Do-Over

I’ve restarted blogging (yet again) at a new location (yet again).  There’s nothing there yet, but I can promise you tales of swashbuckling (ok, fencing class), romance (haha, um, no), and intrigue (yeah, I’m likely exaggerating the potential for that too).  But seriously, come on over!

Badgerings, Version 6.0

Bad Blogger is Bad

Ah, another blog has fallen into disuse…

The funny thing is, the changes I’ve undergone over the last couple of months were eminently blog-worthy.  But I didn’t chronicle a damn thing.  (Well, unless you’re my friend on Facebook, and then you’ve got a pretty good idea.)

Sufficed to say, I’m absolutely totally completely kicking ass right now.  It’s mostly my own ass I’m kicking, but it’s getting to be in fine shape as I emerge from four years of isolation and grief and depression and surrender.

All that shit has been fertilizer for the new me, blossoming into something quite marvelous.

Virtual Relationships

I spend most of my time engaged in virtual relationships.  I sit at a computer screen and communicate with people who I email constantly, speak with from time-to-time via phone and VOIP, and meet face-to-face at best once-a-year.

I’m pretty comfortable with that arrangement.  I’m used to interacting that way.  I’ve been a long-time participant in online communities:  forums, chatrooms, MMORPGs, blogs, Second Life, and the like.   I know the general Do’s and Don’t’s.  I know to type carefully to minimize misunderstandings.  I know to follow up sarcasm with a “lol” or “;)”.  I know I leave an electronic trail wherever I go, one that is easily traceable and excerpted and cited and misconstrued.

The people I work for have a similarly long history with these technologies.  But it never ceases to amaze me how they insist on being such social neandrathals just as they claim to be working on the cutting edge of these media.

I know that despite it being a virtual space in which we interact, that the bits and bytes emanate from another human being.  I could never divorce the text from the body.  The people I work for seem to all the time.

In my own life, I’ve found friendship and even love in online relationships.  Through all the shit I’ve been through in the last five years, my virtual relationships gave me support and compassion that was at least as real, if not more than, that given by those offline and face-to-face.  But in my work world, I repeatedly find vitriol and poison from online interactions.  What shocks me is that I work for people who claim to want to further the field of education and technology; and yet with the very tools they extol for revolutionizing the classroom, they act like complete and utter fuckwads.

Because I’m nice enough not to post this on Facebook but mean enough to post it on the internet somewhere

Happy 16th birthday to the kid

Beyond the Breaking Point

When I wrote yesterday I’d reached my breaking point, little did I know that events would occur later in the day to push me beyond.  I’m still reeling from it, still trying to figure out how best to respond, still trying to figure out WTF I am going to do.  I should try to write something less evasive about this.  But the whole thing makes me want to puke.  So until the nausea dissipates, I’ll just be vague.  

And completely fucking miserable.

The Breaking Point

I think I’ve reached it in a number of areas in my life.  Now I just have to make some very painful decisions and take some very painful steps to walk away.

Becoming a Man

I saw a glimpse of it on Friday.  The Kid is becoming a man.

We had an interview at a school he’d hoped to attend next year:  an alternative high school designed for struggling teens who otherwise likely wouldn’t graduate.  Wait, he had an interview.  I didn’t have to come along, but one of the most important things a parent can do is be an advocate for one’s child, and considering all the battles I’ve had to fight with teachers and administrators since he stepped foot into kindergarten (and was promptly barred as he didn’t have the right paperwork onhand to prove he’d had his immunizations), I thought I’d better join him for the interview.

I needn’t have.

The alternative school is his idea.  And sitting in the interview on Friday, you could tell that.  He was attentive.  He was talkative.  He was engaged.  He didn’t slouch in his chair or mumble.  He made eye contact.  He articulated why he should be there.  The teacher apparently agreed and accepted him into the program on the spot.

I was so proud of him — quite honestly, the most proud I’ve ever been.  I saw him seize hold of his life and take charge.  It’s a big moment in anyone’s life, I’d contend, but even more so for my baby, who’s had a life swirling out of control — with such devastation — for so long.

Surviving / Surviving Me

K- says he won’t comment here because these are my private thoughts. Only they’re not really so private, as I’m typing them up and pressing “publish.” Only they’re not really so private, because I tell him most everything already.

* * *

The last week or so has been insanely difficult to me. It’s hard to pinpoint why:

• Pressure at work. Less than a month til our big annual conference. I’m struggling to get everything done.

• The Kid turns 16. That makes me old.

• Love.

K- didn’t mean for this to happen. He readily admits it. He wanted something completely superficial and quick and easy and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. Instead, over two years later, he’s stuck with me.  That’s waaaaaaay more than he bargained for.

Admittedly, I am a complete and utter fucked up mess. He’ll nod vigorously at this. “Oh my god, yes.”

But he loves me.

He tells me he loves me.

I know he loves me.

I still worry.

I worry that we won’t have enough time together. I worry about his health. I worry I’m too old. I worry I’m too crazy. I worry I’m too much. I worry I’m not pretty enough. I worry I’m not smart enough. I worry I can’t break through his walls because I’m not quite good enough.

I shouldn’t have watched He’s Just Not That Into You. (Oh, hey babe? ‘Member when I said I was gonna watch a chick flick? Yeah. Next time, just FYI, that’s your cue to STOP ME) Because now I fear he’s just not that into me.

(Oh, hey babe? I’m gonna go watch Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Can’t really advise you on how to react. I’ll let you know in Running Time 1:41:56)

“I am Caine”

I grew up on the Carradines.  John in Stagecoach.  Robert in Revenge of the Nerds.  David in “Kung Fu.”

I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino because of his crazy worship of popular culture (crazier than mine!!).  I loved Kill Bill for a lot of reasons, but certainly David Carradine as Bill was one of them. 

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem." -- David Carradine

RIP

Realize

I am not sure where to begin. I have a million thoughts, some merely connected by the fact that they are buzzing about my heart and head.

The Kid turns 16 next week. It makes me feel old. It makes me feel anxious. It makes me feel horrible — not because his father would’ve made a big deal of the occasion — but because he’s not here to choose to do something or nothing.  The Kid misses his dad.  That’s good, I guess, because it means he’s forgetting how much they didn’t get along.  I want the Kid to have sunny memories of A-.  There are too many clouds in his world.

I saw some friends last weekend that I hadn’t seen in far too long.  One was Kr- and I am embarrassed that it’d been a year since we’d seen each other.  It was a reminder that despite my protests to the contrary, I remain a hermit.  She gave me a massage — again, long overdue.  We talked about life and love and the Kid.  We talked about A-.  We went to a barbecue at some friends’ house — these friends I hadn’t seen in about a decade.  One of them, T-, was really someone I looked up to as older and wiser when I was 19.  (Ah, what wisdom meant back then.)  We joked about those days:  Oil City Printers.  Drugs — trips and deals gone awry.  He’d not come to A-‘s memorial service, something for which he apologized.  Something for which he needn’t have.

People still don’t know what to say around me.

Both Kr- and T- made similar observations about A- and about how… controlling isn’t the right word… opinionated he was.  He had a very clear notion of right and wrong and a very strong sense of how those around him should be.  I’d long seen how this had been hard for the Kid.  The Kid bucked against his father’s wishes, his politics, his art, his everything.  (And now has an immense amount of guilt for his resentment and anger at his father — what should really just be the natural rebellion of a son takes a different turn when you don’t get to take that journey through the teenage years to the reconciliation that comes in one’s 30s.)  But I’d never really taken the time to assess how A-‘s controlling (gah, that word) had impacted me.  T- and Kr- both noticed it.

And now I am free.  It is a blessing.  And I know,  it’s a horrible thing to say, and I should probably feel guiltier feeling it than I do.   But I’m free.

I can be me.  I can spend money on gadgets that would’ve incurred A-‘s wrath.  “An iPhone.  That’s fucking ridiculous,” he’d have repeated every time I touched it.  (He’d have even hated the iPod).  “You’re coloring your hair?”  “You’re on a diet?”  “You are going to wear that?”  “What’s with the makeup?”  “Are you going to turn off the computer?”  “You want to spend how much on hair removal?”  “You want to eat meat?”  “Do you really need to buy vodka and gin?”  I can’t hear his voice.  I can’t hear his criticisms.

(I just hear my voice and my criticisms… which I still need to address.)

I cancelled my subscription to World of Warcraft today.  Playing MMOs has been something I have done since A-‘s death.  The games have been virtual worlds where I can be someone else, where I can pretend for a short time that I am a great healer, that I can control who lives and who dies, that I’m skilled, valued, respected.  I can’t play any longer.

I’m not.

I have no control — life has shown me that — although I still wrestle to find some semblance of control over my own life.  The only person I can heal is me.  Even my son’s path — at 16 — now lies largely outside my control.

It is only me.