Coping and Accepting

I don’t know if my mom is doing too well.

My mother and I have always been a little distant, but the love has never gone away. The communication is sparse and meaningless. She tells me about coworkers at her job, the amount of work she did, or some news story she saw on TV. I listen but don’t care, really. I want my mom to tell me her thoughts, give me advice and say something funny or meaningful.

Of course, the generation gap between us is wide and accounts for the misunderstandings between us. Yet, we care for each other and that’s all that matters. Who cares if she can’t joke or understand her son. I’ll be okay as long she cares for my well being. I care for her just as much.

My mother doesn’t express her feelings. I’m not a good listener either. Bad combination.

Yet, my mother is going through some issues and I haven’t paid attention, or taken her seriously. This is my fault.

She feels scared, and I haven’t taken the steps necessary to get her help.

I guess I feel scared too. My sister and I think we know what’s going on and now I have to come to terms that my mom is “sick”. It’s been on the back of my mind for a while, but it’s now a family issue that has been addressed. That is, we’ve spoken to my mom for a bit and have asked her to get help. That’s a different story for a different day.

I’m accepting the new information and realize this will now impact me for the rest of my life. As I’m writing this I know I’m coming off as selfish and an asshole of a son. No, I care and love my mom very much and would do anything to keep her happy and content. I guess I’m realizing that the situation may get worse and I’m scared about it. I’m worried and anxious for the future.

We will see.

Be Smooth, not awkward.

So, tomorrow I’m supposed to hangout with the girl that approached me from the coffee shop. I’m actually pretty calm, but even my calm self sometimes throws people off.

We slightly flirted yesterday, but we’ve established stronger chemistry. So far everything is going smoothly and have found no issues, or beliefs from her that would completely turn me off. Or not yet, at least.

We’ve planned to meet up this Saturday and no nerves, or anxiety has overcome me. I’m mellow, relaxed, and not even thinking about how I’ll be. It could be confidence, or it could be I’m just looking forward to a nice night out with a pretty lady. It’s 90% the second option, and am not even phased. She is also a wonderful person to make you feel comfortable without even trying.

Maybe I give less fucks and have finally reached the peak of comfortability in my own skin for a young dude in his 20’s. Ha! Just kidding, that’s a work in progress.

Speaking of which, I was asked to record a small video for a friend’s birthday. No one has ever asked me to do this. The video was just a small 30 second video where I say Happy Birthday and throw in a few jokes. Of course, I have the desire to be the funniest dude when it comes to writing comedy. It was the most professional thing I’ve done in front of a camera other than a project in 7th grade.

I thought I was going to be the professional actor that would do a video in one take. Ha! I had a few fuck-ups, forgot my “lines”, and people were close by and I got nervous.

The final project was mediocre at best, but sincere.

Hopefully this is not foreshadowing my date Saturday.

 

My Sister Moved Away

She moved to the Dominican Republic!

I am happy for her. Nothing changes in my life, but a complete change in hers. Good for her.

She was about to hit the 20 year anniversary at her job, just needed a few more years left. Who cares? The only perk you get is a warm, fuzzy feeling on the inside, stock options, and lifetime membership. Meh. Fuck all that.

My sister is a traveler, with a good head on her shoulders, and a responsible person. She loves traveling and decided to go to Dominican Republic for her vacation. After coming back she couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful it is over there.  A life of no stress, great friends, and beautiful beaches. After coming back to the US for a few weeks, she came and visited me for her birthday. She dropped the bomb on me there.

“I’m moving there next year”

I reacted with no surprise, like she has said this before. The exact way you react when a 5 year old tells you they are going to be an astronaut and land on the moon. There was no reason to believe she was actually going to go through with it. Oh, a big reason is because she met someone “special” there. Ha! Her life couldn’t be more like a RomCom.

Well, next year became a month. She was fed up with work and she started selling her stuff. She packed her bags, sold her treadmill, and came to our house to sell her car. The next day I saw my sister pass the TSA security line at the airport. My mom had tears in her eyes as well as my sister. The departure was too soon and my mom was quiet, sad, and emotional, but displayed a strong, stoic woman on the outside. Their relationship is not the best, but we are still family and don’t want to see loved ones go. Oh, well. We can’t grow too much without detaching from something, right? I think that’s a saying. Right? No? I don’t know.

That’s when I realized I much more prefer a stable, normal, unsurprising lifestyle where I want to know my day-to-day activities. My life is similar to my sister’s and I have absolutely no desire to drop my life and move on elsewhere. Maybe I will one day and meet someone “special” in Spain. For now, I like my life and some part of me hopes it goes downhill enough so I have the balls to drop it and leave. The path will always be there, it’s just up to me to find it.

Goodbye, sister.

A Tissue for your Issue

I have to fix my car.

It’s a small issue, hopefully doesn’t indicate nothing too serious.

I hate it.

I’ve had my issues with my cars. I’ve had three of them. The first one was on it’s last breath before the transmission blew out. The second one was a Frankenstein of a car with different parts of different make and models. I got in a car wreck with it and put it out of its misery. Thank goodness.

Now I am with the best car I have ever owned so far. That’s not saying much, but I’m actually still paying it off so I hope that’s a sort of indication of the “quality” car I have. Ha!

I took my Ford Focus to the shop to get an oil change. After the oil change they said I needed an alignment. I just got it aligned a few months ago! There’s no malice towards the mechanics that aligned it before. It’s very possible I just hit a pothole that messed up my poor car.

Whatever, still not happy about it.

It’s not really a money thing that irritates and stresses me. It’s the hassle of logistics. There has to be an appointment made, time taken away from your peaceful day, and possibility of the price being exorbitant. Do you want to know how I’m dealing with the stress that this may cause me? I drank a cappuccino. I’m writing this as my eyes gaze at the empty cup outlined with the foamy residue left from the hot liquid. I’m not happy, but I’ve accepted the situation. Worst price I’ll pay is for roughly 120$. I’ve accepted that as my fate and hope that I can do it at the local Mexican place for half the cost. Oh, and I’m hoping they do a good job and fix it well.

As mentioned in the entries I have made recently, I’ve taken meditation and am eagerly hoping that as I acquiesce and become aware of how I am, behave, and affect others, the overall effect is a calmer, less bitchy, and more relaxed.

It’s super easy to remain calm when the “problem” is super artificial and meaningless. My car doesn’t work, big deal. When I have something really serious going on that requires serious breakdowns, anger, and overall emotional instability, I hope that can overcome it with ease and a few meditation sessions.

“You’ve turned into a dirty hippy, dude”

 

 

No, I NEED it.

This is actually a long story, but I’ll spare you the details. You’re welcome

I almost lost my cloud content. Oh, this is a first world problem, so I understand the ridiculousness of it and welcome the judgement.

Basically, I lost access to my cloud, and once I finally had access no content was found. After I made a few phone calls the content was restored. I’m happy.

I’ve been practicing meditation for a few weeks now and am more aware of what is worth getting angry, or upset at. Even if you were to get angry, there has to be a better approach of handling it than snapping, or yelling at everyone you meet. Anyways, through the small enlightenment I’ve achieved, I’ve realized that the brief moment my virtual memories and snapshots would potentially disappear I was going to be devastated and upset. Would it be worth it? I’m no nihilist, but I do have the notion that we can live happier without the need of smartphones, or accessing thousands of pictures from your past.

When it came down to knowing that my virtual past would be deleted I was sad. I had come to realize that it doesn’t matter, and I’m still healthy and everything will be okay. However, now I know that if the cloud storage would be deleted, I wouldn’t be okay with it. It’s fun to pretend that I don’t care about phones, and I would like to be that person one day, but for now I know that a part of me still cares.

I’m not the type of guy who takes pictures, and don’t like when people take pictures of mundane things, or ruin the experience with mandating that everyone look at the phone for 3 seconds while we capture the memory. Fuck that. I just want to experience living in the moment for a second.

Thousands of photos from years ago live somewhere, and I don’t want to get rid of those moments just yet. Why is that? Nostalgia, identity, alzheimer’s prevention? Who knows. This must mean that I must truly be in the present in my life so that I don’t have the desire to look back later. That makes sense, right?

Oh, while writing this, I’ve been backing up all my photos. So I guess the point in all this is to make sure that you backup your content often. Ha!

Everybody is a Little Miserable

If you have read any, and I mean any, of my posts, you’ll realize that I’m in a space vacuum of melancholy. Or I’m just young and in my twenties. Either way, I’m fine with it and don’t give a fuck.

I’ve tried to be more expressive and empathetic with people. This means that I carry on deeper conversations, at the expense of others’ discomfort. Some people get weirded out by this, or simply don’t know how to carry on. That’s ok. There’s nothing wrong with that.

However, the people that do engage in the conversation also experience the same feelings I do. I hear statements like, “Yeah, I try not to judge others as much” or “Yeah, I get anxiety”, or the favorite “I don’t want to work here”.

It just hit me recently. No one knows what they are doing and there’s more “unhappy” people than happy. I put unhappy in quotes because I don’t know if there’s a word that closely matches “content-but-not-really-I-don’t-know-what-else-to-do-omg-I’m-so-lonely”. I can’t wait to get old to look back at these posts and realize there was absolutely nothing to be worried about.

Yet, I’m sure we never fully experience a satisfied, content life. I’m sure some people are trying to throw some religious belief, or some new yoga technique to feel “happy”. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m pretty “happy” for the most part, but every now and then, I ask myself, “Could I be doing something differently?”

It’s fun to wonder I guess. There’s nothing wrong with the never-ending search for a meaningful, awesome life. There’s people who dedicate years of their life to become something, and I’m sure only a portion of those people actually are completely satisfied with what they’ve become. I don’t know, I’ve become nothing and will strive to be someone. That day will come and I’ll feel like I’m no one.

*yawn*