Dream Of A Ridiculous Man

I am a ridiculous man. I am a dreamer. I have hope. I have lofty goals and ambitions. They are not the ambitions of those around me. I don't dream about getting a promotion. I don't dream about hitting the lottery. I don't dream about buying a bigger house or a nicer car. I don't dream about vacationing in Europe or retiring to a Carribean Island and sitting on the beach sipping tropical cocktails with tiny umbrellas in them. I have desires that it would take a miracle to fulfill. And despite all that is reasonable, all that is probable, all that is normal and sane, I struggle every day to acheive these lofty, insane, improbable goals. I am a ridiculous man.

I have a good job. I have a house. I have two cars and no car notes. I have a kid that's an honor roll student and a damned good athlete, writer, and martial artist. I have a daughter that's more beautiful than anything on earth. I have a woman who loves me. Yet, I am dissatisfied. I have, in fact, never been satisfied.

I was walking down the street yesterday and out of nowhere I remembered the feel of my shin colliding with an opponent's ribcage, meeting the resistance of muscle, sinew, and bone, and breaking right on through. The satisfying sound of cracking bone and air exploding from an opponent's lungs and that delicious look of fear in his eyes. It was like the memory of a loss love that I will never see again. It depressed me all day. Today I had a similar moment of nostalgia about that perfect left hook. The one that ended the fight for me five years ago in a ring here in Las Vegas. It was a beautiful shot that spun my opopnent's head and dropped him like he'd been shocked with a taser. I miss that moment. I wish I could relive it over and over again. But the reality is that I cannot. I am no longer the man that threw that punch.

I had a dream last night that I was in a low-budget cage match against a well-known NHB fighter. I had taken the fight on about an hour's notice and i went into the ring, took the guy down and proceeded to ground and pound, raining punches down on him from every angle. I could not knock him out and my opponent hardly seemed phased. He kept reminding me that the round was almost over and the referee would be standing us back up and once he was on his feet he would knock me out. So I stood up, with twenty seconds left on the clock, just to see what he had. He stood there grinning at me and throwing half-hearted punches like we were in a sparring match or something and not in a real fight. I wanted him to try and hurt me so that I could hurt him but he wouldn't. Then the round ended. I went back to my corner, which was empty. I had no trainer, no cutman, no cornermen at all. He stepped out of the ring and went into the promoter's office. I watched from the ring as he sat down and held a conversation with the promoter. I kept shadowboxing to stay warm because i didn't want to be cold when he came back out and the fight resumed. Then I looked back over and the promoter's office was empty. He and my opponent were gone and the lights had all been shut off. I woke up feeling extremely depressed that morning because i knew what the dream meant. My fighting career was over. My disinterested, unflappable opponent was time, age. I'm okay with that though. I have other goals now.

I still train fighters and I make pretty good money doing so. That keeps me in the game. I also spar with all my fighters, so every once in awhile I get the opportunity to land that perfect left hook or that perfect roundhouse kick to the ribcage. Only now I don't put as much force on it so that I don't hurt them. It's not the same, but it helps.

My new passion is writing, writing horror. I will probably never be ranked sixth in the world as a writer. Never even crack the top ten. No titles are in my future. I will probably never stand in front of fifty-five thousand screaming fans because of a novel I wrote. Groupies won't be waiting outside my dressing room. I won't be able to quit my day job. I will probably work hard my entire life pouring my life's blood onto pages that few will read. But I am okay with that. I have no choice but to be.

I love penning the perfect phrase, writing that perfect line of prose, that bone-chilling description, that remarkably true to life character, every bit as much as I enjoyed throwing that perfect kick or that perfect punch. I enjoy reading that glowing book review every bit as much as I enjoyed scoring a first round knockout. And the bad ones I get over the same way I learned to get over those questionable losses and even the unquestionable ones. I learned to roll with the punches long ago. I have always been hard to knockdown.

Still, I am not satisfied. In truth, I have no desire to be. My perpetual dissatisfaction is what drives me. I want to be as successful as King and Koontz, James Patterson and John Sanford. I don't want to work as hard as I do. I wish I could devote myself to writing 24hours a day. I wish I could quit my day job. I wish I could wake up, make love, write, jog, eat, write, lift weights, eat again, write, make love again, kickbox, eat, write, make love again and sleep. This is the life I dream of. I am a ridiculous man.