Because Paula did it. Old post from nine years ago today followed by commentary … that evolved into a long rambling essay on life. Also I just realized this is from nine years ago tomorrow, but it’s too late for me to be all OCD and do something about it.
Birds singing, chirping, chattering. Dog pacing and snuffling. Fresh morning air through the window. Distant somnolent hum of traffic.
How the hell do people work at home?
A disconcerting clunk that accompanied every release of the clutch compelled me to reach under the Jeep and feel around and sure enough, the front u-joint is shot. So it’s at a shop while I’m “working from home”. Sure, in my brave youth I would have raised the truck, dropped the drive shaft, and fixed it myself. But now I know it probably takes special tools and too much time and it will be a hundred degrees out there soon and time is money and I have a job and wah wah wah, so fuck it, I signed the $138 estimate without even looking at it.
It is so wonderful to be older and wiser. Isn’t it?
I can get to the file servers and IM doesn’t work over the VPN and no one’s going to call me or suddenly appear behind my shoulder so in theory, I could be hella productive today. Ha! See first paragraph.
* * *
I’m long gone from the house that that was written in. My wife at the time has long since divorced me and become a widow but still lives there, alone with her dogs and her memories. It’s a beautiful place we built and I admit I have imagined a future when my options have all run out and she’s gone and her heirs decide to let dear old Dad live in it as caretaker while he gets by on social security.
My options have not run out, I’m just going through a lot of significant changes. Well, my rather spiritual girlfriend says I am. Trying to disassemble the tendency towards codependency that was laid down when I was four. That’s when Daddy moved out, and Mommy was grieving not only the loss of her marriage but the loss of her first-born child, and little Donald provided comfort and fun and learned how to give his all to The Woman in return for occasional servings of female affection. Now my all is all gone but for my health and the house I bought five years ago for my ex-girlfriend’s family to live in.
I’m currently amidst trying to convert that house into a home of my own. Hasn’t happened yet. Today I finish repainting the bedroom. You know, to make it a new space. My lady smudged it the other day. Went around with an abalone shell full of smoldering sage and wafted the smoke around with a turkey feather she found up north at Mt Shasta. I’m not particularly spiritual or at all religious but I have zero problem with rituals performed with good intention. I also like the smell of burning sage. She reported that she felt the previous occupant’s (my ex’s) inner small child begging her not to make her leave. I was her daddy, her safe space, and I can’t be any more. It was sad, real or not.
Yeah, that’s what I do. Spent my childhood taking emotional care of Mom and then at fourteen attracted an orphan who’d just been kicked out of her foster family’s house (who the hell does that to a thirteen-year-old, well, in later years I learned enough to understand the probably cause) and went on from there to perfect the art of attracting women with childhood trauma who need a safe space for healing. I had no idea, of course. This has only become evident in the last year or two as I reflect and try to change. No one needs any rescue any more. No one needs me to rescue them except me.
Especially when I look back on old posts like this one and remember those days when I was paid a (to me now) crazy amount every month, whether I actually worked or not so long as the long-term goals were met. Quite the contrast with the current situation. Maybe I’ll get back to that after a fashion, who knows. Don’t know if I really want to. To live off family and SS and just write my alleged books doesn’t sound like the worst life. I’m not ready to take that particular direction, probably never will, but one should be flexible.
Regroup 