I Can’t Tell You To Call Me

There are moments where it feels like everything is falling apart and coming together simultaneously and I can’t decide to laugh or cry.

Not that most of you will ever see any tears rolling down my cheeks, doesn’t really happen, though I suppose it could.

Came across a couple of pictures that stopped my heart and another that made me shake my head, been one of those days.

Maybe it is a time for faith and maybe it is a time for action.

Probably why I have written some things here and others elsewhere.

There is a part of me that felt like reaching out to be very explicit and another that said I can’t tell you to call me, you have to want to.

Been through five or so years of some pretty hellish moments and can almost see daylight, changes are coming.

And certainly been through the chaos and crazy with the man who has actively tried to make America great again by breaking it–but he is finally on his way out.

Remember These Words

The soon to be 20 year-old Mr. Wilner asked me if I could help him with a warranty issue for a pair of earbuds he purchase in November 2019.

It was a terrible time to ask but I set work aside and said yes because there are fewer moments in which he asks his old man to take the lead on some things.

I told him to watch how I approached the call and made sure we had everything we needed prior to beginning it.

The initial response was “no, we cannot do anything because you are out of warranty” and then I showed him how to turn it into a yes.

I walked him through how to turn a rejection upside down in a polite and firm way and one hour later we had a commitment to get a replacement…for free.

Told him not to expect that every time but we were two weeks outside of the warranty and a polite request for a supervisor and a “please” led to the response we hoped for.

“Remember these words and remember sometimes people say no and there is nothing that can be done. Know when to shrug your shoulders and walk away because punching concrete hurts.”

****

I paid my life insurance today and realized the twenty year term I paid for is almost up.

Got 18 months or so before I have to make a decision about what to do with this and laughed because I remember both my grandfathers telling me it would go quickly.

Remembered talking to them, the retired insurance salesmen about what options I had and how they told me that 34 wasn’t far from 50.

It sounded ridiculous but I listened.

I remember them telling me about how you couldn’t say what might happen in a year and some of the examples they shared, the Depression, WWII, and Kennedy’s assassination.

That wasn’t that long before we decided to try for a second kid and then my father’s heart attack, triple bypass and all the chaos that came along.

Sometimes we forget how many things happen because it was only a few years post 9/11, post Afghanistan and post Gulf War II.

The guys and I used to joke around about what would happen if things really went to hell and we would have to make like our grandfathers or fathers who fought in WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

“We’re in our 30s, if they draft us now we’ll know it is really bad.”

Now we talk about our sons and how hard it would be if they got drafted.

“It is one thing if they want to enlist, but it is different if they take him.”

We all nod our heads and some of us thank the fathers of the kids that are in the service now. We really do appreciate their service and we think about how very different it is now, on this side. It is not us putting our lives on the line, it is our kids.

Are we really this old.

We are.

The Club You Don’t Want To Join

It is not that long ago that I knew a bunch of people who had lost a parent or perhaps both, never knowing how fast time moves.

Never knowing I would blink and be a member of the club you don’t want to join. Now I know quite a few, a bunch who joined after I did, some of whom have reached out and asked for advice.

It is a better club than the one that has parents who have lost a kid. I know more than a few in that one, people around my age, some older, some younger who have faced a greater horror.

Dad died at just short of 75, that is not quite the average lifespan of a man in the US, but it is close. It was long enough for him to see all of his kids get married, meet all of his grandchildren, be married for 50 years and to have had a number of years of retirement.

We all wanted more time and so did he, but I wouldn’t ever lie about it being as horrible as what some friends have been through. It is not.

Into The Gap We Go

Made a few preliminary moves to prepare for some bigger ones and am getting ready to hit the gap hard. Got a few ideas about some changes and things I want to make and am doing some prep work for it.

Won’t be long before into the gap we go and discover whether we have made a good choice or bad, though chances are it won’t be that simple.

But for the moment I have converted shades of gray into black and white because it is easier to jump than to suffer from analysis of paralysis about all the other possibilities.

So…here…we…go.