53/M
15 posts
Jimmyrjr - Old Guy Who Knows Nothing - Tumblr Blog
He is absorbing all of the sun’s energy
Horse-Head Nebula
Halsin joining our camp to see that the guy who played with the tiefling kids is now a devil, some pasty elf is biting people in their sleep, a githyanki and goth girl are slapfighting, there's a tiefling on fire, and that wizard just ate a pair of gloves.
:)
Not to sound like a fuckin hippie but please for the love of god start noticing and appreciating the natural world around you. You don’t have to go hike the entire Appalachian trail or anything and I get that not everyone has access to the outdoors for various reasons, but just fucking … look around you when you’re outside. Notice the sky and the sun and the birds and creatures. Start caring about them. I’m begging you.
The two parties are not the same
My Shit is Still Dark
So this one I wrote about a week and a half after the last one. It's taken me a bit to decide whether or not I want to post this one, as it gets a little farther down into my feelings on my writing.
But I feel like this is good exercise. Do I want to write again? Should I write again? It's a painful subject for me. We'll see.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I used to write, when I was young.
A lot.
Stories, essays, little silly things, stuff for school. Sometimes just a sentence or two, putting my thoughts down on paper.
Never could write a poem to save my life, but I could sit down and write a thousand words about almost anything. I’d think of a topic, pick up a pencil, and away I would go.
Most of that writing is gone now, of course. Lost over the years. I still have a stack of things in my old Box of Memories, but the vast majority is long since been left behind.
But for me it was never about the words themselves, it was always about the process of writing, the way I would lose myself while putting words down. I’d think about something, the first idea or two would rattle around in my head, and I’d need to put it down somewhere. That need would build up in my head, give me headaches, distract me from everything.
Most of the time I wouldn’t even be thinking about what I was writing. I’d write the first sentence or two and the words would just flow, like they had a life of their own and they just needed to get out.
I called it the pull. Because it felt sometimes like the words would just get pulled out of me. A process that I often felt like I had little control over.
And the words would make people laugh, and cry. Feel joy. Happiness. Smiles and wonder.
And oh god it would hurt when I denied those words their release, it’d keep me up nights, staring at the ceiling, until I finally gave in and put them onto paper.
I can remember teachers telling me how talented I was, how much they enjoyed reading what I wrote. Scribbling in the margins of my papers “Good job!” or “I love this!”.
Writing brought me so much joy, and in my early years there was so damn little joy. I held onto that feeling, cherished it, told myself that one day I would be a writer. That I would share that joy with the whole world.
Funny, thinking back on that.
People who knew me would ask me what I’d written, and I’d happily show them. Watch the reactions, the laughter, the smiles and the tears. The look of wonder from adults when they’d read my writing for the first time.
It felt like what having a superpower must be like. That ability to evoke emotion, to not be able to explain how it happened. To feel that old pull and just be able to open my mind and the feelings would come out.
Maybe it was all garbage. Maybe the people who read what I wrote were just wanting to encourage me, as good people do with precocious children, wanting to make a young person feel better. Lifting up the young. I mean, I do it too, because even when what a child shows me isn’t great, practice is important in order to get better.
I didn’t care then, and I find myself not caring now. It brought me joy. Made me happy.
Although there were little indications in my writing that perhaps things weren’t going to happen as I had planned. I can remember an essay I wrote for school when I was 12 or so. I don’t remember the assignment itself, but most of the content of the essay turned out to be me apologizing for my father’s drinking.
I don’t remember getting any praise for that one, from my teachers or my father, although I suppose I could dig it out of the Box of Memories to be sure. I believe that one’s still in there, somehow.
It all started coming undone about the time I hit 15, and the real trauma started piling on. For a good 20 years my life moved from one traumatic moment to the next. Most of it self-inflicted, or at least not self-avoided.
I’d still feel that pull, still need to write, still experience that old pain and insomnia when I denied it. But more and more, as time went on, when I came back up out of myself and really looked at what I had written, the words had changed.
The only emotions coming off the page were dark ones. Anger. Fear. Pain. And loss. So much loss.
That peaked when I was 21, when the worst of the trauma happened. The Biggest of the Bad Things. When the drinking took over completely, and the nightmares started coming every night. When the pull happened and I’d sit down to write, when I came back up I’d often be crying, and the words were far, far too dark.
After a while, I stopped heeding that pull. The pain of writing was worse than the pain of not writing. And the drinking took care of the insomnia and had the added benefit of suppressing the nightmares. For a while, anyways.
My shit had just gotten too dark.
That’s what I’d tell folks, when they asked how the writing was going. I’d tell them “I’m taking a break, because My Shit Got Dark.”
They quit asking, eventually. And the pull mostly stopped too.
I’d feel it every once in a while, but I’d gotten used to ignoring it. It’d distract me a bit, keep me up.
But my writing scared me. Caused me pain. I couldn’t show that to anyone. Wasn’t anything to be proud of, to feel joy in.
Over time the pull faded.
I spent years unable to hold down a job, unable to sleep. When I’d finally managed to get a steady job, halfway through my 30’s, after almost 15 years of not being able to keep myself steady for more than a few days, I was determined to not let the barely papered-over cracks in my psyche sabotage the little I’d gained.
I had learned that dealing with all the things that had happened mostly meant not thinking about them. It was the only technique that had worked even a little bit to allow me any kind of productive life, any peace at all, and I was terrified that if I let myself feel all those things again, let the words come back, that it would all fall apart. Again.
I’m a government drone these days, senior IT. Sysadmin and security guy. Against all odds, I’ve slowly turned into The Old Man What Knows. The guy who leads the meetings, the fireman who’s the best during a crisis, the mouthpiece most of the more reserved IT troops prefer do the talking. The gift of gab, I suppose, the guy who can make everyone relax and laugh. The one who is not bothered when things go to hell and the fires start.
I don’t tell them that it’s because I spent 25 years in hell, and the fire is comfortable. Sounds silly when put like that, but it is the truth. Any trouble I find myself in could hardly be the worst that’s happened, after all.
The talking is just another talent from my youth, slowly turned into a career. Not the career I once dreamed of, but the fact I have a career at all still amazes me when I take the time to think about it. Not the talents that I once treasured, but still. They have value.
I try not to think about it too much, like if I look too closely at what I am that the life I’ve fallen into by accident will evaporate. Another nightmare with a long, slow burn.
Almost everyone has to come to terms with the changes life brings. I’ve long since mostly gotten over the many ways in which I’ve disappointed myself.
Life does go on.
But about a month ago, after recounting the umpteenth stupid thing I’d done over the years to a couple of my co-workers, one of them said a thing that stuck in my head, like he’d bonked me with a garbage can lid.
“You’re so good at telling these stories. You should really write a book.”
I didn’t tell him why that book would never come. It’s the same reason I ask him to write the department policies that make me freeze up with anxiety and fear.
He wouldn’t understand that My Shit Got Dark.
I turned 53 a few months ago. It’s been over 30 years since I’ve really written anything. Those dreams of being a writer are long, long gone.
Nevertheless, Friday before last, the evening after a doctor’s appointment where I got some potentially bad news, for the first time in a very long time, I felt that old pull again.
It kept me up that night, staring at the ceiling. The first few words rattling around in my head.
The next morning I sat down, closed my eyes, and typed those first few words.
It was all so much easier than I thought it’d be. An hour later I had a thousand words down.
It shocked me, the ease with which I fell back into the flow.
It still shocks me now, a week and a half later.
Showed what I had written to my co-worker, since he had inspired it.
He said it was beautiful. I didn’t see it, I saw pain and darkness. Maybe he was bullshitting me.
But the pull happened again this morning, and this time I gave in as soon as the workday was done.
I’m still crying when I come back up to read what I’ve written.
Sobbing, actually, this time, but I can’t tell if it’s from relief that it happened again, or fear that it won’t stop.
My Shit is Still Dark.
I have no idea if that pull will keep coming. I dare not expect it.
But I feel a little bit of the old joy, reading the words that flow out of my hands.
For now, at least, that’s worth the pain.
Deep Thoughts and Moments in Time
So one of the reasons I finally signed up for Tumblr is that I felt the urge to write a few weeks ago. It had been a while since I really felt the pull, so I sat down one Saturday morning and lost myself in my keyboard for a minute.
I decided I wanted a place to post this. Dunno if I'm just up my own ass, or if anyone will actually read this, but I needed to get it down somewhere other than my own desktop.
--------------------------------------------------
I was sitting at my desk this morning, drinking my coffee, not really reading the news, thinking about my doctor’s appointment that was yesterday morning, and the moments in time where our lives can be neatly divided into Before and After.
I hadn’t seen my PCP for a year and a half. She’s been my doc for a while, and she took a promotion a few years ago. Less time for appointments now, which means I see other doctors more often. Promotions can be a mixed bag, I get it.
I had some small stomach concern, and while wrapping things up I mentioned in passing a bump I had on my forehead. She examined it, and then told me she would need to refer me to a specialist, a dermatologist. Then she batted a term at me I’d never heard applied to me before. That it was some sorta pre-cancerous something or another.
Pre-cancerous
Pre-cancerous?
She didn’t look too concerned, and I’ve had moments in my life when I definitely concerned the medical people around me, so I’m fairly confident I know what it looks like. And like I said, the doc and I have known each other for a minute.
Almost certainly nothing. But I still found myself thinking about it this morning. And about moments in time when your life changes.
I assume we all have them, those moments. Mostly something that is recognized afterwards, looking back and realizing that your life was never quite the same.
As a middle-aged American in his fifties, I imagine I share some of them with a lot of folks. Challenger. 9/11. Take Down This Wall. Not Guilty. I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman. Bush/Gore.
There are others. I’m sure you get the idea.
Then there are the personal moments. Ones that are mostly not shared with anyone else, that must by necessity be processed alone, or mostly alone.
Mine are mostly negative, my past before I turned 40 mostly having been a mess, an often overwhelming tire fire of nasty little moments.
The first time(s) my father used each of his cute little nicknames for me that he now insists never happened. Worthless Bum. Boat Payment.
The first beer I ever had, when I was eight. Given to me by, of course, my father. One of the few childhood moments I have a clear memory of. Not knowing then that the next 30 years would be a slow, painful fight to put that beer down.
That first cigarette at 17, lying on a bed and watching the room spin. Another 30 year habit I had no idea I was starting. I could stop whenever I wanted, I was just bored.
It will be 32 years ago this September, but I can still close my eyes and see my son’s casket being lowered into the ground. That little white box, slowly disappearing.
When I was diagnosed with hypertension, in my mid-30’s. The gasps from the paramedic when he took my BP that first time. The way the nurse hurried from my hospital room to get a doc after taking it again. Asking that doctor what BP even meant, and when she explained it to me, trying to joke and ask what the record was.
She was not amused, told me the record was zero.
Marrying my son’s mother on my 40th birthday, almost 20 years after his death. Finally really accepting that there was at least one person I’d ever known who did not blame me.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe we all don’t have those moments, or don’t take note of them. After all, I’m still processing that not everyone has an internal monologue. Being wrong is definitely my lane.
Will yesterday be one of those moments? Probably not. But as a first, it’s definitely one I would have preferred to have skipped.
I’m an overweight, hypertensive, anxiety/PTSD/depression-ridden, non-practicing alcoholic middle-aged man who smoked for 30 years. I’m almost certainly as healthy as I ever will be, and that is not terribly healthy.
Will I be able to recognize the moment when it all started falling apart health-wise? Has it already happened? Do I even want to recognize it, or would I prefer to walk that path not knowing I’m already on it? Quick fall, or a long slow slide? My wife's stepfather has been suffering with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's for 20 years. In a nursing home these days, he's absolutely miserable. Waiting to die. During the very few lucid moments he has these days, he makes it clear that he is wanting to die.
No one wants to spend two decades staring that in the face.
Heavy thoughts for a Saturday morning. Probably a bit too dramatic if we’re being frank.
My wife just got out of the shower, and she wants to go to Costco today.
Despite Deep Thoughts, the world does keep turning.
Tell your loved ones you love them, folks. You never know if it’ll be one of those moments in time for them.