What's new? Well, my buddy got the license we need to open up an independent counseling shop so as to become vendors for probation referrals and the ability to bill Medicaid. If we organize this properly, with even 5-10 clients each, I could be richer than I've ever been in a shorter amount of time than I thought would be possible without a dozen businesses running simultaneously. So, that's potentially good news.
My girl wants to do something “dramatic” to change the pattern of get along for two weeks, bicker about something incredibly small until she's driving back to Kentucky to reset, get along for two weeks, on and on. Does that mean her continued stay anywhere remotely close to me or the state? Who knows? So, that's potentially bad news.
I'm tempted to defer to one of my favorite stories about the monk who continually asks, “Is that so?” about the various circumstances of his life and things people bring to him. You might consider me in a “cold” or “calculating” space about how I attempt to organize the next few weeks and months of my life.
I've taken a lot of things for granted in my life. While I'm not keen to be shamed about “privileges” with a Woke Wokerson, I do concede that I'm a legacy of a level of work and care that a great many people do not get. I've felt obligated to match, to whatever degree I can, the stories about what my grandparents did or dad has done, in service to providing and creating the circumstances for me to be where I am. The details matter. The culture that undermines or protects what's there matters.
All of my grandparents' children were able to fend for themselves, get through school, retain jobs, and 3 out of 4 figure out how to get acceptable partners. They've still fallen prey to unprocessed trauma and regrets. They've still managed to steal from and resent each other. I certainly don't know the details of the households my grandparents were brought up in, but I know if they're even half of the kind of people I've experienced them to be and that my dad has talked about, they would never accept the kind of behavior I've been witness to from their offspring. That said, I still can't shake how my uncle was allowed to speak so shiftily towards my grandma.
Either way, for all of my privileges or “born with its,” I could have, by default, had more. I could have started this cousin-fuck Indiana experiment with the money from the sale of my grandparent's stolen house. My mega-rich second cousin and aunt could have thrown me the money they wipe their assess with to make it so I wasn't spending 22 hours a day working and navigating the exploitation of mall leases and politics. Money I don't feel entitled to, mind you, and worked to account for other ways. The details matter. The culture that undermined or protected my efforts mattered.
I've stated on more than one occasion that were it not for my dad, there's an out-sized chance I would be in jail. At 33, in 9 days, a person who has demonstrated he can work high-stress, high responsibility jobs, build a little homestead, and otherwise be “boring” enough to keep an earnest TV habit, it might be easy to dismiss the idea of the wanna-be hood rat and violence I was itching to ratchet up. I don't continue to obsessive compulsively count, tap, collect, read, or literally physically and mentally exhaust myself, routinely, trying to satiate my underlying need to be recognized and cared for. Anyone who's listened to me for a prolonged drunken rant on a patio or been stuck with me in the car as I went on about lady woes can be confident my mind is begging for the excuse to spin out at all times.
I wrap a lot up into the things I say. I'm the running dialogue of my experience and effort in the world. I don't expect to be “perfectly understood.” I don't think, especially if you are unwilling or unable to provide the means of doing so, I'm capable of wrapping my head around any given individual. I see trends. I pick up on choice phrases and body language. I know history rhymes. That is often more than enough to navigate most people most of the time. That is how I can wiggle my way out of the worst consequences of my propensity to give myself over to anyone I've deemed “individual enough” or perhaps back in the day “on the level.”
The first part of the work of appreciation has been to do the actual work. Speak to it. Repeat it. Remind yourself of the standard and compare it to what's come before. It's important for me to know who I am when no one is around or who I've been when I've been awash in personalities. It's important for me to know the nature of my compulsions and utilize their power without getting burned. My stomach still drops with anxiety, and now I can deliberately meet that with another TV show, a meal, or a smaller task than the capitulation to pretend I'm addressing all of the drama and hatred I have for the world by over-achieving or doing “everything” in the moment. I'm lucky that I've built a repository of reminders on how to engage temperance and not a list of excuses for laziness.
It's not lost on me every single detail it has taken to enjoy a measure of comfort or “stability,” and even still, I have to work and convince myself there's anything remotely stable or there to enjoy at all! I need a specific kind of spreadsheet that lights up green even if the numbers are the same on the one I normally use. I need to use the microwave and stove more than 3 times in a row before it clicks just how much food there is I don't have to drive and overpay for.
You know what I can do? I can build a house, and work DCS or casework or counseling, and pull up 200 saplings, and spend entirely too much money on shitty cars or gas, and eat out too much, and buy concert tickets, and tools, and find, transport, and carry heavy free shit, and build a fence and room and fire-pit-turned-pond, and watch 1188 days worth of TV shows and movies, and fuck nearly every day! I'm a fucking beast. I can also remain open, mostly tempered, and willing to learn more, do more, and spend or sacrifice the comfort on hand if it will help you. I've got plenty enough going on in my own head and that I enjoy doing with my time if you won't convey how you wish to better relate to it.
My friend, who needs brain surgery and couldn't find a ride so it had to be rescheduled, asked me yesterday what I wish I had if I had to start all over. She wants land, to be off-grid, enjoys camping, and is dealing with her own obligations with kids and work. I told her I wished I had more help. My situation struggles with the same cultural tides that are begetting fascism and learned helplessness. The faux obligations, lack of civility, and broken concepts of truth or dignity pervade at all levels. People don't believe in the future, their agency, or that there are creative and incredibly tough ways in which you build things to believe in. They don't trust themselves to be satisfied, at any point, in the process which precludes their ability to enjoy the ride. They've been met with the same crickets or betrayals in service to their ideals as I have. They're taking for granted as many things as they can claw away from their circumstances.
I continue to ride the begrudging gifts bestowed upon me. I want to enjoy the ride and know that if it all stopped this instant, I'd still be a king, I'd still be full, and I'd still be hyper-aware of the difference between what was “me” and was given to me to work with. I'm not feeling guilty over the dozen things yet undone. I'm not ashamed I like TV or just spending time chilling with chill people. I appreciate that immediately I'm prepared to throw on the work gloves and not stop until the job is done. I've reflexively thrown myself into months of debt to help check off things on the to-do list. My baseline is to accidentally overdo it when I'm not paying attention or practicing the patient, calculated testimony about what I've done, am doing, or plan on. If I want the world, I want to ensure it's balanced enough so that the pull of the moon remains a mere wobble.
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