Back in the Saddle

This week I went back to work. The fact that it feels like it's been a week and it's only Tuesday says a lot about my experience returning.

I spend most of my day worrying/wondering about my family, especially its newest member, my nephew KJ. It doesn't really help me get anything done and generally just adds to my feelings of estrangement and being homesick.

I'm hoping for word that no further treatment for my cancer is needed and I can begin to move on. As much as I thought I needed to get away from my family (and maybe I did), I miss them tremendously.

Longer ago than I care to think about I was working on a script about a man that returns to his hometown and his family after being away for years. I even had a tag line: "What if everything you ever wanted was in the last place you ever wanted to be?"

Apparently I was just predicting my own future. Except the dude was a successful writer or some such ridiculousness.

I also watched Blade Runner 2049 this weekend. I liked it, even if it's a bit laborious and naval-gazing.

The one thing that struck me is the idea of both realizing and accepting the fact that you (we? I? whatever) are a supporting player in someone else's narrative. Naturally our world revolves around us, our wants, needs, desires, problems, etc. But recognizing that you are part of a bigger tapestry and figuring out how to make an impact that farther reaching than just your own life is maybe the meaning of it all. Lots to unpack and that's definitely an incomplete thought.

One Week

I spent most of the last week with my family, almost all of whom I hadn't seen in a month. And as frustrating as they can be, particularly my parents, it was nice to step back into to familiar territory. Pun intended I suppose.

My dad, who's had both his legs amputated in the last six months; my mom, who is now taking care of a newborn baby thanks to my absentee addict of a sister; both doing whatever they have to do to adjust to a new normal, and with generally positive attitudes. Specifically my dad. I'm not sure anyone ever had such a 180 degree personality change, for the positive at least.

It makes it pretty difficult to sit in my own situation and mope about like a tool.

Yesterday the doc took my stitches and staples out, and I got my first real glimpse and my face. It shook me a bit, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. The ability to eat more than a tiny bite at a time isn't quite there yet, but being told I have to push myself on that front was welcome. Apparently I need to work the muscles in my neck and jaw to stretch them back out so that I have as close to full range of motion as possible.

Every once in awhile I'll get a nerve or two firing in my face and it gives me a little hope that they're waking up. The doc said it could take months before I have complete feeling back. Disheartening, but maybe it's better than feeling whatever pain there might be.

I spent most of the last year at work and then living in solitude. More than anything I think the last week has reinforced that I'm just not cut out for that, as much as I thought I was.

Walls

Yesterday, in a matter of just a few hours, I was forced to reconcile the news of the Las Vegas shootings and the death of Tom Petty.

In the most scrutinizing of ways, neither of those events really have a huge impact on my life.

I didn't know anyone in Vegas at the time and other than just hoping to maybe one day see Petty play and appreciating him as an enormous talent and influence, I wasn't the biggest fan and hadn't listened to him in years.

But, I was moved deeply by both tragedies, and in different ways.

Listening to the constant rhetoric of the last few years from both major parties has been as frustrating for me as it has been for most Americans. And to have something like this happen, again, and see the tragedy become a political talking point, again, and to know in my heart that we as a country will, again, do nothing about it is enough to make me feel hopeless. Even if it was just talking, at least there might be a chance that a solution, some sort of insurance against this happening once again, could be reached. But it's just people screaming at each other.

When I saw the original announcement that Petty had passed away, like a lot of people I posted a comment on social media. Something to the effect of "If this world gets any darker, we're going to need a supernova to find our way back."

It feels very much like we're losing the light. The things that in thousands, millions, billions of years from now you would want people, or some alien race, or whatever is is we evolve into, to look at and say, "damn, they had an amazingly rich culture."

It feels more an more like what will be said, maybe just a hundred years from now, is that we couldn't stop shouting at each other long enough to realize what an amazing world we live in. What an amazing time we live in. But maybe that's the thing the poets understand that we still can't get. Maybe you can't appreciate it until it's gone.

Here's hoping 50 years from now some candidate will be running for political office with a familiar platform. Make America Great Again. Only this time he'll mean the America that recognizes the basic human rights of everyone in her boarders, the America that says love has nothing to do with gender, that a living wage for any individual is a necessity, and that the health and safety of its citizens is a priority and not a business.

It's scattered an all over the place, but it's what I'm feeling.

Humble Pie

At 38 years old, it's a little odd to suddenly learn something new about yourself. But last night that's exactly what I did.

I've always considered myself humble, sometimes to a fault even. While my closest friends will tell you that's not always the case, and I'd certainly back them up, for the most part I don't sing my own praises. I'm also pretty self deprecating, if yesterday's post didn't clue you in. Sometimes jokingly so, sometimes not.

A lot of that stems from a fear of being humiliated. It's one of my biggest fears. Maybe my biggest actually, because it's the one I've never really talked about with anyone. So if I do my best no to be boastful, and am always ahead of the curve on tearing myself down, then I'm never caught off guard.

Yes, it's laughable to think that I'm alone in that regard too. I imagine most of humanity is terrified of being humiliated.

This is also at the root of my inability to welcome help when I need it the most. Because for the entirety of my life I've equated being humble with being humiliated.

Last night I knelt over the edge of a tub while my best friend's wife carefully washed my hair. I then sat next to her as she took a wash cloth and some mild soap and gently cleaned my face, my stitches and my staples. She then spread balm over my wounds to help them heal.

My friend stood dutifully by, helping where he was able, talking to me, normalizing it all as best he could.

Still ,for so much of it I found myself falling into the familiar rhythms of shame and regret. Someone was doing this incredibly kind and generous thing, and all I could worry about was my unreasonable discomfort. That's not being humble. In fact, it's a pretty selfish thing, to want to rob someone of a blessing they can bestow.

It's going to be a difficult thing to let go of, but I'm hoping that was at least a small step forward.

My New Normal

To say I wasn't prepared for exactly what my surgery would be is an understatement of epic proportions.

I expected stitches that would inevitably give be a long scar to spend the rest of my life explaining. I didn't thin I would come out looking like Frankenstein's Monster if he was also a stroke victim.

Stitches and staples everywhere. A recovery process I just was not prepared for.

I was never a particularly good looking dude. Now it's a safe bet I never will be.

So this is me wallowing in self pity. Me putting friends in a position I desperately tried to avoid. Me, again, unable to do the simplest things for myself.

I'm tired. Tired of struggling. Tired of fighting with myself.

What do you do with a body that seems intent on killing you? Or at least destroying your spirit.

For the moment, it's succeeded. For the moment I get to feel hopeless, destitute and completely pathetic. I think I've earned that.