I remember being 30 and seeing the world through 30 year old eyes. The filter on my eyes was probably heavily influenced by a subconscious biological need to continue my DNA regardless of whether I was aware of it or not. It was garish and short of attention. Clingy and shallow.
Now at 50, I realize how different the world looks and it amazes me. The biological filter is gone, but has been replaced with so many more. Fear is probably the most dramatic. Fear of not being what my son needs. Fear of losing my parents, my job, myself. Fear that there never was a myself. The filter of drifting. Wanting to be understood but knowing that not only will it not be possible but no one is going to try. The inability to scream out my fear. The filter of giving up.
I wouldn't lay odds that I will have over another decade. I have Barrett's and my longevity is at the whim of a switch. But I have a son whom I can't burden on anyone else. I have no one else to leave him with. He'll be a traumatized, teenage fireball of chaos. I hope and pray my time doesn't end before he's out of high school. He deserves more than that. So much more than that. I need to keep my fingers crossed and my karma good for another decade. The filter of desperation and loneliness.
Besides my son I have one other driver and that's my desperation to help animals. To somehow stop all the violence. Its alive. It recognizes its family. It's afraid, it dreams, it has wishes and needs like everyone else. There is nothing ok in slitting open his or her throat and cutting its body apart. But whenever I open my mouth to communicate, I stumble and just make others angry. Because of me, they plant their feet firm in their cognitive dissonance. The filter of failure. The filter of not knowing what the hell purpose I've been given breath. Maybe that's why my throat is rotting.
Looking out through these eyes, the world is so big.
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