Life Under The Shady Oak

Another text message, another note about unexpected trips to the hospital. PTSD from past experience triggers a flood of ideas and thoughts but I know no one can see it.

Sometimes my poker face isn’t just good, it is stellar.

Been told more than a few times it is difficult to determine when I feel stressed out or upset and every time I hear it I wonder  if they are blind.

Not everyone is, there are those that see with more clarity than I sometimes like, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Some of them suggest I ought to write the most honest sentences I can and I offer a smirk, not because I am trying to tease them or get any sort of reaction.

Nah, that may be how I am sometimes, but it is not the case here.

Now the question I want to ask is do they really want to know what I really think and feel.

Are they ready for the storm? Do you really want to open Pandora’s Box because it can’t be closed, that is assuming it is not already open as it very well might be.

Life Under The Shady Oak

Coventry Homes keeps showing up in my Facebook feed, probably because I took a moment to look at some of their new developments.

California friends would die if they saw how much houses cost here and how much more you can get. Very few of them know how much more they cost than when I looked back in 2007 and then 2013.

I make a point not to get lost in the thoughts about what I should have done because it is a path for irritation as we all as exceptional memories.

For a moment I think about how much further along I would be financially if I had made the move. It is impossible for me not to consider how I might have already paid off my home or been within spitting distance of doing so.

That would have made for a different sort of experience, being the guy who didn’t have to pay a mortgage in his sixties and maybe not for most of his fifties…maybe

Could have been living life under the shady oak and had more control about where I wanted to work, how hard and for how long…

Maybe.

Instead I drove sixty some miles and stopped for a Happy Hour drink at Shady Oak barbecue on the other side of town, not too far from where I used to live.

After a hell of a week I got a Happy Hour beer, not knowing that it meant they would give me 198,9282 mug of Shiner.

So I took my time, let it wash away some of the week and wondered why the hell they were playing this song inside the restaurant ‘cuz most of the time it is country.

Made me shake my head and mutter “I know things” and then softly chuckle.

Hell if I know anything other than I know nothing and some people say I am too intense and too scary.

Or so I heard not so long before.

****

Almost ordered the brisket for dinner. Almost ordered the whole damn cow because I was far too hungry and hadn’t had much of a lunch.

Typically I use Friday as an office day and stick to the home office to catch up on paperwork, emails and to tie up loose ends but I haven’t done it the past two Fridays in a row.

I have been pushing hard to make some things happen and the things that need to occur are less likely when I am seated at a desk.

So today I went out and planted my feet because I needed to influence situations and circumstances in a way that I try not to use.

I don’t particularly enjoy battering people into doing the right thing.

But sometimes you do what is required and that is what today was about.

Now we wait to see if the heartache is short lived or longer.

Taking The Hand

I read something online about how some people won’t ask for help and recognized much of the description as being familiar.

In my head I heard voices from the past yell at me to ask for help and or take it. Heard them make all sorts of suggestions and thought about how I never did as they suggested.

Remembered a fist fight in high school that I technically won but only because the kid who was pounding me got scared when he realized I wasn’t staying down. When he stepped back I took another swing and fear made him run.

I don’t think I hurt him physically or if I did it wasn’t very much, but I got lucky and fear drove home a better hammer than my fist.

The article also reminded me of how I have offered help to others and some have refused. I told them to take my goddamn hand and promised I wouldn’t let go.

Sometimes it is scarier to let yourself lean/depend on someone than to face the monster under the bed.

I get it.

But as I mature I see the benefit and feel less need to gut it all out on my own.

Still, I am not particularly good at asking for it, but I am working on it.

Life under the shady oak…maybe one day.