QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

Last week I sent Nebraska a text message.  The reason for my doing so is the stuff that makes up either a bad sitcom premise or the sensible reasoning for someone living with a brain injury.  So that is that with that!

MAKING THE LEAP FROM YOUR EVIDENCE-FREE BELIEF

“Everyone and everything is interconnected in this universe.

Stay pure of heart and you will see the signs.  Follow the

signs, and you will uncover your destiny.”

       - Jeff (who lives at home)

I have been doing well as I struggle along, each passing day further cementing the traits that I had once assigned the phrase “new normal” to simply evolving into my “normal”.  I am cool with where I am, cool with the things that I have to look forward to, and more importantly, confident that I will reach the goals that I have set for myself.  This spring will mark the first of several benchmarks that I have set for myself, and this statement further solidifies that I am the path of achieving some of my grandest hopes.

This spring when I am in Carolina to celebrate KT’s ascension into young adult status, I will also be afforded the opportunity to tell her exactly how much I do love her and apologize for not being more present in her life.  While admitting to my slack as her father, I will hopefully be able to have her understand what she means to me and outline the future of our relationship.  This outline, the hoped for foundation for our relationship in the years to come, is similar to the one that I intend to share with her sisters, Lexxie and Skye, at my next opportunity (which is why I can DEFINITELY see a beer or two with Mrs. Miss and Mr. Mischief in the foreseeable future!).  With the latter two, I cannot wait to engage with as capable adults, with their own belief systems in place, hopefully free from the conflicting opinions of their Mother’s. While becoming their friend won’t be a cakewalk, I do expect that we will get the opportunity to establish a strong connection to go with the genetic and spiritual bond we share as parent and child.  This, being able to build solid and real relationships with my daughters has been my goal for the past 18 years.                         

Along with taking another step closer to coming to terms with my ex-wife (because no, I would not ever date her or risk getting to “know” her intimately… I don’t know if that should count, but there it is...), it is about time for me to reassess and analyze my progress toward my specific and general goals.

Journaling has been a part of a paradigm shift in my thinking.  Prior to that, I kept my intentions and designs to myself.  The reasoning for not declaring myself had nothing to do with any modesty or reluctance in the face of “fail” repercussions, but because of my understanding of the solitary path of exceptionalism at the time.  I can’t really be certain of when this ideal first took root in my consciousness, only that it made it quite easy for me to deal with the “whatever” that kept me from any of the larger social communities that I have belonged to.  At some point in my late 20’s, it became clear that I would need to adjust my thinking.  There has always been room for an “outlier” branch to my path that allowed for someone or for a group to become a part of me, but it went unacknowledged.  That has changed along with several other tacit understandings I have held about life, both in general and specific to me.

Now we are moving into the meat of where my thoughts have been for most of this year.  Perhaps the residue of going over the contents of my character played a bigger role in my texting Nebraska than my memory fail because more than being present in my thoughts as a (P)erson, she has been more like an object lesson, similar to many of my broad rantings about the different “societies and organizations” that I playfully (kinda..!) lump African-American women in. If I were to try to define my indifference, it would be that their “hard” is more than the suffering of of others, particularly to the demographic that I belong to, African-American men.  I also believe that this tendency has developed into a major flaw, that with the collapsing of social barriers, is now part of (W)omen issues with (M)en.  And a corollary to this perception is seen in goal setting.

If you ask for what women are looking for in a relationship, too often you will likely receive a generic response such as, “a good man”, or something that is just as bland and indefinite.  They have some vague idea of what they are looking for, and as long as it is a vague notion, there is an absolution from any kind of responsibility for their own behavior.  It brings to mind a comment from the comedian Louis CK about people complaining about cell phones - “... the worst cell phone in the world is a freakin’ miracle.  The cell phone doesn’t suck.  Your life... around the cell phone… THAT’S what sucks!”  As with my women like my ex-wife, who had the gall to bad mouth the “new Miss What’s Happenin’” that her 2nd husband found, she never ONCE admits to her own shortcomings.  That is what I think about anyone, men or women, who paint over the flaws of their own character to instead besmirch that of a gender or population because they are unable to find a partner.

As I said earlier, my journaling is a result of my going from one way of thinking to another.  My change was done less out of any inefficiency on my part as it was part of the continued evolution that was taking place in my life.  This is not limited to only my way of thinking but how I handle relationships as well.  In my time as a “fly on the wall”, it seems that this is another area where people in want of a partner fail.  They have stopped growing, especially in critical areas of connectivity with other people.

IDEAS ARE JUST WISHES THAT WITHER AWAY WITHOUT A GOAL

While I am speaking in general about relationships, this process is relevant to any idea that a person may have that manifests itself into a desire.  Wanting something is fine, it is from wants where goals are born.  But I wonder how much effort is a person going to put forth to make an idea transform from something notional and into something tangible, something that can be measured, like an action that brings about a result that can directly applied to the progress made toward a goal.  It is EFFORT that pushes the process along from the abstract, to something that be realized.

I have not made much talk about any of my furtive forays into the dating pool because I can’t swim! :0)  Seriously, there haven’t been any serious discussions that have moved beyond my uncovering unhealed wounds and disproportionate sense of importance that would, at least to me, contradict any desire to include someone else in their life.  To say that “I want a relationship,” is not enough.  Being willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make a relationship viable as well as making oneself vulnerable, along with other characteristics that make up a coupling, these things have to be taken into consideration.  This, I think, is part of the process that makes wishing for love something that you can begin to expect, because you are now planning on what you are willing to offer for what you hope to receive. And here is where irony rears itself up and pokes its head in between the curtains.  Because with both relationships that I have been involved since I have been in Omaha, I do believe that there is evidence that would indicate that either past experience or negative biases, or both, were involved with the eventual dissolution of the relationships.

AND AGAIN… THAT IS WHY I CAN LET MY PAST BE THE PAST

For all my talk about Tee Jay, when the opportunity presented itself for me to make a play for her, I could not bring myself be wholehearted in my pursuit, because I could not make a life progression by going back to a situation where I failed and the elements of why I failed were still present.  Not to mention the complications of my own needs, desires and designs on how I want to fulfill those designs… it just did not seem feasible.  But that is not the only reason that I cannot imagine myself with someone from the past.

Like with my marriage, both iterations of love with Mookie Dee, as with Nebraska and Princess, I have never been able to reconcile the different personas that are involved with trying to love someone that you “used to know”.  As much work as it takes for a relationship to be nurtured and developed, it is harder on a unimaginable magnitude for a successful relationship to occur the second time around.