I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon....(take 2)

This has been quite a week, and I’m really not sure how I feel about it. I detailed the beginning of the week in my post, “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon…”“I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon…” Last night I found yet another side-effect of the drug they’ve got me on, and it is even more disquieting than the insomnia. (Which as I write this is entering it’s fourth night and showing no sign of letting up.)

I was feeling frisky, and Mags was feeling receptive, if you get my drift. We started making out, one thing led to another, and then….errr…

Let’s just say the rocket was on the pad, and fully prepared for launch, when ignition failed. It’s said the two most depressing moments for a man are the first time you realize you can’t do it a second time, and the second time you realize you can’t do it for the first time. Last night I reached the halfway point in the later goal.

The shock was enough to yank me out of the happy mood I was in. It was the first time I’ve felt genuinely giddy in several years. All brought about by the realization that for the first time in more than a decade, I could play a chess match entirely in my head.

Still, that realization made me think about joy. Mags and I were talking about joy on the drive home, and I shared the realization that it has been many, many years since I have felt genuinely joyful; that giddy, happy, bay-at-the-moon, run around in circles for no apparent reason feeling of pure, unadulterated pleasure. Some of the blame for this is on my evolving conscience, and some appears to be tied to the chemical imbalance I’ve been experiencing for much longer that I care to admit. Oh, I’ve experienced satisfaction and even happiness, but it’s been a long time since I truly felt joy.

As an example of the first, I point to an incident that happened a couple of weeks ago. (Names have been omitted to protect the innocent.) Mags and I dropped in on a female friend unexpectedly and actually roused her from sleep. She came downstairs to answer the door without putting on a robe and wearing what is apparently her normal sleepwear. In other words, she was completely, totally, stark naked. I got quite an eyeful before I spun around. (If you’re reading this, and you know who you are, thank you again.)

If you had asked me fifteen years ago what my reaction to seeing an attractive woman naked, my answer would have ranged from happiness to lust to gratitude. What would never have occurred to me was what I felt that evening, embarrassment.

I was a much more opportunistic creature back then, and although I had what I recognized as a sense of honor, it was much less rigid than what it has become. In many ways, it resembled the statement of the character Jane from “Serenity”, “I’ll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he’s gonna start a fair fight. Or if there’s money involved. Or a woman….. But this is just wrong!”
Anymore, my sense of honor recognizes few, if any, exceptions to what it deems allowable behavior. Today, the equivalent statement would be, “I’ll kill a man in a fair fight.” End of statement. If I hadn’t known the woman involved, and if Mags hadn’t been there, and if she had known I was there, I might have felt different, but I suspect not. (Of course, as Mags pointed out, either of the first two conditions would probably have lead to my arrest as a peeping tom.)

The discussion of joy with Mags finally got down to what the experience of joy meant to each of us. The overwhelming impression of what the word was to each of us made me realize that my joy has a much more chaotic element to it. A large part of joy to me is the feeling of surprise. That feeling from when you were a child rushing down on Christmas morning and seeing all the presents under the tree. Knowing what you had chosen to give and hoping that the recipients would enjoy your gift, but also the wonder at the potential of the wrapped packages that were for you. I received some wonderful gifts over the years, (thanks Mom & Dad), but somehow no matter how terrific the present, it could never match that feeling of expectation when the actual contents of the package were still unknown.

That got me thinking that maybe I need to find a new way to experience joy. By depending on the element of surprise, I am placing my capacity for joy firmly in the hands of others. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place, and seeking an outward trigger for something that should be coming from within. Somehow, my experiences never quite measure up to the potential I see in them.

Still, in many ways I am addicted to the potential inherent in a chaotic situation. With everything in flux, and surprises looming at every turn, the good experiences, coming as they do unexpectedly, have a much sweeter savor to them. Of course, the bad things don’t seem so bad, because they’re almost expected.

Perhaps it would be more fair to say that I am addicted to chaos. This is a strange place to be for someone who enjoys order and stability as much as I do, but looking at the statement, it has a ring of truth to it.