Descendance

I feel myself slipping.  I take medicines to alleviate the spiral down.  I have renewed skills in putting on the happy face…outside.  When I get home, I just want to be in bed.  It is not fair to my family.  It is not me, in the normal sense.  It is not fair or right for so many reasons.  But I cannot stop.

I really wish that I had actually gone through the grief 30 years ago!  So much was changing at that time though, I just could not deal with a devastating loss.  I buried it too well.  Now I feel pathetic for failing to deal with it when I should have, on top of the grief.

I have read so much on death and grieving that new articles that I come across are not new…just rehashes.  People get through it.  It is TOUGH, but they generally manage, emerge on an other side.  Changed, different perhaps, but they emerge.  I am not emerging.

I read stories of people that are able to dream of the person they lost.  I read stories of people that get signs from their loved ones.  Stories of going to medium’s and having the person’s spirit actually communicate with them.  The notion that the longer the time from death, the harder, the more energy it takes to communicate.  I find myself wishing I was haunted.  Was I?  Did I completely miss the signs?  Did Jen put Tammy in my life?  Has it been so long that the connection is now too difficult?  Am I too far down on the list, reaching out to family, or other friends, is more important given the energy needed?  Is it all bullshit from a wanting mind???

How does one achieve a level ‘better’ than 99% of the world’s population and still feel like a failure?  Does everyone feel worse than me?  How do they continue?  How does Joy get strung together long enough to be happiness?  I read that the key is relationships, and not necessarily a multitude, but quality relationships.  Luckily that plays easier to my personality, but what is the point when people die?  One relationship can never (and I do not expect it to) replace another, but the loss of the deeper relationships is so monumental.

Alone…How does someone in a city of 5-6 million, working in a large company, feel alone?  But it is not a recent phenomenon.  I remember feeling alone as a kid growing up.  I was never particularly outgoing, so that never helped.  I was an only child, whose parents went through divorce, and both had to work.  Pre-smartphones and video games.  I played board games by myself.  We moved frequently…starting over in schools, amongst friend groups that already existed.

Some of my most impacting revelations of lonesomeness happened around the same time as Jennifer’s accident.  Leaving my high school graduation ceremony.  Seeing everyone scatter to their different parties and family commitments afterward.  I had a party waiting at the house myself, should have been excited to get going to it, but find myself standing in the parking lot wondering what the fuck?  Alone.  Going to Kansas State after the good friend that I was supposed to room with decided to bail on college the week before starting.  Being reassigned to a room in the basement with no A/C and a farm kid that I had nothing in common with.  Alone.  Going to a movie that first semester, alone.  Then cut off from Jennifer.  No connection to her world.  Too frightened to reach out.

Others feel this lonesomeness.  I have seen it firsthand.  The first time it really appeared to me was that first semester of college.  Walking in between classes, hearing someone call out my name.  Turning to see one of my high school’s cheerleaders coming to talk to me.  Why?  We have never spoken before.  Alone.  Desiring connection to the known, the past, the familiar.  If lonesomeness is so common, and so debilitating, why do we allow it to surface?  Why do we put up with it?

I can never replace the relationship that I had with Jennifer, I get that, but why do I miss it so much?  

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The Future Is Yours, The Past Is Mine…

So what do I know, someone less than 40, about the past? How could the life lessons experienced be worth writing? How could these lessons be meaningful without a longer life to analyze them? How come I am crying while writing this? How can I make suggestions without doing many them myself?

When you are really young, the future is before you, hopes and dreams and ‘what will be’s dominate. First suggestion, live in the moment. Do not ignore the future, make plans and goals and go get them, but be sure to look around and have fun on the way. Yes, this is another play on “Stop and smell the Roses”. Will it work, probably not. But the younger you are when you really realize it the better off you will be. Hard thing is, you almost have to let a portion of life whiz by to really understand the concept. You can be told, and try to listen, and follow the directions, but you don’t really get it that way. That is the frustrating part…even if you take the advice, you will not know what to do with the tool.

As you get older, you get to look back and say “What if…” Things that I did not do and recommend are my version of playing “What if…” Not regrets per se, but if I could go back and do it again, things that I would like to do. The rub here is that I do truly enjoy my life, my wife, my kids, and I almost feel guilty by saying that if I could do it again that I would do these things, as my life could be so remarkably different today (and would I really like it?). But still, if I could…

When you go to college, get involved! Go Greek, play a sport, be in the band, or student government, just get involved. Sure, you go to college to get an education. You are there to learn. But it is so much more, it is the transformation into an adult. The choices that you make in life stack and layer, and ultimately, are what define you as a person (make sure you like what you are becoming). College is the first time that you get to (or have to) make so many choices. It is this ‘beginning point’ that makes it so fascinating and easy to reminisce. So many people (and I would agree) will say that college days are the best days of life. Do not get me wrong, college is hard when you are college aged. Relationships form and break, papers have to be written, and they get long and hard the further you go into your degree, tests have to be taken, accountability is developed. College is also about the relationships that you build. College will be the first time to meet people so different from you, and people so similar but from different areas. Getting involved with at least one group, if not many, is an instant connection with a group of people. It will be a safety net, a support group, a study partner, access to friends to play with, to cry with, to live with. Beginning college is scary and exciting and full of energy, getting involved will help to ease these new highs and lows. Many of the connections that you make (or cultivate) in college will last for the rest of your life. They are strong connections because these are the people that were there when you grew into an adult. They had similar concerns and excitement and pain at the same time. They are the people that were there when you were beginning, and you for them. Cast the net wide, let it sink deep, and hold on for the ride of a lifetime.

As a sidenote to the beginning point reference: Maybe that is one of the reasons why we never can go back. If you went back to a beginning point with the knowledge and experience of how things can turn out later, it either becomes so easy that it becomes boring and trivial, hard to truly relate to those really going through it for the first time, or you are too good and over-dominate. It may also be one of the reasons that you have to go through college in your early twenties and not wait until your thirties, by the time you are in your thirties you have already gone through a different ‘beginning point’ in adulthood.

Last Saturday night I helped a friend out in his business by working one of his concessions carts at a mid-major college football game. Being around all that youth and potential just made me remember (and long for) those days. The people-watching was spectacular. The students, the families, the alumni…catching snippets conversations about victories, celebrations, friendships, and heartache and pain. Listening to Miranda Lambert on the drive home and trying to shut down what was going through my head, I tried to come up with a song title for the ramblings. ‘The Future Is Yours, The Past Is Mine’ summed it up well. You want to give a couple of these college students this set of secrets and tips and watch what happens. But ultimately, this is no longer my game to play in. I can watch from the sidelines and reminisce, but I cannot help. For even if the advice is sought after actively, the answers to questions would be forgotten, misused, or improperly used. This conclusion has been my lesson. Writing it down has helped to organize and analyze what has been bouncing in my head. The process has provided an end result vastly different than I expected, and that is exciting. What can you do with it…anything?

Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

If someone twenty years older were to send age-applicable life lessons to me, would it be cheating? Would I really be able to capitalize on the knowledge of experience? Or do I have to live my moments and learn from them on my own terms? Would be an interesting experiment, and of course I would want to try…

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