Caterwauling

I got to talking with a fellow Stuppendous Badass about our unique (and perhaps uniquely underappreciated) ninja roles within our respective empires.

Moreover, we got to talking about what we could do if we could ever break the shackles we custom-built so well.

We excelled at becoming the centralized cog in a very big wheel. And they don’t make them like us, you know — my friend has a hard time finding equally hard workers, and I have a perfectly miserable time finding equally smart/capable workers.

How do we get to do what it is we want to do when we have no hope of ever having the opportunity to FIGURE OUT EXACTLY WHAT THAT IS?

Last time I worked in this building, I was out of pubs entirely. And job-wise, I was never happier. The harassment wasn’t a good time, so I left … and fell back into pubs again.

I could excel in that whack-a-mole-hole perhaps if I didn’t have so many pubs and 50 side jobs (and first dates. *cough*) to boot — how do I get back to a role I wish I could have loved for a lot longer?

Funny how anytime you start to feel kind of happy, you get reminded of your place in the universe.

It doesn’t really concern me that I’m not on top of anyone’s or anything’s priority list right now.

But not being able to be at the top of my own because of everyone and everything else will never fail to surprise me.

So it’s near midnight on a Sunday and I’m trying to finish the project I didn’t finish Friday night that HAS to be done like ASAP.

*lovemyjobserenitynowlovemyjob*

So Mom likes a certain peppermint laxative tea from Target. I call it Poopermint.

(I’ll let that sink in for a second.)

So she’s had like a million mini-strokes, right? And she just got out of bed and disturbed my concentration to tell me …

“The next time we go to Poopermint, I need more Target tea.”

She of course has no idea what she just said. But I’m too weak from laughter to keep reading what’s on my screen.

It’s pretty bad when she makes more sense than my paid writers. Which, she really does …

Mom has this cute new habit of, when I walk out of the house and keep walking (or driving), she locks up. Knowing I left the door unlocked and my house key somewhere within said house.

That’ll teach me to think I can escape.

In case you haven’t met me or didn’t, oh, birth me, let me be clear that stifling my freedom (and not in exchange for a paycheck), does not end well.

Busiest day of the week and I have lunch and drinking plans. Which, normal people get to do. Not Goddesses. Not without paying for it in some way.

I got to thinking this morning about the butterfly effect. Now, I’m not a believer in going back to a moment that could have changed everything because that means all the good that has happened since that moment never would have happened.

But … every now and again when you’re juggling 82 projects but have a rare moment of stillness when each is out of your hands because you’ve done all you could … you think about what other happy moments you might have enjoyed instead IF ONLY (fill in the blank).

And while I will never, ever, never ever EVER let my mind get too far out of my incessant control … and I’m certainly living in the now and not the what-was-and-what-wasn’t … I wonder if I would have been squirming for daylight (as is my way) or would I have been happy (and I would never have developed “my way” in the first place).

Imagine, a Goddess without a restless soul. Of course, I don’t think that could ever happen. So, I’ll take the butterflies in my belly whenever I can get them and let others have the “what ifs.”

I’d rather keep defining my existence by “Hey, let’s try this next.” It’s a lonely life, but generally never a boring one.

Having a rare moment of peace, realizing:

1. I like my job.
2. I like the things that are developing at my job.
3. I have the best mom on the planet.
4. I enjoy Florida so much.
5. Driving along the beach road and smelling the salt air every morning with the sunroof open is amazing.
6. My social life is picking up.
7. I can buy a hotel room or plane ticket to anywhere, whenever I want.
7.a. And do.
8. It feels good to feel wanted.

Sure, there are about 40 layers of complication to each. But I’d like to bask in this moment where everything not only seems OK … but it actually is.

Ah, Election Day. The big draw here is that I vote at the fire station across the street that’s on the ocean. Because, hot firemen.

This year I have zero passion about it. I always vote. Always. This year, meh. *shrug* *coin flip* Charlie Crist or Rick Scott? Tweedledum or Tweedle-Hates-Women? Oh wait …

I used to be as blue or yellow or whatever dog a Democrat as it gets. And I would never say I’m a Republican or, worse, a Libertarian these days.

But while my leanings aren’t changing, I do feel the ground upon which I so firmly planted my feet shifting.

It’s kind of like when you get into your occasional sexuality struggle. It’s like, let’s face it, women are hot and they know how to please. But then you realize you crave cock too much and even the battery-operated kind just won’t do it.

Oh, wait, not everybody goes through that every couple of years? Never mind then. 😉

It keeps wandering off …

“In the morning when you wake up
I like to believe you are thinking of me
And when the sun comes through your window
I like to believe you’ve been dreaming of me

Dreaming mmm mmm

I know
’cause I’d spend half this morning
Thinking about the t-shirt you sleep in

I should know
’cause I’d spend all the whole day
Listening to your message I’m keeping
And never deleting.”

— Birdy, “Tee Shirt”

“Prince of Tides” time. I don’t even have to look up the quote to nail the closing monologue word for word …

We spent our last hours together at the Rainbow Room, dancing a slow dance, just like in my dream.

I held her in my arms, as I told her that it was her doing that I could go back. Six weeks before I was ready to leave my wife, my kids.

I wanted out of everything, but she changed that. She changed me.

For the first time I felt like I had something to give back to the women in my life. They deserved that. So I returned to my southern home and my southern life, and it is in the presence of my woman and children that I acknowledge my life, my destiny.

I am a teacher, a coach, and a well-loved man. And it is more than enough.

In New York, I learned that I needed to love my mother and father in all their flawed, outrageous humanity. And in families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.

But it is the mystery of life that sustains me now. And I look to the North and I wish again that there were two lives apportioned to every man and every woman.

At the end of every day I drive through the city of Charleston, and as I cross the bridge that will take me home I feel the words building inside me.

I can’t stop them or tell you why I say them, but as I reach the top of the bridge, these words come to me in a whisper.

I say them as prayer, as regret, as praise.

I say, “Lowenstein… Lowenstein…”

I think I’ve mentioned Mom’s psychic-ness. And she dragged out a name from my five-years-ago past out of the blue this week.

Later that day, I heard from him.

How does she DO that?

She said she thinks I broke his heart. I had to give that one some thought since all I did was protect mine.

The whole mention is timely because my self-defense mechanism is in high gear. Not *as* high, mind you. There are some chinks in the armor after years of use. And, I didn’t think there were any real stakes back then.

I wonder if Mom was right about that after all. Of course, she’s right about everything.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was up for anything. After a fight, I became willing to be wooed. I was 100% ready to do whatever he wanted. And when it came time to head for the door, I almost forgot my coat on the way out, literally — that’s how quickly I sprinted.

If anything made him miss me, it had to be that. That I wanted nothing from him. That I didn’t give a damn about his money or the power or the life that went with it.

I wanted to see inside and know the person no one else did, and I was OK leaving with those secrets.

It’s still my secret. And if you guess, I will deny it.

In any case, I never romanticized it or him. I just wonder now whether that’s a blueprint to use again and again, or whether doing the arm’s length thing with an iron fist hurt me instead.

I didn’t give him a chance to hurt me. But I wonder if I also didn’t give him a real chance to please me if that might have been what he wanted to do.

I guess we’ll never know, although the universe has a funny, funny way of making sure you tie up those loose ends.

And if it does so by creating more, well, I’m going to make a big bow out of them and hope for the best.