I do so love me some family time. My family recharges me because they have the same broken sense of humor that I do and it just feels comfortable. It’s also good to know that there are people really in your corner. Everyone talks a good game but the truly great ones show up. And show up doesn’t mean just physically dropping by either. A check in text or call works as well. There are a lot of people keeping tabs on me so I am a very lucky man.
I broke the trip home up into pieces. An awesome lunch with my eldest who unfortunately couldn’t make the trip up followed by anniversary dinner with my parents. That was interesting to say the least but I hadn’t spent any alone time with them in almost two years and apparently we had some things to work through. Nothing better than explaining the rules you live by to the people who helped forge said same. All is well but it got bumpy for a minute.
I got back in time for fireworks with friends. It was a good time but somehow I ended up explaining and kid of defending my life choices. (Not with friends but with friends of friends) I say kind of defending because I really don’t care about the two people I was arguing with so I wasn’t really getting upset. This was only adding to their frustration. It was funny because the entire discussion was a big reason for my relocation.
I am annoyed by people who I wouldn’t have a beer with on purpose weighing in on my life. The stories that are being made up in my absence would have me hunting folks down if I still lived there. Everything from me cheating (didn’t happened for those who don’t know me in real life. I was in a two year struggle to save an already crumbled marriage) to me having a complete other family out here, hence the move (also not true as I could barely afford the family I helped create so I wouldn’t know how to begin financing something like that aside from the fact that it’s wrong on all levels)
These little morsels are brought to me by peripheral neighborhoods assholes who will never know what happened so they make up their own stories as gospel. I would hope that if my friends come across one of these they would stomp them out as I would but ultimately it doesn’t matter. I just hate when it reaches the ears of my kids. Okay, hate probably isn’t a strong enough word. Giving me an actual name to focus on would probably be a terrible idea.
That last sentence is what I’m currently working out with my iPad therapist. I think I come from a long line of revenge seekers and hate holders. It still shows up in my family today. They all want a focus for their anger over my situation and there is none. My divorce is just a thing and not even that unique a thing. Anyhow, this is not the coping with feelings post I did have a small story relating to last night.
This dude who was pressing me hard for being unconcerned about money and my future had no idea what kind of monster he was playing with. After he made some boring statement about how long his retirement money would last and blah blah lifestyle he paused. And waited. I must not have been paying attention because he hit me with a WELL? Oh I’m sorry, did that require a response? He just glared so I pressed on.
Are we playing that game where everyone adds on to the story? Great…
So later this week you find out you’re riddled with incurable cancer and only have three months to live. You throw half of your saved pile at an experimental treatment in the hopes of buying a few more years but it doesn’t really work and you croak before the end of the year. Do you think anyone is going to remember what a diligent little saver you were or are their memories going to be based on how you treated them? If our little encounter here is any indication I’m thinking there will be a lot of whispered “at least we wont have to talk about retirement every five minutes anymore.” Who’s next?
I probably wont be invited back to hang out with that group again and that’s okay. This was a friend of a friend situation anyway and I should have picked up on the fact that there was plenty of space for my chair and cooler next to that guy even though I arrived late. Just doin me some socializing.