What are the moments that you aren’t proud of?
No, that’s not what I want to ask. It’s too harsh. Too real.
I did something today that was unimportant, unremarkable and boring.
I’m singing on a ship in Europe for 4 months, and I’ve got a little tickle in the back of my throat. For a singer, if I sing through it, it can turn into an infection in the back of the throat, so one has to be careful.
Since this ship seems to be an ever recycling cesspool of disease and regret, I’m lying low for a day or two to keep from 1. getting worse, and 2. (unlike most every other person on this ship) wanting to keep others from getting sick if I indeed do have something. Had the day off, sat on my ass, and watched much of the first season of “Californication,” which, I have to say, I love. Perhaps this is why I’m feeling like writing. Leave it to me to be inspired by a carousing, chain smoking alcoholic David Duchovny. Not the muse that I was expecting.
I tell you that to tell you this. I stayed in my suite all day, and didn’t even look outside while I was sitting in the harbor of one of the most magical places on the face of the planet, Kotor, Montinegro.
This incredible region is the home to the history of European royalty and a landscape that is both other worldly and medieval at the same time. This, in addition to Kotor, is the sight where, last year I saw a woman who was not paying attention while being a less than nice person, fall on her face in a washout without thinking to put her hands out to stop her $900 spectacle frames from leading her nose an inch deep into loose gravel by the side of a Montinegran road. The comedy value of this dive far outshined any episode of JackAss that I’ve ever seen, and the challenge of not being able to laugh as a group of other nosey hens clucked around her resembling the cartoon cuckoos circling around her head like Wile E. Coyote was formidable.
Knowing that I had such a rich experience last time, my reaction today was that I’d never be able to top that experience.
But what if I could? And now I’m regretting it. What if I’d found another, even better experience in the mother of all amazing places on earth? What if?
I know my readers. You’re all smart AND good looking, so I don’t have to tell you what I’m driving at with the clumsy fumblings of a junior prom date. Regrets. Should I have regrets? Did I screw up?
Lame.
Truth is, I can’t do anything about it now. I made the decision, and we’re sailing away right now. I can’t jump and swim back. I’d die from the fall, and if I did make it, I’m a sinker. I can only float if I’m about 8 inches below the surface.
What I do know is that I had great memories from the last time. And I’m wondering about what I missed this time. It’s the same lame feelings that I imagine that people who step out on someone in a perfectly good relationship, because they wonder what’s on the other side. Of course, when it’s over, it’s over, but I digress….
It was great the last time. But this time I relaxed in a dark room and healed, thought and now, write about the feelings and experience.
Is that lame? Or could the lamest thing in question be the lameness of me having to ponder said lameness?
Listen. Be lame. Bask in the melancholy of the lameness of what you do. Don’t regret. Wear your lameness like a banner. A badge of honor. Because honestly, if you’re doing it, there must be a reason. And that reason could very well be your honoring your inner lame ass – that lazy, self-loathing, M&M eating, recreational drinking, considering asking a third person into your relationship, considering a career change to shepherding, in your PJs – kind of lame.
Worrying about regrets is what’s lame. Regretting is lame. Let yourself off the hook. There are so many other people out there who think you’re a loser. Don’t add fuel to the fire. THAT you can control. And that is really the antithesis of lame, is it not?
What is lame? I smell a new Tower of Power tune coming on.
me
