Hindsight is 20/20 so it is easy for me to look at the 31st and see how my mood started to move from light to fury.
I want to cue the music and say it is Just Another Day but it is not because New Year’s Eve used to be one of my favorite times and it is filled with wonderful memories but not recently.
The move from 2017 to 2018 was hijacked and I was so irritated by the events surrounding it I made a point to fly back from LA to Texas on the 31st of 2018 so that I didn’t have to confront the ghosts of the past.
That infuriated me because I don’t run from things but you do things for children and this was how I protected mine from a moment they didn’t need to be a part of.
So I had a bitter taste in my mouth last night and came damn close to going to bed at 10.
But there comes a reckoning for all things and prices are paid for the compromises we make and this check will come due one day and when it does my open palm will be extended waiting for payment.
By the time I woke up I was ready to deactivate my Facebook account and delete all signs of my social media presence.
My roaring 20s were going to begin by resetting everything but I decided against it. Not because of fear or uncertainty but because I thought it would create other issues I didn’t feel like being bothered with.
Easier and less irritating to take a different tack.
Spent an hour post workout sitting in the car thinking about what set me off, what was significant and what isn’t.
I remember telling dad towards the end that I was preparing for being on my own and that I knew the kind of support he offered would be gone.
He told me I might be surprised and I said it was possible but I was ready to go for a short while or until the end of time on my own.
“I am not being melodramatic, it is how I feel. I am on my own and I can manage it. Might not like it, but I can do it. That is what the past 10 years or so have been about, preparing me for this.”
Dad told me not make decisions out of anger and I nodded my head.
“I have known certain things are likely to happen and some are unlikely. I’ll manage and I’ll do the best I can to make smart choices. But I won’t live this like like this forever, the time is coming. I won’t make myself sick, I refuse.”
Dad nodded his head and we talked about certain things in more detail and agreed there was no telling what things might look like in five years.
****
My 19 year-old son and I are sitting in his room talking about the future and I am trying to convince him I understand certain situations far better than he believes I do.
I don’t think he is buying it anymore than I bought into some of the things dad tried to sell me on, except I knew some of those things were stuff dad hadn’t dealt with at the same age.
Our experiences were different, but in this area I am confident I do know some of these things as my son describes even if he thinks I don’t.
But I wonder if and how the decades since I was his age have colored things.
Wonder if maybe that is part of why he is skeptical because I can’t speak about them in the same way since too much has happened.
It is logical and reasonable to look at things like this and there is a natural canyon caused by our respective ages.
I am bothered by his refusal to buy in but amused too because I was him.
So I do my best to accept he’ll figure things out and it will work out fine, even if things don’t happen exactly as I would like them to.
Can’t screw an old head on young shoulders.
My messenger inbox is the place chain letters/messages go to die.
I get too many messages asking me to send greetings or notes forwards. See too many status updates requesting I show respect for cause XYZ by copying and pasting said update but I almost never do.
Others send me notes disagreeing with my political views and share colorful comments about how I must be hurt, upset and broken.
“Would you feel better if you knew I was broken or you broke me? Would it make you smile to know I was so close to the edge you pushed me over and I jumped?”
They rarely answer, but occasionally I get an affirmative, “yes, the world would be better without you.”
Those people clearly don’t know me as that is motivation to give them a different response than they would like.
****
More than a few people posted comments or pictures about themselves and the past ten years but I wasn’t one of them.
Didn’t feel the need and not just because large swaths of my forties were bad. I could have focused on the good because I had chunks of it too, but I didn’t feel the need.
Feeling a lot like a the caterpillar in a cocoon now and hoping I come out the other end more like a butterfly than a moth.
Time will tell, but I am not going to go into it and not exert my influence. I didn’t get stupid over night, still have a few tricks in my bag and a couple more cards to play.
Here goes something.
