Thursday, September 12, 2013

I Tell Myself To Remember This

     Here I'm am again awake when I should be sleeping.  I couldn't tell you if I feel like the days just blur together or it all just seems like one long unending day because I'm too tired to tell the difference.  Even my whining has become repetitive.  Still, I fight sleep like a little kid and rebel against nothing and I just don't care.  Even my faults have become boring to me.  I want to write, though.  I want to write.  It's been seven days since I posted anything and I received a wonderful compliment from a complete stranger on my last post and the motivation is always there anyway.  I have plenty of things to write about too. There's how quickly a day of remembrance turns to crass commercialism in this country but everyone knows America is too materialistic.  I went on two dates with a woman and then she decided she doesn't want to see me anymore because of something she knew about before we ever met.  That should be good for a diatribe or two but I would just be writing once again that women are hard to understand.  We have an employee appreciation day coming up at work and I'm ready to rage about about the irony and fallacy and farce that is but...well actually that one I'll probably write but it needs to marinate in my mind another night or so.  Still, it seems like even my writing, my escape from the same old song and dance, has become repetitive.
     It is easy to see why some people think it's all meaningless and on a night like this, as I listen to the water from a leak drip without any motivation to fix it, that is a tempting philosophy to embrace.  We wage slaves go away from our homes everyday and slave away just to pay the car payments that let us keep doing it.  We shuffle our kids to and from school and their activities and shovel food we can barely afford into their mouths just so that they too can grow up and do what we do.  Life is hard and it comes to the same end for us all no matter what.  It is almost understandable to think that the grind never ends up grinding anything to anything resembling a point.  In the middle of a night like tonight the meaning of life seems as thin and easily vanishing as the steam from my coffee and the smoke from my cigarette.
     Still...
     Last week one evening when I wasn't feeling good my son put down his video game controller and asked me if there was anything he could do for me.  I see him look at me a certain way sometimes and I know he's wondering if I'm okay and if he can help in anyway. He wants to take care of me almost as much as I want to take care of him.  Sometimes I think about myself and my ex wife and the ways we've fucked up his life and I wonder where the hell this sweet boy came from.  I wonder about a lot of things he does and I mean that with the emphasis on wonder because that's what he is.  This past Friday my ex had to cancel visitation because of car trouble and I could see the disappointment in his eyes but he told her it was alright because he didn't want her to feel bad.
     I tell myself to remember this.
     That cancellation lead to some scrambling.  I had to work Saturday and had a date and night out with old friends planned for that evening and no babysitter because I wasn't supposed to have Brad.  My biggest worry, though, was the disappointed child on my hands. Forget my stuff.  I needed to find a way to make him feel better.  My family rode to the rescue.  They took Brad for the weekend, I was able to do everything I wanted and needed to do, and since he was getting a weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Brad wasn't disappointed anymore about not seeing his mom and he didn't miss me one bit.  I don't think he'd care if he missed meeting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if he was with Grandma and Grandpa.  After all the fighting and cussing we did when I was growing up my family will still do that much for and mean that much to my son and I and my parents are still trying to take care of me.
     I tell myself to remember this.
     During that Saturday night out with old friends I had a blast.  My one friend took the opportunity to ask me, as he always does, if I was ever going to write a novel.  I can't help laughing at him because he's stupid enough to still believe in me.  My other friend shocked us both by showing us something we never thought we'd see from him.  I can't really go into details but I'll just say that I can't help laughing at him because he's stupid enough to still believe in love.  Yes, I just called my two oldest friends stupid mostly because they must be to still be friends with me.  They'd say the same about me and we'd all laugh and know we meant it as a compliment.  I'm pretty sure we did say such things to each other that night just not in so many words.
     I tell myself to remember this.
     Monday, at work, the heat and the stress and the overtime got to myself and a coworker of mine.  We had an argument that almost came to blows.  Two guys with ginger beards arguing is almost as bad as two women.  We barely spoke to each other the rest of the day. Still, as we walked out of work we were joking and laughing and he still called me at four in the morning the next day to make sure I was awake and coming to work.  Stuff happens and then you forget it because if you don't then you can't work together and tell me if that isn't just the way life is supposed to be.
     I tell myself to remember this.
     Just since I've last posted I've marveled at how defensive my friends became of me when I told them the way that woman I dated treated me, even though it didn't much matter to me.  I've had a complete stranger compliment my writing and yes I was just looking for an excuse to mention that again.  All of these amazing little moments of meaning have happened in the last week that, until I thought about it, seemed like a meaningless slough to me.  If this is how everyday is going to be the same and how my life is going to be repetitious; I should be thankful for this.
     I tell myself to remember this.
     Yesterday, when I picked Brad up from school he threw two books he'd borrowed from the library into my truck and exclaimed, "BOOKS," with a smile I recognized from the mirror on he face.  Tonight, he had a football scrimmage and went against kids bigger and older than him.  At times he resembled a pinball but he got by them when he was supposed to and they didn't get by him.  At the end, when I usually give him my tips and pointers I only had one thing to say.  "The most important thing is Brad; did you have fun?"  "Dad," he shouted with that same damn smile on his face, "I feel like a BOSS."  I laughed and smiled that same damn smile and knew life couldn't possibly be pointless when I can see myself in him.  It all begins and ends with my son; my happiness, my joy, my stress, my exhaustion, my purpose and my meaning.  Everyday begins and ends with him.  I wake him up in the morning and tuck him in at night and I know that any day that begins and ends that way can't possibly be meaningless.
     I may have to remind myself from time to time but I remember this.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you sir. It's hard for me to see this as brilliance but it has been a catharsis. You are correct on that. Know though that I'm only like this from behind a computer screen. If I was capable of this kind of honesty face to face...well I would still be divorced but I may have had a successful relationship since then.

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