The Rise of the House of Usher

Any Poe fans out there? If so I got that Fall of the House of Usher thing going on only in reverse. As the bike gets closer and closer to being finished I find my self, among other things, feeling younger and younger. Maybe younger isn't the right word but it's the right feeling. I am feeling more like I did back before I was married and had Tommy and had all the responsibility. Not that I am sorry any of it happened, Tommy is by far the greatest accomplishment I will ever have a part in. It's kind of hard to put into words. I feel stronger, happier, more aggressive and confident than I have in years. Maybe the bike is just a midlife crisis manifesting itself. Or it could be the other changes in my recent life and I am just projecting them onto the bike because it has become so all consuming as it nears completion.
I don't now how to explain it. I don't want to live forever anymore(anyone seen my smokes?). Or more to the point I am not going to let the fear of the inevitable intimidate me. I have no desire to spend the next twenty years doing what I have done for the last 10. Scurrying toward a pension I won't ever see like a daft rat on a endless treadmill of grief. The whole fucking world is out there! Once upon a time I wanted to see it all, and somewhere I traded it in for safety and security and a room with no windows.
Lately I have been remembering that the little shitty road right outside my door actually goes to The Bad Lands and The Smokey's and Key West, Laughlin and Reno and VEGAS BABY! And the only reason I am not there is fear. What if I can't pay my bills? What about child support? What about a place to live?
I remember a time back in the darkness when drugs ruled my life. I had nothing, literally the clothes on my back and that was it, but I regularly walked a neighborhood in Detroit that made South St. Pete look like Disney World yet somewhere along the way I became afraid. But lately the fear has been subsiding, at first I thought it was just apathy setting in for good but now that apathy seems to have a edge of angst to it, a little hot spot that won't go out.
Whatever it is I like it! I feel at times 10 ft tall and bulletproof again. I can't wait for it to be finished so I can ride away from the meaningless, pointless, frustrating, endless crap that clogs up most of my days. But until then I am going to enjoy this feeling and remember the old battle cry of when I was truly young, strong and alive...