a warm cup of coffee

i don't do good with disappointment.
oh i know, who does?
sometimes i wonder if i suck more at it than most people
or does everyone suck this much at it??
who knows.
i just know i suck at it.

and one of the funky weird things is that i do all this
protection stuff inside of me so that i don't have to
deal with disappointment.

oh, yeah, like that works.
it just seems to make things worse.

you would think i would figure this out and stop, but that's
the thing, it's all so slick inside of me...i don't even realize
i'm doin' all the things i do.

anyway.....i was dealin' with a disappointment.
and completely kicking myself for setting myself up for that
disappointment.
i mean i was kicking myself big time.

there i was, crying and kicking as i drove up to visit my dad's grave.

yeah, good timing.

i don't visit my dad's grave. the day of his funeral,
i cut out early to go back to the house and get the food out
for people so i didn't have to see the grave.
yeah.
mature.that'd be me.

and then i did once. i decided i wanted to go up,
and it was well....a long, icky story....
it couldn't have been much worse.

haven't been up since.

but lately something's been calling me to go.
and so i went.

as i stood there looking at the plaque with my pop's name
on it, i thought of disappointment. and how i held it together
when he died....cause there was no way i was gonna touch in
on the disappointment.

and how it came out in some pretty big other ways.

as i wandered around the graveyard, i started saying things out
loud...like 'oh wow.'
i think i said 'oh wow' out loud a whole lot.
it's the first time in my entire life i wandered around a grave yard
and knew a whole lot of the people in it.
it was the oddest feeling.
so many kids i knew growing up....their parents were there.
oh wow.
i even saw the grave of a beautiful girl i went to school with.
oh wow.

i stood there and looked at all these graves.
and all i could think of was 'life is full of disappointments.'
big ones.
look at all the loss here.

i decided to take a walk. one of my favorite places on the planet
is on the grounds. it's a little creek that i used to hang out at
a whole lot growin' up.

i walked down to it.
whoever is in charge of the grounds has complete opposite taste of
me. i found everything done around there completely tacky.
i muttered a lot of 'oh wow's as i walked by things that just
seemed so horribly tacky to me.
and i thought of disappointments.
'they did their best to destroy the beauty of this place' i thought.
that right there was a disappointment.
but the place is too beautiful for them to stifle it all.
they can't.
and the beauty leaked out all around the edges.

i went down to the creek, sat on a log, and breathed in the beauty.
so many thoughts were whirlin' inside of me.
so many.
walkin' back over the grounds, i had memories flood thru me.
a lotta time was spent up at this place.

hitting the graveyard again, i stooped down, touched the letters of
my dad's name, put a little sprig of green near it, and got
back in my car.

driving, i thought of life.
'it's just one big disappointment' i thought.
'one big disappointment.'
'yeah it is,' i answered.
and it's one big cosmic moment, i added, thinking
of the welding the day before.
and it's one big joyful moment.
and it's one big sad moment.
and it's horrible.
and it's beautiful.
and it's fulfilling.
and it's empty.
and it's everything.

it's all of it.
it's so all of it.

and it's whatever you choose to hold at the moment.

it's whatever you choose to hold.

it's all there.
every bit of it.
every bit.

the graveyard comes way too soon.
way too soon.
what am i going to choose to hold?

the timing really couldn't have been better for me....
setting the disappointment down, and turning to the living,
i opened my front door and found zakk making a cup of coffee
for me. big smile on his face, welcoming me back home.