Today I got my laptop back. I'm thrilled. Ecstatic even.
I got to help Matt and Jasmin pick out a replacement computer. I think I did a good job. I think they're happy. That makes me happy.
I'm going to take a walk with Isaac. The weather's nice out today. Well, mostly. It is quite windy, but it was also like 70-something degrees. In Ohio, at the end of October, that's very nice. But I have to go before it gets dark.
More blogs soon.
This past week, I've watched a friend mourn a death. I've celebrated a birth; a little girl, 3lbs 13oz. I've survived a couple of fights. I've talked to a bunch of cops. I've consoled a loved one. I've flown off the handle a few times.
All in all, it was enough eventfulness to have lasted me a couple of weeks.
But tonight I'm feeling pretty at peace with life. Usually I hate Sundays, so it's more than a little unusual to head into one with a smile on my face. But things are looking up.
I've got a little money in the bank. A nephew or niece about to be born. A family that loves me. Good friends; damn good ones. I'm brewing some decent plans for the future. And outside of this damned kidney infection that won't seem to pass, I've got my health and every hope for future growth as a human being.
Life is pretty good.
I'm sitting here with all these thoughts rushing through my head. It strikes me that I don't often feel things like other people do. It's not that I don't feel. There's no doubt that I'm feeling.
Rage over somebody hurting someone I care about. Anger at myself for not being a better guardian. Sorrow over this stupid situation, that's gone on so long, and will continue to go on for so many years. For lifetimes; maybe for all time, until this family dies out, or this world ceases to be.
I know that this is just life on Earth. Life after the fall of man. Suffering, pain, that lingering sense of abandonment and stench of human misery. We spend all our time trying to protect ourselves from this. But you can't hide from it.
There are a lot of things I don't know about this world. I spend too much time wondering why things have to be this way. But I know a few things. I know them in my gut, which is, mercifully, too far away from my brain to facilitate easy overanalyzation.
What I know is that this suffering, all of this pain, is part of a greater scheme. It's part of the epic tapestry of humanity; of life on God's green Earth. It doesn't always feel like it. Right now it doesn't feel much like it at all. But all this misery isn't meaningless. God is always making straight the crooked paths of man. Someday we'll see and understand and our awe and joy will outweigh the discomfort of our current lack of vision.
It's just a matter of time before that day comes. In the meantime, I hope to make myself of some use. I want to make my tiny chapter in the annals of human history as beautiful as possible by doing what little I can to shoulder my brothers' burdens.
I'm so cynical and self-conscious to nearly sicken myself saying that last bit. But in my heart of hearts I know I'm not nearly cool enough to be truly apathetic. And I guess the part of me that knows that, knows that it's not really all that damn cool to be disaffected either. So viva optimism, in those rare shining moments I allow myself to feel it.
Soon I hope to be blogging more often. I don’t really know why, but I only like blogging on my laptop. It’s a comfort thing I guess. My laptop is all homey and nice. But Jasmin’s had my laptop for like a month and a half now because her computer’s been busted. I have my desktop to use still, and mom’s laptop, but somehow they’re just not the same. They don’t give me the incentive to blog that my dear, sweet, laptop does.
Anyway, I guess no one’s missing much because I haven’t been blogging. I’m still unemployed, basically, barring my driving Brittany to Columbus and back twice a week gig. I’m not broke yet, but I’m slowly getting there. I have no idea what I’m doing with myself, and I spend a lot of my time not doing anything in particular.
But not everything in life is bad. I have a hell of a lot of reasons not to complain. For instance, I’ve babysat for my little great-nephew, Ty, a couple of times. I got to keep him overnight last week. He’s such a good little baby. He’s a tank, though, only four months and already twenty pounds.
In about three weeks, my brother’s baby is due to be born. The baby shower was this past Saturday, and it was nice. Downright fun for a baby shower, actually. I tend not to be all that into baby showers, but this one wasn’t so bad. It seemed to be held by people who don’t like baby showers very much. So there were only a few silly games, and those weren’t as obnoxious as some I’ve had to sit through.
Jasmin helped me pick out baby gear for the new kid. We don’t know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl yet, so that made the job considerably more difficult than it could have been. But Jasmin’s bizarre baby fixation made the job easier. Sort of. I had to drag her out of the store. I think she was late for work because she had to ooo and ahh over baby Halloween costumes.
And there are other nice things too. I’ve had time to read and write and relax, and I had definitely not had any time for any of those things for the past year. It’s strange to have been so busy and suddenly so not. But one should never complain about relaxation.
I also got a box of old things from my grandma’s house yesterday. A lot of it isn’t all that interesting; I have boxes of old budgets, for instance. But some of it is really awesome. I have these crazy essays, for instance, that my great-uncle Ed used to write when he was probably my age or younger. I don’t know exactly when Ed was born, but my grandmother was born in 1912, and Ed must have been seven or eigenht years older than that. So his essays must have been from the late 19-teens, or early 20s. And that’s kind of neat to think about.
My absolute favorite find, though, is my great-aunt Lilly’s diary. It’s not a real diary. It’s only one entry, largely regarding the subject of how she decided to start a diary that day. She was only ten or so when she wrote it. And the day was interesting one. She woke up and played a little, and then ate breakfast. Then she decided to start her diary. Then she ate lunch. Then she played school for a while, which was followed by dinner and drying the dishes. Then she played for a while more and, ostensibly, wrote the entry, and signed her little name, “Lillian A. Britt,” at the bottom.
I can’t explain why that makes me so happy. It’s just so charming. I’m in love with my grandmother’s brothers and sisters, and mother and father. My grandmother was in her seventies when I was born, so most of her family had already passed before I had the chance to know them. The people I did know, like Lilly, were so old that it’s hard to imagine them as they are in the pictures I now have of them. Swimming, hanging from trees, starting their diaries and writing muckraking essays and one act screenplays.
I have anger issues. They're sort of confusing. Anger is not normally my predominant emotion. Frustration is generally present; anger, less so.
Today I'm angry. Yesterday I was not. But the day before? Anger. Definite anger.
I'm trying to be patient. But I just don't feel like putting forth any effort into anything. I'm being selfish and moody. But I'll be damned if I can just change my attitude.
I'll be damned if I don't though. Being in a bad mood doesn't give me the right to be rude to anyone, or to stop taking care of them just because I don't feel like it.
For all my self-absorbed despair, I must remember: I'm a very lucky individual. I've been spared so much difficulty, pain and anguish in life. So many of my sins have come and gone without significant and immediate consequence. I've been given much, and I've gotten away with a lot, and I need to remember to be kinder to those who haven't been blessed with my good luck.
So it's been a long time since I last blogged. It's probably a good thing, because I'm hardly at my most pleasant. Life is really just kind of messed up in a lot of ways, and I'm messed up in a lot of ways. It seems like most of what I do with my closest friends is just rant, or listen to them rant. I'm not complaining about that, mind you, because it's pretty much the only way to stay sane in the midst of all these crazy situations. But somehow, it just hasn't felt like very good blog material.
I don't have a lot of substantive updates on my life. I've graduated; I've drank a hell of a lot; I've unsuccessfully looked for a job worth having; I've contemplated grad school. It's actually been busier than it sounds. And more frustrating, too.
I've been worried for years about this terribly awkward stage I'm going through right now. When you're young, becoming who you are is very much this subconscious habit of being. At least, for me it was. But maybe that's because I was slower to mature than a lot of people when it came to cultivating an image and stuff. Or maybe it's because the image I chose to cultivate took less effort than most other choices.
When I was fourteen, I was a geek because I read a lot of books and was smart and knew what "the internet" was. But I hadn't consciously developed the plan at twelve to be a geek. It wasn't like I sat down and thought: "Okay, strategy for becoming a geek. Must read Tolkien. Must read Asimov. Must watch Star Trek." No, sadly, those were choices I made without ever considering their consequences.
But my situation now is much different. I'm not going to become something by just happening to do it. It's not like you sit around Social Working until somebody notices and decides to pay you. You don't become a lawyer by lawyering on the street, or a doctor via armchair physicianing. The something I have to be now requires forethought, painful acclimatization and conscious choice. I'm embarassingly backward at all of the above attributes. And that's why my insides are slowly turning into jelly, and I find myself mumbling on a daily basis "Holy Shit, I really just don't care anymore."
Don't care about what? Name it! I don't care much about politics, I'm not really up for a debate. That's approximately as characteristic of me, in an election year much less, as it is for the Pope to send out a regular tithe to Planned Parenthood each month. I don't care when embarassing shit happens to me. Why bother blushing? Embarassing shit happens to everybody. I don't care when nothing happens all day, and nobody calls, and I end up staring at the ceiling, quite literally, for hours on end. What precious time is it really wasting for God's sake? It's not like I have a paper due or something. I don't even care about tv. I like something like two shows, and the majority of the time, I miss them. Not because I'm busy; because I'm too lazy to get up and find the remote control.
Anyway, all that sounds kind of negative. But I could be a lot worse off. All those long college nights spent up pacing the floor over what the hell are you going to be when you grow up have faded into a blissful and undisturbed puddle of drool gathered upon my pillow whilst I sleep the thirteeenth or fourteenth hour of my day away. It could totally be worse.
I may blog more. Or I may not. I'm not sure. I guess it depends on my next mood swing.
