I’ve suspected this for a while but It’s been confirmed. You’ve got one shot in this life and there’s no grace when things go awry. None.
I spent this past weekend in my hometown as we headed up to pick up my oldest daughter from camp and celebrate my brothers 47th birthday. The downtown was hosting an “All Class Reunion” as they’ve done the past few years which is a great time. It’s fun to see old classmates and their families and see how everyone is doing.
Despite my inability to hear and focus, my desire to get out and socialize pulled me out of the house. I took the kids out or dinner then planned to park near my parents and walk to Briq’s Ice Cream, or formerly “Jet’s Dairy Bar” as it was called when I was a kid in Rhinelander, WI.
The All Class reunion overtook the downtown area as Brown Street was full of former Hodags, music and food vendors. There were laughs and smiles everywhere you looked as people were connecting with friends, both old and new.
My new health nonsense has created an issue in that I no longer feel like seeking out conversation. It’s just hard, especially in loud and busy environments. As much as I desired connecting with those I had spent a good portion of my childhood with, I put my head down and avoided as much eye contact as possible as I weaved through the crowd to the top of the street for Ice cream. This was a mistake. What was I thinking?
I saw one of my old friends, Mike, who graduated HS a year ahead of me and I was fortunate to have him as a roommate for a year in college. He’s a solid dude who’s has been a positive influence in the community working for the School District. I had to say hello as I saw him walking down the sidewalk with his father, who I’ve also known for almost as long as I’ve known Mike. What a mistake that was. I could barely understand what he was saying and I could only think about was leaving. How rude. His dad was just standing back a few feet away and as much as I wanted to say “Hi” to Tom, as I did every single time before, I couldn’t. Tom’s an older gentleman and very social. We always joke laugh about how he’d trap you in the grocery store and put his hand on my cart so I couldn’t get away when he was talking. LOL. It was fine. I didn’t mind chatting with Tom, he’s Mike’s dad and he’s just as friendly and personable as his son. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just wanted to leave.
I saw a couple other classmates and had to keep it short with a “Hey _____ ,Good to see you. Hope all is well” without even really stopping to engage in conversation.
We made it up the street for ice cream. From the top of the hill, I could see the crowd down the street and hear the music. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to see old friends and introduce my girls, being the proud dad I am of them. I also wanted to avoid it and take the long walk around back to the truck as I didn’t feel like being social. That’s weird for me as I’m usually not one to shy away from anything.
I felt paranoid too. I couldn’t help but think about what Mike was thinking about. Do I look and sound as weird as I feel? Fuck. If Mike thinks it, I’m sure everyone else does. I just wanted to go home.
My desire to make one last pass down Brown Street won over and we headed back down the hill through the crowd. I’m glad we did. We made it past the band and the noise where it began to thin out and I ran into one of my old buddies, Buzz. What a character this guy is. One of the nicest, most genuine human beings I’ve ever known. I met Buzz through my old neighbor. He’s about 20 years older than me and he worked at the local printing company, where my neighbors father worked with Buzz for decades. My neighbor and I ended up working there for a bit as well a couple summers and hanging over at Buzz’s house with a case of beer was a regular thing. Buzz is Rhinelander through and through and has himself a beautiful family with his wife and his now grown daughters who were just grade schoolers at the time of the regular Mason St. hangs. I had to stop. Buzz was there with his wife and oldest daughter, who I see fairly regularly when I’m downtown while home. She and her husband acquired a piece of old property downtown and have rehabbed it into a nice gathering place, for like showers and parties and shit like that. It was nice, quiet and calm and I could focus and enjoy the conversation. It’s always good to see Buzz doing well. We’re friends on Facebook and he’s always posting these really stupid, yet hella funny memes and I can hear his laugh. The guy hasn’t changed a bit in 20 years, Fumanchu and all. Love it.
I turned in Saturday night fairly early after some trash TV and a coke, like still in the 10pm hour. We stopped at the store on the way home so I could make some flapjacks for the girls in the morning after a paddle on the river with my oldest Brother. I was spent. This shit is exhausting.
I had one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had in about a month. I felt fresh. I felt good. Of course, it doesn’t take long for that feeling to disappear once the focus goes towards the attention whoring headhorn I’ve got going on. Ugh. Here we go. It’s gotta go, right? I have to get up and get moving about my day. I’m an adult with adult responsibilities (which is total bullshit. Not sure you knew that).
Apparently, the coffee pot hadn’t been used since we were last there over the 4th so that was cool. There was a Keurig, but the only cups available were either decaf or mocha. There’s a gas station up the road and they’re coffee will do in a pinch. I’m no coffee snob, but I can’t do swill and this is just a burnt bean from swill. My bro was coming over to paddle with me and I figured he’s want a decent cup of coffee as well. So I dealt with the hot vinegar steam as I cleaned out the moldy coffee pot.
(*Wil, I apologize for not disclosing the moldy coffee pot but hopefully you’re here reading this).
Wil and I paddled up the river and back for about an hour and half. It was perfect. It was calm. The morning haze over the river in the 8 o’clock hour provided enough warmth from the sun like a lite blanket. Shorts and long sleeve t-shirt/hoody weather is my jam. We talked music, politics, family, etc and it wasn’t until pulling the kayak out of the water that I realized I wasn’t thinking about my head. It seemed to match my peace at the moment. I need more of that. I need peace.
I played golf with some of the family that afternoon. My mom, aunt and oldest brother along with his kids joined my other Brother in a round of golf to celebrate his birthday. I struggled a bit.
One of benefits of this issue is that it’s improved my golf game. I shit you not. I almost fell on my face my first time out with this and thought I’d have to hang it up for good. It’s forced me to maintain balance and slow down. I have to keep my head down and control my swing. Weird huh? It works! I’m not perfect, but I definitely have more “good” shots than “bad” now and I feel like I can at least play with anyone, without feeling inadequate. It’s way more fun!
The biggest issue is that I have a hard time tracking my ball. I try and make sure I keep my head down and if I don’t catch the flight of the ball, I have no clue where it’s headed. When I play with the dudes at home, we’re there playing golf and we help each other out tracking balls and looking for the few in the rough. I mistakenly held those same expectations with the family. Looking for golf balls is hard and I get the swirlies pretty quickly when I’m moving my eyes and head back and forth. When I get the swirlies, it’s harder to maintain swing control and it becomes a cycle of frustration that I’m learning to deal with.
After golf we went to my parents for lasagna and birthday cake before starting the long journey back home, which became the longest 5 hours ever, having two sleeping girls in the car and me being stuck in my head.
I can’t do this for long. It’s fucking torture. I can’t sit at my desk and manage projects like I used to. It’s too hard. I have three monitors set up on my desk for drawings, emails, etc and it’s just exhausting after a few minutes and I need to go close my eyes and ground myself for a bit. I can’t focus on calls and I just don’t want to engage with customers, even tho I need to. So what do I do? I just fake it and remain miserable because I’ve got bills. People give a fuck more about making sure bills are paid then actually staying alive. Don’t believe me? Try doing something else. When something like this happens, how do you pivot? I don’t have any other skills, nor the time or desire to incur more debt for school. If I can’t do my normal work activities without difficulty, how do I do school? It’s kinda the same thing. People still have expectations of me to do the things that normal healthy people of my demographic do. Show up and pay the bills. Fine. I have no problem with that. How do I hit the “pause” button and figure it out? Are there resources? Why the hell hasn’t anyone asked about the mental health and occupational impacts of this? I don’t know what to do, or who to turn to. What can I do that I can still maintain my level of income that I’ve been working hard to achieve over the past 20 years? How do I even find out?
A nice long walk into the fucking woods sounds wonderful. Perhaps I can find some grace there, because it doesn’t exist anywhere else.
Be Kind,
-Doug
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