TomFlannery.com

I’m not much good with change. It’s a strange thing. We yearn for it at times. We often look back on it with fondness. And yet, when we’re in the midst of it, all sorts of wires seem to get crossed. Our balance is thrown off. We miss what we never planned on missing….and we appreciate what we had, if only because it was familiar. The grass isn’t always greener of course. Most of the time it’s sorta the same brownish hue it was before. But we’ve got new attitudes to treat with. New buzz words to learn. New routes to take to get to the same places we all need to be. Above the water line….one step ahead of the bank’s warning letters. And most of the time is all sorta works out…somehow. In retrospect that is. At the time you’re constantly convinced you’re in the midst of a disaster.

The world’s number one fear, so I’m told, is public speaking. Death is number two. I guess I’m just as afraid of dying as the next person….but I never had an issue with public speaking. I’ve given all sorts of talks, eulogies, presentations, not to mention just standing on a stage for 4 hours armed only with an acoustic guitar. For me, change trumps (no pun intended, I swear) the dying thing. Change of any kind. A new job. A new location. A new task. A new route to a new store. A new payment process at a parking garage. You name it. If I’ve been doing something, anything, one way and you come and tell me that I have to start doing it differently, my very first instinct is to panic. My second instinct is to panic more. And then one reaches for the benzos.

I’m sorta kidding about the last part because change often comes with no immediate health insurance…but you get the idea. As a kid I assumed this sort of thing would ease up as I got taller. But no…all growing up allows you to do is not toss yourself on the floor at the mall and pitch a fit when your Mom asks you to do something you don’t want to do. I still feel exactly the same way, but as an alleged adult I must mask these moments with at least a thin veneer of maturity. So while in my head I’m still banging my head off the floor of JC Penney’s, outwardly I continue to resemble a male version of a Stepford wife. In other words, I’m acting all middle aged and respectable and exceedingly boring. The kind of person who gets invited to parties, but nobody really notices when they leave.

Sometimes we do things because we want to. Sometimes we do things because we think that’s what others want us to do. Sometimes we’re just bored, and treat day to day stuff like we’re sitting in front of a bunch of buttons and thinking….”I wonder what this big red one that says ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ really does…” Once you hit that button…..there probably ain’t no re-do, Bubba. But hell….sometimes they tell you not to look into the sun, and you know damn well that’s where the fun us. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. Or some ragamuffin from Jersey.

It’s amazing how much time we spend in this life forced to do things we don’t want to do. Time is precious, and not because there isn’t enough of it. Time I got, and the amount’ll do me just fine. What I ain’t got is the freedom to spend it doing what I love to do. As a kid the nuns used to blame all of this on Adam eating that damn apple. If only that snake hadn’t tempted him, we’d all be lolling around in gardens playing guitars and writing songs, mercifully free of the 40+ hour work week. But alas, ’twas not to be. We must suffer through insufferable co-workers and mandatory overtime and incomprehensible computer code due to the vanity of some ancient fool with a hard-on. It wasn’t much to go on but it seemed reasonable to a seven year old. Religion is awesome that way.

So that’s that for now. Sometimes you’re the windshield, and sometimes you’re the bug. And sometimes love IS the answer. Because if it wasn’t, why the hell would we bother?

In a bit..

–tf