There is little difference between unwelcome guests and bad news as you never want to host either and always hope the stay is better than expected.
I did my best to shrug a few things off today but low expectations weren’t enough to do more than mark a different sort of confirmation.
Not the religious kind in which our children demonstrate mastery in religious practice/knowledge but the sort in which you’re reminded some problems haven’t been left behind you.
While this wasn’t really news or revelation to me it did provide unwanted evidence that the two biggest problems I have on my plate are far from solved.
I Don’t Recognize This Place
There were moments in high school in which we talked about how cool it would have been to live during the sixties because we had this romantic image of helping to fight the good fight.
We had no idea how naive we were.
I stare at my soon to be high school freshman and realize she doesn’t understand how foreign school shootings are to us.
They weren’t things we had experience with and we never would have considered them to be a part of our school experience.
Today I struggle to say they haven’t become the norm and wonder how we broke our children, because surely we bear some kind of responsibility for this.
Something we did or didn’t do has led us to a place I don’t recognize and sends me in search of what I once knew.
I look for hope in the music and or some sort of meaning and wonder what more I can do to get people to listen and hear.
Instead I feel like Groucho and his strange interlude.
What Kind Of Father Are You?
Confirmation confronts me with questions I know the answer to but ask anyway, not because I truly doubt myself but because it it what I have to do.
Circumstances and situations led to events I never could have predicted and it is sometimes a challenge not to adopt blame that is not mine to own.
Still it is hard not to say I would do some things differently and impossible not to feel a certain amount of anger about restrictions and constrictions placed upon me.
I have freed myself from most, but not all of them and if things continue as they are more chains will be shed.
Who I was isn’t who I am any more and I can’t become who I want to be if I don’t adapt, adopt and move.
Got to master the 5 D’s of Dodgeball, which may seem like a joke to some but has some real world truths attached to it too.
Car Shopping Capers
One day soon I might devote an entire blog post to my car shopping capers but for now let’s keep it short but no promises on whether it is sweet.
The initial plan to go looking for a new ride was supposed to start at the end of summer but circumstances made it clear the smart move was to begin sooner so I started Thursday afternoon.
I began at a dealer I had taken my car to two years ago and had a pleasant enough experience that I planned on visiting them again.
Since I have some time to work with and want to be thorough I visited a different dealership on Friday and in under fifteen minutes wondered if a colonoscopy without anesthesia would be more pleasant.
Three salesmen saw me drive in and followed my car on foot to a parking space. They hovered over me and I wondered if they understood how irritating that is.
I hadn’t even gotten out of my car.
When I did exit the vehicle it took all of five seconds for two of them to be standing close enough to me to wonder whether I was about to be kissed or pick-pocketed.
I told them I was ok, pushed by and wandered into the showroom. That was slightly less unpleasant, but it didn’t have the vehicles I wanted to see so I stepped back out to the lot.
A different salesman swooped down and offered to help me.
“I work fast. Can you give me 30 minutes to answer questions?”
“No, I have to pick up my daughter. I have 15.”
“That is not enough time. I don’t want to waste yours, maybe you ought to come back.”
His manner made it clear he thought it was his time that would be wasted and I mentioned it.
“Sounds to me like you are more concerned about your time than mine.”
“No sir, I am not. It is impossible for me to do a proper job in 15 minutes.”
“I disagree. If I sent you an email with the make model and spec of the car I am looking for you would be able to answer that in less than 30 minutes.
And you would be able to to answer several other questions.
If you can’t it is because you are new or don’t have authority to make decisions.”
“Sir, I have been doing this for a long time and I can make a deal.”
“Not with me. I don’t want to waste your time.”
He sputtered at me and I walked away. I am pretty good about being pleasant. I say please and thank you and focus upon being polite because it is the right thing to do.
But I don’t suffer fools when I don’t have to. I am not going to be strong armed into moving faster than I am comfortable with and I wasn’t lying about having to pick up my daughter.
Fifteen minutes is not an insignificant amount of time. It might not be enough to do a test drive and run numbers but it is enough to build some trust and confidence.
It is enough time to answer questions and establish credibility.
I know from professional experience that this is true, car dude blew it.
I am not going back, especially since I got a recommendation for a different dealership.
****
The music plays and I think about the distant and more recent past as it applies to the present and the future.
Thoughts and ideas flow down the raging river inside my head and I wonder how much would or would not be said.
What sort of restrictions would remain and or be lifted.
Self imposed shackles still hold fast and I wonder if I would break them or let them stay as they are. I know what my gut says but won’t make predictions.
Mostly because there really are two dragons flying around and the battle to beat and or slay them requires significant amounts of energy.
I am built to withstand and push forward but it is not easy when the heaviest lifting belongs to another.
All I can do is shine a light and promise that I will always be strong enough to catch them, but it is not as easy as it once was.
So I plant my feet, pop a couple of Ibuprofen and hope that all of the stretching helps.
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