A 2012 Mid-Year in Review: A Year Without Mom

I have not been writing very much lately. It has dawn on me that my skills as a writer may not reach a level worthy of recording every silly thought or review of a situation. Just seems irrelevant to pop online to talk about whatever movie, legal case, political issue, or economic turn happens to catch my fancy for the time it takes to organize some coherent thoughts. Other matters are more important than the contributions one makes via blogs.

Today, one year has passed since my mother's death and funeral. Obviously, it runs through my head a lot. July 4th is my grandfather's death to remember too. So while others prepare for food fests, live concerts, fireworks, tracker pulls, horse showings, and whatever else makes the Fourth, the fourth, I will likely ride my bike around campus a lot and watch movies for my own way to get through the holiday.

The year since has been one of reorganization and reality. I got into to Purdue again, achieved my best GPA ever and semester honors, and will take the GMAT in August. I moved to West Lafayette, and currently, paint apartments and bust up plaster that needs work while spackling over the rough spots too. My life too needs more spackle (and walls of plaster) in places we've discussed before, many years ago on this blog.

I spend most of my time alone. Have not made good friends yet, not for lack of trying. But again, as always,
past experiences and realities just are...there. A line from the movie, Hoosiers, by Barbara Hersey's character regarding Gene Hackman's plights before coming to Hickory to coach basketball: "A man your age comes to a place like this, either he's running away from something or he has nowhere else to go."
At Purdue, a little of both is probably true of me.

I saw this course as the last go at school and whatever that might bring. That there can not be much to gain from staying on a paper route, hoping I'll get ahead, and knowing it never did get me (or my mom) anywhere in the decade plus of time we both dedicated to that task. That I also have no where else to go and no one left in my life to share it with is true. This is due to a fear of intimacy.

To be clear: In the last moments and months of my mother's life, I found a closeness to her even as she could not always make clear her thoughts (dementia and cancer.) Being relied upon, and counted to do the right thing, is never easy. I made mistakes and stress was in every decision. Yet, I did my utmost to give my mother as much of a happy time as we could afford. (Her favorite: going to PETSMART to pet the cats. We went about twice a week as it was nearby.) Simple, frivolous to many I suppose, but it was something. Book stores too were treat. Shopping at Target. Watching the Cubs...

But outside of that one relationship (the easiest one to be closest, for many people, but not all), I have no real close relationships. Just superficial acquaintances and meager work connections that end at the juncture of mutual interests and quitting time. Years ago, I discussed this from the woe-is-me, victim-is-me standpoint. I was who I was then; flawed and failed and flailing around for answers. It was after the first time I seriously attempted to tear down a codependent, fear-of-rejection/intimacy wall as a recovering alcoholic in 1999-2000 while in a community organization. Later, I was duly burnt by pursuing an unavailable woman; reacted very badly to her salt-in-the-wounds rejection; was punished rightly for my bitter and spiteful words in retaliation; and had to accept lies told (to buttress the legal case) on top of that. And then...life had to go on with the damage done.
  
Now, I have tried to be more open, yet guarded also, since there are others out there that are just as hurt and
just as willing to repeat their cycle of re-victimization. So while I can hope to make things work, I realize what are the missing pieces to the puzzle: intimate relationships. What is worse - I have never seen them in operation in my own life. No happy intimate relationship while in any romance. (14 years since I've even kissed a woman.) Barely a friendship to count on. For some, I can hear, "well, you need to give more to others." 

The last six to eight months, in various ways, I have made strides on this area. At least dozen fellows, for various reasons, I have tried to advise in long form. Work-related, life goals, self-improvement mantras, or titles of worth, or just general encouragement in pursuit of the long-term. Sometimes a few minutes, others, maybe 1/2 to and hour in social atmospheres I probably should not be in - bars. Advise, not, "This is what you should do...period," instead just stories from my own failings... Yet, while worthwhile, it lacks. It's not fulfilling long-term. Still does not solve my own personal issues. But, I try.   (And for contrast: I've tried a couple times to talk to ladies. Not very successful at all - nor were they open to advice - in fact, plenty of know-it-all ladies must attend Purdue. Wisdom: the outcome of failed experiences. Or: You can learn a lot from a dummie. )

That said, you have to Run Your Race. (See Below.)

So, that's the year in review, mid-year. We will see where I am next year.

Will I still blog, if infrequently?
Will I be in an MBA program?
Will I make a contribution of note?
Will I cross a rubicon in my evolution towards a more whole and satisfying life?

I realize some may not like Joel Osteen, but a few bits here in Run Your Race are worth listening to:

1) 20:25-22:30 Saul & High Maintenance People
2) 24:15-25:30 The Old Man, the Boy, and The Donkey, People Pleasing
3) 25:35-27:15 Dreams Untold (Joseph, Mary)
4) 11:55-13:00 The Pit: People Pleasing, Ignoring Advise

 

The 2012 New Year: Advice for the Young at Heart

Chapter 16 of My Life and Times at Purdue University

A friend on Google+ posted this as a call to action, or resolution, or escape from that worn path:

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'd like to change about my life, and what steps I can take to implement those changes. I generally do this anyway, whenever I start feeling like I'm unhappy a little too much. One thing that I do not do is wait until January 1st to implement these changes. I just don't get that mentality--this is my last cigarette ever! I'm gonna eat another pig in a blanket, and tomorrow we diet!--and I think that if you genuinely crave change, your excitement will keep you from procrastinating.

But of course, excitement is a fleet-footed creature. It's one thing to say "I'm going to get a new job" and another to subject yourself to the indignities of the process--online applications that make you manually type in all the information from the resume you just uploaded; leadership personality tests that ask you the same question six different ways; receiving a phone call, as you iron the blouse you agonized over choosing, that the position has been filled and your interview has been canceled--but why do I give up so easily? A new job would probably make me happier than anything else right now, so why do I allow myself to shrug my shoulders and continue clockwatching?

Perhaps I should set a resolution after all. I clearly need to kick through this wall.

If you need me, I'll either be thinking about why I procrastinate, or trying to decide whether I'm Very Somewhat or Somewhat Very on yet another personality test.

My uneducated response:

I can understand it all too well. I've work at about 20-25 different places in my 25 years of punching a clock, or showing up to do projects for people I know do not want to be there either. I've taken personality tests offered by the US Navy (scholarship app), Lear Corporation (cool printout), and two other places.

Since I scarcely know you, or what is the bothersome feature in your work (besides work), I suspect you'll change careers another 4.7 times during the next 20.2 years. You might conceive 2.1 kids, or forego that route, and put $151,578 more dollars in your pocket over that same time span.

The resolution is just another dream. But dreams have payment options. You must pay plenty into them, sacrifice some other route, and know that your sunk costs may infuriate someone you tend to say you love/like, but obviously they don't get what you are after and don't love/like you quite the way you want them to back.

At a younger adult age, with an IE degree, I had four goals: nice car, nice home/condo, good job that met the lifestyle, and a well, a smoking hot wife was what I wanted, but would have settle for a B- looker with DD boobs. (Hey, I'm a guy.) That said, I have no real estate, no car now (head gasket on one, repoed my moms), a freelance writing gig with FREE being the op word, and absolutely, not even the slightest tickle of a woman wanting me for a steady eddy, or a fuck buddy to soothe either her woe-beggotten trek, or the damn-good-n-rich living large existence.

So, zero for four. I should be miserable.

But, not really. Of those, only the woman would be a plus factor to the current course setting I have. Sure, I will work soon enough. But if I get so desperate...I'll find a way again to do something menial and relatively worthless to survive. Since any a-hole can entertain with words, a song, or a cool new app put up for the world at $5.99 per download, my current skill sets probably won't make a dent into my dream of being a writer that gets to do projects around the world. Why I came back for college, part deux.

So, no losses are insurmountable. The fucking existence we lead generally does not end with or begin with a job, a car, a big screen hi-def, or a semi-steady sexual encounter that you do taxes with yearly and claim kids, if you want, separately. I yearn for when I could play baseball all day, eat spaghetti dinner with my mom, and watch the Wonder Years hoping shit would be better for me in my then dream pursuit of a cheerleader I fell for in high school. Alas, the damnest thing: I wasn't popular, or a stud enough athlete, too short, also, and I talked funny too (as a hillbilly from Tennessee tends to do).

The moral is: do you. Whatever the fuck that is to you - be it. Write, build cabinets, play music, fix cars, entrepreneur something, watch Captain Kangaroo and make it a game too, I don't care. The time we got is short. You got plenty more on me because you are smart, know the story, and don't have a pecker that leads you astray like I have been led to the cliff, and fallen to a presumed death by ejaculation/masturbation. I keep on climbing back up, but I don't have a killer plan either. 

 

I write - editorialize, I'd say - my whole life. Shakespeare at least (if we believe he wrote EVERY thing) was productive. Sonnets, plays, fucking crap no one seriously could duplicate, even now. We just steal his ideas over and over and over until generation get-over-yourself forgets whomever came up with it in the first place. As you've noted, in your posting Andrew's take of The Police song When The World Keeps Running Down, that's a talent too - pirate and innovate. Do that if it doesn't land you in the fucked-in-the-ass prison. (Oh yeah, did a tour of duty in the pokey too. Didn't have Notorious B.I.G.'s legal team to get a "not guilty." I was stupid, not criminally minded. A much much longer story, if you can believe me so far.)

2012 Resolution: try for that dream and build it one day at a time. Might take 5-10 years but you will be better off, you will have really learned how you do you, and likely, will not know fuckers like me exist. The truest test of your payments to your dreams...someone else will really notice, support it, and that dream becomes a fucking reality I hear about on CNBC with Jim Cramer screaming, "Buy! Buy! Buy!" And your now-snobby ass can give me the advice.

Happy New Year! 

 

And Keep At It!

 

 

That's my advice to all of you out there between 1 and 92.

Again, Happy New Year to all of you.