Are you there, say a prayer for the pretender. Who started out so young andstrong, only to surrender.
Driving in my car, listening to this song and becoming overwhelmed. I sometimes get emotional over movies and songs – it usually has nothing to do with the song or movie, just my mood and a memory or personal opinion of myself that does the damage.
…gonna pack my lunch in the morning and go to work each day; and when the evening rolls around I go on home and lay my body down; and when the morning light comes streaming in I’ll get up and do it again, amen.
So I’m thinking about these days as I approach 40 years old. I have sold out against my dreams. Or how I started out so strong ahead of the game. Always "the youngest" in the group. Always the 10% that does 90% of the work. Last thing I remember I was excited to be making big bucks at 26 years old. I had around me worn-out middle-aged guys in auto-pilot, thirty somethings worried about paying the bills – I was a young turk, newly married, in love and living the dream. That was like.. yesterday.
What happend? So, I took off and went to a small software vendor that was on the edge of an IPO – Micro Dynamics. Well – it was really on the edge of being packaged up for sale. So after I helped them do that, I left and went
after the money again – down to Atlanta. Chasing the dollar. New family, new house, Stephanie a stay-at-home mom.
I want to know what became of the changes we waited for love to bring, were they only the fit full dreams of some greater awakening? I’ve been aware of the time going by, they say in the end its the wink of an eye..
But that wasn’t enough – making good money again, back on top at Mobius; bang – I take the risk and joined some friends at a small start-up company called Magnet. I was to be the rainmaker. We were to build a company we could all work at for years of happy times and growth.
But again – caught up in the IPO dream, fast, big money. We took investors, had to compete. We took more money and more and more. We hit the streets sold sold sold and right out from under us our investors took over. So now I work..
…caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender.. where the junk man pounds his fender, where the veterans dream of the fight, fast asleep at the traffic light, and the children silently wait for the ice cream vendor..
Then company to company – applying what I know. Management experience? I don’t know what that experience prepared me for. I’m certainly thicker skinned. I can sell anything. Now, I sort of feel like those middle aged guys on auto-pilot. I am unconsciously competent at this job. I know what has to be done. Not always sure how to do it here because things are so dynamic but I believe we are as capable as any other company. Back to it – have I sold out? Where is the passion?
…out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender., he knows that all his hopes and dreams begin and end there.
It’s the buck! How do I get out of that trap? We used to be proud of our low cost life. Now I’m not up to my ears in debt but I’m up to my ears in cash-flow needs. Private school, Bar/Bat-mitzvah’s coming, college, camp, home improvements, clothing, food, argh! Even as I write this it sound stupid. People living on blue collar incomes, in trailer park homes will say I’m a whiner – and I am. But this is my Rant.. Why can’t I dream? – no point in the distance, no path to get there without one.
…Ah the lovers who stay right through the night, even nothing but to choose off and fight, and tear at the world with all their might, while the ships bearing their dreams sail out of sight..
Doing everything for my family? Am I sacrificing? Is that an illusion, a self torturing martyrdom approach to life? Am I putting myself on the cross? Are the vampires sucking my blood? Do I need too much – want too much? Why do these things seem so important? Why do I get so caught up in the money – where did that come from?
I’m gonna be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender.. and believe in whatever may lie in those things that money can buy, where true love may have been a contender.
There is too much personal background to really rant on this here. For all the world to see. I was an only child until I was 17 when Mom and Pop brought Marissa into my life. I wish I had that younger. As my kids do. To see value in people rather then the things in my life.
Is chasing the dream selfish, or so important for my family? Do I lower my expectations or change my value system to recognize what so many others see as more valuable then anything in the world? Stephanie, Maia, Daniel and Sophie. There is the value. I know it but I live in this world of discontent. I have an insatiable personality.
So how to work with that and build on my life to keep that front and center. Its not enough to provide for them but I need to enjoy them and they need me to be there. Its not enough to work each day pretending, that’s just not me.
Say a prayer for the pretender, are you there for the pretender?
