A World of Our Own

   Yesterday, I read a sweatshirt that said, "You Deserve the World!"

Do we, really? I mean the idea of some people deserving a world is literally depressing, some people can't manage a house, let alone a world. I don't deserve a world,  POS that I am. 

What would I do with a world? Would it be sunshine and verdant fields, unicorns and fairies, women in veils and men in leather and metal astride a horse. Me, in my little forest cabin, friend to all, known throughout the land as a gentle grandfather of sorts?

Maybe it would dystopian, dark skies and fiery mountains, dragons and great hunting cats, women in hareems and a few men in labor camps in chains. Would I keep myself apart from my minions, alone in my dark keep on the side of a volcano high above the jungle floor? Or would my palace surrounds the only water for miles in the high desert, the fortress "manned" completely by women?

What sort of world would the likes of me make? Desolate or swampy? Dark or gloomy? Chaotic or quiet?

Not everyone deserves a world...

I have Changed

         Time has an effect on all of us, realizing that effect can be a bit eye opening. Recently my program director in the school district texted me and asked if it would be ok to pass my number on to the Behavior program director, I said, “yes”. For those of you that don’t know I have a long and storied background in behavior management, both in and out of the school district, where I have worked for 20 years now.

Shortly after my number was passed I received a text asking if I would be interested in some extra pay hours this summer, doing what I have had good success at in the past. I responded, “No, Thank you” and then I added, “I am not that guy anymore.” You see, I used to be the guy that stepped up, met the behavioral challenge head on, and enjoyed some success at it. 

However, the last ten years have taken their toll on me. At work I am currently working with my fifth supervising teacher and my fourth program director. I currently have a really good team, but that has not always been true. On top of the revolving door at work my personal life has been a bit of a roller coaster ride too...divorce, dating, bad break up, dating, and marriage. The deaths of mom, nephew, and last remaining brother leave me as the sole survivor of my immediate family...I have a niece, a nephew, and my son (and grandkids) left. I have lost friends and coworkers (I have worked two jobs for over 20 years) and extended family to Covid-19, stroke, and cancer.

When I added the line, “I am not that guy anymore” to my response I realized just how broken I am today. How far I have fallen. What’s that line, “a shadow of my former self.” I am content now to go to work, keep everyone safe, teach a little, and “meet my expectations” but I have no desire to shine. I feel broken, less than whole, and struggling to make it one more day. I’m sure this falls into my well documented depressive cycles, my MDD, and my therapy resistant depression. Whatever the diagnosis, the trauma, or the stressor the results are the same...I have changed, I am no longer that guy, and I am not the hero in this story.

The passing of a Decade

In the light of a full moon

I see something

Shuffling

Shambling

Lurching

Should I call out?

Would it be for help,

Or a warning to others?

He stands there

Just beyond sight,

Shrouded in mystery

And shadow

Staring not so much at me

But through me

Beyond me

Past me

The creature turns as if to leave

The moonlight playing a cross a grimace

I see a heavy chain encircles it

And it is burdened still

For now I know this thing of

Time and sorrow

A frightful being to all

It is a decade

Bound and chained

to ten years of regret, suffering,

and broken dreams

I foolishly raise my hand

as if to say, “Goodbye,

Old friend”

I know his kind is always there watching,

Building their burdens

From our missteps and

Regrets

Perhaps my next decade

will be less frightening

less sorrow filled

less painful to bare

and perhaps he will smile as he passes

grateful for a lighter burden.

2016

It is a new year, a time to look over and review what is and isn’t working in my life. A time to reflect on where I am and where I want to go.

In 2015, I lost my mom, I added a second job (a goal achieved), reduced my depression medications to zero, and navigated several relationship Tsunamis. All of which could have easily triggered a major depressive episode and none of which I could have endured without several good people in my life. 

Knowing I need people, I will attempt to add to the very short list of people in my support circle in 2016.

It is said that to find happiness or meaning in life one can/should belong to something larger than one’s self. Some use career or family to answer this need, but for many it is religion they turn to…or a combination of the three. None of those seem to work for me, I’m not happy/proud of my career path, my family is the most disjointed and disconnected one I know of, and as far as religion is concerned…for me, right now, that is a solitary pursuit between me and God (and contentious at times). 
I have devoted myself to one thing larger than myself and while I have found strength and peace there, its foundations have been shaken several times over the past six months, causing undue stress in my life. Things are better now and hopefully will continue that way.

In my life I want…

More greens and less grains

More water and less sodas

More moving and less sitting

To reconnect with old/lost friends

To reaffirm those pillars in my life

To reach out to new friends

I recently reread my strategy for 2015 post and it all still holds true so I will just try to continue working on that plan.

Insignificance

 Recently while driving a bus, I was struck at how insignificant I am. Choices in my life (or avoidance of choices) have led me to where I am. If I were not to show up for my bus-driving shift it would not matter at all, I would not even be missed. I even believe that if no one replaced me, these young adults would easily find their way to campus and back without a bus at all.

Feeling so insignificant in this job, I began to think of my primary job in a local school district working with adult special needs students in work like environments (my focus is Autism) and sadly I realized the same held true there as well. Many of my students are not suitable for a job (more complicated, severe, profound, or unmotivated) and so the program is ineffectual and meaningless. If I were not present at this job, even if no one else replaced me, there would be no significant change for these students…or the world.

At my age, many men (and women) search for or hope for their life’s work to have some meaning. I have written some in this blog about life purpose and meaning stating that common people are needed to set contrast against great people.

Feeling insignificant has spilled over in to all areas of my life from time to time. I cannot think of a single person for whom I am a top priority, including myself.

I suppose I could console myself with the fact that most of us lead insignificant lives (or at least have insignificant days).  Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and Hitler come to mind first when thinking of people who have made lasting change in this world. Going to work, paying bills, eating healthy, working out, writing a blog, and cleaning house have no lasting effect on this world, no meaning. Yet many of us fill our days and our lives with such drivel. I do.

Procreating has a lasting effect, the child a person produces can have a profound effect on the world (positive or negative…I’m thinking over population). While I have raised children, (many fostered and one step son) I have chosen to have none of my own. I read a meme recently that said, “If you do not reproduce you will be the first organism in your direct line from the beginning of time to do so.” Well at least I am first at something.

I am so common that I will likely die of America’s most common killers heart disease and/or cancer both prevalent in my immediate family. Sadly the only thing a person has to do once they are born is die, everything else is a choice. Looking back it appears I chose poorly.

The Dangers of Grocery Shopping

Recently I made a quick trip through my hometown on the last Friday of summer. My plan was to see mom, family, and maybe a friend or two. I chose not to call ahead because mom always makes such a fuss when I come to town, that choice meant I didn’t get to see mom as she was off with her friend for their Friday adventures. I did get to see and briefly visit with my nephew and a longtime friend.

At one point in my whirlwind tour of Kerrville, Texas I was obliged to stop at the local grocery store, HEB, where my shopping enjoyment was interrupted by a walking, talking memory, for in the isle ahead of me stood one of the bullies of my childhood. I recognized his face and his voice as he spoke to his companion, but I still cannot recall his name. Surveying him from head to foot I judged that life had not been kind to this bastard from my early years. His clothing was dirty perhaps from a job best done outdoors and he was lean, but no longer strong looking to my mature eyes.

My posture straightened and my shoulders squared. I am not a small man and while I am heavy there is a fair amount of muscle lurking beneath my soft cuddly exterior. I now know that the man before me would pose little or no threat to me physically.

We locked eyes for the briefest of seconds, my green to his mud brown. Then he turned, walking away, still speaking to his friend. I seem to remember he always had friends with him back in the day. I think it is safe to say he most likely did not recognize me for the years have certainly taken liberty with my body.

As I drove towards home later in the day I found myself thinking back to my grocery isle encounter. I entertained and enjoyed the thought that in that briefest of stares he saw a man he did not want to trifle with.

He also never knew he was a Nano second away from the beating he should have gotten 33 years ago.

Today was a rough day.

I spent a good portion of the day in bed. I didn’t sleep and I wasn’t having sex. I recently read that one way to deal with very strong emotions was to go ahead and experience them without acting on them as opposed to bottling them up or holding them back until they explode. The chapter I read this from was specific to jealousy, but ended by saying many strong emotions could be dealt with in this way.

Therefore, I lay in bed and I suffered. This strong emotion washed over me, it filled me, and it crushed me. At times today, I knew that I was dying, that no one, especially a weak coward like me, could survive this.  I did not die.

I do not know how long I cried, but it felt never ending…

until it ended.

Once the crying was done, the emotional junk washed out, I laid there and thought, I reexamined  where I was in life and where I was going.

I thought of what I wanted and what I was willing to do to achieve it.

I thought of past wrongs and future redemptions, quality of life as opposed to quantity of life, and I thought of despair oddly mixed with hope.

Sometimes when you are rebuilding something it is not only easier, but also better to just strip everything down to the foundation, make sure it is sound, and then begin construction. I am trying to rebuild a life that I have spent decades doing shoddy work on. I have not educated myself and feel it is too late to correct that, I have no ambition for my career I am as high as I am likely to go on my own, and I have failed at two marriages, both of which I probably could have salvaged (or at least not given up so easily).

Looking back on that kind of life there is no wonder I never wanted a long life. I used to joke that I’d be dead by 45, well I’m 47. Not all that long ago I would have told you I’d be ok if I only lasted or survived another 10 years because all I was doing was surviving.

I want to live not just survive.

My strong emotion session is over for now and I cannot tell you I am completely better or stronger. I certainly can’t say that I will not have to face that beast again, but I can tell you I am still here and I am okay.