After a couple of years of pumping yourself up every morning, to look for work, any work, you begin to pay attention to the creeping cacophony of voices riding the roller coaster in your head.
That buzzing seems to be telling you that your efforts are probably for naught.
The call for the last dance is closer than you thought.
Can you hear the music? You ignore the voice telling yourself that you need to "think positively" and "create" your own reality.
Do you believe that? Can you actually make a concrete difference in the fabric of reality because you are hoping, wishing, imagining, and projecting some image of success back onto yourself through the mirror of your mind? Does the universe care about you? Is something out there listening to your pleas? Isn't the universe a torrent of violent upheaval changing its nature constantly? Does anything out there care what happens to our planet, our solar system or you? A dot buried on a planet with six billion dots looking for recognition and acceptance from something more distant than the adjacent dots...
You can hear the clock ticking, ticking, ticking - calling you to one last rally.
Is anyone listening? Not likely.
Morning ritual.
Follow the dog.
Go to Starbucks.
Have a coffee and leaf through the morning newspaper.
A paper that no longer holds interest beyond what might be happening out there that could help you find work.
You've lost your fire about politics recognizing you've been disappointed one too many times and don't want to go down that road again.
You've become either cynical or exhausted.
You are recognizing that the same old crew of experts has elbowed their way onto committees, studies, and panels to decide what is best for the rest of us.
Their best may not be good enough but you're tired of trying to ramp up your arguments to a level beyond a Gandhi quote that is either totally relevant or totally irrelevant.
Doesn't matter.
The person you are talking to isn't really listening.
You watch the unfolding mini dramas.
Illegal parking followed by sprints into the coffee shop! Some are texting or conversing on their iphones in their race to claim the coffee prize.
You watch the anxious feeling of disappointment on some when they realize they will have to wait their turn to order and disappear back into the morning night.
Going somewhere quickly.
Somewhere important.
Somewhere where some one pays them for whatever it is they do out there in the dark.
Morning has not broken.
There is hardly a glance at you, or others, who regularly occupy time and space in little corner tables.
Reading the paper.
People are banging away on laptops, ipads or iphones in terror of interacting with anyone else sitting close.
A nod.
A good morning! No conversation.
What if they ask you about what you do when you're not skimming the surface at the coffee shop!? Keep your head down.
Watch from an angle.
Women enter and exit without a glance in your direction.
You are not there anymore than the little man that topped off the newspapers earlier in the dark.
You watch some of the ladies take two coffees out to someone waiting expectantly.
You are envious.
You are lonely.
You are on your own.
You are scared that this is it.
You fight back with a jolly euphuism about yourself to yourself.
You maneuver to convince yourself that you are really one of the good ones and they are all missing out by not swooping you up.
Maybe you're wrong.
You are now back in that place where you started hearing your voice of reality telling you the party is just about over for you.
You push that aside grasping to the life raft of chance and hope.
If you just keep moving something will happen.
Keep moving.
Keep trying.
Keep praying! To whom - for what? For money, power, prestige, women, stuff? What would you do with it besides giving it all away? You dance with memories of times when you were significant, cherished, listened to, admired, envied and loved for a time.
Were you needed? Actually needed? For a spell.
Perhaps.
No one seems to need you now- You don't even know what to bring to the party anymore.
Let tenderness run rampant with your memories.
They are yours.
Be free-remember all those hugs that have gone the way of smoke.
The promises that echo off the canyons in the shady places! Throw light on all the good times.
Skip over all the blunders and faulty steps that inhibited your journey.
Feed yourself with a soft light knowing that it was all as it should have been.
You were a passenger on the wave that carried you to where you are today.
Lean into the curl and ride it one more time.
Shout out in joy as you head towards the beach.
The crash will be silent.
She will come for you when you are ready.
Look for her.
She is more beautiful than you ever could have imagined.
Everything else is illusion.