Begin

I step through the door of a new and promising world, one that whispers riches and glamour and that one thing that I want most...experience. I don't want the money, I want what the money can afford me, not what things the money can buy but the places, the people, the smells, the tastes, the sounds, the memories, the experiences, the SENSATION. OF BEING. ALIVE!!

I want spine-tingling, nerve-wracking, knee-knocking uncertainty. I want to taste the air that I breathe through my nostrils again, and I want to feel my thoughts on my fingertips. I knew how to live this way, once.

But I stopped writing. I stopped writing and I started talking on the phone, all day long, I started numbing out my mind but more importantly numbing out my soul with that evil lurking shadow that we all know as The Grind, day to day living, day to day existing, day to day waiting, for those two elusive days that come too slow and go too fast, the weekend.

I told myself that I had better things to do, more pressing things to do, more important things to do, not realizing until now or until maybe months before now that really I was telling myself lies like I had anything better than to live my life to the marrow of the matter, to suck the core out of every moment. I say I knew this months before, even though I do nothing until now, because I found that the taste I had in my mouth when I tried to suck the marrow out of THIS life left me spitting out the dusty bones that I had bitten down on. I didn't like the taste of it and so I told myself I didn't have the time for it, to replace the fact that I know my home is on the road and yet I chose to settle anyway, to sell out and make everyone else relax that ok, Genelle has finally gotten a "real" job, and knows what "responsibility" is like.

Except I didn't sell out. I got the job, yeah. I got the 401(k), and the benefits package with the health and dental insurance, and the timeclock stamping me in and out in 8.5 hour increments. In 5 days I'll "celebrate" one year in this station, but while I'm bored, I am not bitter. I know better things await, because I've been there. I know that I will go home, and they say you can't go home again but the great thing is, when your home is always changing you can ALWAYS go home again, because you've learned how to suit the notion to fit your needs. I've tried to make this one fit but failing that, I haven't been quite able to make my fingers work to extract the passion from my insides.

Nonetheless, here I am, and I'm tired of being an empty shell. I've been patiently waiting for inspiration to strike me again, to find some kind of soul in a soulless existence, but I guess it's time to turn inward by turning outward and plunging my hands into the depths of my body to wrap them around some semblance of the person I was and bring it to the surface. I WILL WRITE ABOUT A PLANT IF I HAVE TO!!!

Henceforth, I am going to flip on that switch to the old thing I used to know as my mind, so that it can begin to give little kickstarts to the thing I once knew as my soul. I used to care. I used to think, I used to feel. Man I used to know what it felt like to stand on mountaintops and feel ALIVE.

I didn't sell out when I settled. I didn't agree to stop stressing people out with my lack of a conveyor belt to the grave lifestyle for good, only for now. Oh I ain't done, sista. Have my eyes laid upon the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef, Ayers Rock, the Great Pyramids, the Panama Canal, the rainforests of Costa Rica, the streets of Tokyo, the rice paddies of Vietnam, the city of Bangkok, the running of the bulls, or St. Petersburg? NO!!

Do I know what it's like to drink beer at Oktoberfest in Germany, feel the torture lingering in the air of Auschwitz, kayak with Orcas, snowboard in Antarctica, cage dive with Great White sharks in South Africa, snorkel with manatees or whale sharks, celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro, go on safari in Kenya? I DON'T THINK SO!!!

I've got a lot of living left to do, and I'm not gonna do it in one-week vacation stints in fancy pants resorts. I've got a backpack, I've got two legs, two eyes, one brain to put the pieces together, one heart to experience the emotions, and one soul that came here sent from a panel in the stars to see what it's like to experience this life and this world as a human being.

And oh this has been a chapter it has, but GOD when a book bores me I'm not averse to throwing it aside and changing the story that I'm reading. I am so DONE with this chapter!

It's time to turn the page. From now on, my life is going to be interesting to me again. New story. Houseplants, here I come. Whatever. I am going to write again. BEGIN!!!