I could tell you about the stories I told the girl and hint at those I haven’t yet shared but what fun would that be.
Truth is it has been a hard day filled with beauty and ugly and in the typical great contradiction of my life I am furious but relieved.
Held my breath until the inauguration was over and slowly started to relax a bit because the trouble I wondered and worried about hadn’t materialized.
Was grateful to not see more of the past ugliness materialize on a larger scale and slowly found myself able to focus on things that pay the bills.
Got tripped up a bit midway through when someone who tried to come for me this summer overreacted to something else and tried coming again.
I am certain they caught the edge in my voice and wonder if they heard me mutter “I beat you once motherfucker and if need be, I will do it again.”
Hard to say for certain because I didn’t say the words aloud but it is possible the force of my thought pushed them through but then again maybe not.
Given a choice silence works for me because you don’t know where my head is at and what I might choose to do or not do.
Hell, I might not even spell it out elsewhere or I might, depends on if I give in to impulse.
We’re a hair short of 30 months since Dad walked into the cornfields which means it must be 30 months since I got the call while driving through Southlake.
Thirty months since I spent almost double the normal fare to fly back to LA and snapped one last picture with the old man.
Never thought about it until now, but I think this is the last picture we took together.
The night before he went into the hospice where I let him crush my hand in his because the pain meds weren’t working.
When I was little and very angry he used to tell me to punch his hand.
“Dad, I don’t want to hurt your hand. I am strong.”
“You won’t”
I tried to prove him wrong, not to hurt him but to prove a five-year-old isn’t a baby. He never flinched.
Not surprising to write nor I am sure to read, but funny to me because I remember how serious I was.
****
There was a moment around 9 AM CST where I wanted to punch his hand.
Wanted to punch it for not being here to see we voted the disaster out and some of those who spent four years pretending to be blind and deaf appear to have woken up.
Wanted to punch it because so much was and is going on and sometimes it is nice to have your father around because no one else will get it.
No one else will understand, maybe the grandfathers but no one else.
That is ok and even if it wasn’t it would have to be because there are no other options.
They all did it and now it is my time.
Felt like it was accented by my 20 year-old who sat down to ask my advice about a couple of things. We don’t do that very often now and I am good with that too.
I didn’t want to have some of those conversations at 20 either, was too focused on being my own man.
Once you have done a few things with your life you don’t care about that anymore but you can’t be that guy at 20.
You’re just not old enough to have the life experience. You could be a combat soldier who had done two tours in Iraq and had a baby and it wouldn’t matter. Some things only come with a little time.
There are times in life when in order to make progress you have to act first and ask for forgiveness later.
I took a few of those things on a short while back and the moment is coming soon when I will have to have a few conversations about them.
Been trying to create situations in which the obvious choice is to move ahead and support the positions I have adopted.
It is a challenging space to be in because people fight change and make excuses based upon inertia and not fact for why they choose not to take a chance.
Soon we’ll see if I can provide the explanation that provides them with comfort and motivation to push ahead.
If I fail it could lead to some ugly moments but if I succeed, well it could be very significant.
The biggest challenge lies in trying to keep some people listening instead of reacting. In trying to keep the reacters from crying as if I rolled a tire onto their foot or accidentally kicked them so hard they wonder where the gumballs in their mouth appeared from.
****
It is a new beginning today.
President Joe Biden has the opportunity to help restore and rebuild much of what was lost and or broken during the prior administration.
Won’t happen over night and I am certain it will be an administration in which Vice President Harris will be very active and not a figurehead as in some other admins.
Not ready to fully exhale and believe the troubles we have faced are gone but far more confident because the captain of the plane isn’t intentionally rocking the wings back and forth while trying to use the chaos to hide malfeasance.
Not going to believe I’ll like or agree with everything but at the very least I have faith again that the leadership will try to use fact, science and education instead of lies, conspiracy theory and sleight-of-of hand.
It is a good day.
