A mile in my shoes

So many thoughts at 3:30 am on this Tuesday night. Why do people get so melancholy at night? Why do I? Sometimes I believe I think more then other people, my brain never stops.
Watched a model dance with his friends tonight on deck, stopping to take a photo or kiss a friend hello, being paid to dance his life away at parties.
When I spoke with him earlier, he told me how he had a herniated disk and had major back surgery that took him out of commission for months. He still has a large scar in the small of his back, which can’t help the modeling career. Yet for the moment, standing there in the neon lights watching him, you can forget that.
I have the feeling other people just stand and watch him dance.
Would I want that life? The dancing, party every night of your life?

There’s good and bad to every decision. Checks and balances, ebbs and flows. My sex drive is gone, it left, and I haven’t seen it for months. Is it the new pills, the old pills, my life, my self-esteem, weather patterns, changing tides? I don’t know, really. Why do I constantly feel like I’m choking? Don’t know. Divine intervention has simply decided this is what I have to work with right now.
But the check, the balance, is that by not being so concerned with sex, I look everyone in the eye. I’m not afraid to say hello. And as a consequence, even though my nose is shiny and I gained 25 lbs from last year, like four guys a day hit on me, which is definitely a boost to the ego, perhaps pushing that aspect back into line.
And I was thinking too (I’m always thinking), if four guys a day hit on me, how many guys a day do I hit on? The answer, so far, zero. Not one. I’m sitting back, waiting to have someone find me, waiting to feel sexual, waiting for all this to fall in my lap as I’m walking to the other end of the ship to get a coffee. And the funny thing is, it has happened! Four times a day! So what the Hell?
I have to believe at least identifying these issues is a step toward ultimately resolving them.

This leads me to the comedian I saw tonight. He was funny, giving his show, and at the end he said “I wake up every morning and say to myself: I am Middle Eastern. I am gay. I weigh 400 lbs. And I make a decision to live the best life I can.”
Isn’t that what it’s about?
Could I wake up in the morning and say “I am overweight. I am gay. Today my nose will run. Today I will feel like I’m choking 100 times. Today my face will shine from Vaseline and I will be embarrassed about it. Today I will have times I feel inadequate. But I will go on. I will work with what I have been given today. I will make people laugh. I will be the life of the party. I will try to make my life and the lives of others better.” Cause what else can you do?
We’ve each been dealt a hand, and this is the one you have to play. What others have been dealt doesn’t change what you have, and regardless you don’t know their hand. But you don’t fold. You pick it up. This is the only game. And the important part is that you play.
The lesson of my life, it seems. The lesson I must learn again and again and again until I get it right.
Play your hand.