The Pivot

Pivot:  To turn on an exact spot.

I've been mulling over . . . well, just about everything.  I mull at great length and with great passion.  It's more fun mulling than actually doing anything.

Anyway, my trip home has me considering moments of great influence and import in my life, when things changed in a big way, a permanent, earth-shattering way, for better or worse, never to be the same ever again.

Let's take a look at these pivots or should I say PIVOTS!

1.  Leaving home for college 650 miles away.  A major pivot, a huge pivot.  Probably number two in the pivot countdown.  Let's call it the AC/DC of pivots.  I was never the same after leaving my safe, loving, conservative little Cape Cod house where I could sneak upstairs and smoke dope undetected.

2. Getting kicked out of optometry college.  Excuse me, "resigning" from optometry college, after a long, slow, inexorable slide into alcoholism.  The few governors that I had on my drinking and using were released - to the great glee of my parents - and I roared into oblivion for the next 8 years.  A total loss.  A total waste.  I can remember sitting in the dean's office - Dean Hubbard, a caricature of what you would imagine a dean to be - when he finished up his "ok, we're done here, you can go away" speech.

3.  Getting sober.  THE pivot.  The Black Sabbath of pivots.

4. Getting married to SuperK.  A monstrous pivot that was followed by 20 years of slow, steady, pleasurable growth - nurturing a relationship, advancing a career, getting soberer and soberer.  This was really more of a period than a pivot, when you think about it.  It wasn't like the other pivots which were more along the lines of stepping off a cliff where  I went from Here to There in a blink of an eye. 

5. Leaving The Old City.  Our stuff was in a truck somewhere when we boarded a plane, leaving for good.  Probably number three in Pivot Lore: the Judas Priest of pivots.  

Now, my latest trip back.  It felt different, you know?  Final.  I'm wandering if it's another big pivot.  I feel like I'm Here now and that I'm no longer There.

Hard to tell in the heat of the pivot.

Seaweed: Visitor

Seems like this is what I was supposed to do this trip.  It hasn't been fancy - sit with dad, mostly in silence when the TV wasn't on, tuned to a sports contest that didn't hold my attention, a few comments passing for conversation; lunch with my sister; meals with The Big Four, the guys that I'm still in regular contact with; walks in my beloved, wooded, childhood park, glorious in autumnal splendor.

I didn't force the meetings.  Didn't force the marginal folks, the ones who are still loved but not active in my life anymore.  Not going back to Vacation City with any simmering resentments or boiling disappointments.  Didn't try to make anyone be someone that they're not and didn't feel bad when I didn't live up to someone else's expectations of who I should be.  Didn't try to make The Old City into something that it mostly definitely is not.

It was a pretty good trip.  I'm glad I finally approached it as a visitor and not as an ex-pat - it kept the frustration level way down, as in: "Why do I care so much about this place anyway?  I don't live here anymore."

I think this low-key approach really helped me with my family interaction.  Dad enjoys it when I'm there although to me our interaction is insipid and shallow.  The helping part is just being there.  He actually concluded our final day by saying: "Well, Seaweed, this was fun." Yowser.  The man is not doing anything to me.  He just doing what he knows how to do.

Love people for who they are and not for who you want them to be.

The Smell Test

I'm actually somewhat impressed with my efforts this trip - not controlling the world is a pretty good idea.  Not trying to get to certain meetings to "see" everyone - most of the meetings have turned over almost completely and the people that I recognize . . . well, it's only for a few minutes, anyway.  It's just too hard to catch up on six months in a crowded, noisy room in a few minutes.

I'm happy to say mid-trip that I'm usually not unhappy with myself when I crawl into bed at the end of the day.  Don't get me wrong - I have plenty of defects still in place that need plenty of attention.  They manifest themselves often.  But I give it a shot, a good, honest effort.  I think my behavior passes the smell test most of the time.  I think my speech is somewhat commendable a lot of the time.  My thinking?  Yeah, well, the phrase "some of the time" comes to mind.  Much better but much improvement needed.

Stuff Drifting By

Acceptance:  A receiving of something offered, with approbation, satisfaction, or acquiescence; especially, favorable reception.  

I believe that I'm doing the best job yet of not running the show on this trip, and I'm referring to The Show, as in: everything!  Just sitting in mu canoe, rolling down the stream, watching stuff go by, not judging, not commenting, not controlling, and - most importantly - trying not to talk at all.  That talking with my mouth stuff just gets me in trouble.  As a general rule people aren't interested in listening to me talk.  It irritates them, for some reason.

It's not good stuff and it's not bad stuff - it's nothing more than stuff drifting by.

I'm making a few plans and breaking a few plans but mostly I'm trying to handle whatever drops in my lap.   Lower the expectations, raise the level of acceptance, and life rolls by a lot more smoothly.

Look Left - Go Right

A great tearing away is in process at the moment.  A shift has occurred.  I no longer am anything but a visitor and I finally feel content with this.  At peace with this, anyway.  I don't want to come back and make people uncomfortable.  My in-laws are totally at a loss and/or uninterested in engaging with me.  I got stuck with my brother-in-law for a few minutes and neither of us knew what to do.  Check that - I knew what to do.  Clam up and get away.  The time to make an effort is in the past.  A couple of times I just lied so I could get away from them so all of us could do what we wanted to do which was get away from the other person.  It felt like a kindness, not a deception.

Of course, on one of the evenings I said that I was going to stay in my hotel room and watch a football game instead of joining everyone at the country fair for a demolition derby.  I waited for everyone to clear out and then drove over by myself to buy some crappy but delicious fair food to eat and wander contentedly around, taking in the sights, enjoying the autumn evening.  Not five minutes into my jaunt, in the middle of this large, jam-packed fair, I hear someone say: "Seaweed.  You decided to come anyway."  

My brother-in-law.  

Irrational Seaweed

Preposterous:  Absurd, or contrary to common sense.

The deal with other people is that their reaction to whatever it is I'm doing is none of my business.  That's the point.  I'm not supposed to do things with the expectation of a certain kind of reaction.  This isn't tit for tat.  I do it for the right reasons, not because I'm going to reap a reward in kind.

It's frustrating.  I've never understood why anyone does anything nice unless there's a guarantee that the favor will be returned.  Give and not get?

Preposterous!

Delayed Response

I've attempted to call my father every day - sometimes a few times a day - for the last week, and gotten no response.

Okay, what does that mean?  Does he want to hear from me but not talk to me?  Does he not want to hear from me at all?  Is he in the hospital?  Is he dead?  I have to write all of these down because none of them are too ridiculous to consider, although I think my sister would at least get in touch with me if something momentous happened.  But I'm not even sure of that.  I thought my email was pretty thick stuff and it fell flat, with a thunderous silence.

The easiest thing to do is to ascribe some devious, aggressive motive to everything that rubs me the wrong way.  This is the fiction.  The fact, of course, is that no one else is thinking about me.  They can't even come up with the energy to crap on my a little.  They're not going to waste their energy.

I finally sent a text to my sister because I need keys to get into my dad's apartment when I arrive very early in the morning - if he's not there I'd rather find out about it sooner rather than later.  I wasn't not communicating with her to be venomous, just to be considerate. 
She responds, telling me he's in a different room.  I wouldn't treat someone like this because I think that it is, at best, rude and inconsiderate. 

I'd like to say that, too.  I don't think that I will.

Reflections From A Guy Who Never Thinks About Anyone Else While Believing That Everyone Else Is Always Thinking About Him

Rampage:  A course of violent, frenzied action.

As I work through another pile of a seemingly endless pile of irritation at people who aren't doing what I want them to do I usually end up at the spot where I realize that nobody is doing anything to me.  They're not even taking the time to think about me - at all - let alone coming up with some complicated plans to make me uncomfortable.  It's a paradox of unimaginable futility on my part.  We talk about egos-on-rampage all of the time in The Fellowship - sometimes I get complacent and think that my ego is  . . . not rampaging, exactly, more like some mild, uninterested pillaging.   

I'm guessing - and I'm probably pretty accurate here - that my sister isn't thinking about me at all.  I'm not that important to her day to day life.  I sent an email to her and she had a reaction to it - likely an uninvolved reaction - and then she moved on with her life.  But me? I think she has plotted out an elaborate scheme to punish me for something I've done or left undone.  I don't spend any time on other folks but I think they're obsessed with me.

I clearly have a long, long way to go.  Luckily, it's a long, long journey.

In Control (And I'm Sure I've Used This Reference Before)

Different:  Not the same; exhibiting a difference.

When I find something unacceptable in my life I do everything in my power to change it into something that I find acceptable - I mean every, last, little fucking thing that I can do - before I consider maybe asking my higher power for help and direction.  I very rarely start with the premise that my higher power has a better plan.  I start with the premise that my higher power is going to fuck things up.  Consequently, I need to take charge.  I need to BE IN CONTROL.  If not me, who?  I'm serious here - who better than me to control the world?

I believe that this string of incidences with my sister and my father has been the catalyst to push me through and into a different mind set.  Other old people are likely familiar with the Charlie Brown, Lucy, and The Football story.  Lucy holds the football so that C. Brown can kick a field goal.  He makes a big run at the ball, winds up for a mighty kick, and ends up flat on his back because Lucy jerks the ball away at the last second.  But she always convinces C. that this time it will be different.  It's never different.

Why in the world did I think that this time it was going to be different?

I don't want to be mad at these people who I love but I don't want to be on my back, on the hard ground, looking up at the twinkling stars, either.  I hope I can push through to a new sense of acceptance, to a more realistic reality.  I'm doubtful here but this time it feels different.

Guide To The Proper Fertilization of Garden Variety Resentments

Compassion:  Deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it. 

And then when I think about all of the conversations I've had with people over the years about family difficulties - intense, focused conversations -  the response, usually delivered with a resigned sigh, is along the lines of: "Family can be hard."

That's it?  Those are the great words of wisdom accumulated over years of sobriety and diligent spiritual work?  Family can be hard?

Behavior that I wouldn't tolerate with potential friends and colleagues can be tough to reconcile when it comes to blood relatives.  If I don't like how I'm being treated I can find a new job or hang out with someone different, options not available with family.  You can't pick a new sister or a new father.   There are advantages to these long-term relationships, of course - we're forced to work through things with some diligence and that helps us learn to compromise, effort that can lead to relationships that are incredibly strong and resilient. 
It's pretty hard to jettison family relationships.  That takes some resolve. 

But drunks aren't known for hanging in there and working through things.  Drunks are known for packing up a car and driving off.  Drunks are known for taking a slight - real or imagined - planting it in good soil with plenty of sunlight and excellent drainage, fertilizing it, pruning it when necessary, watering it but not watering it too much, a common problem with most resentments, resulting in a stunted and unattractive resentment which I think we can all agree that nobody wants.  I mean if you're going to have a resentment do it right. Don't half-ass your resentment.

You can pick your nose but you can't pick your parents.

I Surmise I'm Not Too Bright

Surmise:  Thought, imagination, or conjecture, which may be based upon feeble or scanty evidence. 

I surmise that the best thing I can do for these people is to leave them alone.  Nobody is asking me to come back, for god's sake - when my sister needs help she usually speaks up. And when she speaks up she basically says "deal with dad however you want - I'm taking the week off."  She doesn't complain about all the work she does; she isn't a martyr; she isn't passive-aggressive - I know exactly where I stand, which is pretty far back in line.  What's the matter with that scenario.

I'm helping people as I think they should be helped, praying that they be cured of this or that irritating character trait.  Which they seem to be fine with, by the way.  I go to an Eleventh Step meeting every Saturday where we emphasize how stupid this kind of behavior is.  Not sticking with me, apparently, which is why we read the same fucking things over and over.

I'm taking a little trip north of The Old City to my parents' childhood home to attend a much beloved and highly nostalgic county fair.  Because I'm not sure when I'll next be back I got in touch with some peripheral second cousins and great-uncles to see if they'd be around, and they were thrilled to hear from me.  We've gone back and forth several times.  THESE are the people I should be in touch with.

Clearly, I'm not too smart.

Into the Ring of Fire

Heading off to the Old City in a week or so.  This won't be Scandinavia, that's for sure.  I'm wondering if this will be my last trip back for a while?  I've said this many times but I may finally mean it.  I sent a big note to my sister discussing a variety of weighty matters - which took me quite a while to put together, included a few revisions and rewrites, and caused me some mental anguish - and 3 days later I get nothing back.  

Dad is dad - uncommunicative, angry, discontented.  He's doing dad things - I suspect that when I'm there that he appreciates it more than I know but . . . it's not as if I'm doing anything to make his life better.  He doesn't want to talk.  Really - he's always been a pretty selfish man.  He did a decent job of handling family responsibilities, setting a decent religious example, but not a lot more than that.  And my sister and I have never been close - never been remotely close - so this behavior is very consistent on her part.  Am I not the guy who prides himself on behaving consistently?  That's all I can ask of someone else - do the best that you can and behave in a consistent manner.  That way I know what to expect and can adjust my expectations accordingly.

I'll see a few friends and I'll leave some more alone - I do myself a disservice if I make it a priority to see them.  If I leave it all be then they become people who are simply dear old friends that I love a lot who live far away.  I can hardly get upset - if I want to be reasonable about it and I do not - with people that I never spoke with on the phone when I lived there or with people that I made uncomfortable when I gave it a shot.  Some of us don't like the phone.  Or texting.  Or email.  

Maybe I'll take a few drives through downtown; see the house, recently sold, that was in the family for 55 years; check out my old neighborhoods; then call it quits.  Go back when someone dies.  It isn't like people are pounding on my door to stay in touch - and this is the exception rather than the rule, so whose fault is that?  Go find a mirror.  I'm the dude who fled.  If I wanted things to stay the same then I should have stayed put.