soul” a moment ago, but something got in the way. I think it was that punk I see everyday in the mirror.

The following is the last thing I wrote before leaving Mexico. I intended to post it before the long journey home, but severe weather kept me walled up for my last few days on the Pueblo. Reading it now, it seems insane and out of context, as I sit here in New Jersey preparing for knee surgery. Part of me wants to bury Fly Disneyland. Fly Disneyland is weird. People are actually reading this blog now. Family members have printed entries out and passed them around to friends. Everybody loves the travelogue stuff, but lately things have been getting crazy. Shit, maybe I’ve been getting a little crazy. Sitting in a chair with your leg propped up for five weeks can do that to a guy.

The bottom line is this: Whenever I censor myself or try to write in a particular way to impress this person or that person, I stop writing. And I don’t want to stop writing.

A strange thing happened today, something I can’t for the life of me explain. Actually, it’s more like a non-happening, but whatever – the thing is this: I did not see a single fly today. Not a one. As usual, I never left the room all day, not for a second. And a good chunk of everyday is spent engaged in ruthless combat against the entire insect kingdom (and the arachnids, and anything else that finds its way into my room). The walls are painted with spider guts, the floors littered with carcasses: spiders, crickets, cockroaches, assorted beetles, and flies – especially flies. Maybe the little fuckers finally got the message. Fuck with me and die! Maybe I killed every last one of them. Who knows?

Something strange also occurred to me early this morning, while I was in and out of a dream. I realized there’s a psychological equalizer in my head that limits the volume of my thoughts. I know this sounds crazy, but try it, try to remember the loudest scream you ever heard. Is it actually loud in your mind’s ear? Can you mentally conjure up a sound so loud that it hurts? I can’t do it. I mean, I can imagine the sound of a scream all right, but it’s like hearing a scream on television, with the volume set at a comfortable level. Whispers, screams, casual conversations – they all come to mind at the same volume level. I can’t imagine a sound so quiet I have to strain to hear it, and I can’t imagine a sound so loud that it hurts my ears. And I can’t think of a word that’s the audio equivalent of “imagine.” Crazy shit.

Come to think of it, I can’t mentally produce a memory of pain so intense it actually hurts to recall it. Or a light so bright it burns my eyes to picture it. Nope, can’t do it. Perhaps this applies to all the senses. Maybe there’s a cure for schizophrenia in all this… “Tell me Mr. Adams, do the voices ever change in volume? Ask Satan to scream as loud as he can, and if it doesn’t hurt your ears, you can disregard him as unreal.”

Seven years ago, on a day not unlike today, I woke to the chirping of birds and the fiery glow of sunlight saturating the green of the back yard. I opened the window to the back bathroom to take in a breath of fresh morning air and there he was–that fat, juicy jet-plane of a housefly that I had cruelly confined between the windows the day before. Cruelty is usually not my cup of tea, but that particular day I was capable of anything. After a week and a half of on and off rain, the day had been a total wash from start to finish. I woke up from a despairing dream that left a knot in my back the size of a tennis ball. Everything I did felt as if it were a futile escape from the molten core of that knot. And everything was. Anyway, as I was vainly trying to shit out my sorrow in the back bathroom, a fly – one of those big fatties as I said – kept dive-bombing me and buzzing about my head. After taking a few swipes at him with a dirty rag, he finally landed on the window screen and – without hesitation – I slammed him into his prison cell. After a minute or so of helpless buzzing around he sat motionless, seemingly watching the downpour and (so I imagined) contemplating the heinousness of the wrongdoing he had perpetrated against me. All day long, when I came in to take a leak or brush my teeth, I stopped to check in on my little POW, each time feeling a little more guilty, but not enough to grant clemency. Well the following morning, with the sun shining and the birds chirping and all, I finally had a mind to set things right, but when I flung open the window, my little buddy didn’t so much as stretch his wings. I pursed my lips and let out a gust of breath as a wake up call, but the little fat fly just slid across the windowsill like a tree branch over a frozen lake. I waited too long. It was too late.

A few months later I broke my leg during a particularly boisterous (and awesome) jam session in the band room. I was singing and stomping and spinning and jumping off amplifiers. Somehow, I stomped so hard I cracked the plateau of my tibia. Then, one morning as I hobbled along in that back bathroom, just before I reached the toilet, one of my crutches went right through the linoleum, through the rotten wood underneath, and straight down to the ground underneath the house. I put a board over the hole and left it at that, knowing from past experience the futility of notifying the landlord. Two years after that, a strange thing occurred to me as I sat on the toilet in that same bathroom, resting my right foot on the edge of the board and staring at the box of Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent that was sitting on the washing machine across from me. The washing machine that was full of piss and shit when we moved in. Anyway, the box said “Deep Cleaning.” That started the following train of thought: “Deep cleaning… That’s what Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent is. It’s what it does. An overused word – deep that is, while its inverse, peed, well, you hardly ever see that in print. ‘Took a leak’ you might see every once in a while, but not so much ‘peed.’”

Then I had a little conversation with myself, as follows: “Have you ever been taking a shower somewhere, like in a hotel or something, and suddenly realized that you’re in one of the few places where it would be just fine if you pissed all over yourself. You know, just to have the experience. You can aim it right at your feet or kneecap and just flat out urinate on yourself. It’s kind of exhilarating, isn’t it, like when you’re out in the woods and you can just let it go without aiming it anywhere – the old ‘hands-free pee.’”

Then I recalled how John and I had often discussed how liberating it might be to set aside a special night and, intestines willing, crap our respective pants. Just poop ourselves, right there in our Levis, and then ponder it a while, letting the experience sink in, feeling the warmth, the texture, the shame of it all maybe too. We actually talked about this, about sitting together in the living room and pooping our pants, as if it would be some kind of sacred bonding experience, like doing shrooms out in woods or becoming blood brothers.

A year after this inner monologue, we went to the Cat’s Cradle to see the rock band Guided by Voices. After the show, the guys in the band turned up at our house for an “after hours” party. Everybody but the main guy, the singer, Bob Pollard. I was rocking out a version of The Who’s “I Can’t Explain” in the band room. I knew that Bob Pollard was a big Who fan and I was hoping he might stumble in and jam with me. When he didn’t show, I went to the back bathroom to take a leak and, pushing open the door, was taken aback to discover the other Guided by Voices guys hanging out in there with some girls, smoking cigarettes and preparing a line of coke on the back of a CD case. Just as I was about to back out the door, something extraordinary happened. I hope I remember this right, because the details are very, very important. I’m pretty sure it went down like this:

I noticed a fly buzzing around the room, a big, fat, juicy fly. “It couldn’t be” I thought, and with that thought came a wave of excitement so powerful, I pooped my pants right there on the spot – we’re talking The Hershey Squirts – right in front the girls and the guys from Guided by Voices and the line of coke and the half empty bottles of beer. In a panic, I grabbed for the box of deep-cleaning Arm and Hammer Fabricare Detergent and without stopping to think things through I dumped a whole lot of the white powder down the back of my pants. With that, everyone began to laugh hysterically, everyone except John, who was by this time standing outside the door. He was weeping like a war widow. “You did it without me!” he wailed, and before I could explain myself, he began to strain, red-faced and eyes bulging, holding his breath until at long last letting out a groan that sounded like a grizzly caught in a bear trap. Everyone fell dead silent. All eyes were locked onto John, as his face slowly began to twist from a grimace to wry smile. The room filled with the odor of a freshly pinched loaf. Before anyone could say a word, John raced toward me, arms outstretched, and gave me a big bear hug. Then we started spinning each other around the room like lovers in a field of daisies. The drummer from Guided by Voices raised his beer as if to toast, but in doing so, accidentally knocked over the box of Arm and Hammer Fabricare, spilling the remainder of its contents onto the line of coke. With this, one of the girls started screaming, and by then the smell was so bad in the room that the bass player for Guided by Voices puked, in projectile fashion, against the side of the washing machine. This triggered a chain reaction whereby we all began vomiting all over the floor and each other, all the while the one girl screaming like a banshee. In the midst of the commotion, I slipped on some vomit and fell back onto the floor, knocking the board off the crutch hole as I reached my hand back to catch myself. To my utter shock, a human head suddenly popped up through the hole in the floor. It was Bob Pollard, a big smile on his face. “Did I hear I Can’t Explain? I love that song.”

After that, the details get a little fuzzy. We may or may not have played a few hands of poker, and I think someone spilled some beer on my left shoe, soaking the lace all the way up to the knot. Maybe it was the right shoe, I don’t know. But the last thing I recall is looking high up on the wall and seeing that fat, juicy fly. He seemed to be waiting patiently for the place to clear out so he could wallow about in the muck and mire. It must have looked to him like Fly Disneyland.

Right now I’m thinking it would be a miracle if I can get this knee taken care of before Christmas. It took days to figure out where the nearest MRI facility is located. You’d think the doc, given his area of expertise and the fact that he’s the referring physician, would’ve had an address or phone number for us, but no. “I think there’s a place in Veracruz, in a building across from this other building…” The next day, the phone cuts out while I’m talking to my insurance rep. No more minutes left. Can’t get to the internet place or it’s closed, etc. Finally waded through the mess and got an appointment for next Friday. Then another set of hoops to get tangled up in, hopefully ending in me lying on an operating table somewhere in the United States sometime in the next month or so. “No te preocupes, Bug.” Jesus is always telling me. “Don’t worry. Every problem has a solution.”

A great guy, that Jesus. As is my father-in-law, who happens to be a doctor, and has been helping me out in countless ways: giving me medical advice and reassurance; making phone calls to the insurance company; checking my email; recommending surgeons, offering me a place to stay and recover in the US; helping with expenses. A true saint, he’s been; a saving grace. Should I ever be a position to offer him a helping hand, I will consider it a privilege.

The long periods between medical interventions mean, of course, more days and weeks sitting around in the room immobilized. Fortunately, I was born without the gene that makes one prone to boredom, and I have always enjoyed solitary pursuits. I discovered the chess game on my computer the other day. It took me a few games, incrementally increasing the computer’s level of stupidity, to taste victory. I doubt I’ll play much more, though, as it ceases to feel like play if I have to think for more than ten seconds before making a move.

I was never into chess, as I never played a match without it feeling like a personal evaluation of sorts, as if my opponent and I were comparing SAT scores or dick sizes. My college buddies and I set up a tournament once, and it was more stressful than final exams week. My friend Josh and I made it through to the finals where, if memory serves, I prevailed after an agonizingly tense battle. We sweated and strained for hours it seemed, hoping the other would make the critical mistake, which Josh finally did. The feeling of having superior intelligence did not materialize as expected. On the contrary, I felt rather like a shallow prick for wanting to win so badly. And as the blood slowly descended from the confines of my skull, I felt sure I’d never play chess again as long as I lived.

Another great guy, that Josh, always a big smile painted on his face, and a robust, jocular disposition that kept his belly jiggling. I remember when he lost that belly, deciding one day out of the blue to dedicate himself to jogging. I was in the process of rehabbing from major knee surgery (again with the knees) and happy to have a running partner. We ran grooves into the pavement and nature trails all across campus. After two months, none of Josh’s clothes fit him.

A year or so later, in order to look lean and mean for the big, college-ending trip to Cancun (again with the Mexico), we stepped up the jogging routine again. Josh also convinced me it would be a good idea to hit the tanning salon, in order to get a “base tan” to protect our lily-white hides from the harsh tropical sun. We returned from our first session looking like a couple of boiled lobsters. A few hours later as I was readying myself for bed, I began to itch a little. Within another hour, I was scratching myself like a flea-ridden chimpanzee, every inch of my body screaming for relief. I ran upstairs to check on Josh, finding him with his shirt off, scratching his back with a towel. He let out a big laugh, then said “It feels better if you take a shower”, so I ran back downstairs and ran the water over me till it was ice cold. Not two minutes after drying off, the itching returned with a vengeance. It was no longer a laughing matter, it seemed to me. I had to be at work the next morning, 7:30am sharp. It was already approaching midnight, and I surely wouldn’t be able to sleep standing up in the shower.

It finally hit upon us to run to the 24-hour super-center down the street. We frantically searched through the rows of boxes and bottles in the pharmacy aisle, ripping open boxes right then and there, pulling up our shirts and spraying each other’s backs with every anti-itch remedy we could get our hands on. We were lucky not to be thrown out of the place, such a spectacle we were making of ourselves. Grabbing several bottles of the stuff that seemed to work best, we raced back home and proceeded to empty the contents within an hour or two. Relief lasted a few seconds at a time, at best. Noticing that running seemed to bring some relief, and not knowing what else to do, we strapped on our running shoes and jogged all over town, for what must have been a couple of hours. It had to be about 4am when we finally exhausted ourselves and headed home to take long, cold showers.

Soon the sun was up, and I needed to call in to work. I had a thing for never calling in sick. I don’t think I missed a single day of work in my life up to that point. I decided to tell the plain truth. To my complete surprise, my supervisor was very understanding. In fact, she had experienced the same thing once – “UV rash” she called it. I don’t know when the itching stopped, but eventually we passed out and woke up to long awaited, sweet relief. Needless to say, we cancelled our next tanning appointment.

In Cancun, sitting around the table at a restaurant one evening, out of the clear sky I suggested to my friends that we play a little game. When your turn came, you had to come up with a synonym for the word “fuck.” Any phrase or euphemism would due, from “shag” to “hide the salami”, but the first person to either get stumped or offer up a repeat had to swim naked across the hotel swimming pool when we got back. I assumed one of the ladies would be first to get flustered, but after a long while, having exhausted nearly every fuck word ever uttered, in multiple languages, Josh slipped up, forgetting someone else had already said “bang.” I still have the photograph of Josh climbing out of the pool, his lily-white ass gleaming, his head cocked as it dawned on him we had taken his towel and clothes.

Later that night, I began a vomiting spree that lasted three days. The meal I enjoyed during the “fuck game” came up in barely digested chunks. At one point, I pulled a piece of chicken out of my nose the size of a McNugget. At this, none of us could contain our amusement. But I eventually got so sick I began to fear death. I ended up spending a considerable portion of my vacation money to get medical attention. I was given injections of unknown substances and told I may have ingested some virus while snorkeling, or else was subject to Montezuma’s Revenge. In any event, I spent the rest of my vacation in bed, while my friends partied and parasailed and did their best to look bummed-out when they returned to see me curled up in the fetal position.

And so I find myself here again, whiling away my days in bed, watching the sun rise and set over Montezuma’s Empire, wondering when he’s going to call it even. He’s got me in a corner, setting me up for the checkmate. Down, but not out, I make my move, careful not to lift my hand from the ivory until the last possible moment, when just about to let go, lips pursed in an expression of subdued resignation, I suddenly, without a breath of warning, squeal like a pig being raped with a turkey-baster. I flip the board over wildly, scattering the pieces everywhere, grab my crutches and gallop for the door. Every problem has a solution.

Here on the Pueblo, when it rains, it comes down hard, I’m talking a fucking deluge. The sky just opens up and dumps it all on you – clouds, birds, airplanes, stars – the whole enchilada. It could go on like this for an hour, then suddenly stop, as if a giant, unseen hand just turned off the celestial faucet. A minute later it might come down again in a torrent, for another hour or more. It went on like this all day yesterday, and all through the night.

Of course, I needed to get to Santiago to see the doctor about my knee. Turns out, my travel insurance will cover the cost of an MRI, as long as El Doctor makes the referral. Jesus didn’t seem concerned about the rain, the condition of the roads, etc., so we headed out about 4:15pm. We managed to get there unharmed, although Jesus did mention as we crossed “the bridge” that there was a good chance it would be under water by the time we returned. “Then what?” I asked, naively. Well, then we’d just have to sit there and wait for the river to go down. Might take several hours, assuming the rain stops. No hay problema!

Anyway, it was a long wait to see the doc, but once we got in, he quickly went to work on the knee, taking it through all the drills. Of course, the whole exchange had to be translated, the doctor asking me “Does it hurt when I do this?” and me wincing and resisting, but for the most part relating that I didn’t feel any sharp pain, just some discomfort and weird sensations (and fear that at any moment I’d be in agony). The lack of pain seemed to perplex the doc, leading him to believe that the complete ligament tear he was sensing must have been the result of an old injury. “If it was recent, he’d be in more pain” he explained to my wife. He theorized that this old injury caused instability in the knee, causing the meniscus to tear during the soccer game.

I told my wife to tell him that, with all due respect, his theory didn’t make sense to me. I’ve only injured my left knee once, seven years ago, and the MRI showed no ligament damage, just a fracture. It healed fine and I’ve had no injuries since. Knee solid as a rock. Played sports a zillion times with total stability. Surely, I haven’t since shredded my knee ligament, without a hint of pain or swelling to indicate an injury took place? Besides, I said, I felt my knee get torn to shreds two weeks ago on the soccer field, with the pain being primarily where the torn ligament used to be. The doctor stuck to his guns, however, insisting the torn ligament must be from an old injury. At that moment, what little confidence I had in him vanished. Worse than being dead wrong, he was setting me up for an insurance nightmare. Old injury = pre-existing condition = no coverage for repair. And surgical repair will be necessary, he said, if I hope to ever play sports again. I do hope.

“At least we got the MRI referral,” I thought, as we headed back home in the downpour. “We’ll have to travel several hours to get to the nearest MRI facility, deal with continual confusion, etc., but the sooner I can get it done, the sooner I can get back on my feet. The thing now is to get back to the house in one piece.” How Jesus managed to navigate around the puddles and potholes, I don’t know. It was dark and the windows were all fogged up, and Jesus had to continually wipe away a spot through which to see the road ahead. We approached the bridge, but it was no passe. The pavement had to be at least a few feet below the surface of the rushing water, and a downed tree was blocking the way as well. Jesus told us that last year a car tried to cross during a flood like this and four people drowned. We voted unanimously to remain alive, so there was nothing to do but wait.

My thoughts were caught up in worries about the surgery, which would have to happen in the United States. “Shit, with all the associated expenses, I might not be able to return to Mexico at all. Even if I could swing the chunk of dough the insurance won’t cover and the travel expenses, still we will lose my part of the grant money if I need to be away for more than a month.” Every now and again a phrase from the mindfulness book would come to mind. Acceptance, Bobby. Don’t get caught up in your thoughts, Bobby. Return to your breath, Bobby. “Fuck all that!” I thought to myself, but before I could elaborate further, we were heading across the bridge, water rushing up over the tires.

When we arrived at the house, we noticed that the floor of our room was pretty wet. Rainwater had gotten in through the closed window and the ceiling was leaking in a few places. There was nothing to do but throw down some towels, move the bed to a dry place, and ride out the storm. When I turned the bathroom faucet on, the water that flowed out looked like diarrhea. Chunks of mud were being spit out into the sink. Our hosts informed us that this is just what happens when the river swells beyond its banks. Again, nothing to do about it but wait. It’s now 3pm the following day, and still the water is pure mud. No showering, no washing dishes, no washing clothes until the river deems it so. It’s the beginning of the rainy season, we are told. Might rain like this for days.

So, the MRI trip will have to wait. Patience – Isn’t that one of those fucking pillars of mindfulness? I’ve been laid up for two weeks now, and it’s hard to keep my spirits up. I’m a guy who likes to stay on the move. Shit, my whole philosophy of life has to do with allowing the body to move unfettered. I can see the atrophy setting in already, and I have at least several more weeks of immobility ahead of me. This was not part of the plan but, yes, it’s true, this is how it is. I can make the most of it or continue whining.

One thing I have been doing is sorting through the old journal files. Funny thing, the past. The sense of it I’ve been carrying around with me doesn’t seem to match up with the documentation. Stories I’ve been telling for the past few years, upon close inspection, appear to be significantly edited versions of what “really” happened, assuming the journal entries are closer to the truth of things. I’m not sure what to make of this. After all, we register an experience on a few levels at most, filtering everything through a mesh of conditioning, tangled thoughts and twisted expectations. Considering the teeny tiny attention spans most of us make use of, it’s no wonder it can take years to fully make sense of a single experience, to deeply understand even the briefest of openings to the majesty, the wonder of a given moment.

A few minutes ago, I concluded my trip down memory lane, arriving back at September, 2007. I am struck with how non-linear my past seems, as I sense it from the vantage point of today, right now, as it swirls and bubbles up through the portals of memory and dreams. The dramas and concerns that preoccupied me even a month or two ago, seem no closer to hand nor further away than the smell of Grandma’s kitchen, or the countless nightmares and longings of my youth. And so it will soon be with all this rain, and the worries about my knee, and the bumpy roads and muddy water. Soon the floodwaters will recede, and all will flow back into the mix, into the bubbling swirl of moments forgotten, where the past is churned together with the sound of pigs being slaughtered and the smell of burning plastic and the hollow pangs of hope and despair. A gurgling, sputtering ocean that spits its spindrift toward the sky, where the stars broadcast their secrets through the ether, and where revelation awaits, full of grace, for an open ear…

From last year:

9-1-06 [midnight]
The clock just struck midnight and it’s now September, which means nothing really, except that it’s time to gather up the August paper-trail, log it in and file it away under “the past” and summon the resolve to flip the calendar page and get on with it all. I’m particularly exhausted this week from time spent on the job, mixing it up with troubled teens and all the drama and unbridled energy they bring to each and every interaction. Still, I have it easier than most, with no kids of my own to worry about and no health problems or relationship woes to whine about. In fact, from an objective standpoint, I’ve got it made in the shade my friends. And yet…

And yet I still worry I might be putting off the really important shit, making some unnecessary compromise for the sake of some false sense of security, some empty promise of a brighter tomorrow that I never seem to quite make it to. I don’t know. This is just what’s floating through my mind right now. My wife is sleeping in the other room, and just imagining her sleepy face makes me smile. If I didn’t have her sleepy face in the other room, I don’t know what I’d do.

The kids I work with, with them it’s all potential, as it has been with me most of my life thus far. That sense we get deep down in the pit of our stomachs–that we’re onto something real this time, that we’re on our way to something big and beautiful–I miss that sense. It doesn’t seem to matter much that we never seem to get there, because there’s always another dream or scheme that captures our imagination, that stirs the bowl of our belly.

But right now, with August number 35 in the rear-view, I’m gripped with that terrible realization again, the one that always hits me when the swell of potential finds repose in the stillness and unwavering reality of what actually is. This is it. There’s nothing more and there never was. The crickets are chirping, or whatever it is that crickets do. My wife is drifting into a dream. And I am putting letters in front of a blinking line with the hope that in so doing I might find some release from the mounting pressure, the unrelenting squeeze of this psychological straight-jacket I keep slipping into.

I can choose life, wide-open, full throttle, right now. I have been here before.