"George Gray
I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me—
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire—
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
Edgar Lee Masters"
Although this is not my work, it pictures me and my life perfectly. I have had this poem on my bedroom wall, at my desk at work and always reciting it within my head. I have a lot of dreams that I have yet to accomplish or to even check down as completed. Coming out of high school I had many plans for myself and not a one came to be.
I can’t say I have tried and failed. I can however, say that I went where the wind took me. Events happened and I did my best to go around them or see where that steered me. I was a mediocre student in school, I never wanted to be there and have no want to ever relive that part of my life again. I tried my hand at college for about two months and found that it just wasn’t working.
What I think changed a lot in me when I was a teenager was an event that will be forever burned within my memory. My father passed away when I was 17 the Sunday after Thanksgiving. He had been sick for a long time, but nothing would ever prepare you for the eventuality of someone leaving this world. He was a major foundation block within the family and once he was gone a lot came tumbling down around us. My mother, who had been a long time stay at home mom, needed to go back to work and figure out the bills which my dad had handled for most of their time together.
All of these things lead to a series of events that brought me to this laptop and these words. I have had family steal from me, I am in the process of losing my childhood home and I am trying to get my life together to be able to bring my son up in a semi normal way.
I am a writer. Therefore, a dreamer. I work at a desk and shuffle papers around. I have gone back to college in a semi anti- social way by doing it online. I want to become published but find reasons to not write or no time to do it.
This platform is rather interesting to me. Getting paid to write words down is a kind of foreign idea to me. Since I have yet to be published this will suffice in seeing what my words do for people. This will not be my last post and hopefully I will see the reason I want to be a writer. Thank you for reading. - GLC