Reality Bites

This reality thing is kind of a buzz-kill.  I don't know what I expected from life, but life is not what I hyped it up to be.  I kind of thought there was a pattern, like love and happiness and occasional valleys; but what I've found is bottomless pits of anxiety and overwhelming sadness, and tragic idealism gone awry.

I want to be happy.  I will myself happy all the time, but when I look at the reality erupting around me every day, I feel nothing but chronic fatigue.  I have become necessary to people only in what I can provide for them, and there is no one there in return.  I am loved by my children, but only in the sense that a child feels obligatory love to his or her parents.  They are usually kind, in between bouts of raging narcissism and blinding self-interest.

I am alone in my work, in my home, and in my bed.  Yes, much of that is a product of both my introversion and my decisions, but I have always been willing and able to let in the right people:  People who share some idealism about a better day and a soulful future.

Where are those people?

Where are the people who genuinely care?  I can't find them.  Maybe I don't care enough to find them anymore.  Maybe I am like the walking wounded, who wander around in a self-inflicted stupor due to past and present neglect and abuse.  Maybe I'm the one alienating myself, because I'm afraid to throw out filaments to other people, since humankind has been so cruel in the past.

Perhaps my existential dilemma is that of many philosophers who see the problem and the potential answer, and then watch people choose the opposite of kindness and empathy and knowledge every day.  If so, then checkmate, life.  You win.

Why So Hostile?

I just got off the phone with my husband.  I texted him with a simple question.  At maximum, at would have taken five words to answer.  At minimum, a single word answer would have sufficed.  But every time I text him, he wants to call.  You would think that when I didn't answer the house phone, and then I didn't answer my cell phone the first time, he would have gotten the message, but no.  He wants to call and tell me things that I don't care about, and ask me questions that a 40-something-year-old man should be able to figure out all by himself.

Statement (from him):  "I read your text."  (Pause.  Full stop when I don't respond.  Did you ask me a question?  Do you have an answer for MY question?  Why are you calling me?)
Question (from him):  "Are you there...?"  (Yes, I'm here.  I just answered the phone.  Again, did you ask me something?  I repeat the texted, SIMPLE question and get a 100 word rambling response riddled with excuses and nonsense, followed by many more unrelated statements about things I already know and don't care about.)
Question:  "So what's the plan for Friday?"  (My answer is that I don't have a plan.  The subtext is that even if I HAD a plan, he wouldn't be a part of it, because our lives are completely separate.)
Question:  "Do you just want to write me a check for _____________?"  (He's asking about payment for something for one of our children - the second time this week, for different expenses.  Why the fuck would I want to write him a check/pay for something which is FOR ONE OF OUR CHILDREN?  When did I become the bank for every incidental expense incurred in our household? - Answer to my rhetorical question:  the moment we had children, apparently; or the moment he decided to drop out of college and get a series of shitty jobs.)
Question:  "Well, how do you expect me to pay for it?"  (Answered with some snarky shit by me about how whenever expenses exceed HIS budget they go on MY credit card, since I make so much money as a teacher.)
Question:  "What are you doing for your birthday?"  (In my head, the answer is "be left alone, please", but aloud, I say, "I haven't thought about it.  I don't want to do anything."  Because I don't want to fake through a happy, pretend marriage on my birthday, of all days.  I'd rather sit on a park bench and talk to total strangers.)
Question:  "Why so hostile?"  (My answer:  "I have to go.")

But hmm ... now that I've had a minute to think about it, let me make a list of reason I'm so hostile.  Just for you, honey:

1. You ask stupid questions that an adult shouldn't have to ask.  Grow up.
2. You pretend like everything is okay, when it isn't.
3. You never talk to me about anything important, only bullshit.
4. You act like all the terrible shit in the past is somehow not directly related to my animosity towards you, so you do nothing to fix the problems, only gloss over them.
5. You assume that I will take all responsibility for parenting our children because you are never home.
6. You then subsequently act like you are not at fault for anything, because you weren't here, and thus could not have been part of the problem.
7. Even though you're never home to parent or spend time with our children, you make sure to build "me time" into your days off.
8. You watch television incessantly when you ARE home.
9. You maintain superficial relationships with everyone, but can't manage to have a real relationship with anyone. 
10. You stopped being my friend about 10 years ago, and you stopped being someone I cared about shortly after that.  
11. You have broken my heart and my ego and my spirit so many times that I can't care anymore about anything you say.
12. You never listen to me, ever.  I have recurring nightmares about screaming for help, but no one hears me.  I wonder why ...

Why so hostile?  You, my love.  Now go away.

Major Dickhead

 In regard to the major who worked at Fort  Hood and murdered 13 people, why would the United States of America do what this asshole wants and kill him?  If he wanted to be a martyr for his faith, he failed. He's not dead.  If Allah really wanted him to succeed as a martyr, maybe he would have been killed by the gunfire from the brave military men and women who took him out after he murdered a bunch of innocent people.  But since that didn't happen, the United States shouldn't grant this idiot his last wish so that he can become something which he failed at trying to become.  I fail to understand why our country would even consider helping someone commit suicide in the name of an ideology that it vehemently opposes.  Sick and twisted humankind, in effect.

Advice to my children for when I'm dead and gone:

Squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom up, and put the cap on tight.  It's common sense.  Don't be a secret slob with globby toothpaste and a rusty razor in your medicine cabinet.

Don't double- fist electronics.  You look like a tool, it's making you dumber, and you slowly become incapable of paying attention to anything for more than 30 seconds.

Don't leave your dirty shit laying around.  No one, not even a person who loves you, wants to pick up your shit.

Just because other people are acting like assholes, you can still be kind.  Somebody ought to be the good guy.

Books are life reincarnated.  You can learn from other people's suffering and find solidarity with the human condition just by paying attention to what is recorded by people in books.

Don't eat your feelings.  You'll get fat and then be even less happy than you were before you picked up the chocolate.

When someone treats you like shit, you're allowing it.  Stand up for yourself, and people will respect you more.

Never underestimate the power of a hot bath.  Add a candle, and you have the equivalent of a session of therapy (for a lot less money).

Really listen to music:  the radio is fine, but get deep with Head music and old hip hop and French acoustic and Latin jazz and Deep South blues.  You never know what you might hear that changes your life.

Learn to play an instrument so you can express yourself a different way.  

Never stop learning.  Seriously.  Not in a "school" way, but in a "life-is-exceptional-and-there-are-millions-of-cool-things-to-learn-about way".

Don't let other people try to tell you how you feel.  (And someone will always be around to try.)

Get your teeth cleaned; bad breath is repulsive. (No really...)

Travel.  Don't get stuck in one place.  Life doesn't exist in a vacuum.  If all your "people" look the same, you need to mix it up a little.

Make friends; life can be very lonely when there's no one to talk to.  (Trust me, I know.)

When you're old enough, drink champagne just because it's Tuesday or something - make your own occasions to celebrate. 

Acknowledge that popcorn and diet Dr Pepper can be a good breakfast combo.

Above all, be good to yourself, because the world can be a pretty harsh place, and the last thing you need is to beat up on yourself.

Junior high, in effect

They say that junior high contains some of the worst times in a person’s life.  I didn’t really hate junior high, so it’s not like I’m biased or anything, but I do teach high school, so I hear the stories about how awkward junior high is.  And I watch the freshman walk in at the beginning of the year and act like total heathens, because they don’t know any other way to act, apparently.  It’s reflex and hormones in action.

But my youngest child just crossed the threshold of junior high.  She was kind of irrational before, but in the last five days, she has turned into a monster.  Raging hormones plus peer pressure plus imagined versions of how things should be plus asinine social media apps that require no brains and lots of over-sharing.

Currently, she is not speaking to me because she needs money tomorrow for FCS to make pillows.  She doesn’t have an exact dollar amount because she couldn’t remember to bring a piece of paper home.  For five days in a row.  It’s a fucking piece of paper.  One.  I’ve heard a hundred stories about who likes who and who said what, but I haven’t heard a single thing about school and what’s required of her, because in her brain, those things don’t matter. 

How does a person talk (rationally) to a person who is hormonally irrational?  It seems like I forget the symptoms of adolescence every time one of my kids hits that particular threshold.  Perhaps it’s evidence that people should just have all their kids at once?  I have no idea.  All I know is that in addition to the 150 hormonal kids at school every day that I have to try to teach something, I come home to irrational children of my own, who have a hard time thinking through seemingly simple tasks like “bringing home a piece of paper.”  

Teaching Motto, in brief

“You gonna be my nigga forever.  Don’t forget that.”  -Tupac

That’s going to be my new class motto at school.  I feel it’s apropos in a lot of ways; they do, in fact, keep coming back into my life long after they have graduated. 

“Better Together” is my current school motto.  Mine’s better.

The only thing I’m going to miss when I quit teaching is the interpersonal relationships I make with certain students.  I can’t say that I reach or bond with all of them, because that’s a lie, but the ones who make an impact are there forever.  It’s hard to impact people when like if you have a job scanning items at a store or whatever.  I have pretty cool access to people at my job, and I’m definitely going to miss that.  Even when I want to pull my hair out, my job is a good one. 

All good things have to end.