All Figured Out

Figure Out:  To solve; compute.

I am not light-hearted.  I am not happy go lucky, footloose and fancy free, and blithe of spirit.  Water does not roll off of my back.  Water sticks to my back like glue  - it saturates the fur on my back, forming deep, dark pools that support a rich and varied ecosystem.  It's hard to see how I can move with all of that water on my back.  I look like a water tower.

I have learned how to deal with this intensity of spirit.  It isn't always pleasant.  It requires constant attention and micro-management.

I cannot figure everything out.  I know this to be true because I have a long, long history of trying to figure everything out.  God, how I've tried to understand everything, including the opaque and unexplainable.  You may applaud the effort while doubting the technique.  Many things can't be figured out.  They just are.  They just have to be endured as fact.

You think that I'd have figured this out by now.

I can't figure out shit.  I can take some actions, though.  I can write in this little book.  I can call my friend Willie, who's sicker than I am.  I can get out of the house and take a walk.  I had a sponsor yell at me in frustration once: "Why don't you take a bucket of hot water and wash down the kitchen walls?"  I rented, for god's sake, why was I going to wash down the kitchen walls?  He was tired of me sitting around, thinking, trying to figure everything out, analyzing the shit out of everything.

Wait, wait: I think I got it figured out.