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