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2 June 2008, 01:00

In North Carolina, AGAIN. For interviews, looking for a new place to live, for this new life. It’s like an engine that you are trying to start and its not QUITE turning over. I vacillate from optimism to tired defeat. I’m enjoying the drives out here more. I guess that’s saying something. I miss the dogs something awful.

I find myself wondering if I’m doing enough. I find myself wondering if I’m doing the right things. I find myself sitting in hotel rooms a lot these days. I find myself driving. I find myself in strange cities, unfamiliar states. Scary thing is, Paducah KY, Asheville and Morganton NC, are the cities I’m starting to find my way around better. Today, I found what looked like the touristy little main city center of Asheville. Lots of little shops and cafes and what not. Kind of like the built-up old town district in Dodah. I do miss Dodah. I miss a lot of my old life. Any normal person would. It’s not a life that was bad. And the thought of it is comforting and safe. But I left it behind, not because it was necessarily a bad life, just a life that was done with me. I think I went as far with that as I could, and when you stop living, you start dying.

I want this new thing I’m doing to work out. I want to be successful. I just want my foot in the door. As I told my friend, Fate is going to be making me work hard for this Scooby Snack. I’m wondering if I can do this before my funds run out, my time runs out. I have an inkling that this will end up working out for me, but right now I can’t see how I’m going to do it? I just ache for my little family back in DoDah. I ache for a little security. There is a ton of opportunity out here, and I’m knocking but I’m not sure if anybody is hearing me, or if they are, are they choosing not to open the door?

I’ve changed. I’m trying to change a life to match. I’m trying to make it all work out. I see where I could go, I think. I need some of these doors to open. I need some people willing to take a chance on me. If you take a chance on me, I promise you, I will give you everything I’ve have and everything I can muster. I want this to work. I need this to work. I don’t know if this is still part of the test to see how bad I want this. I’ve put 8,000+ miles on the car, gained an ulcer or two, spent money I can’t afford to on a dream that my be out of my reach, scared myself silly, scared myself shitless. I would think that this might prove to whatever keeper of the scale that I want this, I want it badly enough and maybe I deserve a break? A little one.

I know. I can’t think of anything funny or entertaining to write. I used to be an amusing read, didn’t I, at one point. Life has a way of hammering all that out of you sometimes.

Looking for comfort, or encouragement I guess, I had told another “friend” of mine “You know, this is all freaking me out…” She said, “Then why are you doing it? Don’t do it then. Quit.” I was appalled at the answer, but I couldn’t really give a reason to keep on doing something that freaks you out this bad – except for some lame “Just because something is hard to do, do you quit?” This is what I should have said, and something I should remember:

“I’m doing this because my life as I have known it is over. It has carried me as far as I can go with it, and when you stop living, you start dying. If you stop trying, if you stop struggling, if you stop going forward, you just start existing and you stop living. You stop feeling your own heart beat and your own brain work. You commit slow suicide, by killing little bits off with numbness and stagnation. I felt like I was in the mire, made up of past experience and expectation – the heavy weight of the past was drowning me. If I do this and I fail, then I will never experience the regret of “what-if” – I will know that when the opportunity came to save myself from being buried alive, I at least tried to dig myself out. I tried for the second life. I tried for a life in which I was complete, in which I would live out the rest of my days amazed with the act of living. This is why I keep doing this. This is why I’m fighting the fear, and the defeat. This is why I fight through the tears, and the tiredness. This is why I do this.”

And right now, I’m unsure, but I’m fighting it. I am scared and I’m fighting it. I am all alone in a strange hotel room wondering if I have gone crazy (and believe me folks, this isn’t the first time I’ve been in this very scenerio). I fight the urge to give up, and its a struggle.