Running Around in Circles March 9, 2008
Posted by wes285 in Appreciate the Prose.Tags: Family, Growing Up, Home, Life, Mistakes, Running in Circles
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I’m halfway through my life and I’m never quite sure if I’m doing anything right until I’m completely done doing it wrong.
-Danny Concannon from The West Wing
Okay, I’m only about a third of the way through my life and I’m pretty sure it isn’t everything that I’m doing wrong. Just a lot of them. I wish there was a guidebook that told you what you’re supposed to do in any situation. But this is real life, and I guess it’s part of growing up. I’m just afraid one day I’m going to wake up and be 50 still wondering if I’m doing this right.
I turned 23 about a month ago. Ever since I’ve been walking around in a bit of a daze wondering what the hell I’m doing. It isn’t that I feel lost. It’s that I’m walking around in circles and every time I make another round I notice another new thing that I don’t like. That new thing makes me force myself out of the circle. But, somehow, I always end up back on the beaten path. I don’t know. Maybe we are just the way we are. There are the little things that we can change, but the major things, that’s just who we are. Part of our personality. What makes us the individuals that we are.
One of my good friends was back home this weekend, so I was back to see him. I ended up staying at my parents’ house for the night and spent most of the next day back home running errands I had planned to do in D.C. They’re only about a half hour drive away and its a nice change of pace. I find it’s a good place to go when I’m in one of my moods. I don’t always come back with the answers I’m looking for. But for a short time, I’m able to put down whatever weight I have on my back and let things be.
Both pairs of my dress shoes needed a shine, so I brought them back with me to use my dad’s kit (yes, I shine my own shoes, it’s what sophisticated gentlemen do). Like a responsible adult, I put newspaper down on the floor so the polish wouldn’t get all over the kitchen floor. My dad walked by, and being my dad, told me to make sure not to let the polish fall off the newspaper when I was finished. I gave him my usual quizzical “what do you think I am?” look to which he responded with an anecdote from when I was about 5 years old. I was eating a cookie or something and like a proper 5 year old was dropping crumbs all over my shirt. My dad and I had the following exchange:
Dad: Be careful when you get up. You have crumbs all over your shirt.
Me: Don’t worry, they’ll just all fall to the ground when I get up.
He didn’t say what happened after I made that comment. But I’m willing to bet that I got up, dusted my shirt off and went to go find a toy.
Like I said, I can just go home and let things be.
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Appreciate the Prose:
Angels Unawares, I found this through another blog, The Last Spartan, that I read regularly. Listen to what the old lady has to say.
Leaf Blowers Suck November 26, 2007
Posted by wes285 in Family, Holidays.Tags: Garden State, Home, Raking Leaves, Thanksgiving, Union
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You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone. You’ll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it’s just gone. And you can never get it back. It’s like you get homesick for a place that doesn’t exist. I mean it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.
-Garden State
I’ve talked and felt this idea before, but it never really hit me full force until this Thanksgiving. I slept in the basement the entire weekend. This isn’t out of the ordinary when I sleep in my parent’s house. I usually pass out in front of the TV. But, this time I didn’t have the option of sleeping in my bedroom. We had family staying at our house and they stayed in my room. Funny thing is, we have a guest room with two beds in it. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy going home. I almost always do. But it really isn’t home anymore. D.C. is home now.
Moving along, Thanksgiving was a good time as always. The Turducken was fantastic. I suggest your family try one out next year. And of course, everyone who has graduated high school from Churchill, Wootton, Whitman and B-CC over the last 10 years was out in Bethesda on Wednesday night. It’s a little nauseating to have to wait in line at a bar in Bethesda at 10pm. But you do it because you want to see people you haven’t seen in a year and make banal smalltalk with them. Hey, it’s Thanksgiving, you’re happy to see everyone.
Saturday I got suckered into raking the yard with the rest of my family. I guess I shouldn’t say suckered, because it’s probably the most fun I’ve had doing anything in a while. My sister can’t pack the leaves down into a bag to save space for the life of her. My brother had a complete career progression as a leaf raker. He started out as an illegal Mexican, then a union leaf raker, to management and finally retirement. He kept clamoring about getting his union required break. Two problems (1) you have to work 4 hours before you get a union sanctioned break and (2) in order to be a union, you need more than one member. I’m sure you all don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about or why it’s funny. But I suppose this is what happens when family gets together. I guess you had to be there.
Anyway, to end this completely disjointed post, all I have to say is leafblowers suck. It takes longer using that thing than actually raking the leaves. Now that’s a little ass backwards, don’t you think?
