I could not agree more with this posting over on kottke.org.
I am getting back into the martial arts workout groove. Muscles that were painfully sore after my first kendo workout are now only tired. The little nuances that make up and art form are starting to become apparent to me, and I am feeling my focus return as I strive to incorporate the proper stance, grip, footwork, and arm motions. In short I am starting to have fun with martial arts again.
Changing to a totally new style was the key I think. Trying to regain what I have lost in karate would have been possible, but now without tremendous dedication and forgiveness for myself. Not having studied karate in eight years means that physically I am starting over while mentally I want to be as good as I was when i stopped. Starting kendo puts my mental and physical expectations on par with each other, consequently I am far more apt to be successful.
I still have some concern about how this will effect my knees. Initially I think they are going to be more painful than normal, but as the muscle tone in my legs improves (and as I get into better shape overall) I think the pain will not only be reduced, I think it will be lower than my recent sedentary lifestyle has caused. Still I am closely monitoring them as I don’t want to make them worse.
Band of Brothers is easily one of the most compelling World War II (or any war for that matter) movies I have ever seen. It is an unflinching look at the realities of combat, and the tremendous sacrifice soldiers made when they left America for an unknown future in the European Theater of Operations.
Rating: I will be buying a copy for my collection immediately
For the first time since my mom died I truly cried last night. Once I was started it was hard to stop, and as I sobbed I could feel the tension that has been with me for weeks now relaxing. Afterwards I was totally spent and exhausted. It was as cathartic a cry as I’ve had in a long time.
In part the release was about my dad. My conversations with him over the past couple of weeks have allowed me to see just how blue he is now, and I’ve been privately very worried about him. I promised my mother that I’d look after him and make sure he was okay, but in truth only he can decide how he will approach grief and mourning. Yesterday, as a result of sending him a small Father’s Day gift, I received an email of thanks from him. In it he elaborated on his plans for the near future and for the first time I heard a note of hope; an indication of looking up and ahead rather than down and behind.
My own experience tells me that he will cycle through periods of energy, hope, and planning for the future as well as periods of despair, sorrow, and gloom. For me being aware of his moods impacts me in a way I wasn’t prepared for initially. When he is down it accentuates my fears about his death and the rather selfish feelings of isolation and abandonment that I have as a result. While I know this isn’t true I feel as if everyone is leaving me behind and that soon I’ll be utterly alone. Seeing a glimpse of positive from him yesterday gave me enough strength to let go of my fears, and more importantly, to release the pent up emotions about my mom’s death, my situation in life, and my own fears about mortality.
Sometimes all you need is a good cry.
… Laughing.
The Da Vinci Code was a fantastic book and, while well acted, is only a good movie. The story is too cerebral for American audiences who want explosions and sex rather than murky, esoteric dialog about what is or isn’t true of the history of Christianity. Still, it was as faithful a rendition of the book as you are apt to find.
Rating: How symbolic that the furor before its release was greater than the actual impact
As anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one knows all too well, “what if” questions can become the bane of your existence. At every turn you are faced with some thought or question that makes you wonder if things could have turned out differently. Did you miss an indication or opportunity? Was what ultimately happened fated or could it have been delayed or avoided?
Being human I have wrestled with many what if questions in the last eight months. They all follow largely the same pattern: if I did (or didn’t) do (or allow) something to happen, would Michele still be alive? For much of the last eight months I have managed to convince myself that there was nothing I could do either way to prevent either her manner of dying or her death itself. As much as I’d like to think my ability to resist the trap of what if thinking is the result of my character or personality the truth lies in understanding Michele and her mindset.
While there were lots of factors contributing to her mental state just prior to her death I think the overriding, indeed overwhelming, factor was the prognosis of cancer. In private on more than one occasion Michele shared with me her fear of some horrific disease or illness causing her death. When she would have symptoms that weren’t immediately correlated to some mundane cause her fear was that she had cancer. She survived breast cancer in the 1990s, and took it as a sign that she needed to change her life or die. She responded to that cancer by completely altering her life; moving from Florida to Colorado, and ultimately marrying me.
Personally I believe even the potential of having cancer again was more that she wanted to bear. Combined with her understanding of the challenges facing humanity today, indeed the plight our planet is in culturally, politically, and environmentally, and her belief that my family was ostracizing me due to her, dying was the way out.
I’ll never truly stop asking myself what if questions. What if I hadn’t fucked up my job in Illinois and we had been able to stay? What if we hadn’t been mired in debt allowing us to buy a house here rather than endure apartment living? And on, and on. But at least I know in my heart that nothing I did or didn’t do caused her fear of cancer, and ultimately that was the straw that broke her resolve.
This morning about 3:30 am I kept waking up thinking I was hearing music. I’d lie in bed straining my ears and finally convince myself that I was dreaming. By 4:00 am I was wide awake and still hearing music. As the new upstairs neighbors moved in yesterday I was ready to accuse them as the source of the noise but Taz clued me into the real source.
She was sitting facing the French door to my seldom using patio, and as I moved towards her I could hear the music distinctly. There appeared to be a light on at the patio next door, which is recessed and can’t be seen from my patio. Grabbing my shoes and made my way out side and around the corner. Sitting on the ground was a teenage girl and standing, holding a can of beer, was a skinny teenage boy. They had a radio blaring some God-awful atonal fingernails-on-a-chalkboard music. She was very started to see me standing there and even more startled when I said, “it was fucking 4:00 am and your music woke me up at the far end of my apartment.” She looked scared and he was too drunk to realize much, but he did say, “it’s over,” and they turned their radio off.
As much as I absolutely hate the idea of having to move, if I had a detached house I could rent I wouldn’t have to put up with upstairs neighbors, idiots who flunked parking lot politeness, and drunk teenagers at 4:00 am. I have until the end of this month - just over two weeks - to give notice; my lease is up August 31st and requires a sixty-day notice. Between deposits and renting a truck, not to mention finding a place I’d like to live, I fear it is impossible to move without potentially getting myself into a worse situation.
I guess I’ll stay here and be the grumpy guy who complains about all his idiot neighbors.
Recently I have been having increasing feelings of jealous or envy, particularly when I am around couples. That they have a partner, companion, lover, friend, et cetera with them all the time and I don’t is almost more than I can bear. Being the odd man out, once again, at parties or other gatherings is a painful reminder of how my life used to be before Michele.
Over the years I have learned that there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. I really don’t mind being alone; as an introvert I have a rather complicated internal dialog that requires a fair amount of tending on a daily basis. The amount of time necessary to keep an even keel varies from day to day, but an hour or two of alone time isn’t an imposition. Being lonely, on the other hand, is far tougher to deal with and causes me a great deal of pain at times.
I realize that I am the only person who can determine my future and whether it is a lonely one or one filled with people. For instance, yesterday I choose to attend a party for a friend’s twenty-fifth work anniversary with the same company, and had a wonderful time. I was able to overcome my natural inclination to be introverted (i.e., stay home and watch television) and participate. Of course, being in a group of people who are all made up of couples, really accentuated my feelings of loneliness, and woke up the green monster.
Perhaps the hardest part of all of this was the realization afterwards that while I was envious of each and everyone of them, I strongly suspect none of them were envious of me. I am not ready yet to talk about seeking out a new relationship but I am aware that I am headed in that direction. Michele was always aware when I had some difficult emotional issue to discuss and she was lovingly relentless about getting me to uncover it through talking. Truth be told, I was always aware of the signs too. They are present again, cloaked in envy, and I need to expose them in order to move forward. I just need to find a way to reconcile the feeling that I am betraying Michele to even think about having another relationship.