Back on the road and I have to say, it ain’t half bad. I hate to leave the family again but it feels good to get back to work. I’m looking forward to getting some projects completed and I’m not the least bit worried about where these projects are or how long it will take us to work them, I’m just happy to be back on the job. All this really means is that I was at home long enough that the BS of this job and my jaded outlook has worn off. I’ll be back to hating this in about a week. Or less if things run the way they have tonight…
I haven’t written anything for the web in a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy. Not to say that I haven’t written anything at all, just noting for public consumption. Teresa is trying to talk me out of my quirk and to let her read some of my stories but I doubt she’ll ever wear me down far enough that I let her. Of course, she has the power to get me to do anything she wants me to. Anyway, back to being busy…
My vacation was nice. Like I said earlier, it allowed all the pent up frustration at work to wear off and give me the false sense that everything will be alright. After two weeks off, I had trouble remembering which passwords to use in which programs to log back in and get back to work. It’s funny how every day patterns get lost after only two weeks of neglect. Of course it doesn’t help that I have to have eight different passwords! One program requires special characters; another program won’t allow special characters. One program needs an eight char password, another needs twelve. This program changes passwords every month, that program has had the same password for two years. I have a spreadsheet with all my passwords in it but I forgot what the password to open it was…
It was nice to have time at home. I didn’t get much time to sit and do nothing like I wanted but looking back I’m glad I didn’t waste any of that precious time. Teresa kept promising me that ‘tomorrow’ I’ll have the day to myself and something always came up. She worked her butt off the whole time so when I kept asking her when I get my day off, she didn’t think it was funny. Especially since I really wasn’t doing anything big.
Christmas/Saturnalia/Yule is always a busy time for everyone but this year everything flowed a little smoother. We cleaned house the week before, Teresa baked and baked. The kitchen always smelled like cake or cookies and it was really nice.
I observed the solstice by myself. It was a nice moment that I was allowed to be alone for a minute. Just a few days later the house was full of people and laughter.
Mom and Dad came in town like usual. That’s one of the traditions I’ll really miss when we move. Of course, it doesn’t have to change, they’ll just have to drive a LOT further!!! We got to spend more time with them this year. Usually Teresa and I go over to a friend’s house for a Christmas Eve dinner but I never heard anything official so we just assumed it would be like every other year and we planned to go over like usual. Then I heard through the grapevine that it was moved to someone else’s house this year. This is someone I don’t know too well (very nice people but it’s a “friend of a friend” type thing) and I figured that was why I hadn’t heard anything about it. So, not wanting to invite myself over to a stranger’s house for Christmas Eve and possibly be unwanted company, we made plans to stay with Mom and Dad for the night. Nothing like drinking egg-nog and playing poker and blackjack while waiting for Santa Claus. I think we just started a new tradition…
Becca finally got her iPod. She’s been wanting one forever. We gave her an MP3 player last year and said if she took care of it she could have an iPod. Well, she held up her end of the bargain so she got her prize. She’s so happy that hers is a newer model than Mommy’s or Lizzy’s. Teresa was happy with her presents and I’m just lucky I didn’t have a big pile of coal. We still have a table full of presents for some of the friends we haven’t seen yet but, we’re busy, they’re busy, we’ll hook up soon. We did have the choice to run over and drop the gifts off or have them delivered by mutual friends, but we didn’t have the time to sit and hang out and I always prefer spending time with people more so than the getting and giving of gifts. I’d rather postpone the date and actually spend time with my friends rather than do a drive-by-gifting. I know there were a couple of hours here and there that we could have escaped and gone visiting but those hours were never consecutive. And in the end, those precious hours were better spent to repair my family. Teresa and Becca have really missed me being gone all the time so we spent a lot of time just being together and healing those strained bonds. We did other things, we went places and we even managed to goof off and have fun. The best part was that we did it together as a family.
Tuesday morning we got up and drove to Atlanta. We had this planned all along but Jerry Sr. and Lizzy surprised Jerry Jr. and drove down from Pennsylvania too. I was happy we all got together. Teresa was losing her mind this year and she needed this as much as anyone needs anything. She had a few moments of “being alone in a room full of people” and she didn’t know if I would understand what she meant. I told her that’s my standard day to day life. She was surrounded by friends and family and people that love her, but she really needed her father and brother. We weren’t up there long but it was enough to cure her for the time being. They got to talking about getting together more often and after all their talk, I think all seven of us (Jerry Sr, Lizzy, Jerry Jr, Scott, Jeremy, Teresa, Becca and Me) are going on an Alaskan cruise this summer. Wow, that was quick! What ever happened to starting out small like a family reunion in someone’s back yard? Alaska is one of the places I always wanted to see but they’re not talking about in a year or two, they want to go in July! I need to look up and see if we need passports now that all the rules have changed. YES, I know Alaska is part of the US but with all of the new changes I don’t know if you need them to return after being out at sea. I told Teresa that I’ll cough up the extra $400 and to make sure that MY seat on the round trip to/from Seattle is in First Class or Business Class I think they call it now. I’m not putting my fat ass in one of those coach seats for 6 hours each way. It’ll be worth the money just to watch the other six squirm and complain and I’ll get up and wave to them.
We ended spending an extra two days in Atlanta more than we expected but it was nice to see them. When we got home it was time to get serious about fixing up the house. Teresa has a bullet listing of all the projects we (I) need to work on and their approximate costs. She’s going to start working on cleaning out the laundry room this week and by next week we’ll have a price list of tearing up the carpet in the Living/dining/hall and replacing it with Pergo wood flooring. When I get home this weekend my job is to clear out the storage in the den bathroom or Teresa said she’d do it while I was gone next week. I can’t let her do that because she always throws out the good stuff. I’ll hope for an extension on this one because for now, it looks like I’ll be working Friday night into Saturday and she can’t reasonably expect me to get that room emptied in one day. It is literally floor to ceiling (with maybe six inches to spare) with just enough room for the door to swing open. A lot of it is crap but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. Goodwill or the Salvation Army is either going to love me or hate me in the next few weeks.
Not everything was smiles and puppy dogs though. I had a hard time coming to a few realizations this week. I definitely feel like I’m being poisoned by someone. I hear words and I see expressions. A few subtle comments and a few nicely timed complaints, and of course, I’m never around enough to clear them up. After enough of this, even the most open person will begin to believe what they are told. Especially if they have no reason to think the information they are getting is entirely fabricated. Any liar worth their salt knows enough to construct their lies with enough truth to make them seem real. Reinforced often enough and never contradicted, these lies become truth to all who listen. Even if the lie isn’t taken literally, there is enough poison in them to make one question other things. I believe I have become the victim of someone’s campaign of lies. It sucks, but there’s little I can do about it without causing a scene and it’s just not worth that to me. If some of my friends choose to turn on me, there’s nothing I can do about it. If you drop a white shirt in the mud, the mud doesn’t get clean, the shirt gets dirty. No matter how many times you try it, the mud never gets any cleaner. I’ll sit this one out and let it ride. Any kind of true friend would talk to me point blank about it all. Those that believe what they are told or allow that to influence what they think they see and they never question it, well, what kind of people are they to begin with and why would I want to be associated with them anyway? I’ve had to do this a few times now and it is getting easier but it always hurts just the same.
Ohh, man, I didn’t mean to let out so much right away but it just sucks when you have to sit by and let people make their choices without being allowed to stand up and scream for justice. It always stings when friends turn but I’m starting to learn from it. Every time it happens, I see another aspect of just how jealous and petty people in general can be. My mother always tries to see the good in people and doesn’t like it when I see the evil that is just below the thin venire of a forced smile. She always tried to get me to smile and give people the benefit of the doubt, but every time I see something like this, it gets harder and harder to think that people are inherently good. Some people say my mother is gullible or simple because she trusts people and she genuinely likes people. I wish I were able to turn off my paranoia and cynicism long enough to trust a stranger’s smile like she does.
So here we are, another year older and are we any wiser? I hope so. I can’t really say for sure but I can say that I feel wiser. At the expense of innocence and trust, I feel like I have gained a bit of insight over the year. Who is to say if that is a good thing or not? Maybe I’ll wish I had held on to that innocence a bit longer, maybe I’ll use my new insight to learn to trust fewer and less often. I just heard a piece of advice given from another writer that says in order to complete your writing projects, you need to become completely antisocial. I scoffed at that when I first heard it. Sure, you’ll finish what you are writing now, but where will the new ideas come from? Now, I’m starting to think that I’ve been fighting on the wrong side of my war. I’ve been fighting AGAINST myself from becoming antisocial. I’ve been trying to find the time to balance my livelihood with my family and still find time for a social life. Maybe I should scrap the friends and social life and just live for work and family. It seems there is less pain along that path.
In the last year I’ve gone to 100% travel at work and it has cost me a lot. I rarely get out to drum circle on Fridays, I never see my friends during the week, I had to give up on the band just when I was making contact with other bands looking for a drummer (of course, they all wanted someone who lived in town and I just didn’t fit that description anymore) I barely get out to the monthly poker game (when they have it) and I had to sell my van because it was just going to waste sitting on the side of the house. What little time I have at home I want to spend with Teresa and Becca and some people just won’t understand that so I have lost contact with them as well because I won’t go out drinking all night on the few nights I’m home with my wife. I’m gone so much that we spend every weekend like it will be the last time we’ll see each other for a year.
So, work is eating up a lot of me but what does it give me? Enough money that Teresa could quit her job when it turned into a horrible place to work (she loses her paycheck but keeps her self respect. A fair trade I’d say) It gives me insurance so Teresa and I can continue our babyquest. It gives me relative job security. If Ray can screw up as bad as he did and only get transferred and not fired, I’ll never get fired (famous last words right?)
Can I give up the livelihood? Yes. In fact, I intend to when we move later on this year(ish). Would I give it up if Teresa and Becca asked me to? In a second. We’d get by without it. As long as I have them by me, I can make any situation work. Would I give it up for what it has cost me? Never. After all, what did I really lose?
A rock band. I’m 34, not 14. At this age, one does not give up high paying government contract jobs to play dingy bars on Thursday nights. I’d like to see a band happen but I just don’t see it any time soon.
Drum circle. I play all the time everywhere else. Why fight the djembe cowboys every Friday night? I’ll hit it when I can and enjoy it all the more. Besides, some people say I’m not a ‘real’ drummer anyway… (I’m laughing here)
Shallow friends. Well, I needed to shed some dead weight anyway. Now all I need to do is cut a little deeper and shed a few more.
Poker nights. OK, I miss this one. I miss the people more than the game but I hear they are playing other games now instead so I guess I’m really not missing anything.
My van. I miss having a vehicle of my own. I can’t take the work truck out (not supposed to anyway) on the weekends and while I’m not really missing the van, I miss the freedom. But, it worked out for the best. Someone we know needed a vehicle just about the same time I made the decision to sell it so she bought it cheep and I got rid of the van before she started to deteriorate in place. She had already been using it for a few months so it was a perfect fit.
So see, everything has a silver lining. I’m not missing anything really. Nothing but time. I miss time though. I wish I had more of it. It is amazing what you do get done when you are home Monday through Friday nights. It’s even more amazing how much of it lies in wait for you when you are not and you come home on Friday. It lunges for me as I hit the driveway and strangles me until I leave again on Monday. Yeah, time is about the only thing I miss anymore that I can’t make up.
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