Not sure what I will write
tonight, I had the wisp of a blogging idea on the bus on the way home
from work, but it was sad, introspective nonsense. Just one of those moments where I was
looking back at my life choices and wondering where I made the wrong
turn at Albuquerque, so to speak.
I think it this was all brought on
with my uncle's passing and the service this weekend. A moment where
you reflect and take stock of where you are in life. After all, the
uncles on my mothers side of the family were more along the lines of
father type role models than my father ever could have hoped to be.
After all, Bud, my uncle who passed away, was married to the same
woman for 42 years. Not that long marriages aren't the norm in my
family, they most certainly are but I think to myself that if I were
to get married tomorrow, which isn't going to happen, I have to work
after all, and it isn't like I have a list of female prospects out
there, to log 42 years would put me at 88 years old. And as much as I
joke about not having a heart, thereby being immune to heart
attacks, it was a heart issue that felled my uncle as well. He had a
slight tear in his aorta, but much like all of the men in my family,
he didn't complain when he didn't feel well, he was still up doing
things. He helped a couple of his sons with their tree stands for
hunting season earlier in the week, and when he felt something was
amiss, he simply went in his house and laid down on the bed, only to
not awaken the next morning.
And Bud is one of the reasons
there are so many historical books on the bookshelf on this page.
When I was in something like 8th or 9th grade,
my mom and I took a vacation with Bud and his family. We went to
Williamsburg, I don't know who paid for what, but given my mom's lack
of money at the time, I am betting Bud paid for most of it. And we
did Busch Gardens while we were there, back in the day when I let my
fear of heights keep me off of roller coasters, but I got so wrapped
up in the history of the trip. We spent a little time in Colonial
Willaimsburg, but spent a good chunk of time touring plantations and
Civil War sights on the way back, which I just took to. Now don't
get me wrong, I am not a Civil War buff, I have no desire to partake
in reenactments or to debate how a battle could have been changed in
General such and such did this as opposed to that, bu it became a
period of time that really interests me.
And now that Bud is gone it is
almost too hard to process. I have heard that people who have lost
limbs sometimes have phantom pains, as if the limb is still there,
their brain hasn't processed it is gone yet, it is so used to being
there, and I feel like that is what I am going through now, I am just
so used to Bud being there that it is hard to accept he isn't. All I know is the is that the last time I saw Bud, at my cousin's graduation party, I hugged him goodbye, as I do with most of my relatives. Yes
I am a hugger as most everyone in my family can attest.
So getting back to that bus ride,
I am thinking what have I done wrong. There are no wife prospects,
there are no kids on the horizon and I have come to the conclusion
that I am attracted to people that are completely wrong for me. Not
that I come off as prime husband material to begin with, I live in an
efficiency apartment, I don't drive and I manage a convenience store.
I am not GQ type material, so there is no bail out coming from the
looks department and as evidenced this past weekend, chances are very
good at some point I will be felled by a heart related issue of some
sort. Either something that will take me quickly, like my uncle or
my grandfather, or something that will leave me like my mother, and
incoherent mess with little to no mental recall of things that have
happened. There ain't many women who are signing on for that tour of
duty, even if I might be able to make them laugh occasionally. And
the ones that have an interest in me are completely wrong for me, yet
I glom onto the attention and try to shelve the rational thoughts in
my head and get so enamored with the attention that I end up trying
to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Whether it is right or
wrong doesn't filter into the equation until it is much too late. I
reposted the Crazy Canadian incident today on Facebook because it is
a prime example of this. I can't stand people who lie to me, yet
here I was making excuses for it for two fucking years simply because
I had convinced myself I couldn't do better than that. I was so
hooked on the attention that common sense got shelved because someone
said they loved me. I am an idiot.
And everything I do recently
comes with a tinge of anger, so so much for the laughing portion of
the equation. Even my jokes come off as more cruel than funny.
Today during the Labor Day parade, when A baton troupe marched past
the front of the store, I looked a a coworker and said, “Look, it's
Jerod Fogle's wet dream.” And my anger has spilled into a couple
of blogs recently as well, not that I regret anything I wrote, one of
the first rules I gave myself when I started blogging 10 years ago
was if I haven't pissed you off at least once, then I wasn't doing my
job. I don't need my own cult of personality surrounding me, if I am
being an ass I expect people to call me on it.
I mentioned the other day that I
was still having issues with my Ipad, the touch sensor wasn't working
in spots. Well I was using it last night and I started having issues
again and I was just so sick of things not working in my life that I
slammed it to the ground and finished the job, so tonight I am
sitting outside my apartment blogging on my laptop. I could have
taken the laptop to the park, but by sitting outside my apartment I
can still tap into my wifi and listen to Pandora while I type.
God knows this in probably coming
off as an incoherent paragraph or three of complete and utter
jibberish, I don't care, it needs to be off of my chest. If is
splashes onto the page as an incoherent mess so be it.
Guess I am not a fun person to be
around these days huh? But I will do what I always do in such
situations, just keep moving, keeping myself busy, because this is
the result when I stop.
I'm so sorry for you loss, Matt. Death is a cruel visitor. He leaves more destruction in his wake than a wrecking crew. I won't say it get better because I hated the idiots who said that to me when my husband died. You just learn to cope eventually. And blogging is probably the best and cheapest thing you can do to get things off your chest.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know, Matt, a lot of men do marry late these days. Never say never. Of course, I believe it is better to be single than shackled to someone who isn't right for you.
Thank you, I would think that the loss for me pales in comparison to others in my family, mostly his wife and kids and grandkids and great grandkids. PLus I have an avenue to work through things, namely this page, which as sloppy and convoluted as this entry was, I needed to do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are correct about being stuck with the wrong person, looking back on my past relationships there is nothing there that I look at and regret the way things turned out ultimately, they were all bad, each for its own specific set of reasons and circumstances. Perhaps bad is too strong a word, but none of them would have made for life long commitments without bad results coming from them. In that regard I am definitely better off single. That doesn't change the fact though that I shut off all sense of reason though simply because someone pays attention to me, that is a huge character flaw on my part.