“THE BIGGEST DISEASE TODAY IS NOT LEPROSY OR TUBERCULOSIS, BUT RATHER THE FEELING OF BEING UNWANTED.” - Mother Teresa

TACTICAL

I have been well.  My summer achievement of being able to lift 1200 lbs. between three different lifts (the bench press, the deadlift, and the squat) is well on its way to being reached.  This Monday, I did a single for 435 lbs. in my squat.  This goes along with an observed single of 450 lbs. deadlift, and a single of 285 lbs. in my bench press.  I am looking forward to getting this out of the way so I can started doing more aerobic training and shaping up my body.

We reached out to Nebraska recently.  It and that went about as well as could be expected.  And while it is still up in the air, Lexxie isn’t likely to visit me this summer.  Que sera.  Otherwise, I have been doing pretty alright, working out and flitting around Omaha.  If anything, I have been doing a little bit of this and that with regard to mental housekeeping.

“THE BIGGEST DISEASE TODAY IS NOT LEPROSY OR TUBERCULOSIS, BUT RATHER THE FEELING OF BEING UNWANTED.” - Mother Teresa

Since I have been Mark almost all of my life (there was a little bit of a question “who I was”  in my mind for the first few weeks after I was born, but I began figuring out who I was pretty early in my kindergarten-elementary school years), being alone hasn’t been that big of an issue for me.  My concerns are mostly around the negatives that are associated with being by oneself, and doing enough to limit the effects of being alone.  For instance, I don’t allow myself to go without dealing with people and being out in public, which is more of a thing for an introvert than you would think.  But here again, because of not only my introspective nature but because of accrued information on the subject, I have taken steps to make sure that loneliness won’t be the major problem in my life.  I listen to those around me when they notice things about me that I am either unaware of or ignoring with regard to my health.  And when I have opportunity to be social, whether it is an extended impromptu conversation, or I am invited to either a function and/or on a date, it is always an 80/20 lean to going out if there is nothing on my agenda.  This was a conscious decision that I made when I decided to leave for Omaha, and that was because I know me.

Since I still have the reflexive emotional memories of growing up guiding me, I know how I am with large groups of people.  My condition does not make things any better, but like with most of my self-identified weak spots, I have continued to push myself to where I am cautiously confident in larger crowds alone.  Next up, is for me to plan a trip somewhere by myself and to DO SOMETHING while there!

Much of my time this summer has been spent picking away at things in my apartment.  From an organizational standpoint, I still have needless clutter around, though I have slowly been reducing the mess.  I think that it is an emotional attachment that is keeping most of this stuff of mine around.  Were some of the things here for practical reasons, that would be much more different and it would be easier for me to categorize and find a place for things.  At any rate, being self-referential once again, my natural inclination for order will eventually win out.  Things WILL BE straightened out and orderly around here!

SOMEONE ELSE’S MIND

Though I do think that Omaha is a nice town and I would risk the chance to make for an even better experience by “hanging about” with someone, I do really enjoy being by myself.  So when I say that I would hint at embracing a relationship, it is actually something that I feel more driven TO than  it is something inside of me.  This is important to note as in the relationships in my life that held “the most potential to…” had a high level of “wantin’ to get atcha’ brother” in common with them (this does not include the fabled “Run ‘n Shoot” era of scampering about heedless in my reckless ways) as I have always responded to someone’s interest in me.  In the occurrence that I did not respond, it was not out of a lack of awareness as much as there were likely disqualifying reasons (on either end) that kept me from doing so.  I guess I am saying that I am drawn to someone’s yearning and want as I am my own desires.  This makes sense to me as in these relationships that I am speaking of, each person THEN becomes the object of my desire AFTER I have decided to move towards the pursuit of them.  For instance, two relationships that I have spoken of frequently in my journal, my failed marriage and the one with Nebraska, among the qualities that they have in common is that at first, neither of them were that “enthralled” by me (though with the latter relationship, one would beg to differ my accounting).

While I am a bit more verbose than the character that I am about to mention, Mad Max is someone I feel a kinship towards.  Not necessarily just because he is a bad a** as well as a loner, but I see myself in him because he is those things and he lives by a coda. It gives him a nobility, a morality, the greater-than-myself something that he is living for that despite the conditions of the world around him, he always manages to adhere to a higher state-of-being than that of his current existence.  In many ways, he is one of the most honor-driven characters I know.  And that is another point in common that I have with him, that in spite of my surroundings or my lesser qualities, I live my life with a code that keeps me from egregiously being selfish.

Am I in someone else’s mind?  I think that I am.  Will we ever cross one another’s paths??  That, ladies and gentlemen, is something that I was once sure of, now is riddled with doubts.  Anywho, I don’t feel that I should mourn for something that was never thought of as “mine”...