Since I've Been Back in Town

Since I've been back in town, it's not been easy getting along. Coming back home was never really in my plan, but frankly, it happened. And it's been difficult.

I had to retreat from the other town I was living in. Nowadays I just get pushed around.

I have a daughter with a girl I dated for a while. I've tried to reconcile with her, but she and I just make each other... I don't know. Our lives are different. She has a noxious attitude toward me that I can't stand. I'd need nerves of steel, and even then, I don't I could do that. I tried really hard for a while.

I lived alone for a long time. Lived it up, but I do not have a lot to show for those years. Except a daughter.

I've been back home for a while. Tried to reestablish and reconnect with old friends, but, it's been kind of mellow.

In a town and a place where I should be doing pretty well, I'm lucky not to be homeless. I guess it's happened before.

I spent a long time living like there was no tomorrow. Kind of sad that a young man would think that, and not take care, but it's the way I have lived.

The truth is, I knew there was a tomorrow, I thought, for some reason, that I was doing alright. The rake's progress.

Spades. Don't you get it back in spades sometimes? Lots of people have warned us.

The economy's a little tight these days, no pun intended. Not too much cash going around. Even when there was, I had a tough time getting it. "Oh, you gotta work hard," yes I know. I worked hard. They got my money.

"Nowhere to go but up," they say. I don't know, I keep finding out otherwise.

It's a story I thought would never be told, at least I thought it didn't need to be. I haven't forgot who I was. It seems you can be punished either for A) Holding on to the past or B) Trying to move on as well. And perhaps, you can be rewarded, for the same, but its nothing.

I had a nice upbringing here in the Tennessee hills. When there was something left of peace. We don't know much about peace now.

Like a naïve young child, I must've thought things would go on as they were. I'd grow up, find a job, find a wife, and I'd be alright. .

I might not be the only one who grew up on this mountain with a sad conscience right now, but its tough. Compromise, compromise, you gotta look on the bright side of things. Adopt a more relative rather than objective viewpoint. Of course, you run out of money.

Einstein's theory of relativity has nothing on me. I've had to adapt, change, splinter, reform. I know my sanity is withering away. I suppose I write in order to try and save it, in some way. Try to keep believing that it isn't really like that, maybe somebody will relate.

The times that I want to forget, all I can do is remember, and the times I wish to remember, well, they pale in comparison.

Don't you exchange one thing for another, sometimes? Yes, often. Wisdom for intelligence, often happens to me.

Wisdom is the ability to make the right choice. Intelligence can help in this process, depending. But intelligence alone is useless. I never really mastered that, struggling so hard to do well, or just make it, in school, was tough. I did my best, considering. Trying to be equitable.

Hasn't worked out. But I thought it was the right thing to do, and I suppose I'd not change things. How can you say that? You might ask. Well, because I can't, for one. And perhaps the Lord made me this way for a reason.

Looking forward, perhaps, is the greatest challenge. Maybe, even, that was the one thing I could never do, and, the reason I'm so high and dry right now.

So, nowadays, I spend quite a bit of time looking forward. There really ain't much to distract me in the present.

I can't seem to keep any of the "go-nowhere" jobs that keep cropping up. I'm a pretty well educated person, I'd take an easy job for little pay, but I can't flip out over something for so little money. It's been tried.

I try not to think about it. But, as you can see, it isn't easy. "There's more to life than making money," you might say, but it really depends what you're talking about. It just doesn't fly with most of the girlfriends I've had, and I'll leave it at that.

Dignity is more important than cash, I'll say. Depression, however, will put you in the poor house.

Even to speak of such things is anathema. I'm afraid I've said too much, though, I'm tired. I need to speak. Before my last breath. I think it should be allowed.