Well that was a speedy, non-blogging week. But I have reasons! Or for the less charitable, excuses! I started by forcefully slamming the top of my head into a rounded rivet on the bottom of a playground structure. No, not on purpose. I didn’t lose consciousness or get dizzy, but it hurt with a persistent and impressive intensity. Sometimes it’s daddy that gets the bonk. So, that took the wind out of my sails on Wednesday. Thursday, I marshaled the lad off to school even though he resisted and kept claiming he was too tired. He had woken up at 5:30, so tiredness was to be expected, and I thought he would snap out of it. When the school called me an hour later and told me he was running a fever of 101, I felt like the worst parent ever. I brought him home, kept watch while he slept the day away, and finally was able to get some children’s tylenol and ice cream to make the rest of the afternoon and evening easier. He recovered almost entirely by Friday around lunchtime. When he gets sick, though, I lose my mind with worry and emotional upheaval, so I was no good for blogging Thursday or Friday. Saturday was family stuff, which I enjoyed immensely, and it was my night to do bedtime. By the time I was free and clear to hit the old computer, I was a tired puddle of unenthusiastic apathy. So now we’re here! You people have waited for a topic, and a topic you shall have. Karma! During one of our ramble-arounds through the neighbourhood this week, Max and I came across various bits of litter on the lawn. I grumbled at first to myself, blaming no-good teenagers and boozed up slackers, but then I got tired of my own complaining and I picked the stuff up. If I think about it, I was not a bastion of civic cleanliness during my youth, so I probably owe the city a fair amount of garbage collection. And that’s an aspect of the maturation process: accepting that you may have run a karmic deficit in the past, and realizing you can start balancing your own metaphysical budget right here and now. I was a pretty big fan of “My Name Is Earl” at least for the first few seasons, and it did a very good job showing a man trying to make amends within the limitations of his own life. The man trying to fix his mistakes didn’t suddenly become a transformed person, changed in every way. He was the same guy, with the same family and friends, and the same drawbacks. The only difference was that he wanted to live a better life and try to do the right thing. The biggest challenge to anyone trying to live a more ethical and compassionate life is shouldering the weight of your previous misdeeds without being crushed by your past. So now, I pick up trash when I see it. It doesn’t matter how the trash got here, it needs to be cleaned up.

(Did anyone else assume ‘messenger’ would retain the ‘a’ that ‘message’ has? Just me? Really? I am usually a fairly competent speller, but I was wrong on this one).

I used to be an enemy of implied communication, where information is being broadcast through indirect, non-verbal methods. It always felt manipulative, the idea that the person I was talking to wanted me to pick up on their clues and hints, instead of just saying what they wanted in plain english. As I think about it now, though, I can see it’s mostly my own insecurity pushing that decision. Human communication is complicated, convoluted and sometimes bafflingly contradictory, but it’s they way we do things. I had no confidence in my ability to receive these subtle missives and interpret them correctly, so I outlawed them. And when you’re already overly sensitive and afraid of any criticism, the subtext of any conversation will sound accusatory to you. With the near-normal levels of self-esteem I’m enjoying now, I don’t hear accusations in everyone’s voice or in their body language. Example time!

The little dude, the wife and I took part in the Alzheimer’s Walk For Memories fundraiser on the weekend. The wife’s grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, so there is a personal connection to  the event and an additional level of emotional response. Last year, we didn’t attend the event and my sister-in-law went on her own. Before this year’s walk started, the SIL and the wife were talking about how moved and affected the event was already making them, and the SIL said ‘it was like this for me last year and I was all alone’. Before, I would have become really defensive at this statement and the implication that we should have been there (if she was even implying that).  But this time, I took stock of what she had said and I thought about it. She wasn’t unfairly manipulating us, she was being honest about her experience, and instead of defensive guilt, I felt empathy and happiness that we were all there together this time. Felt pretty good about how things happened.

Trying to force someone to be absolutely explicit and abandon the more subtle communication techniques is pretty unfair. There’s a time for bluntness (the kitchen is on fire!) but when it comes to sharing your feelings and emotional reactions, there’s a lot of room for subtlety. I’m really glad that I can listen to those quiet messages now. And in the off chance someone is giving me negative information, I have to keep my ears open and listen objectively. There is always the microscopic chance that I may in some way, at some time in the distant future, be a teeny bit wrong about something.

I had an irritatingly poor attitude yesterday that stood in the way of anything productive, digging its heels in and  braying angrily. A better night of sleep seems to have reduced this obstinacy, so I better squeeze in a post while I can. Be forewarned: I don’t have a theme or plan, so it’s going to ramble around.

First, the wife was right. Not that she isn’t usually right, with her common sense and general optimism, but she hit the nail on the head. She had been wondering the same thing that I had been, if all of these personal revelations I’ve been having are just symptoms of a mid-life crisis, so the title of the last post made her laugh. When we talked about it, she gave me a better explanation. What I’m going through right now is a sudden awareness of the things I could possibly achieve, and the opportunities that are out there for me. Most people have this kind of inspiration when they become adults, as they look at the choices of school and work with a lifetime ahead of them. At least, I hope most people have this feeling at some point, because it’s pretty cool. I just happen to be about a decade late,having spent my late teens and half of my twenties in a thick mental fog. With a lot of hard work and trial and error, the fog is pretty much lifted and I can dream of a future that extends past dinnertime.

Fun fact:most of Canada’s Prime Ministers assumed office around age 50, which means I have 14 years to become Prime Minister, if I want to. For the longest time I have bemoaned the years I lost to idleness and childish self-pity, but I’m now seeing just how much more time I have in front of me. It’s a lot. And instead of being afraid of the roadblocks and pitfalls that could happen and limiting my plans, I’m going to choose optimistic goals and roll with the punches.