It's bittersweet, the taste of her lips still on mine. She has not even been out of the house for more than 10 minutes, and yet I wept. I don't know why. She will be back in three days, but for some reason it feels wrong, or yet the anticipation that it will feel like an eternity. I am so afraid of losing her, becoming an single parent, or worse yet, just becoming an individual again. For the many changes that have occurred over the last 365 days, they have been changes that have taken away my individuality. And yet when I look at my past, that is the one thing that I was so afraid of losing. Now, I fear it returning to me. Because my individuality would return in the wake of a giant loss of family; losing my wife and my daughter. I do not know if that irrational fear will ever leave my mind completely. It seems as if it lives in dark shadows, only showing its face at the opportunity of a loss of a loved one. The opportunity being, this time, on the road for 4 hours away from me, while she travels to St. Louis to work for a few days so that we can be more financially stable to move in a few weeks. She leaves me with Vivian, in order to pack and to watch over the house and the pets. She left. Only to return, my rationality reminds me; only to return in a few days. Calm down.
Anxiety has been a very close friend the last few days; sorrow also an acquaintance. I have been anxious because I walked away from my job for a new one; walked away from a contract that states I will now owe them $16,000 since I didn't stay for a year; because I will be walking into a position I know next to nothing about in an industry I'm almost completely new to (again). I am anxious because we will be leaving our house, our doctors, our way of life here in Illinois, our insurance, our security; all leaving it behind to face an unknown future. Facing an unknown place to live, unknown medical practitioners, unknown insurance, and an unknown way of life. Anxious because of the things I am not leaving behind but instead dragging them with me; a growing pile of debt that only seems to be amassing volume every week, every mile. Dragging it with me, it only picks up debris from the road, never erodes with the wear of time or effort. Alas, I am uneasy and sleep little.
Add to these feelings a sense of loss, albeit temporary, because she left with her mother only now twenty minutes ago. I have before me a large house to pack up, furniture to disassemble, large heavy things to lift and carry short distances. I have a list to complete, an infant to take care of, and six other furry souls to supervise. I look everywhere and see a task, yet I see no sense of urgency in me or even minor enthusiasm for completion.
I am tired. I am hungry. I am anxious. I am excited as well; to see my friends back in my hometown, to have a better quality of life that I know assuredly will come with living back in St. Louis. And to quit working at a high-stress, overworked, underpaid, third-shift job to work instead at a cushy, desk-height, underpaid, low-stress day job. And now, I am tired of typing. Off instead to go find a sandwich or something else to kill the rumble below my diaphragm.
It's been so long since I've been on here consistently that I had nearly forgotten the original purpose of using the website. I went back to my first post (nearly a full four years old) and re-read it. I then re-read a few of the less older ones. I'm glad to say I still love my old writings, and I'm especially happy that I kept old poems on here. If I could toot my own horn here, I'd say that it's still good stuff. But anyway, back to the original purpose: to write a book online; one paragraph or page at a time. And I realized why it wasn't working out in it's purpose as planned for the last four years for two whopping reasons:
1) The activism actually got in the WAY. It didn't help, but nonetheless I am not regretful of adding it on here. It should have its own site and blog...but if I did that it would just be for posterity's sake; I would probably not add to it. Facebook has become my site for that. My network is much larger there and the Causes application has even more solidified FB as the correct vehicle (for now anyway) for that purpose. Plus, I had been updating all three of my networking sites (here [if that counts], MS, and FB). That took up a lot of time when I would come across a particular article or newstory that got the ol' juices flowing. In fact, the more that I think about it, I think I'm going to streamline this entire thing before fully delving into writing: archiving the activism points or deleting them all together if they were posted elsewhere here on Xanga, getting rid of my MS page (I never use it anyway), and putting those activism writings back to FB where they belong. Yeah, tonight might be a good night to get all of this taken care of.
2) I didn't have a real plan on how to present the book. I always knew it would be a type of autobiography especially detailing the "early years" and Rob's story. But, on the same token, I kind of wanted to use poetic license and change the characters to protect Robbie. He is, after all, the most innocent of men and I would never want my actions to negatively harm him. Two, if Rich and/or Norma, the real culprits, ever decided to take action against me, I could simply claim a fictional story - although no reasonable person would really accept the claim except to say that Ben and Cynthia's parts were more of a fiction than reality; but even those characters are based on real people in the real world. Ben is my part; my stylized depression and persona that seeks to understand his world around him while simultaneously trying to overcome it; mostly to fail miserably. Cynthia, on the other hand, is not actually based on Jes; while some parts of her will come into reality, Cyn will be a mix of the many women in my life that has caused me both joy and suffering but those who I have/still loved; equal parts Beverly (for the misaligned and manipulative persona that still seeks to protect you at perhaps your own personal cost), Jes (for the loving wife who would do almost anything for her husband, but also a woman haunted by her past family life and consequential failures), Suzie (for her ability to drive a man crazy with desire but also push him away because of her irresponsibility, low self-confidence, and lack of general ambition about anything/apathy), and just other character traits. Cynthia is what I consider a "hinge" character; the book wouldn't really work without a female character like her. And that is what the biggest problem was: I didn't realize that I needed this character so bad until recently: if I had presented the book in a non-fictional manner I would have had to explain to the reader how my mother, wife, and past lovers had changed me into who I am and will become. This would have been a book by itself, and a very dry one at that! Rather, the hinge character of Cyn (that's what Ben calls her) allows me to do the same thing, but it's more interesting and mysterious because it's done through dialogue and relationship growth between Ben, Cyn, and the audience. In addition, I can weave the story of Rich and Norma through Ben and Cynthia; it makes for a more interesting read. Ben and Cyn is an emotional tale while Rich and Norma is a narrative tale; who did what at what time to produce this product is both couples' tale, but the only difference is this: Ben and Cyn produce an emotional state of mind while Rich and Norma produce an actual realistic set of circumstances. And, to put the cherry on top, the interplay of the human emotional state of mind given a set of circumstances (primarily here what has happened in my life given the life I am to lead) is precisely the argument I wanted to set forth in what would have been the non-fiction book. But my set-up now is just a bit more stylized and hopefully will now more than likely write itself. I don't have to go in any particular order: I can start anywhere and still get to the same point as I would have had I attempted the strictly non-fiction work.
And yet another reason; my life up to this point has been very hectic; with graduating, opening up a business, closing a business, moving, getting married, and having a baby. Yes, all of those things happened in the last year.
So, my fair reader(s), I will bid you adieu until next time. I want to get things really organized. Au revoir.
It's been over a year since I wrote in Xanga. It seems like it's been at least a decade.
Since I’ve last written, I’ve been busy.
I have:
1)Graduated from Saint Louis University with Magna Cum Laude Honors
2)Accepted a full time position with Commercial Letter, Inc.
3)Started a Pet Grooming Salon and Health Boutique
4)Been fired from Commercial Letter, Inc.
5)Started the first Secular Student Alliance Group in Metro St. Louis
6)Become engaged to my sweetheart, Jessica Lynn
7)Accepted a much better, higher-paying position at Con-way Freight
8)Found out that I’m going to be a father in April 2009
9)Moved above my business
10)Decided to close my business
11)Taken the raise and relocation package with Con-way Freight to La Salle, IL.
12)Found out that that I’ll be having a little daughter.
Wow.What a world.Now what comes next:actually moving to La Salle, having a baby, and getting married to Jes.We’ll no longer have the business (we’re in the process now of either selling it or just closing doors and counting our losses), but we’ll be a family.I can’t believe it.Last year I didn’t know if I wanted to stay with this woman.And now I found myself looking forward to the rest of my life with her and a little baby girl to call my own.We still haven’t found a name for her.We were thinking about Nolan Scott if she would have been a boy.Now, it’s between Carolyn Elizabeth or any other name we think of.I personally like Carolyn.
But it doesn’t really matter what her name is.Of course I’ll love her all the same, and take care of her no matter what her name is or what she looks like.She’ll be my little baby girl.And I’ll have a wife, and a family, up here in Northern Illinois.That’s where I’m typing this as we speak, in a Days Inn in Oglesby, IL while Jes is at the hospital.It’s un-related kidney type issues, but I wish I was there for her.It kills me that I’m not there by her side helping her cope with all of these changes.The stress is unimaginable.So many changes over the past 365 days.Some of the biggest events in a man’s life came to me within just one year.And more to come in 2009.Graduation.The First Big Job.Starting A Business.The Big Lay-Off.The Second Bigger and Better Job.Pregnancy.Proposal.Closing a Business.Moving.Marriage.Baby.
No wonder I’ve been stressed out.I’ve finally had time to just sit back and realize all of this.In the mean time I’ve seen my best friend’s grandfather die (he was close to me as well), an investor come and go, and my own father lose his job, gain his old job back, work in Iraq, and then come back home after a near-death experience with an RPG.
I’m only twenty-three years old.Do you believe it?
Sometimes I don’t.I thought about shutting down this account because I’m never on it.I was just going through my email account, cleaning up the 185 new messages because I’m too busy at work (Con-way takes up about 60 hours a week now, with the rest of the week going towards the Salon and Jes herself) to check my personal messages anymore.But I’m glad I’m writing this.
And if anything ever happens to me before I turn 24, I think I’ve seen some of life’s biggest challenges and overcame them.Or, they overcame me.
It's been a while since I've posted. And for good reason. I've been stuck in this superego rut where I stopped living in the present for a while. I was living in the distant future. I was so obsessed with what was to be that I stopped just being. That scares me. I've always strived to live in the moment, to see the absurdity of life itself but to still live for living. I got so caught up that I actually forgot to even do this five page legal environment of business paper that was due yesterday. I ended up only turning in a page of text, with two *illegitimate* sources of information. Really. I know it was freaking horrible. But those sources were not completely illegit, they were just cited wrong.
I guess what's pulled me out of it is my girlfriend. She's great for that sort of thing. She knows that I can't be on a soapbox 24/7, and that I need to just live life. And that means not looking at Facebook while I eat dinner. I was so bad a couple of nights ago. She fixed me dinner and I was stuck on FB, proselytizing as always. She had to close the laptop hinge, I was so bad. I apologized, but I honestly don't know how she deals with me. I've got a good decade and a half before I see any real change in society, but I still strive for it everyday.
And the other day was worse, still. We had this big discussion about us. About how we've been on top of each other for a little bit too much, and that how I needed some time away. Not like "split-up" kind of time away, but just time to breathe. And then guess who, of all people, I saw yesterday? Yep, it was Suzanne.
I actually saw her while I was typing up that one page piece of shit legal business paper. She was in the computer lab with me, handing out surveys for her marketing class. It seemed like she was really glad to see me. Perhaps that's just how I see it.
Jess and I talked about Suzanne, too, two nights ago. She thinks I'm still not over her. I think I am, to a certain extent. But it's just hard to get over someone that you first really fell in love with. And I don't think Jess understands that. Her family life has completely jaded her into thinking that she can't fall in love, or that she shouldn't, because of the aftermath that might occur will shake her to her core. Sometimes I wish she wasn't like that, and she was sort of used to people treating her like she deserves to be treated. Instead, everyday I'm with her, she brings these sorts of things up, like with her father. I really do respect Jess, she's so much stronger than me. But perhaps the relationship would be easier (and I think she would ultimately agree with me) if her father hadn't treated her like that, and decided to end his life the way he did. Jess would be a much happier person.
But still, that would mean that Jess wouldn't be the way I love her. She's how she is, and I don't think it's right for me to wish she would change. I certainly wouldn't like it if she wished me to change drastically. So, yeah.
But, for right now I think I have to, once again, re-prioritize my life. Finals are coming up. Christmas shopping still needs to be done. I'll need to worry about financial aid and my school/work schedule once again. And finding a new job is also on my plate, if I don't want to go absolutely apeshit at Sears. And I need more money, but shit that particular woe, I presume, will always be in my life. But at least I'm not alone. And for that, I thank the world itself.
This blog has changed. It's for the Movement now. And there's a lot more buzz that's going on that what we had previously thought. It's so sweet! Anyway, just thought you peeps might like to know what's going on in my life. I'm really happy, for once in my life. I'm not lonely, I have this huge WONDERFUL goal in front of me, and I have a beautiful caring girlfriend that's willing to support me and the Movement. Wow!!!
