Bagged Felines and Cloistered Bones

I’ve had a deep, not-so-dark secret. I’ve only told a few souls about my secret. It may not be so secret, but it has been to me. Hell, there are many ways to find out something that you want to know, so anybody could have found this out before I even said anything. “Mum” has not been the word on many fronts…

I don’t like secrets. Cats don’t reside in bags. Skeletons shouldn’t exist in my closet. I don’t like them there, but there has been one in mine for several months. Tonight I took him out and put him on display, just like the one in the Biology room at school. The cat that had been living in a bag jumped out and meowed.

I’m going to be a daddy again. I never stopped being a daddy, but I’m going to be a daddy to another child. A little “whoopsie”. A little girl. Rowan Gray Powers. Powers? Yep. Her mother has a strong last name…kinda reminds me of the name Homer Simpson took in an episode when he was a spy…Max Powers I think it was. Won’t ever get that out of my head.

Anyway, I met Rowan’s mama back in November of last year. If you go to her blog (http://dawnia.blogspot.com/) and search back to then, you can get most of the whole story. I haven’t talked much about her. I have, but I am the master (in my own mind) of allusion, the king of allegory, the knight of aversion. I’ve talked about her, but maybe because we haven’t been together as in “together forever and ever”, and we won’t be, I have almost avoided doing so in a blunt, in your face kind of way.

We hadn’t told my kids about this for a reason. First, we knew that we weren’t going to be a couple and she had given me the chance to “run”. I would never run from responsibility, but responsibility is not the reason I stayed. I know she wouldn’t want me to stay for feeling like I had to, for feeling like I was obligated to. I know that, for she has told me and the whole world that she wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have run away. I might have walked away, looking over my shoulder the entire time…I would have looked over my shoulder for the rest of my life, though. Another reason we didn’t tell my kids is because, well, I didn’t feel like they would be accepting of another sibling. My daughter told me once that she likes us the way we were (of course it would have been even better with “daddy-mama-sister-brother” together, she also said). I was so afraid of hurting her that I was holding out until I felt ready; until I felt she was ready.

D (my baby momma) had come over the other day to get the crib that both my kids had used when they were babies. It was here; it was going unused; it went to her. She got me a more “portable” one from a consignment sale this past weekend. Anyway, my daughter wanted to know why she was taking the crib. “Is Zero (D’s cat…one of many) going to sleep in it?” she asked. Tonight, I was showing D an “old-school” playpen, one that Ralph Nader surely tried to ban, one that gives you visions of hundreds of heads being simultaneously stuck in between the bars. My daughter (a bright one, she is) asked why I was showing it to D. The beginning of a thousand questions, and not a single one was I going to lie about. D was about to pull out of the driveway, when she asked me when I was going to tell them. I told her then that I was staying, and that I would tell her this weekend. She said that she would like to see the look on my daughter’s face, so I cocked my head towards the front door and said, “C’mon then”.

That’s all it took. Months of worry and thoughts of regret melted away with the utterance of the words from my mouth to my kids. Why did I worry about it? I know that I waited until I felt it was right. But what caused me to do it now?

This weekend has not been a good one for me. On Saturday, I discovered that I had gone into the overdraft reserve in my checking account. That’s not such a big deal, but I had gone into it almost to the limit. The bank charges me $10 for each day that a debit or check clears and I’m in the reserve. That I understand. It is part of the luxury of having the overdraft protection. But what drained the color from my face, made me turn around and head back home after leaving the bank, made my stomach instantly start hurting was this: I had a total of five debits come through that put me over my overdraft protection limit. Five debits. I don’t know how much each one was. They couldn’t have been for more than $20 for gas, or even less for some food, but each one added a $35 charge to my account. Five of them. $35 multiplied by 5. That’s $175. Gut wrenching sickness overcame me.

“Deep, dark depression, excessive misery…gloom, despair, and agony on me.”

I am at the lowest point of my life. Never before have I been this low. Even in my depression of the death of my marriage, I wasn’t this low. How can I pay for gas to get my kids to and from their aunt’s house, their “day care” for the summer? How can I pay for the food that they need? I haven’t been getting the hours that I so desperately need at work either. I need gas to get there to get the money to get gas and food…the wheel goes round and round. These and other questions popped up in my head all night last night and rummaged around in my brain today. I had emailed the manager of my local branch, telling her that I have been a loyal customer for nearly 15 years. I told her of the financial burden I was already in and the charges that depleted my account don’t help at all, in fact, there is no way to recover from this. I had heard of banks waiving these kinds of fees before, especially for hardship purposes. Even if they would waive a portion of them, that would help tremendously. I gave her my telephone number to call me on Monday. We’ll see what comes of it.

Welfare. Never thought about it. Not going to think about it either, but I am not above asking for help. I have already applied for food stamps, but with me moving to another county, I have to apply there as well. I tried to this past Friday, but by the time I got to Cleveland, the office had been closed for nearly 20 minutes. Just my luck.

So, in the darkest time of my life, why did I decide to stick and raise another child? Why did I decide to tell my kids about their new little sister? Maybe I did because there is no other place to go but up. Get this off my chest while I am down so low that maybe the enthusiasm shown would bring me up. I don’t know. I just did. I decided that the right thing to do, for me, for my kids, for Rowan, for D…but especially for me…the right thing to do would be for me to help raise this child. I know it will be hard. It will be hard financially (that’s the understatement of my life), it will be hard physically and mentally. But I’m going to do it because I feel it is right. I know it is right.

In the end, my fears went unfounded. My son, who is only 5, understood what I was saying, but seemed to not care one way or the other. He was only interested in turning the TV back on and let the grown up talk dissipate. My daughter, though, was ecstatic. She was especially happy to know that she was going to have a little “half-sister”. Half, whole, it doesn’t matter…it is going to be a sister, not another brother. Their mama knows (and surely everyone she knows “knows”) and, shoot, half of all those I know are in the know about it.

Was I happy about finding out about being a daddy again? No. And the congregation yelled, “Hell, no!” That’s another reason I have kept the cat in the bag, the skeleton in the closet. I haven’t been enthused. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t or won’t love this child as much as I love my other two. I won’t love it more or less than them. That is a promise. Am I enthused about it now? No. But I feel warmth and love all the same. Outwardly I don’t show it, but inwardly I am beaming with pride and love. Believe me, I am.

The cat has run away, so I fold up the bag and put it in the recycling bin. The skeleton looks hideous standing in the corner of my room. I’ll wheel him to the nearest haunted house and drop him off. There is no need for them to stick around anyway. Are there more secrets waiting to be told? Nope.

At least none that I am aware of, anyway…

A Toss of the Coin

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 40. I’ve spent 40 years of being on this spinning orb, hurtling through space at a dizzying speed, making a difference in nothing, but affecting everything that I touch. Looking back, 40 seemed a long way off. There was so much to be done with life. So much not done.

I can remember my fifth birthday. Not vividly, but I do remember where I was, and the card I got. It was 1973; I was at my grandma’s house in Cedar Grove, TN. I do believe my brother and sister were there, but not sure if my dad was there or not. The card was a cut-out clown that you put together and played with. Even then I was concerned about “damaging” something that someone had given me. I mean, the clown was supposed to come out, but in doing do, the card would be ruined. I am that way. I have stacks of Mad magazines from my teen years. They had the pictures on the last page that you were supposed to bend to make a totally new picture. The pages are still unbent. I would cut out a piece of paper to cover the folded part to see the new picture just to keep the page unbent. I have CarToons magazines with ages-old iron-ons in them. I wanted to keep them intact. Why?

I don’t remember ever having a goal for my life. Most kids wanted to be a policeman, fireman, scientist, and hell…even the president. I just wanted to live a life that I felt was right. In elementary school, I didn’t have a clue. In high school, when you were supposed to at least have an idea…I didn’t. When I got to college, it was almost a toss of the coin to decide what major I would choose. I just picked one that seemed right at the time; Business Management. That was something that I now realize was as far away from my persona as Chattanooga is to Memphis…going east, that is. Midways into my college education, I changed to Marketing, which was closer, but still not right. The artistic parts of it were, like drawing up the ads for Advertising class and coming up with a sales presentation for a class project (oh, yeah…my sales pitch for a new perfume called Dümí was a great hit…”Don’t get me diamonds, just Dümí”…even my professor got a kick out of that!). But I was still clueless. I think that the reason for that was that I just didn’t care. Only a few years into college, the partying started. The desire to have a good time overrode the need to study and get good grades. I did get good grades, but not in my major. The good grades were in English, Science, Creative Writing, and all the other classes that had nothing to do with my degree. I would have done excellent with an Undecided Major!

Then I met the woman I would spend the next 15 years with. I felt that making money with a steady job was good enough at that point. We both did some partying, but she had her degree and a good job. With money coming in from both ends, life was good. Eventually, two kids, complacency and blindness set in. I’ve said so much about this subject, that I am going to skip it this time. I don’t even want to think about it.

There are times when I am completely alone. The kids are with their mama. Friends are at their own homes (more and more of that happening here lately…). The mind starts to wander in those moments, the times when the crickets are chirping, the bats are flitting about while searching for unseen insects, and the fireflies blink their Morse code messages to each other. When my mind starts to wander, that’s when I feel the most vulnerable, yet it is also the time when I feel most creative. No one around to distract me from thinking…and sometimes thinking is not such a great idea when the thoughts are ones that make me unhappy. But when those thoughts arise, I do my best to beat them back down to whence they came, back to the dark depths of my mind that even I haven’t seen yet.

I was with friends yesterday. I showed up late to my own birthday party, but it was because of no fault of my own, really. No putzing involved. The person who was to help me move some things to my new house didn’t arrive until a few hours after he said he would, which then put us back that much more in the order of getting ready. Then, I promised a friend that I would pick her up for the party. That took a trip to Dalton and then to East Ridge…all from originating in Ooltewah. So, I was late because of the kindness of one friend, and from me being kind to another. Anyway, I was hanging around with a fine group of folks last night. Even some from Sand Mountain came down from their side, up Lookout Mountain, then down the other side into Chattanooga. I was really surprised to see them there. But they were and that is what mattered. Friends rallying around me, sharing my happiness of living yet another year, and my depression for the same reason…another year behind me. I did get a neat gift. It was a canoe paddle that everyone had signed. That thing is going to hang from the rafters on the porch of my new house. It is where it belongs. It will be a symbol of those who care for me as I take off into this new journey, a new direction in my life, one that hopefully will be just as full of happiness that the former journey was. But really, that journey isn’t over, it just changed direction.

Of course there were those who weren’t there that should have been. I do miss them. One that I expected to hear from…and didn’t. I don’t know if it hurt me that I should have heard from her and didn’t, or if it was just something that I expected and didn’t receive that hurt me. It is called a divorce, not death. I’m still here. She is still here. It probably shouldn’t bother me because we are not together. But still, it is hard to let go the notion that it wasn’t forgetfulness; it wasn’t forgotten for 15 years. If it was because of divorce and we just can’t wish each other well because of that…well…I don’t think I can understand that. If there was hatred involved, that would be different, but I didn’t think there was hatred involved. I have no clue. It is over, it is done. The day is gone into the past, and I guess that’s where things should stay.

Lordy, lordy, look who’s 40. Over the hill. Senility and eventual bedrest in a mandated minimum security lockdown called a retirement facility. Just a fancy name for the old folk’s home. That is ahead of me, it is not right now. I’ll be there before it’s all over though. But before I get there, start forgetting who I and loved ones are, I am going to make the best of what life has thrown upon my plate. I have some options and opportunities coming open that I am excited about; foot in the door opportunities; solid, good employment opportunities; deep close friendship opportunities. All I have to do is be prepared to reach out and grab them. No toss of the coin this time…

I think I’ll put the coin back in my pocket.

Just a Day

I remember the scene as if it were yesterday. We walked arm in arm to the rose petal covered area where friends and family eagerly awaited. Ahead of us walked a violinist, the tune from the strings reverberating into the air and into the wooded spaces. A little girl tossed rose petals along the way, making a path for us to follow to where the ultimate display of love was to be played out. I was nervous. It was the most important day of my life. I believe it was the most important day of her life as well. In less than an hour, we were to be man and wife, after professing our love for each other in front of family, friends, nature, and God.

Even though it may have felt like it, it wasn’t yesterday. It was fourteen years ago. Today. I hadn’t thought about until I got to work this morning. Then it was all I could think about. Today was supposed to be a happy day, a day of remembrance. A day to look back on and constantly reaffirm the love that was supposed to last forever. A day to remind us of that one day long ago. A day of Provino’s Cannelloni and a bottle of wine. A day of anniversary cards and maybe a gift or two. A day of longing, looking forward to culminating the day with the act of professed love. For at least twelve of those years, it was. Each and every anniversary was special to me. I never wanted them to end. I never thought they would.

Last year, on our thirteenth anniversary, it wasn’t like the rest. I already knew that she wasn’t happy. I already knew that the things I was doing to try and fix what was broken, to make right the things that were wrong…these things weren’t working. In fact, the more I tried to work at it, the worse it got, the more distant she became, the angrier at me she got. Angry? Yes. Angry because she thought I was only doing those things because she had mentioned she wasn’t happy. Which in turn, was true, to a point. What else would you do if you were told that things weren’t right, things were broken, and something needed to be done? You would try to make things right, fix it, do something about it. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t that be the natural reaction? I was not only doing it because she had told me things weren’t right. That wasn’t the only reason. No, I was doing it also because I wanted to. I was afraid that our marriage was in jeopardy. I would have done anything in my power to make things right. And I did. It just wasn’t good enough.

So, today was to be special; to remember and look forward. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was a day of thoughtfulness, at least on my part. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t morose most of the day. I was. It hurt to think that the forever that was to be was no longer. I didn’t talk to many people about what today was supposed to have been. I really didn’t feel like talking about it. By no means did I let it ruin my day, but the thoughts of what today should have been kept surfacing, making me think about things, good and bad. As the day went on, I wanted to talk to someone, anyone about what I was feeling. But I didn’t. I thought that to do so would be like seeking someone to have pity on me. That was not what I wanted. I don’t want pity. I do want comfort though. Everyone at some point or another wants to be comforted, to be held, to be told that everything is going to be alright. I am no different.

I got an email from someone that I had been trying to meet for quite some time now. The timing has not been right, and for some reason or another, we haven’t met yet. We’ve talked on the phone, sent messages through Instant Messenger, and sent emails back and forth for weeks now. I got this email after returning from being gone all weekend. It said to please call. So I did. No answer. I kept on trying to call. At some point, the answering machine message changed to indicate that she had been in the hospital. I finally got her on the phone tonight. Something bad had happened and the seriousness of it makes me feel so bad for her. I empathize with her pain. I wanted to comfort her. I tried, but I really don’t think that comfort can come from long distance, over the phone words. Comfort needs a physical presence as well as the words. I did try my best, but I don’t know what more to say than, “I’m sorry. It will get better”. As if they are magic words that will make things better just by saying them. I know they won’t. But for now, it is all I can give. It’s all I can do is to let her know that I feel for her, I want her to get better, and I really hope that she can find solace when it is all over. I really do.

This day is almost over. In about an hour, it will fade into the past, into the history of my life. Will this day lose its significance to me at some point? Will I forget what July 8 represents as a part of my history, as a part of me where I was happy and in love? I don’t think I will. New dates and new histories are ready to be made. New loves will come, of that I am absolutely positive. But that doesn’t erase the past and what to remember from that past. It is written in the pages of that tome that resides in my mind, the one that is still being written on a daily basis. I have been known to read the same book several times. Especially if it is a book that I love and enjoy the story it tells. This book is no different. The early parts of it become dusty and I will thumb back through from time to time to make myself remember the characters and plots that set the basis for the ending of the story. I have to. If not, the rest of the story will never make sense.

Near Losses

I almost lost a bit of myself and history this week. Things that define my life, things stored on a technological piece of work call a hard drive, things that I really don’t want to lose or be without. Pictures, music, writings, projects…all neatly stored in virtual folders to be accessed on a whim or whenever needed. I almost lost it all.

I do backup things when I think about it. I have backup copies of pictures dating back to 2002. I don’t have backup copies of my latest pictures, music or writings that have been saved recently. I didn’t take the time to do it like I should have. I know that is a mistake, but it is a mistake I’ll soon not make again. Knowing that these things could have been lost tore at me, made me worry that a big piece of my life was sitting right in front of me, but out of reach. I’m not computer wizard. I do know some things, but how to diagnose a hard drive to rescue vital pieces of information is beyond my scope. That is left to the gurus. The gurus that make the big bucks.

What happened was this: I store all my pictures, music, writings, projects, etc. on an external hard drive. When my computer went belly up, I just unplugged the external hard drive from my computer and connected to my daughter’s computer. Voila! All the information was readily available again. Well, I should have been more careful about where I set the thing in her room. She is a good girl, and I know that it was an accident, but where I had set the hard drive was on top of her computer tower, under her desk, and about knee level from the ground. It was nothing for her little foot to entangle in a wire and pull it off the top of the tower and to the floor. That is what happened. I didn’t think anything had happened, at least it didn’t show any signs of damage. But when I tried to access it, the computer didn’t even recognize that it was connected. I tried everything I could think of to remedy the problem. I unplugged the power cord and plugged it in again. Nothing. I unplugged the USB cable and plugged it in again. Nothing. I began to worry that all was lost. I finally figured out how to open the case of the external hard drive and all the mystery of just what was in there was exposed. It was if the things were magically stored in this box. That is how computer savvy I am. But the mystique was gone when I opened it up…just a hard drive like in your computer, but contained in a little box instead of a big one. I noticed that something was wrong near the area where the USB cable is connected to a green board with all sorts of soldered square and rectangle shaped thingamabobs. One of those doohickeys, something that looks like a soldered piece of plastic no bigger than an open hole between the weave in a piece of Rice Chex cereal was wobbling around. It was so small; I was pushing it around with the pointed end of a needle. It had come loose when the hard drive fell. That was the problem. The computer and hard drive had lost communication because a bridge had been gapped. But had the drive itself been damaged? Had I lost any information or files?

I took the hard drive to my neighbor who has a hard drive enclosure (that’s what I am going to get to put this hard drive into, I sure am!) and he tested it to make sure all my information was still there and that there was no damage to the drive itself. That is when I found out that I lost nothing after all. Relieved? You bet I was.

I didn’t know what I would have done if those pieces of me and my life had disappeared. There was just too much there to replace. It couldn’t be replaced. They had long since been deleted from the media cards from the cameras that took the pictures; some of the music CDs had been sold or lost. My writings? I do have some hard copies, but most are online or elsewhere. They could have been replaced easily enough.

This got me thinking. What about the real life things that matter to me? What if they became lost? What about lost love, lost lives, lost memories? They could never be replaced. Sure, something would step in and try to replace what was lost, but the replacements would never be the same as the originals. That doesn’t mean they would never be as good as the originals, because some things shouldn’t even be compared to what was lost. Lost love: it can be found again. Lost lives: nothing could ever replace that. If something were to happen to one of my kids, there isn’t a copy sitting on some server or CD somewhere. That would be it. Lost memories: not replaceable…new ones can be made, though.

Losing love stinks. It is the hardest thing that I have gone through in a long time. I never wanted to lose it, but it fell between the cracks of time and complacency, lost among the myriads of distractions that consumed the time that should have been spent nurturing and promoting the growth of love.

The ultimate loss is the death of a loved one. I’ve only had a handful of people I love die. One of them was my sister. No one can replace family or friends who are lost in the clutches of death.

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease. They say that the brain of people with it actually start to die; to atrophy and grow smaller. My neighbor up the road who died recently had Alzheimer’s. His wife said that was the hardest thing she ever had to live through. I can’t imagine watching someone I love and care for go through that. Forgetting loved ones, dates, things that you take for granted each and every day. These things were lost to him, and in essence, to those around him. Sad.

I want to protect those things that are precious to me. I can’t make copies of my children. I can’t store imprints of those I love on a server somewhere. I can’t do anything to keep bad things from happening. I can only try to do my best to protect what is precious to me, and even then, inevitability comes into the picture. What is to be is what is to be. I can’t stop it. I can only do my best to protect, enjoy the time spent with loved ones, and make memories which can be stored in the hard drive of the human body, the brain, for the rest of my life.

Or at least as long as I have a brain that functions as it should. This, hopefully, is forever.