THE CODIEFIED LIFE IX

 

TACTICAL

KT had her senior prom this a couple of weeks ago and she looked fabulous!  She is such a beautiful young woman, inside and out.  When I think of the Carolina gir--.er, the Carolina YOUNG WOMEN and how they have had been allowed the gift of knowing where as in Lexxie’s case, where she gets her wanderlust from, or in KT’s, to know that she has “inherited” her smarts from her Father AND now she is going to be attending her Dad’s school, I think is of great benefit and comfort to them.  I wish that Skye could have had the same  sense of inherited purpose as her sisters has but …

I am still tracking to make graduation as well as getting an “A” out of my Speech Class.  Still need to connect with my computer benefactor to get it up and rolling (the library is downtown, not far from work so there you go..!) and I am super grateful for it!  I mean, a potential problem is already solved, just need to continue to demonstrate the same kind of diligence and focus and I will get things do.

Nebraska gave me two plants a couple of years ago that I named after the Carolina Young Women, and like their real-life namesakes, they have outgrown their old place in my life… but UNLIKE the Carolina Young Women, I just need to re-pot them and that ought to do it.  I am glad that she gave them to me because thinking of them as my daughters has given me good company every day that I have had them.  It is doubtful that I would develop a greener thumb, but it still will be cool to have them around for a long time.  It should go without saying that whatever connection that they have with the giver has been evaporated.

On my recent Pynchon-like entries, Thomas left a comment on the one that featured a T.D. Jakes quote that I picked up from Facebook.  The idea that a person would “see a need” and go along as if nothing had happened and they made no observation that there should have been something placed upon their heart and soul, well…

WHY MY LIFE IS CODIFIED?

I would not be surprised if I have already covered this topic, but what else is a a journal is supposed to be about, if not for going over the niceties of one’s own life.  With recent developments having added an “example of immediacy” for study, I am going to refer to the most recent case model, the episode of my panic attack where I had no one to call upon, though I could not have been faulted for thinking that there was someone that would have been there for me.  Anywho, like many people who are vexed by their core relationships, lost in the throes of confusion on self achievement,  I found myself wondering what was going on in my life and with the interactions with those with whom I could reasonably expect to be closest to me.

As was the case when my marriage deteriorated, which found my sisters and Mother siding with my ex-wife, I was at a loss, both in the direct aftermath and in subsequent consideration, as to why things went the way that they did with Nebraska and myself..  First, there was the dreaded “booty call” gambit, which I had spent years explaining in email and instant messaging conversation that I believed meant something to her, that I had moved beyond that character flaw.  So I took and applied that reasoning to her perception of my character.  I have never been a cat who cried out for Mother, so I am wondering how is it that a person could believe that I would be as duplicitous as to make up an “emergency” for the opportunity for self-gratifying sex?  You know what..? F*ck that person!! (... and I truly mean, “f*ck that person”, because they just confirmed for me that they are comparing me poorly with the tropes about men, the men specific to their lives, and their poorly informed opinions)

Though the case can be made for my “mis-remembering” the sequence of events and the actual events that may have taken place, when there is a feeling I can attach to something concrete, something that I can have moored directly to a valued belief, then it is going to take “one more step” for a person to guard against becoming a disincorporated entity in my life.

With my “Rules To Live By”, not only do I know what kind of people to allow in my life, but I also know to what level of access to allow those that I have chosen to allow to be a part of my days and nights (which are the nights of my days) while they are a part of it.  The “Rules…” also takes the “...if they would just…” and all the magical thinking that feeds bad relationship out of the equation.  “If the rule that you used brought you to this,” begins Anton Chigurh, “of what use was the rule?”  This is the acknowledging of the possibility that one would feign weakness, overcome by some feeling, an error of judgment that takes the place of “love” and serves as an excuse for bad taste and worse judgment.  By accepting this as a part of my larger philosophical profile, it places the “blame” for my own personal unhappiness squarely upon me.

For what I have observed to be an exclusive club, when it comes to accepting the hard truths about oneself and the pursuit of ones burning desires, the membership roll’s numbers are small indeed.  For instance, even with my “for the win” comeback in the Connector Building at school, I have readily acknowledged my shortcomings and been accepting of the ones sussed out through the observations of others.  

“Am I a douche?”  Hmm, that is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities… I mean, sheepish guilt does not undo the crap I have done in my life.  But having reached a point of critical mass, where on the other side of reaction is the person I want to be and grow from,  as well as

the core of what I was, I felt that I needed to do more than offer myself empty platitudes.  

Being a “different kind of cat”, I knew that the change I wanted in my world, in my life, I first needed to see in myself.  That meant that I first had to apply these rules to myself and find their meaning in my life.

Some of my rules and axioms, like Carl Von Clausewitz quotes on making decisions and the connection that you have in your lieutenants, as well as Schopenhauer statements on trifles and how people deal with them, along with people who ain’t sh--, er, scoundrels and what not, have been repeated frequently.  But  my rules are similar to the face on the Steve Mariucci clock, the one where the numbers on the clock’s face have been replaced with the word “Now”.  There is no one particular rule that is the most important-- it is depending upon the situation and what the demands are.

On the list, the first three rules could all be said to be “the most important”.  They are:

1.  “Answer questions on what’s best, never what’s easy.” - CVC

From leaving my abusive first wife, to deciding to finally blow the “...provincial town…” along with the broken relationship I had with Mookie Dee, and possibly including the expelling of Nebraska from my life, figuring out “what’s best” is simple.  The complication is in the execution of what’s best.  Realizing that the time is “now”, acting, which includes the planning stages of whatever question that must be answered,

One of the problems that many of us have is doing what seems to be the hardest part, taking the first step.  A lot of people,by my own personal estimation of what is their proverbial “first step”, just cannot seem to make take that initial step.  As with Mookie Dee and my ex-wife, it was not easy but it was necessary.  The moment that I reached the limit with Mookie Dee, I had been preparing for weeks beforehand, so I was not caught in an extreme position of distress.  It was not easy, as I journaled at the time, with my commitment to the relationship that I was in v. my own self-interest.

“My name is Easy, but I take the hard way out.” - Eric Wright

Honestly, it is NEVER easy to decide to end a relationship.  But the line of control for what is best against what is easy for most of us exists in one’s mind, usually resting around desire and comfort.  By taking an idea and trusting in the process that spawned it,  and being content with the growth that occurs from delaying a probable happiness for the disappointment that comes from throwing oneself at the feet of an unrepentant “love thief”, is not easy.  But what it is, and what should make up for the rush of the moment, is that it is what is best.  The reason that, at least as far as I can tell, that many people get caught up in their own egoism, their own present moment and circumstance.

Yeah, another longish entry… but I am sure that once I get my gift squared away that I will be catching up with those who still are blogging.  And if there is no one for me to catch up with, then I am back to writing “scriptures in the wasteland”!