King of the Eyesores

“If you took to me like a gull takes to the wind I’d-a jumped from my tree and I’d-a danced like the king of the eyesores and the rest of our lives would have fared well.” The Shins “New Slang”.

I listened to that song on purpose yesterday. I couldn’t remember how the lyric went exactly, but the part that I had stuck in my head was the dancing like the king of the eyesores. That’s my dream. I’m not going to measure up if I dream in American. I don’t have a fancy job or a nice house or abs or a bank account with commas.

I’m a dad bod, dive bar, t-shirt and ball cap, barely getting by kinda guy. I’m an eyesore. And that’s why I love that lyric…“king of the eyesores.” Like the island of misfit toys…just a place where those who don’t measure up or don’t fit in can find a home…and just fucking dance.

It’s a great picture, right? A bunch of fucked up eyesores dancing around without a care in the world. And I think that’s what I love about my fellow eyesores. While most people do the robot trying to look good on the outside and fit in to a world with really fucked up measures of success, us eyesores are just trying to get by. Hey…look…I got through the day today…let’s dance. That’s a standard I can live up to or drink to or whatever.

There’s no need to pretend if you’re an eyesore. I’m fucked up man. Here’s my story. It’s natural for me now, but man, so much of my life I put a plastic front all over my eyesore self. There is no beauty in fake. We’re all fucking bad ass motherfuckers if we let the guard down and let our real self out.

That’s when life started for me. Organized religion and a life of ignoring all the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings about myself made me miserable. Now when my head gets fucked I just talk about it and write about it and listen to what other eyesores have to say about it.

Story time is my favorite time. The “I’m fucked up…oh thank god you said that because I am too” moments. every story is different, but it’s all the same in the end…we hurt. We’ve been fucked over. Or we’ve hurt and been the fucker overers.

And right now it seems like I can’t stop telling the story and writing about the shit storms going on in my world. My head is fucked, so I put in the work to unfuck it. If I ignore it, it’s going to get bigger and stronger and wreck me. If I take it on, I can eventually get back on top.

And to me getting on top is living that eyesore life. Hold on. I just reread the lyric and granted my current lens is clouded by my break up, but the only part of the Shins quote that I can relate to is eyesore. I just wrote a whole blog stuck on that one word…oohh…yeah…yeah…eyesore…that’s me.

Buuutttt, all the wind beneath my wings, happily ever after, trust tree shit…I don’t get it. Another person isn’t going to make it so the rest of my life fares well. I can’t expect or live for that gull meets wind moment with a human girl. If you find someone who can help you through the turbulence, well then…fuck yeah…congrats…you should be dancing.

Okay…but getting off that broken heart tangent, I think any time story time is a success…any time i find someone else who gets my story or has a similar story…those are my gull meets wind/life faring well moments.

Some people get a smooth sail into the sunset. Some get a shipwreck. But, there is value in the shipwreck. Lessons learned like “I have no fucking idea how to sail.” And how else would we have ended up on that random beach with those other shipwrecked eyesores? Let’s fucking dance, man. And not in a beautiful Teen Beach Dance Party 2 kind of way. Let’s dance…like an eyesore.