The Answer

My 18 year old son lives at the old home place with my parents. They’re in their 60’s and he is the strong back of the house. His planned career choice(s) haven’t panned out yet. He, like many 18 year olds, is having a hard time finding a job. This is dejecting.  We talk about this often, and I’ve counseled him on the idea that the traditional job market may not be the way. I’ve warned him of the trap of paycheck grind, and ask him questions meant to make him delve. I tell him the labor-driven mistakes I feel I’ve made. I tell him every “I wanted to be” dream I had (have). 

Recently, I asked him “If having lots of money wasn’t THE variable of your labor, what would you be satisfied in spending your days and nights doing… not counting being a gigolo.”

 
He told me that he would love to sail tall ships… just be a mate and live aboard. I awwwed but it came out arrrrrr. That’s me boy.  

I’ve had serious changes lately, and had to ask myself the same thing. Hiking the entire Appalachian Trail at once isn’t going to happen this summer.  I dug past the layers of archaeologist, artist, teacher, beach bum, sailor/pirate, burlesque dancer, beer taster, deejay, and rock star, to the pure heart of my kernel. I wanted to be all of those because great writers made me want to since I learned to read at 4 years old. I would daydream a million stories of what I could be, what could happen… the eternal question “What if…” 

The answer to the question is to write stories, to record reality as I see it, to fantasize all day, and tell people “What if…” 

I’ve been forced by my own body to drop and rest and now I finally have time to sit and sift through years of writing I’ve done in secret and not-so-secret, then mix it up, light it up, and let it blow. 

I’ve always been a writer, I just haven’t pushed it. Now my inside pushes me in my seat and says “Do it!" 

All right, all right, me! … Damn!