Death

Yesterday, I lost my uncle.  This man defied words.  He defied logic.  He had faced in his 79 years more adventures, more heart ache, and more life than many of us think is possible.  He had cheated death more times than any one of us can fathom.  A nearly indestructible person. Nearly.  I’ve cheated death once and I don’t think I even understood the wonder in that as much as I should.  He did. He felt he deserved the pass(es). He was right.  He had a wealth of stories.  That might be the most terrifying part of death.  The loss of memories.  Theirs.  Yours.  You lose a part of your past because their pieces in your memory are missing.   Your recounts are only yours now.  He was working on a book- maybe several.  As he aged he became fragile and partially blind so their completion to me is unknown.  And in the spirit of honesty, I’m not sure his goal was finish them.  They would still be a valuable read missing parts and all.  He and I were a lot alike.  Few people are willing to roam around the streets of Cairo in the middle of the night, but in his healthier years he didn’t sleep much-neither do I-so those activities were commonplace.  Not many people would find excitement to pull off of the side of the road and go impromptu hiking; we loved it.  With only one arm and advanced age his physical prowess was superior to any man’s ten-fold. Two words gave him more joy than dollar store; he’d light up at the sight-every time.  My uncle was brilliant.  That unique kind of brilliance that is hard to understand, but not hard to be in awe of or take advantage of. It was always a bragging right to mention his credentials to others, as if you had a secret weapon that was on YOUR side. He loved math and valued education more than anyone. Actually, what I think he loved was making the seemingly impossible possible.  It’s hard to do in global terms, but advanced (insane/crazy) maths, and theory is a great start to showing the world what can be done.  Of course there were flaws, but flaws in us all are funny things.  They, with our mistakes, seem to just bundle themselves into our future goods and amends.  They are not worth remembering on their own.

I’ve experienced death before through younger eyes.  It was not the same.  The shock of finality was always too much.  I saw no reason or peace in it.  I lacked understanding as many young people do because that kind of understanding is found through experience.  As an adult there’s a nagging notion that there’s something to be learned in the moments of death.  What’s the take away in loss overall?  What can we learn from the person we just lost?  It goes beyond the cliche’ of ‘make the most of your time on Earth’ or to make sure your loved ones and various relations know their place and value in your life-good and bad.  It’s something past forgiveness and even further past divinity.  There’s something untouchable and impossible to understand while we are living.  You can feel it, but you cannot identify it.  Maybe it’s the primal instinct of death.  The one thing we all know how to do without practice or knowledge; the one thing we will all do. It’s the one thing we cannot change no matter our efforts.  There is no running from it, as running is useless and exhausting.  We do ourselves such a disservice trying so hard to erase the humanity in death. What I saw in death yesterday in witnessing grief, love, anger, pettiness, sadness, indifference, was possibly the only time you get to experience what it is to be human all at once.  Every emotion and unique human experience comes out together as a whole.  That is the beauty in an end.

 

 

A study in anti-social behavior

So, before I became a wife and mother I was also a person.  A good person.  A fun person.  I had loads of friends.  I even had a game called “let’s make a friend” that I would play out in public.  The rules are self explanatory, but I was good at this game. After I became a mother, I fell into this sort of black-hole that can only be compared to what happens to forest children, or people raised by wild animals.  The animals of course being your kids. So the cycle starts like this: As a new mother you spend many….many days and nights solely in the company of your child(ren).  My husband would keep weird hours between work and at the time school so we didn’t hang out much; he is by choice a complete loner so he’s just as much a conversationalist as the baby.  Adult conversations were few and far between.  When I might meet with another person over the age of 20 conversations were limited to my baby, my health, or if I wanted fries with my take out.  Naturally after 2 kids and spending 3 years in this state, I realized that I did not know how to socialize appropriately.  I would say weird things.  I would sometimes talk over people.  More often than I’d like, I would start talking about something and completely forget what I was saying and sometimes what we were even talking about.  I worked on and off after my youngest turned 1 1/2, but even when I came in contact with people I noticed that socializing and making friends didn’t come easily anymore; I sucked at it.  I didn’t know how to be a person. It was hard- talking in full sentences, about things, out loud! There were times when people would start talking to me and mid conversation I would just give up and say anything to make the conversation end.  This actually happened during an interview for a job where the woman was talking to much, and I had reached a point of complete disinterest so I started answering questions with anything that might make it all stop:

Person: “So what’s your personality like?”
Me: “I’m kinda like a stoner, but I don’t have any weed.” *silence*
Person: “What does that mean?”
Me: “I’m calm and laid back but I don’t have any marijuana……..”

Then there were times when I’d lose all decorum…..and common sense.  If I were caught off guard by someone then who knows what might come out of my mouth:

Person at daycare: “Hey can you help with the kids carnival?”
Me: “No I don’t like kids….or helping.”

To be fair, I actually like kids; that bit was a bold-faced lie, but it was the easiest way in my primitive un-socialized state to give an answer that was short and couldn’t be argued with, thus ending the conversation instantly (brilliant I know).

The paradox here is that I would genuinely miss having friends and places to go.  I would get nostalgic over the good ole days and couldn’t fathom why I didn’t have a gazillion friends. I was always jealous of women and all their mom friends-having tv series parties, wine book clubs, stroller walking whatevers.  I was never invited to those groups CLEARLY because I would sometimes purposely not on purpose act like an asshole who just wanted to go home-I also don’t think my kids are smarter than everyone else’s kids, or do arts and crafts, and I still think macros are related to that annoying prompt you get when you open Excel and not a diet.

My kids are 5 and 7 now.  You can only imagine what it’s like to hang out with me or rather you can only guess no one is hanging out with me.  So true…so so so sad but true.  To the extent that in an honest effort to be friendly and funny (at the same time) during a conversation one morning, we now have one neighbor that goes to great lengths to avoid us entirely.  But you know what they say: ‘Keep trying’, ‘Never give up’ -aren’t kids shows great?! With that spirit in mind or as self induced punishment I  signed up for a ladies night in a few weeks-so that should be fun…a new place to act weird and alienate others!

Disclaimer: I do have like 5 friends.  Most don’t live here.  To the friends that do-thanks for working past my weirdness.  You’re weird too though. So you’re also welcome.

Clearly…..CLEARLY

I have absolutely no direction for this blog except to do what I want.  With that being said, I have a bone to pick.  Recently, I have found myself between jobs.  My job search has been uneventful, despite saturating my market with all things me.  At one point I came across a job posting for Front Office Receptionist at a Chiropractors office.  The job paid slightly better than minimum wage, but not much.  This job is not in my area but I’ve been venturing out because any job is better than no job.  While reading their requirements, they actually listed “head shot”.  Why on God’s green earth is that important?!  I honestly thought that as a society we were beginning to move past looks and embracing individuality and uniqueness.  I am not naive and know that beauty is important to most people, but I thought as a people we were expanding what beauty means and what it looks like.  How can a photograph accurately present whether or not someone is beautiful?  It will only prove whether or not that person fits the employer’s preconceived idea of what they find attractive.  That, honestly, is disappointing to me.  We’ve all been in situations where we meet someone and over time their attractiveness flourishes by learning who they are as a whole.  In my opinion, that’s one of life’s greatest experiences.  Why would anyone purposefully limit themselves to only seeing the superficial?  Maybe I’m missing something….

Would you want a head shot before an interview?  What would you gain from that?