The Madness And The Containers That Hold It

The brain and the thinking never stop. I've been in bed innumerable times and my mind is racing about this, that and the other. I tell you this, not because of a bloated intellectual ego, but because it helps you understand what I mean when I refer to the "madness". The thoughts and pre-occupations are not always deep and profound. If they were, I'd jot them all down, put them in a book and torture freshman philosophy majors with them. It's things like, worrying about property taxes, or whether or not we'll have a honeymoon, or whether any of the material I've written down over the years would make good stand-up comedy, or what color scheme we should use for the master bathroom, or what the pattern to all the numbers on LOST is. The simple point is that they are there. ALL THE TIME. A swirling Charybdis between my ears.

One of the earliest life lessons I ever got was from my mother. She sat my hyper-worrying sixth grade butt down and told my frankly, "You can't control what other people do". This little tet-a-tet came about because I was trying to grapple with the fact that not everyone did what they were "supposed to do" in school and I couldn't figure out why. Why would you know you had to do this or that, and yet not do it? It drove me crazy. How could you know you had homework and not do it? How could you know you had to cover your textbooks and not cover them? How could you know you had to go to school and yet not go?

Despite this early lesson, the control freak in me rages on. I try to lock it down, but it always escapes.

There are so many aspects of life and living that I do not have answers for and it drives my logical brain crazy. Yet, in the same respect I can let certain seemingly related things just slide. That is probably the thing that makes me the most nuts. Why do I fixate so intently on "A" when there is "B" right over here that is just as important?

Here's the big quandary I'm fumbling through right now.

I am in the most unbelievably amazing relationship I have ever experienced. It is quite literally perfect in all respects. I do not haveto concede or compromise on anything. As corny as it sounds, it is movie love. Her funny makes me laugh harder than I ever have. The joy she brings me makes me good cry harder than I ever have. She is the perfect woman. The love of my life. There is no work. There is no down side. There is nothing missing or lacking.

Herein lies the problem.

For whatever reason I've been cursed with this bizarre need to act as missionary to the world of the loveless. I want to go to anyone and everyone I can find that seems to be stuck in a less than blissful relationship and cure them of it. Having spent a good portion of my life in crappy relationships, I now have sort of a sixth sense for detecting those is pain. I want to fix it. I want them to have what I have. I want everyone to have what I have. I want them to know that they don't have to settle. I want them to know that a true and perfect love is out there. I want them to know that all the things they want and deserve are out there. I want them to not give up on love.

But, the madness takes over.

What kind of egomaniac am I to think I have the guide and the answers to anyone else? When has giving anyone love advice ever turned out well? Why do I care about the lives of awful people who treat people horribly just because their life's blow. It is plain and simply because of her. Everyone deserves a Zoom in their life. Because she's the only thing I've ever found to make all the voices of the madness melt away.

Her being in my life (as she puts it), ensures that most of the things that are dancing around in my head, stay neatly secured in their little sealed containers until I am ready to deal with them.