6 posts tagged “life or something like it”
Wow, looks like I've started to get lax on the blogging again. It's not that nothing's been going on, quite the opposite: life has been nicely busy for a change. I wouldn't call it overwhelmingly so or anything, just steady and in the momeI have downtime, I've actually been enjoying it being, well, down. So I guess that's a good thing.
So let's see...what's been going on. Halloween came and went, I would say a little too fast but really it was just right. I decorated the hell out of the house...black lights, REDRUM written all over the walls in fluorescent crayon (on paper the same color as the walls), cobwebs covering the entire ceiling, colored lights everywhere, a giant orange-lit tree and flickering candle lights everywhere then had a little party. Everyone actually showed up in costume and there was a ton of food, maybe too much and way too much alcohol, of which I still have a lot left. Oops. I think that party ended around 1 and some of us went on to another one and then came back to my place and all I can say is 5am is no time to go to bed. I paid for that one.
Hmm, what else? Sunday was the cave man's birthday so we went out to Medieval Times for that. Cheesy as hell but then, that's what he wanted. Plus, I had a blast. He and his girlfriend are good people and I feel lucky to have met and become friends with them. Also, they're punctual. 99.9% due to her. Sorry bud, facts is facts.
The weekend was absolutely gorgeous. Bowling on Friday (how fun did that end up being, and I kicked ass), the zoo on Saturday with a nice quiet Saturday night, reading all day Sunday followed by dinner at Las Margaritas and then back to the grind. And so it goes. I went to the Hawks opening game a couple of weeks ago which was a freaking blast...I may start going to more of them when I can. So much fun.
OK so that's a photo of the Hawks cheerleaders from my phone. Sue me. I'm a guy. And well, they're awesome.
I'm still trying to plan a trip to Japan in the spring but we'll have to see. My buddy James and I have a wild notion to start doing something stupid, along the lines of cross country skiing. Across an actual country. We'll see. There's training to be had for sure, or it's going to be a cross coutry ambulance ride.
I've been trying to get photos updated and keep on top of things...but it's hard to actually live life and write about it at the same time. I know it's possible, I'm just not that disciplined.
So I think that's it. Life seems to be...in progress. And I guess that's just fine.
Plink.
Plink plink...plunk.
It's a murmur in the night; the disconnected voice of a restless sleeper dreaming of whatever the restless dream when true sleep evades. Soon, murmurs will give rise to mutterings and somewhere beyond the glass pane the ever-loudening metallic chitchat will shout above the rest until only static remains.
It's 3am. It's raining and it's my birthday.
I turn in the warm sheets to look at the rain-filtered light beyond the window and smile in the otherwise black room. The storms here have always filled me with a sense of renewal, of being cleansed of the weight of the daily life. They wash away the clutter that builds up on us, leaving a clearing I suppose. I guess I look at my birthday the same way, a chance to look around and see where I stand in the world and just wash myself of the things weighing me down. As I lay there in the dark I start to think about that...where I am and where I've been, where I'm going and if I'm moving forward or oscillating wildly. Am I growing or just growing older? It's a whirl in my head, almost as noisy as the rain outside, splashing against every surface, washing it down, flooding the streets and drowning me. But if I close my eyes and just let it all go...
It's just 3am. It's raining and it's my birthday.
And I'm happy.
I'm looking forward to being with friends tonight, sharing food and drink, laughs and life. I smile again and drift off to the static. Today is a good day.
As I sit here in my office with the lovely 270 degree corner-office view, staring at what might be one of the prettiest days we've had in Atlanta in some time, I have to wonder: What ever happened to Recess and why did we let it happen? lol
I know as a part of the standard US 9 hour work day we get a certain number of short breaks (most of which we generally ignore because we have too much to do, like post on our blogs) but it's just not the same is it? What happened to that bell we waited for, hearts already starting to pound, feet antsy for the fresh cut grass and raked sand, hands all but clenching for the cool metal of the bars, and our jeans ready to be worked through from the way too hot metal of the slide?
I miss that.
This year my company did an engagement study to see what they could do to improve our work-life balance. Most people wanted a 9/80 work week.
I want a slide, damnit.
It's funny how the precision of things degrades with time, particularly memory. We have calendars and reminders, anniversaries, holidays and seasons, and for those of you lucky enough (or crazy enough, depending on their attitudes/ages right now) to have kids, a constant reminder of the change in time...all to kind of help us keep track of it all. And yet, some things still get a little fuzzy, don't they? I guess we have blogs to help us remember, too. I should stop deleting mine. lol
This week marks exactly three years since I left California, pursuing that grandest of adventures, love. I'm pretty sure I left on the 17th or 18th, driving 10 hours at a stretch, staying the night in hotels along the way. First in Phoenix, then in El Paso, then spending the weekend with friends outside of Austin. I'd timed it so I could be there for a birthday...which by the way I haven't forgotten. ;-) After a few days I was anxious to move on and drove straight through to New Orleans. I spent one night in the French Quarter and somehow managed to leave for points north with the rest of the people evacuating ahead of Katrina. I didn't realize it at the time, though. It always seemed to be raining when I came to the south so one more big thunderstorm hardly seemed noteworthy. Funny how much different it looks now. For once, it seemed like I timed something right. And I'm glad I got out.
I stopped along the way for an hour or so to visit friends in Pensacola and as soon as it was polite to do so, rejoined the evacuating masses. Sometime later that evening I arrived in my new home, Atlanta. I spent the night in Alpharetta and journeyed backwards to see my new place in town, the place I was to live longer than any other in my entire life. So far, a whole three years next week.
That's such a hard thing for me to imagine, living anywhere so long. There are times when I look around and it's so easy to say to myself that I really hate this place. But it's not true. I just as often see something that makes me love it (like the geese that randomly block traffic in Alpharetta, the moon setting by and large over the cityscape and a million other things and people). I think what I dislike when I feel that way is something in me, not always making the most of this place. Plus I have such a wanderlust...I always have had. I should probably travel more.
So last night I guess I commemorated my little anniversary by going to my first Braves game. I'm not a huge baseball fan (I would rather go to a game for the whole experience, rather than ever watch one on TV). I got a hat and rooted for the home team. They lost to San Francisco, but it was ok. I still cheered for them.
And I guess that's what's so strange feeling to me today.
The Braves really is my home team now, and Atlanta really is my home. And that's ok. :-)
I feel like I'm struggling with a lot of things these days, work, life, finding my place in all the madness and really finding my place in the world again. I'm just not sure where I fit, you know? But then, I'm starting to wonder if anyone really does.
I see people every day who seem like they have it all figured out - know who they are, what they do, what they want...and I try to imagine that, try to think back to when I felt that way. What I realize is, I never have. And I have to wonder if anyone else really does, either. Do they really know? Or have they just given up trying to find out, and accepted whatever it is they think they're supposed to be or do?
The few times in my life that I can think back to and say, "I was content" weren't real; they were a lie. What I really was I think, was apathetic. Tired. Tired of the struggle, of growing, of changing. Tired of feeling like in an effort to move forward in my life I was moving precisely nowhere. I don't know. It's a deep thought for a Monday morning. lol
I read a quote somewhere from someone who said life is what happens when you aren't paying attention. That's kind of a crappy thought, isn't it? Shouldn't life be what happens when you start paying attention? I think what happens is more of a simple matter of physics. When you stop struggling against the current, you get swept up in the path of the stream, frozen in whatever point you stopped, but moving along with the flow.
I really don't know if that's such a good thing. But then, swimming upstream until you die of exhaustion isn't exactly at the top of my list of Ten Best Things to do Until You Die, either. So I don't know. I suppose the thing to do is be like everyone else, and once the stream gets you, you accept it, and swim faster in the direction it's going. I don't know about that, either.
Work has been a real challenge lately. I've definitely been swept up into someone else's stream and I suppose in this case I either swim with it or I drown. Not a lot of options on that one. But that's ok, work isn't my life. It never has been. It's just what I do so I can afford to have a life.
Personally I'm struggling, too. Struggling to stay connected to the people I care about as they find their way in the great flow of life, too. I feel constantly off-balance and like I'm losing ground I can never make up. It's a sickening feeling and it keeps me awake more often than not.
I watched two new movies this weekend, and though neither was meant to impart any sort of life wisdom on anyone, both seemed to have something of an affect on me. It's kind of scary that I'm so lost as to be able to find something profound in movies not meant to be anything of the sort, but I guess like signs, some things are always there if you're open and looking for them. I won't mention the movies because a) It'll give things away about them and b) I'll seem insane. The latter might be true at this point regardless.
I guess what I learned though, or at least what I think I learned is this:
- Some people, even if fated by the Gods themselves to be together can't really be without destroying each other, and can only fully exist apart, even though they never lose that connection. They can never truly be either, together or apart.
- I've wasted so much of my life trying to be whoever I thought I was supposed to be at the time.
- I will never stop struggling. Ever.
SIGH. I've gone back and edited this post some...rereading it out of the moment it just seemed a hell of a lot more bleak than I intended it to be. It's not like I've never been happy, or that every bit of contentedness was false. It's just that in the times when I think people looked at me the way I do them, with that thought that "this guy hasit all under control" were the times when I had the least control entirely. This is one of the reasons I've come to hate writing lately. I simply can't convey anything with any sense of eloquence. All I can do is state it factually, which bores the hell out of me.
I guess the point was, is I'm doing the best I can. Struggling isn't always a bad thing. It's how we get across the stream.
And I'm pretty sure it's only Wednesday. Or Thursday? I'm honestly not sure. Sigh.
I don't really know what to write these days, or if I even should be writing. I feel like whatever I do it just has some undesired affect I can't foresee and I end up hurt or angry or just lost. So I don't know. I just sit here.
But the fact is undeniable: I miss her tremendously.
It's strange. I was talking with someone the other day about the memory of pain, like the way a woman in labor feels after the baby is there, or the only corrollary I have, renal colic (when your whole body spasms against kidney stones). It's all this phenomenal pain that at the time you think is certainly going to kill you, or at least you reach a point where you want it to. It's unbearable. And then all the sudden it's gone and all you can do is remember that you hurt so much and that you wanted to die but for the life of you, it doesn't seem real.
Oddly, the pain of losing your best friend isn't like that. It's forever, a hollow place that creeps up on you when you're trying to be normal, whatever that is. The anger, though, is like that pain. How strange is that? I can remember all the times I got angry and how angry I was but the force of it always seems to fade away into a memory of a memory. I remember why I'm supposed to be, but all I am is terribly sad and empty.
The weekend was just long. I managed not to wallow though I had my crappy moments and even got out to do a few things. I knew she would be out photographing a wedding, and despite the fact that I'm fairly certain nothing went as planned in that one she still had a good time and got some wonderful shots. She posted a couple publically that I saw. They were beautiful. I'm sure the others are as well but it sucks not being able to see. Monday night I went to the movies and saw Indiana Jones. It was awful, despite how much I wanted to like it.
Work has been busy and I'm just not into it. They're pushing me to project management and if it's offered in earnest I'll take it because it's the right career move to make. I don't know if it's what I want or not what I want - most days I feel like I'm not Rich, I just play him on TV. So I try to do what's best for him. I feel like I know very little about me these days.
