Control

I represent your loss of control.

I never have been one to follow what everyone wants and I've never been able to bring myself to follow what I'm told easily.  I've often been involved in meetings and "talks" where others want to talk to me about what is going to go on, or which direction "we'll be going in."  Talks about which direction our lives are going to go in.  It seems like always I'm expected to jump on board, go along with things 100% and put every effort I have into things with absolutely no thought. 

Then the worst thing possible happens.  They all say the same thing.... "What do you think?"

I'm never sure what to do with this.  Normally my answers infuriate people no matter how I word it.  I bring up questions that haven't been thought of and I always get the same thing "It'll be alright" or "we'll deal with it when we get to it."

If it's a work situation, then I have no choice.  I go along with whatever it was.  I prefer plans to be well thought and part of a process.  If they are, great, it works fine for me. 

My big problem is in my life.

Since I've had a child in my life, I tend to try to play things safe with money and in the moves that I make.  I haven't had much luck with this, obviously.  I tried to err on the side of caution, taking the question of "whats the worst that can happen" and figuring out if that impact would be manageable.   Many times it simply was not.  Saying no wasn't fun, it was simply a means to stem the bleeding and try to salvage what typically appeared to be a very reckless, haphazardly executed plan that would have a long term impact.  I wasn't successful, actually the only thing I ever really was able to do was to foster resentment of me.

The element that wasn't,  isn't and never will be controllable is me. 

Of course now, there is only me and I'll be able to play fast and loose, take control and take chances that I never would have because of the possible impact on my family. 

Hey, no more family. 

Controlling another person is a slippery slope to try to walk.  It won't ever work and it really will only make the person that tries to do the controlling angry and resentful.  Eventually it will end.  It will end badly.  I suppose no one thinks these things through.

No mo' Facebook

You never really know how entrenched in your life facebook is until you delete it.

Recently I made the decision to abandon facebook.  There is very little social interaction there anymore and most all of it is people showing me what they ate, pictures of their kids (which you're nearly always obligated to like it or say some cute thing... even if the kid looks like kid wasn't all the way done yet), pictures of where they are or something that I wasn't worried about.  I was lucky.  Most of my friends list used good grammar and were able to spell well. 

It was a great idea. 

Then business got a hold of it.

I truly don't think targeted marketing is such a bad thing.  It does benefits the consumer.  It makes products and services available to them that fit what they're looking for that they may not know about.  That really is not bad.  It also keeps the market competitive.  It benefits the economy and we do need that.  Selling that information or giving it to the government to build a list of predictable behaviors that someone may engage in is a little too Minority Report for me.

Literally seconds after I received several emails.  One from Microsoft even told me it wasn't anything to panic about.  I could just reactivate my Facebook account and it would be ok.  I wasn't worried.  There was nothing for me to calm down about. 

Sure, people may miss me.  Though, truthfully, that will be their own damn fault.  I'm still alive.  I have more damn gadgets interconnected than I probably should have, even enough I should be slightly ashamed for anman my age (I'm not so....).  If someone can't pick up the phone, I probably dont need them and they're probably not really friends anyway.

Maybe later.  Today, there's other things to do.  Healing myself.  Studying.  Anything but looking at your food and kids.

And yes, some kids, I'm sorry..... are flat out ugly.  We all know it.  It's ok.  They grow up.  Look better sometimes. 

Ya think?

I'm now the proud owner of Hypertension. 

I wondered what the hell was going on for a long time.  I sort of thought it was going to happen, there were some symptoms, though I was never actually able to head to a doctor to have it checked out.  One day, I ended up dizzy, hot, sweating, shaking and in the hospital.  Something called a hypertensive crisis.  Nice nurse, pleasant doctor (female doctor, something that I'm not used to at all, not to be offensive at all, just unusual for me), nice staff but I felt awful.  I got another doctor, a nice lady.  A little younger than myself, she's really nice.  Pleasant.  I sat there, while she talked and found myself saying very little.  Not that I was astounded, I just found it difficult to connect enough with her to talk to her at all about anything.  Yes, I smoke.  Yes I drink - what?  NO, I don't have a problem, I've had a case of beer this year... yes I know I'm fat, ok, I'll take the pills, yeah I'll log my blood pressure, ok thanks bye.  I walked away, with an appointment, new pills, and well... nothing different really in my life.

Lately I feel like there are a lot of people turning their backs on me.  I don't know that it's true, but it sure is what it feels like.  I feel very alone.  Unwanted.  It's a pretty cold place.  No real friendly faces, sometimes there's little moments where I can connect enough to someone else that I can talk to them but I find it fades really fast and I'm left in a conversation that became awkward and I can't wait for it to end. 

I feel punished.  I feel like I've done something wrong and I'm being penalized for it, though I can't think for the life of me what it was.  Sure, I've done some things in my life that I'm not proud of and that I wish I hadn't done, but I think that's true for everyone.  It has to be.  I don't know what I've done to have lost so much so fast.  I'm not sure what to do about it and I'm a little bit lost.  I wasn't prepared for this at all. 

I'd like to get back up.  I always have before, though this time I'm really finding it hard to do.  Well, I suppose today it looks to be more impossible than anything else.  I don't know what to do.  It seems like every time I get something to the point where I can work with it, and the "bad stuff" stops, something happens to smash everything that I've just done and I have to go back and do it again.  I'm losing confidence in myself at an alarming rate.

The last couple days there were many things that have been brought up.  All of them I had nothing to do with.  There isn't anything I can do to fix them either, having had nothing in it, it would have been extremely difficult for me to change, and changing the past - well, if I could do that, man would I be rich.  I'm not, so for now, it's not possible.  This was turned into my fault, all anger was directed at me. 

At the end of the day, I took my blood pressure and I was at 188/110. 

This scared me a little bit.  So I sat here, a complete wreck - which isn't me.  I'm a rock.  I'm the one person that you can always count on to stand in and make it through.  I may have a moment here and there but, when it's hard, and things are on the line I'm your guy.  I'll be the one to make it out.  Except now, I'm not making it out.  Now I'm sitting here literally able to feel and count every single time my heart beats.  I'm sweating and miserable.  Everything hurts and it's hard to see. 

The next day I didn't venture much out of bed.  I got up, played around with my tablet a little bit and didn't do anything.  I felt awful, physically sick.  I wasn't sure what was going on, I just knew I didn't want to move or do much, really just wanted to sleep.  I even went to bed at 8 at night.  I thought about things a little bit later.

I've had a rough time of things. 

I lost my job, I found another one, but I don't make nearly as much money as I did.  I have less job stress but that seems to be relevant.

 My dog died.  He was great.  Loved him.  Yes, I have another one, and she's awesome but he was different.  He was who he was.  I love new doggie every bit as much as I did him, and new doggie wasn't a replacement, but you lose a buddy like that, you lose a buddy.  You don't get him back.

My wife left me and I lost my place to live.  The correct way of putting this would be my wife, informed our landlord that we would be moving, found herself a new place to live and kinda left me in the lurch.  Of course, I didn't have to move 500 miles away, I could have found a place and stayed there... but... there was no way.  We were going to work things out, we were... that's what was said... except... words are only words without conviction behind them.  So I helped her move, paid for the move, and retreated to where I had shelter.  I didn't WANT this.  I got this shoved up my ass on fire with a smile.   We'll work it out doesn't mean anything when you never think of how it could work and focus on how it won't.  Yes, negativity is SO easy that it's what everyone does.  Hey, though no problem.  I don't even have a bed.  I have nothing. 

I have to leave where I am.  Normally, that isn't a bad thing, because this place sucks.  I hate it here, I never did like it.  Probably the thing I hate the most about it is the people's attitude of "What's the matter, are you too good for us" or "what's the matter, we're not good enough for you" or the classic "You always did think you were better than us."  Which I've gotten.  Hell my grandmother said it to me years ago.  It hurt then.  Now?  Not so much.  I've decided that it's a bunch of people that are just happy to get by, never have more and always have something to bitch about.  I guess if that's what's important to you, so be it.  Does that make me better than you?  No, it just makes me different.  It just makes me want more out of my life. 

I haven't slept in a bed since last December.  You have no idea how much my body hurts.  I ache all over.  My doctor asked how I sleep.  I told her Badly.  I didn't mention that I sleep on a pull out when I have to and every other night I sleep on a daybed, that I don't really fit in.  I don't think it's possible to fit in a daybed when you're over 5'7".  Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have a place to sleep that isn't my car.  I'm just uncomfortable. 

I haven't seen my kid.  Ok, the child that I've raised.  Which is somewhat of another sore spot with me.  One more person tells me that I'm not her daddy, I'm punching them, with all I can bring.  You're going to be in a fight, you're going to lose and I'm probably going to jail, you - hospital.  It'll be worth every single minute of it for me. 

I haven't been touched by another human being in 5 months.  Not one that gives a fuck about me.  Not a hug, nothing.  Nothing.  Fewer and fewer people are talking to me too.  That's dismaying. 

I'm floating around in a life that doesn't feel like mine, though I'm responsible for all of it, since everyone else in it has pointed the finger at me.  I'm alone.  I'm sad.  I need a fuckin hug.  I need someone to sincerely give a shit about me and to tell me it'll be ok and mean it.  I'm having serious issues doing this on my own.  I feel like I'm better off dead.  No, don't call the police, who needs that extra shit in their life?  Certainly not me. 

Today I answer a 2 question Health and Happiness survey.  It said that I might be depressed. 

Ya think? 

So I was thinking about it.  I probably am.  I'm sure I am, but I really don't want to talk to a shrink and eat pills.  I don't want to be dead inside and just doing "just enough."  That isn't good enough for me.  Besides, I'm not into pills. 

I'm a victim of chronic stress.  That's what it is.  This is the end result of being pushed to the breaking point and never being allowed to return from it.  This is years in the works, and I'm paying the price for it.  This is all of the people screaming at me, this is all of the years of working a job I hate and never being able to be myself, the years of putting everyone ahead of myself and never taking care of myself.  I've had problems with my health over the years and it never dawned on me that it was this.  Someone asked me one day not long ago what I did for fun... I have no answer.  I can't answer it, I can only answer things that I used to do.  Things I gave up so other people could do what they wanted to do.  Things I don't even remember how to do.  Vacations?  They don't exist in my world.  All the late nights with no sleep, or very little sleep be handle someone else's problem.  The years of taking care of everything so others didn't have to.  The years that I did too much so others could focus on themselves. Giving up dreams so others could have theirs.  Giving up rest so others could have theirs.  Always doing what everyone told me was the right thing to do.  The final goal of course was so in the end I would have things, nice things, and be happy.  To not have to give up and swallow the hurt, my pride, the pain and all the anguish anymore.  To finally be "alright."

Those people that I did all that for? 

Gone.  Walked away.  Too focused on the past to see the future. 

If I were focused on the past what would I be seeing?  Certainly not that I see anything salvageable.  I'd be seeing what? 

The answer to these questions always baffles me.... "It's not about you."  Sometimes it has to be though.  How selfish of me.  I should be ashamed.  I should be, I'm really not though.  Mostly I'm broken.  I'm sad.  I'm alone.  I've been smashed.

I've killed myself for nothing.  Not to mention I get to start all over again... fresh.  Not even a fucking bed to sleep in.

Depressed?  That seems a mild term for it.

Ah, time. It passes slowly.

Things are so different today.

Not long ago they were bad but getting better, then that ended.  Why, I'm not sure that anyone actually holds the answer to that question, or better yet if they do they're certainly not going to give the information up easily.  I don't know that I have the energy to try to find out why right now either.  It appears that mid-life for me is something akin to purgatory.  I'm neither saved, nor am I condemned. 

Different.  I said that didn't I?  I'm not sure that word aptly fits the situation really.  I traveled the world.  Many different countries, many different places, millions of faces, and now I'm back to this.  This, which I left so willingly.  I relegated myself to it.  I didn't have many other options, there were a couple, though none would have left me in a good situation, this didn't really offer much more hope other than I would be alright eventually.  The others didn't pose an offer nearly as guaranteed.

So here I am.  Back again where I started, with roughly as much as I started with.  My world used to be massive.  I've traveled somewhere near 4 million miles, almost a million of them I've driven.  I never thought this would come to this at all. 

I move through the people here gently.  I try not to attract any attention to myself, though it's very hard because I don't really belong here.  I don't fit well, I suppose I fit as well as anyone, but people see me differently.  I'm quiet, I keep to myself, I don't talk much, I don't have much to say anymore. 

What  I do see is the remains of my beginnings and the changes that it has gone through over the years I was moving around, creating a life, gaining an identity.  It's different.  It has eroded over time much like you would expect anything to, but there are little things that remain the same.  There is and always will be ... this.

I see the people I used to know.  Largely unchanged by life and time.  I know everyone thinks this is great, that stability is good, but I don't really agree.  Actually, better put, that couldn't be further from the truth.  The people that are the same that have remained unchanged by life have never attempted anything that they weren't comfortable with.  They've embraced the mantra of "it is what it is" and have allowed themselves to be unchallenged.  "This is as good as it gets" isn't always the case.  Sometimes the world leaves scars.  Those scars are what makes you better, stronger and certainly wiser.  Someone that has none of those scars, has missed the point of living. 

Memories of when I was a kid are painted indelibly on my memory, but the more prominent memories are the ones I have after I've left.  After I grew.  After I carved out my life and became a person.  Not that I wasn't a person, but I became my own person.  My experiences with the world allowed me to grow, challenged me to do more than accept "it is what it is" as all that things will ever be.  It is also what tortures me now.

It's also why I have this incredible need to move on. 

Responsibility for yourself.

There are certain things that we look to others for that is normal.  It's part of the human condition.  We sometimes look to others to validate our performance, a pat on the back, a job well done can go a long way to encouraging someone to gain more personal growth and they may ultimately surpass their goals.  We look to others for help when we're ill if we need to.  We look to others for compassion when we're feeling blue.  Nothing like a close friend that can make you laugh and see things in a different light that will help relieve some stress and make a bad patch a little bit better.

 

Happiness, however, is your sole responsibility.  You and you alone are responsible for being happy.

 

If you are not, then it is you that has to sit down and try to work out why you are not and what you can do to change it so you are.  If you push your own personal responsibility to someone else and allow them to be responsible for it, that person will fail you.  Doing that creates a perfect storm of try and fail, anger and regret.  There will be unhappiness, there will be an attempt to restore that happiness and in the short-term it may work.  The cycle will grow and sooner or later will become a burden on both people.  One will look on the other with disdain and the other will wonder what they're doing wrong.  Whatever their relationship, it will fall apart.  That much is pre-determined. 

 

If you're able, please, by all means, brighten someone's day with a kind word, a joke to make someone laugh, simple polite conversation, but never assume responsibility for someone else's happiness.  It'll make you miserable.

 

It won't end well. 

 

 

 

Why? Because.

Being someone's parent is really hard.

First off, this isn't a quick job.  It's all day everyday in a rather inhospitable working environment.   It's loud, it's messy, it smells and you're forced continually to innovate new ways to deal with the job of creating a person.  Myself?  I've been peed on, kicked, vomited on, yelled at, subjected to noise management techniques all by a tiny terrorist.   The working hours were awful.  Many times I was on call at strange hours of the night and typically an emergency would call me to action the very second my body began to rest.  One of the toughest things to deal with is the abject emotional torture that it brings (but why daddy?  Seriously, how many times can someone ask that).

They grow and age.  It really is the only job that I ever had that cost me thousands of dollars, sometimes all at once.  There is a constant financial drain that bleeds dollars off everyday coupled with massive expenditures and creative financing attempts that may or may not work out.  The failed attempts always beg yet another creative attempt at financing things. 

Then right when you question it there are days like today.

I worked all day Friday.   Drove all night.  Got an hour's worth of sleep.

Then I watched my daughter dance.

She was graceful and strong.  Right on target, did everything right.  Today she had her first solo dance.  She did that just as well.

I've had 6 hours of sleep in 2.5 days and I have to make the 7 hour ride back to where I now live tonight through what may very well be 10 inches of snow.  I'm battling exhaustion.   I ache all over.

I've never been more proud. 

Best job I've ever had.