Jenny ‘86

I had a brief, okay very brief, whirlwind romance with a girl in the summer of ‘86.

I had a few due to the fact I was joining the military at the end of the year….

Jenny was extra special for some reason. More adventurous….wild…exotic.

In my primitive brain, especially after sex with Jenny….I made a rash decision to give her my high school class ring. (Yes the sex was that good)

But as usual during those early years, nothing or no one lasted more than a week or two.

For whatever reason I didn’t bother asking for my ring back. It wasn’t gold or silver. And I was so over my high school years.

I heard she and another friend got into some legal trouble that may or may not have been involved in embezzlement from their jobs.

Randomly over the years I looked for her to see how she was doing.

I remember he dad/step-dad…was principal of a local high school at one point.

Just this week I got obsessed with my search and dug deeper. I found the high school was renamed after a particular principal…who died recently. I searched the obit and saw he was survived by a “Jenny.”

I thought I knew her last name but the years blended it with another Jennifer I knew. I also knew she was at least a year older than me.

So now I had two reference points.

Looking at her social media picture, I was fairly certain this was a 50+ year old version of her. She was no longer a mousey little petite girl with bleach blonde hair.

But the mouth and eyes seemed to still be there.

Yes…this could be interpreted as cyber-stalking….but I only want my class ring back which after all these years will probably not happen.

She may have tossed it, tried to pawn it…anything.

I think we want to distance ourselves from our past versions of ourselves. Especially if those echoes of ourselves were train wrecks.

I reached out to her and apologized for the random message but explained my reasons.

She said she wasn’t the girl I was looking for and wished me luck in my search.

I didn’t press with my evidence or how much she had in common with my “Jenny”.

She appears to be happily married, a mother and maybe even grandmother at this point in her life. She is a woman of faith. So I don’t want to stir up any bad memories.

If it was her, I hope I didn’t cause her distress. I apologized again for the message and error on my part.

That ring…and “Jenny ‘86” are long gone now.

The Test

Nothing like being strapped down in a MRI machine for 40 minutes. (Just getting a yearly follow-up scan)

Of course the beard decides to have an itch. Then it wanders all over my face.

The machinery has this awful “dub-step” beat in the background. Like that ringtone you swore to never ever use again on your flip phone.

I have the bladder of a 5-year old on a road trip…when it’s the most inconvenient for the situation at hand.

When requested to do some higher rate breathing….I almost fall asleep, once again proving I can sleep almost anywhere in any situation.

Being “ejected out of the breach” I feel like I got a last minute pardon from the Governor.
…a new lease on life.

Now I wait for the test results.

I hate tests.

Into the Black Abyss

I went in for my 12 month follow-up MRI. To make sure whatever is going on in my lungs isn’t something more serious. They spotted some…spots. Three other scans last year showed that they didn’t budge, grow…cause any concern. They are hopefully just normal wear and tear.

….or I’m dying. Since hitting the mid-fifty mark in my life…or mid-century…I’m more aware of my mortality.

Having my two siblings die too early in life also makes me paranoid.

Just when I get my shit together…I don’t want to die yet.

Just like a bad Hallmark Movie of the week.

Thank God I’m not Sean Bean. I don’t think he makes it til the end of any movie.

I was strapped down and shoved in a tube for 40-45 minutes. My arms strapped at my sides….and the panic set in. I am slightly claustrophobic, and hate not being in control.

My mind runs an Olympic marathon into places undesirable. My father’s last conscious moment was in an MRI machine. He asphyxiated the solution into his blacken lungs from the coal mine and he was gone by late Sunday. His lungs couldn’t handle the slow drowning process.

Not even halfway into the procedure I try to shift gears and not squeeze the panic bulb in my left hand.

Of course my face and beard start to itch. (Why didn’t I use the damn bathroom like they suggested?). I have the bladder of a carsick 5-year old….

As I try to hold my breath as directed for 10-25 seconds…I realize I am screwed if my life depends on survivor a sinking car or trying to escape the USS Poseidon.

I keep trying to not peek at the tube that seems to get closer and closer to my face

The magnetic coils whine, surge and yell at my lungs. Trying to bounce resonance off anything that doesn’t belong in there.

I want to live to 100. Just because.

I promise myself to a stiff Jim Beam and Honey when I get out. Maybe then my hand with quit twitching and my shoulders won’t be above my hairline.

I was deployed many years ago to both sides of the earth where they burned everything.

I survived God knows what only to have my body give up on me.

I know I alway misuse this term: “Upbeat Fatalism”.

At least I didn’t smoke….and that’s in my favor.

I will learn the results maybe tomorrow…or Monday.

For now…the bourbon will numb my reckless mind. And help me get through the darkness.

My Life is Unusual and Peculiar, but it’s Valuable and Beautiful

All my reflections about The Past being difficult and crushing at times….boils down to…that it has made me appreciative of my Now.

If I didn’t experience all those highs and lows, I would have taken so much for granted. So much.

You don’t appreciate what you have until you either lose it…or come so dangerously close.

It’s even harder when you had a hand in your own potential downfall.

I know we are such flawed creatures. But I think the part where we grow and learn from it…adjust our next step…that’s the difference.

Even with the trauma of childhood, or adulthood…and all its trappings…even with my chronic pain from my time in uniform. This is who I am today. Slightly bruised, scarred…and limping…but I’m still here. Trying to be a better man than yesterday.

Take time to pause, reflect…and prioritize what really matters.

I have less years ahead than behind. I need to make them count.

To live.

Do yourself a favor and watch some K-Dramas. One of my current favorites: “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”….

You can thank me later. ❤️

When I existed offline

Before the 1990’s, I existed in a small eco-sphere. I had friends I wrote to in letters, on paper with ink and stuck them in a metal box. I use to pick up the phone and call them, hear their voices and talked for hours. I had to drop everything I was doing and make time for these acts of communication.

I learned about the world through the TV, newspaper or radio. Maybe someone “heard something” and we went with that version. My world was limited to a few counties if I was lucky. If I travelled out of my area, then I got to see what the world had to offer. When I was off-line I didn’t see those pictures of missed weddings, birthday parties, a new haircut or other significant or minor life events. Upon arrival at a family or friend’s house we would pull out the photo album and sit around the coffee table looking at these events. I would then “like” them by actually saying it out loud.

I only claimed people to be my friends with whom I only interacted with.
Great quotes were read aloud at a function or etched into a memorial somewhere. All those amazing sunsets or scenic vista’s we enjoyed silently and didn’t captured to share with those far away. Now my virtual friends will be forever distant, and I will probably never see them in the flesh. I do not have the free time to travel across the country to see them so digital distance it is.

When I started dating, I had to go out there live and in person to find someone. I had to approach, speak, look them in the eye and hopefully would make it to the next level. Meeting friends for the night involved massive planning, back-up locations and timed rendezvous.

When I booted up my first PC that had dial-up services to access this thing called the web….I chatted with a Japanese worker in his office in Tokyo as we both viewed a live web-cam shot of his city. The world exploded, I was hooked. I started chatting with people I would never meet face to face, but found we had common interests.

I could shop for things without fighting for a parking space or if I didn’t have enough time. Instead of driving to several car lots, fight off overly aggressive salesmen, I could read hundreds of reviews, look at the car from every angle and see if it survived a bashing in a lab somewhere.

In the off-line world people would slip away from me and unless I went looking for them, otherwise I would never see them again. The drama ended there. When my heart was broke, I spilled my guts to whomever was drinking within earshot of me. Any resentment or bitterness I had about anything in the world was dealt with in silence.

In the off line world any negative people I encountered I would simply avoid and shun them. Apologies were usually made in person.

I’m still trying to find a new balance with the organic and digital world.

I hope I share something that you can identify with, give you something to ponder and at times, help you get through something. Grab your favorite beverage, whether flammable or healthy and enjoy.

Boy about 10

I feel like I have been running full speed since I was 10. That was a critical phase in my life. I have a photo of myself holding a yard sale sign as we prepare to sell our house and move from the North. I had no idea what the next year or decade would bring me, or break me…

I was stripped away from everything I grew up with, my entire world was confined to a small farming town.

Culture shock, oppressive heat of the South, no real seasonal changes. Just heat and sand.

Now I was just trying to hold onto “normal”. I was constantly trying to adapt to this new life. But there would always be something life-changing happening time and time again.

It started with the death of my sister. Only 19 and her life was already over.

Then just as I started to climb back up, my Grandmother was in her final days. …and my parent’s were getting divorced. And of course it wasn’t a civil divorce. My mother moved in with the Devil. A chain-smoking, narcissistic alcoholic. She must have been desperate for a change in her life and attention in her shallow marriage.

My life was never…calm and stable it seems. I can’t remember if I ever had a “good year”.

I drifted in and out of relationships in my teen years and early 20’s. Acting like Don Draper in “Mad Men” always looking for what was new and shiny.

I made a leap of faith to join the military. Those first 8 years were just…”noise”.

Then I switched careers while still in uniform. This was my “Undiscovered Country”. (Not Death as Shakespeare was referring to) but a new experience I never knew in the decades before.

I entered a fast-paced globe-trotting world that challenged me at every step. It would drain me everyday, but I felt victorious and accomplished each night.

For once…I wasn’t that emotional wreckage of the 10 year old that I was transformed/forced into.

I didn’t look back, I was in the moment. I was focused. I didn’t dwell on any failures or setbacks. I actually learned from them.

Even with 9/11…I grew emotionally and learned more about myself and the world. Both the good and the bad….even evilness.

So here I am, trying to put my current state of mind, into words. Trying to figure how much that little 10 year old self is still within me, crying out for home and better days.

Maybe he is smiling at his older, and very worn out self. Thinking…

We made it.

Letting go of the day

Now that I am finally living in the moment, I sometimes do not want to go to sleep.

Before I couldn’t wait to hide in bed. It was my safe place. Nothing could get to me there.

I want to keep creating in my workshop, Watch one more episode of my favorite K-Drama. (That’s another post). 😉

I want to sit outside and be serenaded by the little creatures of the night, any thunderstorm is a bonus.

…but I have to trade my “freedom” for obligations, to work, to provide. To survive. This is why my weekends are more important to me.

The Road to Here

I had my last session with my psychologist. (That sounds bad). But they helped me with my depression, anger, worry, adjustment (post-military) and borderline OCD. That sounds bad too….

Trust me, I’m not that bad of a train wreck. More of a high functioning train wreck that somehow stays on the tracks…

I started our sessions late in 2020. Yep…right in the middle of the pandemic. At the beginning of 2020, I was given a choice at work, I chose the role that I felt was a better fit, more important, needed….and less stressful. I got blindsided by the HR department and they considered it a demotion…cut my salary by $10K…. So 2020 was not off to a good start even without knowing how bad CoVid would be.

My manager did some quick math to put it in perspective, I was “paying” about $200 a paycheck to NOT hold meetings, to NOT deal with anyone down at the main office….to NOT get angry at office drama. That seemed like a good “deal”.

Let’s go back a little further. As I mentioned in other posts, my past 8-9 years were horrendous. I was lost career-wise. My health and mental state were deteriorating, my marriage was in jeopardy….I was going to lose everything. Part of me didn’t care at one point.

Going back even further….my childhood was….not normal/easy/drama free.

I think my first 10 years were great. My parents moved to the warm south for health reasons and it felt like I was out of sync ever since.

I also realize that all those little things. Turning left, instead of right. Moving instead of staying. Failing when I moved back to my home state and ending right back to my home back South.

Choosing to live with my divorced father instead of mother who was queen of bad decisions…

To break up with a girl I was thinking of marrying. To run off and join the military.

So many things that lead me to this specific place in time. To tell you about it. I joke that I’m still tired from 1997. (It was a crazy year)

This road led me to my wife, created my children….the home we have.

The friends I dropped and new and better ones I made. My view of the world shaped by those course corrections.

My therapy sessions helped me to navigate…”me”. To postpone my reactions, and reset. To accept my new normal. To write again. To live in the moment.

…to stop chasing paychecks and job titles. To be happy. To be…..

Here.

The Bad Year

2015. Made 2020 look like a vacation.

I was in a high paying job. My office building was in the center of downtown, in a major city.

I had a window office overlooking one of the few parks/green spaces.

I wore suits everyday due to my constant interaction with customers who could be admin support, or division directors. I treated all of them with respect.

And I was slowly drowning in a sea of apathy and in a no-win scenario. Captain Kirk would even say “F-this.”

I oversaw 25+ people and two of my three managers under me were useless. Even a few of the military vets were useless. Which really bothered me and painted the rest of us in a bad light.

Early at the onset of 2015, that’s when the anger and dismay started. Anger that lasted all day…all night and through my weekends.

Backing up to 2013…the job description was word for word my resume. All I had to do was prove it to the interviewers and my future boss. I bested about 120 applicants.

I was ecstatic. This was my first job outside the military and DoD circles in over 25 years. How hard could a city job be? Apparently horrendous.

Even once I started, there was vibe and slight uneasy feeling in my gut. There were little cubicle empires. There was a culture that would not be broken or improved upon. It took me two years to finally accept it and to escape at all costs.

During the final year, I reached out to a mental health provider. During those talks I realized how much I survived up to this point. Which made my slow descent into madness more…..maddening.

Then I was prescribed Adder all. The only good side effect was reconnecting and apologizing to my sister. With whom I stopped communicating with due to her divorce. (It was none of my business and I wasn’t in her shoes for those 40 years)

When I took those pills I could feel them kicking in. It must have been what turning into a werewolf felt like. The weird sensation of your brain chemistry being altered. The sweaty hands, dry mouth and lack of appetite. Also illusions of grandeur and hyperactive thoughts.

Now I couldn’t sleep…and the anger was probably amplified. I requested Prozac….now I was numb, and still angry. I was tired of the doctor guessing….

To make a long painful memory short…I jumped at the first job that sounded better…..and I was wrong. So very wrong.

And then…it just kept getting worse from there. The next 4 places of employment kept topping each other on how bad they were.

On top of all of this…I was drinking and hiding from my family and friends. …and having sex with the wrong women. I was excelling at being depressed and digging deeper each week….

2015 is my reference point now for proving there is getting better, that I could also get redemption.

I had to rethink on what I thought “success” was. What happiness was.

I’m getting there.

Baby steps.

My Father’s Hands

Sitting in class tonight, after a long day my mind started to wander.
Twirling the pen in my hands I see something vaguely familiar about them.
I see all the mileage and abuse they endured over my life. Scarred, burned, smashed, jammed, sprained, bitten, cut…you name it. I am surprised I still have all ten fingers.
Then I remember. I have my father’s hands. I thought back to his funeral and as I said my final goodbyes, I held his hand just like I did in the hospital as he was leaving this world. I saw we had the same features. Our hands earned every thing the hard way. They accomplished some great things. Held babies, the hand of pretty girl we would eventually marry….held the back of bicycle seats as our children peddled like mad men. They help cast the first fishing pole. Steadied the aim of a gun during target practice. Turned a wrench to fix something broken. They shaped wood into something beautiful.

Then I realized that this is the anniversary week of his death. 15 years.

As we get older it seems every week or month holds something significant. Something to reflect on. Something to cherish.

Looking down at my hands as I type this….I see Dad again, in the flesh.

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”

-Jim Valvano