Tick, Tick, Tick

The end of 2008 is upon us. Isn’t it fascinating how, as you get older; the years just seem to be something you step over. It seems the steps get smaller and smaller the more you climb. I often wonder how we don’t trip and fall down those steps, if you know what I mean.

I was thinking about my youngest daughter, who’s now 18, and how long the years must seem to her. Take it a step further and think of my almost five-month-old granddaughter. Each minute must seem like years to her. Of course she has no concept of time. I’ll be 48 next month and there are many times when I wish time would slow down considerably. There are also more times, like today, that I can literally feel it just slipping away.

I’m not saying that’s either a good or a bad thing. I’m also not saying that today was an exceptionally bad day. It’s just a normal day off. I woke up, made some coffee and sat in front of the television and watched a bunch of movies. Nothing wrong with that but the next thing I know, it’s dark out and it’s 8:00 pm. See what I mean? The day just flew right by.

I could have and should have spent the day doing any number of things. Laundry, clean up the house, visit friends or relatives. I, on the other hand, felt it more appropriate to sit in the lounge chair and watch movies. I could have even gone to the damn theater but when I looked at the times it was already too late to go to the showing I wanted. The time just slid right by.

I could easily have fallen into the trap of feeling all down about it. Thinking that I’ve wasted my life and all that other stuff I would expect myself to think but I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten down on myself for being this amazing underachiever that I am. Again, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.

I’m ok with it. By calling myself an underachiever I’m not saying I’m this horrible person or anything like that or that my life is a failure, because I’m not and more importantly, it’s not. Yes I could have done any number of more productive things. Just as I could have been doing many more productive things throughout my life. The point is, I think, that as long as I’m not hurting anyone or myself and I’m a somewhat productive member of society, then it’s ok. The world needs people that aren’t reaching their “potential”. How else would the world of psychiatry survive?

Now, I know that there are many much more successful people than I that feel they themselves are underachievers, I’m sure they work very hard to do their best and all that. That’s cool; the world needs those kinds of folks too. I’m just not that interested in going after the “ring”. That, of course is easy to say right now.

There just may come a day when something sparks me. Something that gets my juices flowing like nothing ever has. That’d most certainly be intriguing. I’m sure I’d really get into it. It hasn’t hit yet and I’m not sure what to look for if I wanted to be proactive about it. Therefore, I’ll just sit in my chair and see another movie and watch as time whips on by and begins, in the words of the band War, slippin into darkness.

An Old Age Holiday Message

I woke this morning around 6:00 and went to my window to check out how much snow had fallen over night. As I reached into the blinds to get a little separation between the slats I noticed that the two smaller fingers on my left hand were having a hard time moving. It’s as if they’re sprained or something. Then a thought occurred to me. I’ll be 48 in a month, not getting any younger. Odds are this is arthritis.

Wow, if correct, that kind of sucks. Well, not really. I think the most exercise I get besides work is using my fingers to open the shade that made me realize my fingers hurt in the first place. I’ve had bad knees for ages, had surgery on one and that hurts every once in awhile. This, on the other hand, is different. I remember my grandmother complaining about arthritis when I was a kid and I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. I’d ask her about it and she always just said, “This stuff happens when you get old”.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared about getting old before. I guess I always just thought that I’d be this social retard that I am forever. It’s always worked in the past to help me feel like I wasn’t getting any older. It’s just recently that I’m learning that the physical side of me really doesn’t care what the mental side’s plans are.

I took an Aleve and my fingers loosened up after a short while. Better living through chemistry and all. I can see how much easier it will be for me if this really was a case of arthritis, than it was for those generations before me. One simple tablet and I’m good to go whereas my grandparents would suffer daily. Sounds cold, but thems the breaks. I’m sure our kids are going to have it a lot easier too.

In reality, odds are great that this was simply a case of my bending my fingers in an odd way while sleeping but if that was the case, and I realized it, then I’d have had nothing to write about. And isn’t that my sole purpose in being here? ☺

Anyway, it’s Christmas week and those long time readers know how low I get during this time of year. I know I can become quite the grinch. I don’t mean it but I’m one of those folks that consistently bog my head down with low self-esteem feelings, especially this time of year. I will, however, admit to having a number of things that I’m happy about this year.

First and foremost, I became a grandfather this year. Jena was born in August and, though I still haven’t been able to get out to California to see her, I get regular updates on her growth and she’s doing fine. I’m happy that my kids are all healthy. Yes, they’ve each had their challenges throughout the year but they’re doing fine. My parents, brothers and sister are all plugging along and that’s a good thing too.

Lastly, I need to say how nice it’s been getting in touch again with all my new/old friends from high school via Facebook. I had no idea how much I missed you all and can never express my gratitude to you all for accepting me “back” into the fold. You will never understand how much this rediscovering has meant to me and I will forever be thankful to all of you.

So, happy holidays everybody. Be nice to each other and take care of yourselves.

A Little Island Adventure

About 10 years ago I went on a cruise with my father. It was a free trip for both of us and being that Carnival Cruise lines wanted to impress Dad, we each had our own Penthouse suite. It was really cool. We each had our own Jacuzzi, sound system and all kinds of cool amenities.

It was a Southern Caribbean cruise and we visited five different islands. The Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia, St. Thomas and Grenada. As Dad isn’t one to really do anything active, he rarely left the ship. I made sure I got off at each port and did some exploring. When we stopped in Grenada I decided to do some snorkeling.

I paid some guy five bucks to take me to a beach where I could get in some good underwater sightseeing. He took me to his little boat and off we went. We arrived at a beautiful white sand beach and he dropped me off. As I was getting my gear on I noticed there was nobody else around. I had a choice, I could go out into the sea by myself or wait for the boat to come back and find a place with a few more people on it. Being the genius I am, I stayed and went snorkeling.

Once I started walking into the water I started getting a little apprehensive. I mean, here I was, thousands of miles from home, alone and as I looked out into the sea I could see our ship anchored what seemed like light years away. I put my mask and snorkel on and started checking out the sights. About 15 minutes into it I felt something brush against my foot and it scared the hell out of me. I popped up out of the water and looked around and saw a big piece of seaweed and was able to catch my breath.

It was at this point that I realized what a moron I was to be out there by myself and decided I’d had enough. I went up on the beach and went over to the dock and just sat. I saw a boat heading towards me from the distance and saw that it wasn’t the same one I had taken originally. There were four people on the boat and two were obviously islanders and the others, tourists. As the boat approached I asked if they could take me back to the port and was told there would be a cost of five bucks. I readily agreed, the tourists got out of the boat and I hopped in.

Once on the “Ninja” (I don’t know why I remember the name) I introduced myself to Stan and Bob. We started talking about life on the island and were, at least I think, enjoying each other’s company. We told each other about our families and the things we did for fun and just literally shooting the shit. I was having a really good time and the idiotic experience I had just lived through was but a memory.

About 10 minutes into the trip back I noticed what I thought was a buoy out in the distance. I mentioned to my new friends how odd it seemed to see one way out where we were. They both agreed and we started heading out towards it. As we got closer we say that it wasn’t a buoy at all. It was a person. Bob revved up the engine and we were flying towards what we thought was a swimmer in trouble.

As we approached we could hear, what turned out to be a woman, yelling something but we were too far away to hear her. We all thought that she was in big trouble. We were so far from the shore that we could barely make it out in the distance. As we approached, Stan grabbed a lifejacket and tied a rope to it while yelling out to see if she was ok. She was still yelling back at us and as we approached we could finally make out what she was saying.

“Have you seen my beach ball”? We all three looked at each other as if to check that we heard what we thought we heard and looked back at the woman. By this time we could see that she wasn’t in any distress at all. The closer we got, we could see how big she was. She was huge. We told her to swim over to us and hop in and we’d take her back to wherever she came from. She said, very politely and in an outstanding island accent, “No thanks, I need to find my beach ball”. Again, we found this strange but told her we’d help her.

It took all three of us to pull her in and once we got settled she told us that she had been on the beach with her kids when one came to her and said the beach ball was gone in the water. We must have looked for about 10 minutes before we saw the prized possession in the distance. We caught up to it and brought it to safety. At this point we were way off shore and started back to the beach she needed to get back to.

On the way back we pretty much just let her talk. She told us that the distance she swam was no big deal and that she could have stayed out much longer to find her beach ball. The whole thing fascinated me. I couldn’t stop laughing. I mean, here was this woman out in, literally the middle of the ocean, with no boat or life jacket and her whole reason was to get a stupid beach ball. I mean, c’mon, if I was that far out in the water I know there is no way I could find my way back to safety.

Anyway, I couldn’t get over how important this beach ball was to her. I started thinking about how cheap beach balls were and thought about how poor this person must be. I started feeling sorry for her and others on the island and started feeling kind of down. Here was this woman risking her life for something that I not only take for granted but wouldn’t think twice about buying another if it was in the basement and I was heading out the door. She, on the other hand thought nothing of it. Like this was an obvious choice when the kids said the toy was in the water.

It took us about 10 minutes to get her to her beach, think about how long that would take to swim, and as we approached the shore we saw that there was a man standing right at the edge of the water. He had his hand up above his eyes shielding the sun as if he were looking for something. As we got closer the woman recognized that the man standing there was her husband. She called out to him, ostensibly I thought, to tell him she was ok. She waved to him and stepped out of the boat and into the surf. As she started walking towards the shore and her husband he yelled something out to her. Now, a normal person would think that he would check to see if she was all right. Normal is a rather subjective thing. After seeing his wife after what could have been a most treacherous swim, all we heard him say in that most wonderful Caribbean accent was, “ Did you find the ball?” I cried I laughed so hard.