warning: introspection ahead

This morning I heard a poem on Writer's Almanac that sums up so much of what I feel like I'm going through, and what I'm hearing so much of from my friends.

There's more to it, but this is the part that nearly had me driving into the back of parked cars on my way to work this morning. It's called "The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures," and it's by by Samuel Hazo.

Prolonged, they slacken into pain
or sadness in accordance with the law
of apples.
One apple satisfies.
Two apples cloy.
Three apples
glut.
Call it a tug-of-war between enough and more
than enough, between sufficiency
and greed, between the stay-at-homers
and globe-trotting see-the-worlders.
Like lovers seeking heaven in excess,
the hopelessly insatiable forget
how passion sharpens appetites
that gross indulgence numbs.
Result?
The haves have not
what all the have-nots have
since much of having is the need
to have.

It gets at what I've been struggling with for the past two years, on and off (mostly on). All-consuming fire vs. numbing ice. Too much vs. not enough. The unsustainability of passion, vs. a total absence thereof.

I spent much of the last weekend remembering what I had forgotten, all the things I really liked about my previous life, when I was Good. There was a lot to like. Stability, peace, calmness. But when you're being Bad, it's no surprise when things go wrong and tears flow and hearts break. When you're Good and things go wrong anyway, it hurts much more.