Quiet Mondays are scary…

When everything has been quiet for too long (thirty seconds or more), I start looking for trouble.  But right now, I can’t find any trouble to cause so I start thinking and that just might be worse…

Everything has been running relatively smooth recently and I don’t know if it’s a lull before the storm or maybe, just MAYBE, we finally got a handle on this pattern we have sewn ourselves into.  Busy is the norm around here and it’s possible that we have found the magic schedule that gets everything done on time.  I’ve been working strange hours, Becca is back in school and Teresa is always in three places at once, but it’s more than that.  Things have been falling into place that just makes me sit back for a split second (between all the running around like I was on fire) and think, “Shit, we’re doing alright!”  And of course, immediately get back to the busy schedule.

Teresa finally has a couple of clients at her pre-school and that means that the stopper has finally been placed in our financial drain.  It will still take a while to fill the bowl back up, but at least we’re back to putting in more than we’re taking out.  More important than the money, Teresa finally gets to run her show the way she wants to run it.  She is finally the owner of a running business and she’s really excited about working her fingers to the bone for herself instead of for someone else!  I’m excited for her and especially proud of how hard she’s worked to make this happen as well and how much faith she had when it was slow and looked like this may have been a flop of an idea.  Within a month she’ll have maxed out her capacity and she’ll be surrounded by kids every day just like she wanted.  Be careful what you wish for baby!

This weekend was Becca’s 13th birthday.  Becca had a great weekend, Teresa seemed to relax a little bit and we got to see a lot of our friends.  My mom and dad made a quick surprise visit for her birthday party and that blew her mind and made her smile.  She got to visit with a few of the friends she doesn’t get to see very often.  The kids played all night while the rest of us played poker until close to 4am.  it was one of those weekends when you just have to realize, this IS the good old days.

So now that everything is quiet and everything is “good”, I get to a little bit of introspection and I start the fires back up…

A couple of weeks ago I was on a raging rant about one of my favorite subjects and Teresa brought it to my attention that not only was I insulting everyone in that group, but everyone that might ever join that group.  I was coming off as self-righteous and condescending.  While this normally does not bother me, I realized this is what I hate about that group in the first place.  I have strayed from my neutral/apathetic stance and lapsed back into my old hatred and aggressiveness toward these people.  I needed to re-assess the situation.

I’m always changing my position on things.  That may make me sound weak and flimsy but I refuse to form an opinion on something that is so firm as to be resistant to new information.  We all know the sky is blue, but if I close my eyes and scream that the sky is blue and refuse to listen to you tell me otherwise, I’ll miss some of the most spectacular reds, yellows, oranges and purples in the sunrises/sets…  Water is wet, until you can show me otherwise.  And that’s why I’m always changing my thoughts.  I want to read it for myself, I want to see the evidence, I want to learn new things.  I don’t follow the standard party line and I won’t stop evaluating the situation.

I believe this is the main reason I’m always changing who I am and what I think about things.  What I knew twenty years ago is what they wanted me to know.  What I know now has been augmented by what I’ve learned since.  And every year it just keeps changing.  Today I believe “X”.  If I study up on X and do a little research/conversation, tomorrow I may believe “Z”.

All this just makes it hard to know me, makes it hard to plan around me.

But my aggression used to be pure rebellion and instigation.  I did my best to temper it into a neutral “you do what you want, let me do what I want” thing, but my new-found aggression is distilled anger and rage at how I see lives destroyed and minds wasted over the most trivial disagreements.  I am on FIRE with my rage against the fortified and inpenetrable walls behind which I have seen too many disappear.  You can’t fight this system but how can I keep quiet about the loss?

And that’s when I am reminded that those words are identical to their argument against me…  We are the same.  I must give them the same distance I require of them.  I generally do, but my “private/in-house” rants were even starting to offend Teresa.  She said I was starting to look like I was on drugs when I spoke about the subject.  My eyes would glass over and I was almost foaming at the mouth I was so angry.  And I am that angry.  You can’t take the bottle away from the alcoholic, they’ll just drink Sterno.  You have to let them break the addiction themselves.  And at that, only if they want to.  Nothing I say or do will ever make a difference, I’m just so frustrated at being surrounded by a wrong that I can’t right.  Worse than that, I’m mad at myself for tagging it as a “wrong”…  Who the hell am I to say I’m right?  Especially when I fully admit that in my constant changes, it’s not impossible that by next week I’ll be one of their most adamant supporters.

So all of this has led to quite a few hypothetical, “what if” discussions at the house.  Through them I realized that I may be convinced that I am right and I may be absolutely sure of where I stand at this very moment.  But before I throw that stone, I’d better look around to make sure that not only is my glass house safe, but the glass houses of those I love as well…