Check out my Balls

(don't) grow up

Photo by Craig Thomas on Unsplash

As a kid, I used to lie in bed and calculate how old I would be on my birthday whenever certain years would roll around. For instance, I distinctly remember figuring out that in the year 2000 I would be 32 (thus turning 33 by 2001). For what it’s worth, Jesus supposedly died at 33. I’m not sure he missed much, cutting out so young. I’m just impressed that I outlived God. 2001, to refresh your memory, was the year that America went off the deep end. The 9/11 attack took whatever remaining sanity we collectively enjoyed as a nation and flushed it right down the shitter. That was 22 years ago. I’m 55 now.

I wondered who I would be at those later ages and if I would remember the kid who spent his nights filling his head with weird thoughts. So much of what I’ve experienced was unenviable. A lot of pain has been built into my makeup. Had I known that at the time, I would have no doubt been horrified.

But, had I known that there is incredible power to tap into in terms of knowledge and experience, that would have thrilled me. But like all things that you anticipate being horrible from everything you’ve heard, the truth is usually a pale facsimile.

For instance, having kids is unbelievably challenging. At least it is if you care about them. Shitheads no doubt bask in their not-caring while their children are left to the fates, destined to be future dickheads. What do they care? When you have your first kid on the way, the anticipation is a motherfucker. Can I handle it? How will I deal without sleep? What if this happens, what if that happens, etc. You can bury yourself in a miasma of toxic bullshit. You hear horror stories about losing sleep. And then when the kid arrives, you find that the lack of sleep is manageable. Sure, it sucks, but you handle it.

And then there’s the stuff you never consider that ends up being really hard to manage. Like guilt. Parenting is one long exercise in guilt. No one warns you about that. And they damn well should, because it’s brutal. You never feel like you’ve done enough, or else you fear that you’ve gone too far with something. You think you’re too hard on them, and then you think you’re too lenient. Every struggle they have burns you to your core. That shit is murder. Being the best parent you can is serious work. It’s the most important thing you’ll do in your life, because the world is the recipient of what you bring into it.

But to bring it back to that little kid in his bed. I also used to imagine that I was being watched by something or someone when I was lying there being goofy. It was a sort of thought experiment that I enjoyed entertaining sometimes. I don’t feel that way anymore. Nowadays I feel like I’m dancing just outside of something crucial. it could be success, something transcendent, something great. At those times it feels as though there is an invisible but impenetrable barrier between my reality and my true reality.

I know it sounds kinda hokey to think that way, but I feel like that all the damn time. Always have for as long as I can remember. I feel like an observer, and a consummate outsider. I’m sure there are shrinks who would love to have a go at that. I feel trapped in my mind, and in my body. I don’t know any other way to describe it. I feel insulated against real truth and real being, and I fucking hate it.

Shifting gears, it’s cold here, as in below freezing. That’s an increasing rarity for the Texas Gulf Coast. Having said that, we had a cold snap a couple years back that shut the whole damn state down. Power went out for millions, my wife and I included. We spent 3 days in 37 degree hell. We had no way to heat food or get water. My wife is from Brazil. They don’t get 20 degree cold blasts that last days on end. Ever. She genuinely thought we were at serious risk of freezing to death.

I’m from Ohio, and as I’ve learned from my countless hours trawling through Ancestry.com, I have a fair portion of my lineage which hails from places including Wales, England, Germany, and Scotland. Those place can get cold as hell. I once had to walk to school in -30 degree weather. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was painful and intense, but I loved it. I love cold weather. I love snow and I love cold, crisp air. Perhaps it’s genetic.

I say that because the people I know who hail from Texas are generally whores for the swampy balls-rotting hell heat that bakes this fucking godforsaken place for months at a time. When I think of summertime, I think of camping, and fucking off outside. Down here, that’s a no go. I wouldn’t camp outside here in the summer unless I had to. Between sweating the entire night and the onslaught of gigantic bugs, it would be like kicking back for a few days in a giant outdoor sauna, fully clothed. And you’re just supposed to dick around and have a grand time. Fuck Texas.

So as long as the power stays on over the next couple of nights, I’ll be in hog heaven. I literally feel alive in this weather. Consequently, I feel like death is cuddling me during the summers here. Showers are restorative, but five minutes out of that shower and I’ll be sweating all over again. And within seconds of being outside, I will be sticky, soaked through, exhausted, and miserable. Anyone who says they love a Texas summer is a degenerate loser, and deserves to be run through a wood chipper. Sorry, but that’s just science.

When I lie in bed now, I much too often think about how much longer I have to live, or if I’ll actually be able to get more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep. Getting older is a mindfuck, and it comes with compounding interest. The older I get, the more fucked things seem to be.

Maybe that’s why death is part of the deal. Maybe if our births were a point in time, and our lives were arrows that forever extended away from that point, we would devolve into total gibbering lunacy. And eternal lunacy equates to hell. And hell is a fabrication. If anything, I’m in hell right god-damn now. But it’s cool, because I can dig it. Now go fuck yourself. I’m done being wistful.