Someone tracked me down and sent a message asking me to justify a comment I made upon a post.
I considered whether I felt like engaging in a conversation with someone I didn’t know particularly well and chose silence.
Had there been a real relationship I might have considered interacting but with the general sheeple of Facebook, well it didn’t seem like a good exchange of my time.
Especially given I have been extra ornery as of Iate I didn’t see an upside. I don’t care if they agree nor do I need for them to accept my position.
Different is automatically bad, it is just different and sometimes different is the most important thing you can have. Different helps you shape your views and perspective and can lead to a deeper understanding.
I concede that current circumstances impacted my thoughts as there have been things I have brought up that have been ignored and that has chapped my hide.
But those aren’t related to relative strangers.
Those are tied to things with people that I go back 20, or 30 plus years. I notice who responds or doesn’t respond there and take note of that.
Anyhoo, as I advised my son sometimes silence is intentional and sometimes it is because life happens. There are people who deserve receiving the benefit of the doubt and those who do not.
Dad came up in my thoughts today because I am a little stressed out about a trip to LA. I was born and raised there and put in more than 40 years so it took me a minute to figure out why it makes me a little edgy.
Wasn’t because I am going to handle a few things at the house that he would have done or any of the other things that I’ll give mom a hand with.
It is because in the five years since he died I have been back twice, once for the unveiling and once for a joint work/personal trip.
Had it not been for Covid there would have been other moments, but that doesn’t matter. It is only twice and intellectually I know he is gone.
I watched the mortuary wrap him up. I was a pallbearer and I shoveled significant amounts of dirt onto his grave.
But when I walk into the house I look for him. I listen for the sound of his dress shoes on wood floors and the shout goodbye when he left for work.
I listen for a million other sounds he made and the comments that he and mom would exchange.
So one of the goals is to build more memories of what life is like now so that some of the silence isn’t so very loud.
****
When my children were little Dad and I talked a bit about what happens when the kids move out and you become empty nesters.
I remember him looking at me and saying “you are going to wake up and ask yourself, “who are we today?” You are going to figure out if you grew together or if you grew apart and what you want to do about that.
He watched me nod my head and listened carefully to my response. “Who we are today may not be who we once were or maybe it will be.”
I told him you never knew who might have your heart and who might not.
“People change. Sometimes they call you the love of their life and sometimes they don’t.”
Dad’s bright blue eyes stared into mine and he said he trusted I would figure out whatever I needed to figure out when the time was right.
“Wait until your daughter is in college and see if you can remember if life feels like what you expected to feel like. Chances are you won’t really remember because so much will have happened. You feel like 39 is old but when you are fifty something it will sound really young.”
“Doing nothing but aging”
There are a half dozen sections in this song that touch me and sometimes it depends on whether I am listening to it live, on the album or some cover.
You didn’t ask, but the cover from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is probably my favorite.
Got things to do before the work week resumes but before I go I’ll share a couple more excerpts.
With every mistake
We must surely be learning
and
Cause I’m sitting here
Doing nothing but aging
Every day there are two things I try to make sure I do:
Learn from past mistakes and not sit here doing nothing but aging.
There are important conversations to be had about the future that are tied to a variety of goals and objectives.
Can’t just pass through life, still too young to just settle for what is and not push for what could be. Might have five years or might have fifty, got to not just make a difference but do what serves heart and soul.
I’m leaving two different comments because you’ve selected two topics I want to comment on… both will be here because it doesn’t make sense separating them. lol
First, I was an early adopter on FB, back when you had to have a college email address… which I did and still have; think about that for a minute. In all the years I’ve been there, I only encountered “tension” once, and I “kind of” did it intentionally. When Scalia had passed away, someone posted something nice about it, and being disgusted I posted “Ding Dong, the witch is dead.” No one liked it, and I didn’t care; I didn’t even care that the person I was connected to had posted it and he also didn’t like it. That was the day when I decided I had to go through all the people I was directly connected to and either delete them or move them to the acquaintance area. I’m going to have my say when I felt it was needed, but since I’d already set up my profile so I couldn’t be searched, I decided it would behoove me to not allow anyone I didn’t know and, on that day, knew I wouldn’t like, to have the ability to find me.
This one’s going to be much shorter. About a month ago I went to the village where Mom lived for almost 30 years. The cemetery had finally sent me notification saying her plaque had been finished and they added it to where she was interred. I went up on my own, and because my mind started wandering after driving past what used to be her house, I proceeded to immediately get lost for about 20 minutes for the first time ever. Stuff like that can throw us off when we’re not expecting it; I can understand your discomfort.
There is merit in being able to speak your mind and not worry about it. I have culled through much of the list of friends on FB because of that. I don’t need to agree with everyone nor have them all agree with me.
Friends should be able to accept differences of opinion.
I could see myself doing what you did. It is definitely easy to get lost with some of that. I think it speaks to the quality of the relationship. If they were important to us and we got along well than I see how we can forget.
It is a surreal experience.