They said I stopped talking and that I went silent for a really long time and it wasn’t until the next day I realized it might have been four hours in which I said not one single word.
The explanation might be found here and then again, maybe not.
Cue music and get comfortable because I am going to go deep…Scratch that, don’t bother because most don’t care enough to spend time listening to others.
Hell, I have heard multiple times about how I don’t ask for help and from my vantage point some of it is because I don’t expect to be heard.
Trust is required and if I don’t have it in you to listen there isn’t going to be a baring of souls. We aren’t getting naked and even if we do have it, well not all are willing.
Too hard, too dangerous, too little time or too something or other.
Maybe I Should Have Bought Him Dinner
I drove out to Waco Tuesday afternoon to handle some meetings and followed up with a stop at the fancy bakery and store so many make the pilgrimage too.
The cupcakes were ok but considering the greeting my GI system gave me the next morning I am not sure I would buy them again.
Or maybe it is the Kolaches from the Czech deli that did it, who can say,.
The drive down to Waco and back to Dallas is only a couple hundred miles or so and the ride is relatively easy so I didn’t mind doing it.
But even though the car display said I had another 183 miles to go before empty I made a point to fill up before the return trip home and that was where I met him.
Him being an older black man carrying a spray bottle and a rag.
He told me my windows were dirty and said he could wash them. He looked like a million other homeless guys I have seen but I didn’t say no.
I knew I had some cash on hand and figured it would be better for him to wash my windows and get paid for it than for me to just give him the cash.
It was a question of decency and I figured doing it that way would make it easier than asking me to give him cash.
While he washed I turned around and took a couple steps back to see what I had in my wallet.
Turned out I had a grand total of $21.
Thought about giving him my $20 but wasn’t sure how he would spend it and gave him my dollar instead.
Sat in the car for about three minutes feeling badly about not giving him enough and decided I would ask him if he was hungry and offer to go inside the station and buy him food.
But when I looked up he was gone.
I could have given him that $20 and it wouldn’t have hurt me. It wouldn’t be the difference in my family eating, having a safe place to sleep or clothing.
I could have set aside my concern about whether he would use the money in a way I didn’t want and just given it to him, but I didn’t.
Should have offered to buy him dinner, but I didn’t.
****
Dad and I talked about the advantages of education and how easy it is to lose everything. Talked about how easy it is to get it all back too.
Ok, it is not that easy but I have been on both sides of the fence and I know from experience. I bear the scars and earned my PTSD.
It is where some of my anger and my hope come from.
The Broken & The Stupid
I knew a Taurus who told a Virgo to remember to trust a Taurus to know things.
It came from some astrological pairing thing or another that was easy to dismiss and easy to believe.
I thought about some of that while listening to satellite radio stations share the public’s view on politics.
“We are a nation of the broken and the stupid” is what I muttered to no one in particular. There were no passengers other than the ghosts of the past and future.
My Facebook feed is filled with angry screeds (some of them written by me) about the failure of the other side to be decent people and commentary about the failure/success of leadership.
Sometimes the energy is palpable and I wonder if people will think I am crazy if I say I can feel it.
It is more of a rhetorical question and the root of it is me asking who is steering the ship because it feels like we are headed for the docks at full speed.
When the president is a divisive bully who measures success by destroying the opposition and never admitting defeat or having done wrong it is hard to feel secure.
Hard to feel like there is support when he is a 70 year-old toddler who encourages people to diminish and demean those who disagree.
There are no boundaries.
No lines that cannot be crossed.
We are Romans cheering for the lions and cursing when the gladiators don’t do a proper job of murdering the other.
I am not convinced we are done for and that all is lost but I have lost respect for many people and am certain people say that about me.
Why?
Because we are in a place where we are unable to allow for differences of opinion in the ways in which we used to.
I hear people say I still have Republican/Democrat friends but there is always a catch to it, always an explanation.
It goes something like this, “He/She has ridiculous politics but I know who they really are so I can get past it.
You might ask what I think of that and if it is applicable to large groups.
Maybe.
There are still people who I think it won’t fit. Lee Dumbass can still choke on a steak or shoot himself in the groin because he is too stupid to fit in this category.
But there have to be a bunch and maybe even bunches.
The biggest question in some ways are how many are in government and will they figure out how to stand up and work together to turn the boat and slow it down.
I tell my kids we have to do our part to try and do something too but I don’t know.
A Giant Breath
I have spent a large part of the last couple of years holding my breath while I did my best to handle some very challenging and very difficult situations.
A week or two ago, maybe slightly more I felt a significant change and found my old friend anger hanging out.
He wasn’t alone but through conversations I realized that some time after dad died I started breathing again.
I took a giant breath and began to realize just how much has happened and it has been an abundance of information to process.
Still waters run deep and I am focused on seeing where the rivers take me.
Two days ago I spent a whopping .87 cents on the prep kit for the old camera up the exit and next week I go see another doc about another situation.
If I learned nothing from all this it is the importance of trying to get into the best shape/health I can. Maybe I have 26 years left or maybe I have 50, who knows.
Maybe I’ll never be alone or maybe I’ll always be. Maybe it will be a combination or maybe it won’t.
That is the thing about life, you just never know.
So as we live in a time of the broken and the stupid I am trying to help my teens become the best people they can be while doing what I can to make the world a better place for them.
Will it always be here or will it be in some other place or country?
Who knows.
That is too hard to figure out now so I am focused on the important stuff like…
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