The more things change, the more they stay the same
Still older. 37 now.
I'm reading over these other posts expecting incoherent rants, because the only time here is when I get all wishy-washy trying to get in touch with past selves. Maybe hoping that they don't make sense the same way, that they feel like completely different human beings.
I'm going to be a father. Thing has been so long in gestation. I went to the doc to make sure everything worked. I think there was a sense in myself, thinking something genetically wrong with myself and that it just wasn't meant to happen. And then, there it is, and you're elated. I'm going to be a father! Then there's the long wait and you have plenty of time, as a man, to get comfortable with it, and it's just not the same thing--it's not here yet. The paper got extended a week later. Then a month later. It's so far away that you could write a sentence each week and complete the assignment, but it's not going to make sense.
I think I'll be a good father. I don't know that it's anything I've done to change myself in particular. I feel like a lot of the changes come from the sludge of time. Yeah, sure, I'm drinking now, why else the livejournal entry? But, I've learned over the past two years that it doesn't have to be so central in who I am, and that I get along fine without it, not that it doesn't take effort. Not that you don't tell something deep inside you "no" to unadulterated pleasure from time to time. I call it the 90% rule. I don't drink 90% of the time I usually would. Not that it couldn't happen without Sida. It's all luck. There's so much luck to it. I want to ascribe it to a God--the people in my life guiding me towards some teleological, yet, altogether mundane and predictable purpose.
I mentioned my body in the past post and as is part and parcel to drinking generally taking a backseat, I am in pretty fucking decent shape. Parts are breaking though. My anterior shoulders tell me, "yeah, dawg, that's going to be a hard no on barbell bench press". I'm adjusting, aging gracefully, fully owning the fact that I'm not the old guy at the gym, but that i'm strapping weight to my waist when I do dips. I will say, however, it's far easier to lose weight when you're not off-setting liquid calories from drinking constantly.
I volunteered for the fire department. Now we have two surrogate children. It's actually not that hard. Raising pre-raised children is not all that hard. It's downright fucking wholesome. Kids teach you things about yourself that you'd never learn just hanging around adults. You learn that a lot of adults act just like fucking children, and that shit's hilarious and would be if you didn't depend on them to act like adults sometimes.
His name will be "August". I wasn't expecting a boy for some reason. Not like it was prophecy or anything, but it's like doing the hard thing first so the second thing seems easy. I look forward to forts, sports, and chorts ("chorts" is slang for chores, things had to rhyme after the first two). In truth everything exciting in my life comes with the dying of summer, and I've always had an emo fondness for things in fall. If had been a girl I would have fought hard for "Autumn". and why did I get first choice of names? you would think by my retelling things that I'm a great winner or something. It all feels an accident. Nothing seems planned. I can't seem to make out how it might be, though everything coming together this way seems as though it were. How could you not "God"? I couldn't be the last person to feel this way, and not the first person who is so unlikable that nobody cares that I have this perspective.
It's all great. It's all great. It's all luck and I deserve none of it. I'm a good person in my own approximation (so I'm like everyone else, really), but I deserve none of it and am humbled that this is what I've gotten. I gave up drinking largely because I had to--Jesus Christ how does anyone lovingly ascribe this to "will power"? Any other derivation of myself besides the one I currently live in is a hopeless drunk.
If I look in the kaleidoscope there are ton more of me that end up fucked up and helpless drunks. I'm one in a million me's, I guess.
When I was younger I feared that I would lose the perspective that I had when I was younger, that I would lose the lemon-sour immediacy of the strong things I felt. In some way I've always wanted to keep those things, to keep that potency.
The truth is. I have. And if I hadn't I'd had ended up like my dad. I was so hurt for such a long time of my life. Everything ended up ok, or as least as far as I know, and I'll do my best to make sure August doesn't suffer the same way if I can knowing that he will have his own life, and his life is his own and maybe someday he'll read these things and see himself in them...and not make fun of me, or even if he did, what would it matter?
Life has been good to me even with my criticisms. I hope he gets the chance to love as deeply as I have and I pray I have the sagacity to guide him. And I'll draw on all of the good people in my life and try to infuse them into him, and hope that he has my luck as well.
I'm reading over these other posts expecting incoherent rants, because the only time here is when I get all wishy-washy trying to get in touch with past selves. Maybe hoping that they don't make sense the same way, that they feel like completely different human beings.
I'm going to be a father. Thing has been so long in gestation. I went to the doc to make sure everything worked. I think there was a sense in myself, thinking something genetically wrong with myself and that it just wasn't meant to happen. And then, there it is, and you're elated. I'm going to be a father! Then there's the long wait and you have plenty of time, as a man, to get comfortable with it, and it's just not the same thing--it's not here yet. The paper got extended a week later. Then a month later. It's so far away that you could write a sentence each week and complete the assignment, but it's not going to make sense.
I think I'll be a good father. I don't know that it's anything I've done to change myself in particular. I feel like a lot of the changes come from the sludge of time. Yeah, sure, I'm drinking now, why else the livejournal entry? But, I've learned over the past two years that it doesn't have to be so central in who I am, and that I get along fine without it, not that it doesn't take effort. Not that you don't tell something deep inside you "no" to unadulterated pleasure from time to time. I call it the 90% rule. I don't drink 90% of the time I usually would. Not that it couldn't happen without Sida. It's all luck. There's so much luck to it. I want to ascribe it to a God--the people in my life guiding me towards some teleological, yet, altogether mundane and predictable purpose.
I mentioned my body in the past post and as is part and parcel to drinking generally taking a backseat, I am in pretty fucking decent shape. Parts are breaking though. My anterior shoulders tell me, "yeah, dawg, that's going to be a hard no on barbell bench press". I'm adjusting, aging gracefully, fully owning the fact that I'm not the old guy at the gym, but that i'm strapping weight to my waist when I do dips. I will say, however, it's far easier to lose weight when you're not off-setting liquid calories from drinking constantly.
I volunteered for the fire department. Now we have two surrogate children. It's actually not that hard. Raising pre-raised children is not all that hard. It's downright fucking wholesome. Kids teach you things about yourself that you'd never learn just hanging around adults. You learn that a lot of adults act just like fucking children, and that shit's hilarious and would be if you didn't depend on them to act like adults sometimes.
His name will be "August". I wasn't expecting a boy for some reason. Not like it was prophecy or anything, but it's like doing the hard thing first so the second thing seems easy. I look forward to forts, sports, and chorts ("chorts" is slang for chores, things had to rhyme after the first two). In truth everything exciting in my life comes with the dying of summer, and I've always had an emo fondness for things in fall. If had been a girl I would have fought hard for "Autumn". and why did I get first choice of names? you would think by my retelling things that I'm a great winner or something. It all feels an accident. Nothing seems planned. I can't seem to make out how it might be, though everything coming together this way seems as though it were. How could you not "God"? I couldn't be the last person to feel this way, and not the first person who is so unlikable that nobody cares that I have this perspective.
It's all great. It's all great. It's all luck and I deserve none of it. I'm a good person in my own approximation (so I'm like everyone else, really), but I deserve none of it and am humbled that this is what I've gotten. I gave up drinking largely because I had to--Jesus Christ how does anyone lovingly ascribe this to "will power"? Any other derivation of myself besides the one I currently live in is a hopeless drunk.
If I look in the kaleidoscope there are ton more of me that end up fucked up and helpless drunks. I'm one in a million me's, I guess.
When I was younger I feared that I would lose the perspective that I had when I was younger, that I would lose the lemon-sour immediacy of the strong things I felt. In some way I've always wanted to keep those things, to keep that potency.
The truth is. I have. And if I hadn't I'd had ended up like my dad. I was so hurt for such a long time of my life. Everything ended up ok, or as least as far as I know, and I'll do my best to make sure August doesn't suffer the same way if I can knowing that he will have his own life, and his life is his own and maybe someday he'll read these things and see himself in them...and not make fun of me, or even if he did, what would it matter?
Life has been good to me even with my criticisms. I hope he gets the chance to love as deeply as I have and I pray I have the sagacity to guide him. And I'll draw on all of the good people in my life and try to infuse them into him, and hope that he has my luck as well.