Being Lost Is Worth the Coming Home

I seem to have been going on about this funk of mine for weeks now. The longer it seems to go, the more I realize it happens around the same time every year. It just seems to get a little more drawn out.

Whether it be the road calling my name, or the dreams of a caress from a warm summer breeze, or just what seems to be an infinite loneliness, it all adds up to one thing. I'm bored, and at some point I lost my way.

I have been dreading the weekends. They used to be full of so much promise and expectation, now they just serve to remind me of the island I have become. And in that lies the problem. But I will get to that.

The other day while waiting for a lunch companion that was running late, I popped into Whole Foods (Whole Paycheque) to kill some time and maybe pick up something for dinner. $40 later, I walked out of the store dinner in hand, I had that vision of myself like the old cartoons where I went from looking like me to looking like a lollipop, you know, sucker. But I was looking forward to dinner.

Later that night I was, how would you put it....somewhat delayed, and such a dinner loses it merit and expectations sometime around 9. I decided to leave it in the darkness of my fridge contemplating its future as I wallowed in some guilt trip I implied on myself for neglecting such a feast.

I was determined last night, no matter who called, no matter who walked in, I was having that dinner. And more importantly, I followed through. And in doing so I learned a lesson about funks and states of mind. Sometimes what we want is just right there. It's just on the shelf in your closet that you have to stand on your tippy toes to reach. It's like spending 15 minutes to find your sunglasses and then realizing they have been on your head the entire time. We have all done it.

That is what I learned. I had lost myself. I love my time at home, and I love a good dinner, and I love a good movie, and last night they all came together like the acrylics of a painters palette. A one of a kind blend that would be hard to duplicate. A dinner in front of the fire and a movie in bed where I could once again rule from my terry cloth and fleece kingdom. It was all I needed the entire time, and somewhere deep down inside, I knew it.

Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Give a man a fish encrusted with Parmesan, a Greek orzo salad, a stuffed Romano potato, and a movie he has been wanting to see for a couple of years, and he can make a weekend out of it.