She let the tiger off its chain

I am laying in bed trying to find the right combination of positive thinking and musical soundtrack to drag myself up to meet the day. So far I have failed. I'm feeling my skin twitch as the poison ivy spreads up my wrist and pricks around for where to tickle next.
Stress wells up into a ball in my throat and a lump in my stomach, despite all better thought and reason. It seems like if I rationalize, there's really no reason for me to be worried and I know it doesn't help, but I think swallowing it just makes it simmer more.
I've been riding waves of emotions and hormones with weak knees, falling and weakly picking myself up jus to fall again.
I am puzzled as to how most people go trough life, married, same job, same home for years. I feel shifts constantly and discomfort and desires for change. I beat myself up that I'm being selfish.
I have to get rid of the sheep at work. They no longer want to have them there. They are getting rid of their grass fed cows so I won't have that anymore either. And while selling shares was kinda a pain in the ass, it aligned with my ideals and kept my feet moving. They are turning their pastures into more corn and soybeans, which do not align with my ideals. Taking cows off grass so you can grow animal feed with a bunch of petrol products because its easy just doesn't sit well with me. And now I'm sad that I will stare at a non diversified monoculture and my break from staring after grapevines 100x over is not to go look at births and animals out lush green grass but rather the burn of herbicide spray and the height of fertilized corn.
There goes another perk of the job.
And while I realize most jobs do not have barns and pastures and such odd perks, this one seemed fitting after all the stress, odd hours, back breaking labor, and farm based events. This was a big perk. And now I'm headed back to Craigslist for flakey people to purchase my Frankenstein flock of perfect traits from different breeds that were customized just for my needs, but now don't have the flash of purebred or the mass weight of market lambs. And so then I'm headed to the auction yard to doom them to a few final stressful days before they hit the stun gun and go into gyro meat.

As I work through the last of the beef in my freezer, I contemplate going back to vegetarianism or for a minute, think about moving back to my old house toget a desk job to pay the bills and then spending all my energy on my own project...... But then I remember the money pit and get sad. Perhaps my ideals do tie me to being broke.

And my tiger is in my throat, an irrational ball of energy, of unexplained emotions. Of wanderlust. Of seeking new things, new challenges, opening doors that I shouldn't or taking apart things just to see how they work. My tiger is in my feet that once out of bed, will move quickly on a meandering path that has a thread through it, however diverse the course actually turns out to be.


I like making art, but it always seemed so impractical to make something just to stare at. I think the more I work at it, the more I am making food into art, from the start where I craft a beautiful lamb, fill its belly with grass, say a prayer before the butcher, and then craft the finishing touches on its life.

I think I'm most unhappy when I discount my passions into something trivial or just a fleeting meal or a passing conversation that doesn't mean anything. Part of me wonders if this will calm as I age. But the other part of me really doesn't want to change.