A World on Fire
As always has been and I suppose will continue to be, someone is toasting with champagne and sleeping in soft sheets, while someone is trying to sleep and comfort their crying children in an auditorium full of people to escape bullets.
I’m changing my clothes before bed while I’m thinking I will watch/stream Louis Tomlinson’s shows in London/Wembley and Doncaster. Those might be my final concert streams for a while as I take a couple of vacations to clear my head. Two years of aging in place is all I can take.
I’m going to Hawaii in June and Italy in September (specifically to see Louis in concert), where I hope to finish the notes on two books in the works. I also plan to exorcise an obsession that started in mid-2021 just after Amazon suggested I wanted to watch a former boy-bander music concert on the BBC (Harry Styles Live in Manchester). I watched but sat stunned when it was over. Then watched it again a week later thinking I must be wrong. He seemed so sad and suddenly I needed to understand why. I remembered Harry and his bandmate Louis Tomlinson (who had always been my favorite in the band One Direction), but it had been a while since I had paid any attention to his music or the music of One Direction or Louis. Those years between 2010 and 2015, when the band was together, were busy for me but now my interest had been reignited. What followed drove me to Tumblr, Twitter, and You Tube and an unexpected obsession particularly with Louis Tomlinson.
While there’s a part of me that wishes I could quit him (remember Brokeback Mountain?) for the sake of my sanity, I can’t. I’ve tried. But I have forbidden myself from looking at Twitter in the middle of the night. Problem is I need to look at my phone to see what time it is, so I know how much I haven’t slept. It’s an ongoing battle born of a curious year.
…
All the laughs I got this year discovering romance genres and tropes while writing a romance novel are ringing in my head (I unpublished them a while back, but if y'all are nice, I might post a few excepts at some point.)
All the sweetness and joy I got this year from listening to the music of one man I came to understand by accident, lays softly in my heart.
All the while, I realize there’s a country on fire. Innocent people have died. I feel bad about climbing into a comfortable bed. I feel like I should sleep on the floor so that my back will hurt in the morning.
As always has been and I suppose will continue to be, someone is toasting with champagne and sleeping in soft sheets, while someone is trying to sleep and comfort their crying children in an auditorium full of people to escape bullets.
Someone is grieving a tragic death while someone is tasting love on the tip of their tongue.
Someone is suffering abuse while someone is standing contented at the edge of blue water breathing in ocean air.
Realities are colliding in my head.
And my heart is breaking.
And I realize above all else today
time is short.
Don’t let love get away.
