“Mark, you think too much”, is a phrase that I have heard repeated throughout the entirety of my conscious life, or it so it seems. Once I became self-aware and begin to follow my instincts and encouragement, I developed my perspective that was mainly independent of outside influence, though I have always acknowledged those who did guide me to where I can confidently own my own thoughts.
In my mind, a deep and profound intellectual thinker is identified by not only their personal goals and achievements, but from an intense and constant pursuit of growth both of a spiritual and academic nature. To do that, one must be focused on the achieving of understanding themselves and the world around them, along with questioning their place and purpose in the known universe.
“I’ve been lazy… I’ve not waited for you,” starts the song “Truth, Rest Your Head”(just not in this video!! :0( ), by the band Gene, and it is something that can be said of me and my own pursuits. Not that I am an impatient person by nature but that in what I call “the time of timelessness”, I have made choices that I think were spurred on my impulsiveness, if not impatience. So as long as those who have been around for awhile, one of my constant battles has been one of fortitude and being resolute in the face of the eddies and swirling currents of my personal journey. I will (or have) often spoke of things that are inspirational to me, such as how people have faced great obstacles and courageously overcome them and gone forward from their test and flourished in their own lives. I also enjoy reading about those who still find the space-time in their lives to be giving and thoughtful of others, of those who are not as fortunate as themselves and in spite of their own battles, go out and do for people and give them the gift of opportunity.
There isn’t too much resentment in my life. The only time I ever faced resentment was during the aftermath of my starter marriage. There were so many fails in philosophical approaches and intellectually undeveloped ideals that were held between us, that I could not respect her as a person. If she was a Cody Comet, she was a very dim one!! But while my life’s pursuits were not of a nature that I became a poet like Dante or Robert Frost, and did not think like Plato or become as moving a writer as Richard Wright, I figure that I will get to the things I missed next time. And if there IS a next time, “I’ll bring more money, ‘cause all she wants to do is dance!”
I do not think that the peculiarities of my life merit even the most objective and dispassionate observations of understanding or empathy. A recent entry in the “Reports From A Resident Alien” blog covers what I am trying to say. There is no reason for anyone to feel any particular way about me and the “less than good” thing that I deal with or the fail to achieve an optimal outcome from my actions and choices. “Be kind… for everyone is fighting a hard battle”, is something that I hope is a defining character trait that people notice about me. I am hardest on myself and not on any other human being. There are occasion where it calls for me to invoke the phrase that Referee Joe Cortez is known for and I must be “firm but fair”. When I am “mean and/or harsh”, it is not with malice or anguish, but because I am going to bring a conclusion to whatever is in dispute in a relationship with me, and from there, reach a finality.
For instance, I am not stuck “in the past”, recent or otherwise, when it comes to my intimate relationships. Tee Jay, is someone who was in the rarefied air of being a “true love” in my life. We always were not only exclusive lovers but she was the one partner in my life who was truly my friend. She feels the same about me, even though we were unable to re-connect when I did get around and actually tried to rekindle our relationship. After being in the “ex-list” mode for nearly 7 years, the “something inside me” that has urged me on in life was even stronger than my desire to be in a relationship with her. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why I had never tried to get with an ex-girlfriend until I ran into Mookie Dee when I was in the “provincial town that I had once jogged ‘round” again on personal business.
I have never went too much into what took place when we were young. I met her through a mutual friend that lived out west of her town that I knew through boxing. We would hang out and she was the best friend of his then-now wife-girlfriend. Mookie and I got acquainted and it would not be until we really got together that she fell hard for me.
As long as I can remember, I have not made myself out to be anything than who I am. So when we hooked up, she knew that I wanted to leave Michigan, and failing that, Detroit. This is why I was not afraid to return to her hometown, as I really liked it there. At any rate, when she discovered I was going to enlist in the OD green, she just stopped where she was, and our relationship withered away, but it did not die. I knew that something was still alive in her regarding me when I was in Plymouth in the late 90’s and I found out that her little girl had the name that I PICKED OUT when we were kids. Not only that, it is a name that lil’ Mook shares with KT (with KT being older than Mookie Dee’s daughter, it was KT’s “first”). So I was reasonably sure that I was still on her mind.
When we reconnected, things started off fine. It was not until I begin having my trouble at the same time her job situation began to become dicey that she started to “tip” and work on “doing her”. You could say that if she had felt snookered by my surprise enlistment that she was merely getting some payback as she looked out for herself. I would disagree, as she seemed to have magnets of the same pole attached to the inside of her ankles back in the day. All it appeared to me was that not only was she as sh*tty a person as she was as a teenager (which is why I did not miss her then or do I now), she was as selfish as I thought she was, too. Even with all that, I was still left her feeling that I had confirmed what led me to pursue my past in hopes of a present day love. As for the person who was the "past love search" inspiration, Tee Jay, we get along quite well via the social network and had prior to my present relationship engendered talks about her coming out to “the big O” for a visit. Of course, you could just about expect that something would have been rekindled, and with a college-age daughter and the extra freedom that being an “on the clock” parent brings, who knew what could have happened between us… after all, a long distance relationship was part of the inspiration for me to move here, and there was FAR LESS invested in me and what may have been possible for me to make that choice.
This weekend the crew at the Pinnacle Fitness Club is going to have a Big Ten championship game viewing party at a bar somewhere on Radial Highway here in town, It is extremely unlikely that Princess would be able to make it, though to be sure, she owns the “territorial rights” and will have the offer to refuse the invitation. I am mentioning the party as I segue into my unsettled feelings about Nebraska. It does strike me that it would be a great opportunity for us as friends to go and have a good time with a great group of people. But then, we really aren’t “friends” in any sense of the word. I call her “friend” because if she needed or wanted me for something, I would be there. But I do not think that I am her friend, as I don't think that she would call on me for anything and if she thinks that I am, then I have to call into question how she treats those she calls “friend”.
Going back, back, back a few years ago, when I was at my Dad’s scuffling in my “gotta get back into this thing” phase, there was an emergency in the house. Early in the O’Dark-Thirty hours, the combo radon/smoke detector went off, rousing me from my sleep in bed on the second floor. Hearing the alarm, I did not wait for someone to tell me what was going on. I got out of bed and went from room to room telling everyone to open a window wherever they were at (as it was not difficult to see that we were not on fire). After rousing everyone I did a brief inspection of the kitchen whereupon I would discover the culprit—one of the gas eyes on the range had not been shut all the way off and the build-up caused the alarm to sound. Living in the Snow Belt, in particularly, but anywhere where the temperature drops below 30 degrees for an extended period of time during the winter, there often are stories of preventable seasonal tragedies. Inhaling fumes from some kind of inappropriately used heating device is one that will be making the rounds and I knew right off, that we were at risk for being one of those sad, sad tales. But what makes this story one that fits in here isn’t that I woke everyone up and possibly saved some lives, but that it was coincidental to the only time as an adult I ever had a full check I was due in cash on my person. The last time I ever had an entire check of a payment due to me full in cash in on my person as an adult was likely just before they made us get direct deposit in the service. The only other time I had an entire check that was due to me was at this time (which, btw, was around this time of the year). During my service to the home, getting the alarm to stop and the gas out of the house, one of my nephews took it upon him to go into my messenger bag and steal ALL of the money in my wallet. The contrast I am hoping to illustrate is how “first” I can be when I am engaged in doing something for someone, in doing the thing that “no one does but expect that somebody will”. There was no time for looking out for me, when everyone was at risk. As hurt as I was by what happened, I would have been hurt worse had one of the children in the home suffered damage from lack of oxygen or anyone else was injured because I was content to let “someone else” worry about the problem.
That story also demonstrates why I do not care to have people just hanging about in my life as “friends”. In my experience in the vessel HMS Mark Johnson, the people who should be and maybe are supposed to be close with me have been all-too often willing to sell me out, leave me hanging, and generally “fcuk a smurf over”. I am not an angel, nor do I purport myself to be. There are times where I will tell you that I would rather I had a handful of razor blades and no lubricant to fellate myself than participate in whatever you got going, but when you “break the glass” and are in a “Federal Express” situation (where you absolutely, positively, need someone to do something for you) and you call me, you can almost to a plus/minus three percent be assured that I am going to be there. Hey, just CALL ME, no maybe about it, and I will be there.
(and I really would come runnin’too…)
Another trope of mine is the quote, “We knew the environment”. And that is what is to me a “renovation”, not a remaking, of my past is, as we are what we were in whatever moment we are presently in. It is why I am forward with my emotions when I enter a relationship with a woman, on any level. Are you more “notch” than you are handhold, something to hold onto? I can tell you that right off. Am I a player? Not really, but I love ‘em all like Casanova did, so what does that mean to you? Can you be exclusive and true in a long term relationship? I want to believe so and I have had plenty of practice… maybe we are meant to go the distance with each other… there is only one way to find out!! Those are usually among the questions that I have to answer, and in the last 15 or so years of dating around and holding “panty raids”, there is one chief question that I have… “Have you made your decision for Christ!!” (not meant as a sacrilege but for those who have made it this far, you know what that is about!!)
When I got here and tried to engage Nebraska on what our status were to each other, it was never a conversation that was conclusive. Fcuk satisfying, because if had we a “satisfying” conversation, it would imply that there was something to be gained from the negotiation that was exclusive to what was best for the both of us. I wanted to know where I stood with her and understand our relationship… and I wanted for her to know where I was coming from regarding us and where I planned on going now that I am in Omaha. And that conversation never happened… and the “votes to raise the ceiling” were only temporary measures that staved off the inevitable. But what may be inevitable now can still be staved off. But what cannot be staved off is this long entry..! Sorry about that, but thanks if you hung in to read to this point… and this will be a thought that I bring to a conclusion..!
3 comments:
Your party sounds fun, Mark; enjoy it! I think it is neat you can be at this part of your life and not have a lot of resentment nor live in the past. That speaks volumes to me since I tend to carry resentment over things and sometimes dwell in the past when I should move to the future. I think it is great that you do think too much :)
betty
You wrote that you have not made yourself out to be anyone but who you are. I find that to be one of the very best things about all the people I like the most. THIS is who they are, and THAT other stuff that people try to fill you up on is not part of their vocabulary.
Hope the party happened, but the game was a dud with Wisconsin whupping some butt...
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