Day 9: Walls and Bridges

I read the news today that John Lennon would have turned 72 today.

When I think of the amazing work being created still be Lennon contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, it breaks my heart to think of everything we missed. And everything HE missed.

One of his solo albums was called Walls and Bridges. The best song off it was #9 Dream; his only No. 1 single (while he was alive and as a solo artist) was the album's pop song "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night."

I have been thinking of walls today. If you say the word most people probably think of China's Great Wall first. Older people may think of the Berlin Wall. But to me those are really fences.

In some ways a wall is a concept. It's a concept of limitation. As those examples above indicate, fences built as walls are partitions. Walls in a house are partitions. They serve a purpose, but in many ways they also are restrictive.

One place we're looking at moving to has only outer walls. You're free to shape your internal space. That has a certain appeal to me.

There's a term in sports, co-opted for other descriptors, called "hitting the wall." It describes that time when an athlete reaches a point of exhaustion that entices him or her to quit running, quit working, whatever. The celebrated athletes are those who overcome that, who get a "second wind" and fight on. They don't even necessarily have to emerge victorious; the mere act of perseverance is considered noble enough.

Today I hit the wall. The deadlines for this move are roaring toward me and it's overwhelming. I've contacted so many places about leasing, and some got back to me, some left me hanging, some started hot and are now cold. I've been applying for jobs. We're doing all the things that have to be done to make this move... yet it seems like we are hopelessly behind. We'll be up there in about 44 hours.

And I just want to throw in the towel. I'm working my last hell schedule of six straight 12-hour overnights. I'm tired, but I can't sleep. My brain won't calm down. I have no appetite. All food repulses me. I have no leisure time. I haven't been able to have quality time with M or the hounds.

Even taking the time to write this makes me feel guilty: isn't there something else I could be doing to make this move easier?

But I can't spend any more time with that, and I can't quit. I have to keep going. So that's where I will be.

By this time next week, I am sure that we will have found a place to live, and the plans will be progressing as they should and things will be much more defined. Because that wall that I imagine towering in front of me is really just a fence. It may not even be there at all. And it can't restrain me.