Nothing in Common

I just got off the phone with my daughter. She is almost ten. I can't even begin to explain how much it sucks being so far from her. She lives about 200 miles from me. I can't imagine, as a child, how hard it is for her. Telephone calls are an important way for us to connect. I can't wait to get her a cell phone or for her to start using email. I mean on one hand I don't want her to grow up. It would just be easier to communicate directly with her and not go through her mother. I get along pretty good with my ex, as long as the child support is coming.


I grew up in the home of a traveling salesman. He would go on one to two week road trips and come back exhausted. He provided a financially secure home which was unlike the one he grew up in. I think he felt if he gave us the things materialistic we wanted. I don't blame him for not being more emotionally available because he grew up in a different era. I wrote a poem about him called the "King of Repression"


The king of repression


Sitting on his throne with a drink
Old Granddad and Archie Bunker on TV
Smoke floats upward in shared silence
Did you get your homework done?
Yeah, the little I do to get by
No mess, no trouble everything okay
I don’t tell him about my friend Dave
He shot himself in the head last night
We only talk about the small talk
Two suicides in two years
I sit in shared silence


It's strange how I thought my father would always be this closed repressed person. I moved home two days before my mom died. It took her death and the realization that he had no one left but me for him to open up. He has told he loves me less than a handful times in my life. Two of those times have been since her death.

Nothing in Common is a movie that Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason star in. It this the story of a dysfunctional father/son relationship. The last line of the movie is Jackie telling Tom that he was the last person that he thought would come through for him. My father never said those words directly but he has said it with other ones.

Proof

Not just a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal. It covers the subject of mental illness as it affects a brilliant mathematician and his daughter. I am from a family that suffers addiction, depression, and an assortment of dysfunctional behaviors. I have suffered from depression and addiction myself. Does that sound weird? It is hard to talk to women about my past. They all get the scared look in their eyes when I describe my past. I understand though.

What is normal? We all are scary and damaged. It's just a trick to find someone who is scary and damaged but fits with you. I unfortunately am honest about my baggage. I think there is a lot of denial. I know something about denial. I spent twenty years in alcohol denial. I denied my depression as I was comfortably numb. I didn't feel anything I just killed the pain.

The body responds to pain in different ways. There is a disorder where one pulls one's hair out. It is called trichotillomania. The action of pulling out the hair at the root causes endorphins to be released. I used to pull the hairs out of my moustache. Sometimes, when I am really stressed I find myself still doing it.

I have never told anyone this.

What are your issues?

Or, are you in denial too?

peace

dumbdavid

You're beautiful......

I haven't written in quite some time. It didn't seem productive, I thought. It appears I may have been wrong. I have fallen into my old habit of internalizing everything. I now have that old pain between my shoulder blades that won't go away. The last time I had this I was balancing a soon to be ex-wife and a dirty mistress. We all know how that turned out.

I looked at my old posts and realized that the "Heather" experiment is not listed. See, I totally repressed it and didn't share that car crash with you all. A brief synopsis is required.

I met a girl at work who was really pretty and made regular eye contact with me. Her name was Heather. I watched and waited a long time to ask her out. She initially said yes but then circumstances prevented it from happening. We talked on the phone and in person regularly. I thought something clicked. We shared a common background and experiences. She didn't seem freaked out about my drinking history. She pushed back the date several times but insisted we would go out.

It finally dawned on me that it wasn't going to happen. I asked her one day if she had changed her mind. I suspected that our age difference was the problem. I am quite a bit older than her. I wasn't looking for someone younger it just was a coincidence. She said yes the age thing did bother her. Okay fine, we'll be friends.

Time passes and my broken heart starts to mend. I hear a strange rumor two months later. Heather is getting married. She admits it and shows me her engagement ring. She started dating some other guy older than me.

It's mean I know but I am mad and hurt that she chose him over me. My self centered streak is showing I know. Fuck! This dude isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Maybe that what she likes. Oh, his dad owns a small car dealership. I guess he has reasonable financial resources unlike me.

I see Heather everyday at work. I watch for her as she goes by. She says hi to me and I feel like a jerk watching for her. We were nothing and I feel so stupid about this. I opened up to her and I hadn't done that for so long. I am better off for the experience of meeting her and losing her.

James Blunt had it right.

You're Beautiful, You're Beautiful
You're Beautiful, It's true
I saw our face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

peace

dumbdavid

A last kiss?

Do you remember the last kiss of a relationship that has ended? I don't. It has been five years next month. I was re-watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Meredith was asking Derek if he remembered their last kiss. He did in great detail. She couldn't. It was touching. She had told Christina beforehand that you don't know it's going to be your last kiss when it happens. It is the truth.

I don't remember the last time I kissed Eileen. I don't care I even used her real first name. We started with such a special first kiss on July 15th, 1999. I guess I will always remember that moment as one of the defining moments of my life. It changed so many things in both of our lifes. I wish I remembered the last kiss but maybe no. Like many relationships, ours didn't end amicably.

If anyone reads this, kiss the one you're in love with today. Kiss them like it's the last time you will. 'Cause you never know when it will be the last time. Sometimes I close my eyes and think about that July night. Not out of regret, or sadness, but just for the wonder of it I think of it.

peace

dumbdavid

Right to die?

I just watched an episode of Boston Legal. There was nothing better on. It had a case of assisted suicide. The husband was arrested for murder. He was acquitted. His lawyer argued how we humanely put our suffering pets to sleep because we are humane. He spoke of the daily decisions in hospitals to end life by increased morphine drips and turning off a ventilator. I didn't know the content of the show before I watched it. It upset me of course. I couldn't help but think of my Mom dying in her hospital bed when we decided to turn off her ventilator. It was the most horrible thing I have ever experience watching. The doctor told us it would be over in a couple of hours. It wasn't.

My mother was a strong woman who survived the loss of her first son to drugs/suicide and her three back surgeries. She kept fighting the last 23 hours of her life. She died in the ten minutes I went outside with my dad so he could smoke. I suspect, but have no proof the nurse came in and gave her a morphine overdose. It was too much a coincidence. I felt ashamed when it was finally over because I was glad. I was glad her suffering of the last two years had ended.

My dad called me when they rushed my Mom to the hospital that last time. He said he couldn't make that decision [turning off life support] alone. He knew, as I did, my mother's wishes in her living will. She didn't want to kept alive after loss of brain function. I was there and supported the decision to turn off her ventilator. the rest of my mothers family didn't understand and didn't come to her funeral. It is now a year later and they are still not talking to us.

So, I am here still thinking of my mother. It is one of those things I will live with for the rest of my life. If you don't have a living will get one. I need to. My Dad actually got one done after my Mother died. Do we have a right to die? Who knows. I wish there was no suffering but that's niave.

peace

dumbdavid

Bounce

I am watching the movie Bounce. It is a syrupy drama with Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow. Affleck is an alcoholic in the movie and has problems in real life. I have over six years of sobriety now. My life is still a mess though. I spent this weekend visiting my daughter. It was a great time. We camped out and had a bonfire. I also packed all the rest of my belongings I had been storing in my ex-wife's garage. She had been very kind since I was evicted to store my stuff. It wasn't that much since I left most of my belongings behind. I haven't told anyone this whole story except her. I had no money to move my furniture or other things. I packed up three car loads and hauled them to her spare garage. I had no money even to rent a storage locker. My stuff has sat for a year in her garage because I had no car or license to go and pick it up. Now, all that I own is in this little room I rent. I will have to eventually buy furniture and household goods.

I don't blame anyone but myself for this debacle that is my life. I am making small steps forward instead of the backward ones I was. I should probably start going to meetings again too. I guess I am making small steps forward in relationships too. I bit my tongue when I saw the sad state my ex-wife has let her house get too. I am concerned about the mess the house was in, since my daughter lives there. I accidently found my ex-wife anti-depressants in the medicine cabinet while I was looking for a bandaid.

I talked to my daughter about asking the two women on dates. I guess it may sound weird to have a conversation with a nine year old about dating. She asks time to time about me having a girlfriend so I told her no. I think I can feel a postive change finally inside me. I don't know when or if but maybe there is another woman out there for me. I want to be cautious and not make a mistake. I don't want to be closed off or too limited.


Ben Affleck is talking about being a bad driver. It is his metaphor about being bad in relationships. It fits me because looking back I haven't been a good anything in relationships. I think it is good I realize this. I just don't know the right things to do in the start, middle, or the rest of a relationship. Well, enough for now.

peace

dumbdavid

It's been too long!

Sorry, I have been away too long. I have gone back to working two jobs. I am pretty tired most of the time I get about one day out seven off. Here is the question of the day. Why can't I get a date? It didn't seem that hard when I was younger and single. Now I am older and divorced and having no joy. I have been shot down twice in the last couple of weeks. I no I must expand my search area but I refuse to bar hop to meet women. Bars and dumbdavid do not mix. It would be gasoline and fire. Well, I hope to post on more regular basis now that I have a high speed wireless connection.

peace

dumbdavid