113 Gilmore, Days and Endings

I think, as I havent posted regularly for a long time, I should cover something "darkly pleasant". I have pushed my body and mind lately, to the point of mental exhaustion. I havent taken a lot of time lately for any kind of stress abatement. We DID go on a short vacation, and while it was relaxing, it didnt seem to get rid of the stress that has accumulated lately. I'm confident it isnt detrimental, but I get tightness in my chest a lot while worrying about the "everydays". School, family, finishing the house, yada, yada, yada.

We've been making the wine that some of you have come to know and love and while picking them is both a chore and fun, it still hasnt served to relax the old gray muscle.

So, as I have a few minutes, I sit here and look back at the relaxing things, the pleasant things, the things that allow me to keep my sanity.

Wife and kids not withstanding, I like comic books(only certain ones, like all good collectors?), music to suit the mood, engines(anything with one that I can do something stupid in), alcohol when the time is appropriate, video games(particularly first person shooters), real guns, fishing, cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper, Maryland blue crab, black and white war movies, westerns (John Wayne at the foremost), girls in boy-shorts(legal age, get your minds out of the gutter), girls in various skimpy clothes(not negligees, too cliche) and various other pleasures of the flesh and mind.

Now, any combination of the above is likely to make me feel all warm and fuzzy, for a various amount of time. We dont really socialize at bars and parties like a lot of our peers, but we socialize with our friends as time allows. Lately it seems we barely have 5 minutes for the kids and ourselves. I know that the end result is what we're striving towards: a grown-up career for moi, weekends off and fancier dog biscuits for the pooches. I try to ignore the stress, keep the head up and the broad shoulders for the rest of the family to rely on, but man, it really has gotten to me lately. I started having huge, gouging pangs of nostalgia lately, being brought on by anything and nothing. I want the feeling I had before most of my old friends left the area, before so many of the old-timers that taught me bits and pieces of life passed on, the feeling of well-being and hope that I had when Clinton was in office, gas was under a dollar, a dollar bought something and all was right with America.

I catch myself sneaking off around the house, driving slower to work or some such thing to have a moment to try and force that feeling back. I always get to the cusp of it and then it backs off. It's always there, I can taste it, catch the scent of it, but it never fully materializes. Dont tell me not to live in the past. It's not that I want to live in that time or with people loved and lost, I just want that feeling. I've ranted on this before, but now it is so prevalent, it consumes me at every waking moment. I think it has to do in part with me finally getting off my duff and doing something career and life-wise. Fear, I suppose. Fear of failure, fear that things wont be as secure as the blessed 90's were for us. Fear that I'll never get this freaking house finished. Fear that I'll never find a lifestyle program(diet and excercise) that I'll stick to.

I was hoping that writing this down would be cathartic, but so far, it hasnt helped. I suppose a little more introspection (6 months? 6 years?) may bring about some grand realization and I'll get my head back in the game. I dont have time to turn around, let alone spend some bonding time with Roz and the boys like I used to. I fear that we will all drift apart and that even more things wont be the same. I suppose we all have these fears in some form or another.

I dont know if you could qualify this as a midlife crisis. I havent bought a sports car, a hot, young mistress, a rolex or gotten hair or pec implants yet, so how do you define it? Isnt that what we're supposed to do in a midlife crisis? Most of my older readers may know my views on life and after-life, so it's not fear of THAT unknown. Whatever it is, I have a summer class that is almost over and then the real school kicks in. Somewhere in the downtime of 3 weeks, I need to find myself. I need to find NEW ways to experience family and life that give me the sense of perceived well-being that I had. I dont really recall losing it, it just happened. It's probably happened to some of you in one way or another. I dont have to like it, I dont have to put up with it, so dont tell me that.

In closing, I have great feelings with my family and the activities that we DO find time to do together. I just want to get rid of this sick feeling that has me wanting to rev up the old family truckster and smash it through the front window at walmart just to see if I still FEEL like I'm alive. I want to drive up to the strip job above the house and shoot the living crap out of things like we used to. I dont want to worry about what kind of coverings I need to finish the ceiling and floor. I want the kids, as they continue to explore their teen-age independence, to look at me like they did when they were 8. I want John Wayne resurrected from the dead and paired with Clint Eastwood to make a western to end all westerns that I will watch every day for the rest of my life. I want the wife and I to be at ease with our health and our physiques like we were not so many years ago. For lack of a better term, I want to be what we ALL want to be:.....happy.