my careless contagion

What if? Those are two of the most powerful words in the English language when put together. I held onto the above photo in case my "what if" came true. What if she did come back? She never did, of course, as this blog bears witness. But it got me thinking about the power of wishful thinking and what all of that means.  Wishing and hoping take place in the imagination, which is an often misunderstood and neglected part of brain. It's a beautiful place and sometimes a horrible place. It's whatever we want. We control it. Our will directs what we wish and hope for. It doesn't have to bear any resemblance to reality. And it has a power we do not fully understand. I believe everything human beings do begins right there in our imagination. Without it, we aren't human. We're robots or cattle or something. But even cattle probably imagine eating grass before they do it. Hey, how about some grass? What if I eat it? It would taste good. Let's do that. Let's...

The future starts in our minds.  We have the most wonderful faculty between our ears — our imagination — that allows us to create, solve problems, and sometimes literally see into the future.  The future of me is a bleak prospect. I have endured tremendous setbacks and unimaginable pain in the last few years (with no one to blame but myself). As I lick my wounds, it's almost too easy to try to imagine my way out of this small place in which I've found myself. This is the key to my survival. I have to imagine a better future for myself and then believe in it.  There was a time in my nascent youth when I loved to draw. My artistic abilities were slightly above average, but I didn't pursue drawing because I saw a future in it. I just loved it. And all drawings start with a sketch, a few tentative lines at first and then bolder as the image takes shape. Before anything is put down on paper, however, it starts in the artist's imagination. The future of me is a bla...

Thinking about making love to anyone but her is terrifying. She's the only thing that makes sense; she's the only one I want.  Thinking about having sex with her is like running out of air in five seconds and clawing for the surface of the water so I can breathe again. Everything goes black; everything short circuits. Just imagining being in the same room with her makes my whole body burn. Imagining being with her with her clothes off makes my head spin. Imaging sex with her ... isn't possible. I'll tear down the mountains and burn down the skies. I'll set fire to every household between us. I'll shake the stars from the dark night, take the sun and set it free from its path. There is such intensity running through me, I break, I sputter, I curse and I mutter. But there is nothing to be done. I am simply spinning my wheels, wishing for something that I cannot have. I'm beginning to wonder if I've simply lost my grip on reality. I'm in lov...