This Is The End

Glad that my trip has come to an end.  Glad to be going home and really glad that I consider my destination to be home.  I see in retrospect that The New City was a way point on my journey to where I am now.  Home.

As I struggled through my tasks I turned to people - both in The Fellowship and out - for some confirmation that the way I was feeling - resentful, disconnected - didn't make me a bad person. Here's the advice I got from most of them: "Family is hard."  I also noted that folks like me who have moved away from their hometowns were more likely to feel a connection.  We have, after all, moved away.  This implies that what we left was not as big an attraction as it is for some people.

I can step away from a lot of unpleasant tasks but family matters imply some obligation.  These folks raised me and they didn't make a mess of it.  It can't be easy raising children - it certainly can't be easy raising an insane, self-destructive alcoholic.

I got a lot done.  I think my behavior was decent.  It wasn't fun.  I didn't enjoy it.  I wasn't on vacation.

I got to see what old looks like.  I don't mean getting older, either, bitchy about little aches and pains.  I mean seriously old.  I got to see what old looks like for people who didn't exercise, who didn't challenge themselves mentally - preferring the easy out of The Television, and who stayed isolated from other people, for years and years and years.  There's a harsh collapsing-in effect. 

I'm the most intolerant man in The Fellowship and I look like the Dali Lama on an extended meditation binge compared to them.  I can see that some people want to be old - seemingly to indulge all of their aches and pains.  It seems weirdly enjoyable.  But the retirement home had a ton of similarly old folks who seemed to be making the best of it.

If you keep doing what you've done you're going to keep getting what you've gotten.