I'm Wierd

Forgive the misspelling. It's actually a reference to what I'm listening to at the moment. "Die", they keep singing. Don't worry, I'm not there yet, but why am I in this state?

I'm in that reflective mood that comes with a few glasses of wine and a cigarette. A walk around the apartment, a few glances up at the moon, and seeing silhouettes of presumably happy people in their kitchen windows makes me wonder if I've missed something. Have I given too much of myself? I ask these self-loathing questions about where my life is going, that sort of thing. Most of why I don't blog so much these days is because I'm pretty sure I'd just sound like a whiny little kid.

I watched a couple of "sad bastard" movies this weekend - Up In the Air and Crazy Heart. They're both really good and worth a rental. I saw myself in both of the main characters. In one, I was the guy always on the move with my job, never giving time to myself. In the other, I was the guy who drinks too much and loses his shit all the time. What a great contrast! Sadly, when both of these characters looked to straighten out their lives, they were handed a raw, heartbreaking deal. Hooray.

Truthfully, I feel like I've gained a lot from my job and the endless time I sacrifice for these kids (mainly the cross country kiddos). I know I am doing good, providing guidance and stability in their otherwise hectic lives. At the same time, I come home and drink until I fall asleep. What does that even mean? Is it exhaustion or an indicator of not being fulfilled? I prefer it to be exhaustion, but I honestly can't figure it out.

At the end of the day, I just want someone to say they're proud of me. See...whiny kid talk, but it's true. Maybe I need to see my parents more or something, but somehow it wouldn't mean the same. A lot of the time I just don't feel like people know what I go through day in and day out. I'm sure I don't explain it all that well, or even ever want to talk about it. I just want them to know and maybe even say that I'm doing a good job once in awhile. Surely this is not all that wierd.

School Year's Eve

Teachers typically run on a different schedule than most people. We should really number the months differently because of it. Instead of looking back on the year in December, we look back on it at the end of the summer, and cry about having to go back to work in August. January is not our time for New Year's resolutions, but the beginning of a cruel, horrible stretch of work that almost kills us before we get to Spring Break. Now I'm not going to get into the debate of how hard a teacher's job is or how much better our schedules are. It might make me angry and remind me how little I get paid to work 12 hour days for 10 months out of the year coaching 2 sports. (Cue grinding teeth)

I go back to work (officially) on Monday, but I've been up at the school more this summer than I ever have before. Cross Country stuff and Grad Testing made me make numerous trips down that 17 mile route. Each trip I asked myself why I was doing it. I can't stand most of the higher ups over there and Lord knows those people are not my besties or anything. I spend most of the school year grumbling about stupid decisions, pointless meetings, uninspired teachers, and jock itch coaches. As a whole, the school is kind of a joke yet they keep me coming back.

I've alluded to this being my last year and I'm pretty certain it is. I came in 3 years ago and hopefully in May, I'll be congratulating those boogers from my first freshman class. And though I call them boogers now, I may just lose it if they make it across the stage. As annoying as some of them are, they are the reason I've kept coming back. I have little patience for dumb, arrogant adults, but a ton of it for dumb, arrogant, and often ignorant kids. I don't know why.

So here's to the last hurrah! Time to sing Auld Lang Syne. Ah, screw the song...time to drink.

Atlanta vs Athens part 2

My family moved to Atlanta in the summer of 1991. I moved to Athens in the summer of 2001. I am not a Yankee. I may be one in my mind, but by the end of the coming school year, I will have lived in the Peach state for 20 years. Two decades. Despite my rants and complaints, Atlanta has been very good to me and my family (and when I say Atlanta, I really mean the great suburb of Roswell). Athens has just been better. It makes sense. I spent 10 years growing up, outgrew the burbs, moved to a new place for schooling/working, and then...

And then the iconic corner coffee shop that has sat in an old garage for as long as I can remember moved down the block. Is this symbolic? Have I outgrown Athens or am I just supposed to move down the block? I mean we can make anything into symbolism if we try hard enough.

A couple of days after the Zooey concert insanity, I got the chance to see Mates of State in Athens. I was me. I didn't go crazy with the wine, parking was free and easy, and this time I remembered the concert. In fact, it probably ranks in the top 5 of concerts I've seen here in Athens. Half of me stood there in wonder taking in the pure joy of their music while the other part of me started saying goodbye to this great city and all the joyful life-shaping moments its brought me.

I'm not saying anything for sure yet, but I have a hunch that some kind of change is a gonna come. Maybe it doesn't even have anything to do with moving

It may be crazy to pack up and move from a town like this, but it'd also be crazy to sit here while I watch all my friends move off, graduate, and get married. Pretty soon I'll be that creeper who lives in an apartment complex all alone amongst a bunch of people ten years younger. Let's not be that guy.

Atlanta vs Athens part 1

Many of you already know my feelings towards Atlanta from hearing me rant on the phone while in traffic or reading my bitter words right here on this blog about growing up in suburbia. Long story short; I hate the ATL. If I didn't have so many stinkin' friends and family there, I doubt I would ever step foot on its endless miles of concrete ever again. So there's my opinion. Pretty simple...but there's more (of course)...

The last couple days have been an intriguing exercise in understanding just how possible it is to loathe a city. Our story begins with a concert. Awhile back, my brother asked me if I wanted to go to She & Him with he and several friends. I knew it was going to be an outdoor concert in July, but I just had to see my imaginary-indie-hipster-girlfriend Zooey Deschanel at least once before I broke up with her, so I said yes. Sure enough July comes around, "it's so hot outside", and they actually want to spend the whole day in the ATL.

I opted to skip the Turner Field tour since I had to teach that morning, but I drove in for the Fox Theatre tour that their friend had set up since he works there and all. I find parking in one of the side streets where there was one of those new "efficient" digital parking meters for the whole block. I walk up to it with a handful of change in hand and put it all in. To my astonishment, it got me about 20 minutes of actual parking time at the space, so I run to my car to grab more change. As I'm sprinting back, I hear a click which I follow with a loud slow motion "Noooooooo!" Since I was a good 30 yards away from said "efficient" parking meter, I did not have enough time to add minutes to that receipt. I figured I could just add time to the existing space, but to no avail, so instead I just put a crapload of more change and got maybe 30 minutes of worry-free parking during the tour.

I walk in to meet my brother to find out that we still have to wait on one of their friends. I tap my foot nervously and try not to sweat the lack of time my car has before it's towed. Instead I do my best to enjoy the random facts their friend tells us on the tour. It was a good tour, but as soon as we finished, I jetted out the door to check on the car. I'm relieved to find it there when I get a call from a few blocks away that we're actually going to stay for a drink before going to the pre-concert dinner. Good Lord, why? I put even more money in the stupid thing and walked in the rain to the bar next to the Fox, down a beer, and walk back to my car, which is okay once again.

Then we head on to dinner, which was close to Piedmont Park. I park on a side street once again, but there are no robot meters that want to steal all my money, so I feel pretty good about leaving it there as long as it's not all night. We get dinner, have some drinks, and head across the park to the concert. My chance to see my imaginary-indie-hipster-girlfriend Zooey is just around the corner. I decided to celebrate a bit by overspending for a bottle of wine at the concession place thinking we'll all share the bottle. Little did I know that two others in our group were thinking the same thing. The whole sharing idea instead led to my own personal bottle of crappy concession wine. Oh well. Drink up.

The opening act comes on and sucks it up for a couple songs when the rain starts pouring down. I shrug it off in my buzzed state thinking who cares, but then a lady comes on the loudspeaker and directs us all to the main buildings. We grudgingly go and bring our buckets of wine and beer with us to covered ground. This was not a good place to be. I don't remember how long the delay was but I do know that all our beverages were consumed before going back out to our seats on the lawn. This prompted my brother to get just one more bottle that we proceeded to share.

From this point on, I remember very little, but here's what I've gathered since...

1. I heard some songs by She & Him
2. I may have seen my imaginary-indie-hipster-girlfriend play a ukulele for one of them
   
3. We were told multiple times to keep it down
4. My brother and I shared sips from the bottle
5. The show ended
6. We stumbled across the park to our sober friend's car
7. A mess was made in aforementioned car (wasn't me)
8. More mess came on the highway (also not me)
9. I wake up on brother's couch

When I awoke, I quickly reached for my phone to see what time it was...no phone. I got up and looked around and still no phone. I text all the people from last night with my brother's phone and still no phone. I call my phone and think it might be one of my brother's friends that picked up when we are disconnected. I try again and get the same result. I get a call on my brother's phone from our mother. I answer. Our conversation...

Mom: Do you have your phone? Are you okay? Who is answering your phone? I called twice and heard some weird guy on the other line. I think he was foreign or something. (Questioning continues on for several minutes)
Me: No, I lost my phone. I don't know who has it. Please stop talking so I can figure out what to do

I hang up and try my phone again. Someone answers and vaguely says hello, but hangs up really quickly. I try again. This time I can tell the phone has been opened and someone is on the other end, but no words come out. Our conversation...

Me: Hello, Hello?
Some guy: (some rustling around)
Me: Excuse me? Is someone there?
Some guy: Hello? (indeed a foreigner...or possibly a drunk)
Me: Excuse me sir. You have my phone. How did you get my phone? Where are you so I can get it back?
Some guy: You threw it away
Me: WHAT!? I DID NOT THROW MY PHONE AWAY. Who throws their phone away? Were you at Piedmont Park last night? I must have dropped my phone there. Who picks up someone else's phone and uses it? Can we meet somewhere so I can get it from you? I'll pay you. I just want my phone back.
Some guy: (grunt, grunt, mumble, mumble) Not your phone. You threw it away so it mine now. G-bye.

So I'm pissed, not to mention shaking with anger. I get on the Internet and find out I can deactivate the SIM card so I do. Meanwhile, I can barely tell if my brother is even alive. He gets up, lays down again, goes to the bathroom, lays down again, and grunts the whole time as if he's got the pig flu. I look out to see if my car is magically there or if someone might have driven it for me, and of course it's still at Piedmont Park. I wait and wait on my brother to see if he's okay to drive. Finally, 2pm rolls around and he says to just call our dad. I think, "Sweet! Why didn't I think of that? I'd love dad to see how completely not together both of us are right now." I do it anyway and he comes over to the apartment. All he could say when he walked in and saw his oldest son sprawled out over the couch grunting all the while only wearing his boxers was "whoa" and we proceeded back to Piedmont Park.

The rest of the story isn't all that funny. I imagined all sorts of scenarios that my car may have been involved in, but luckily he made it through the night in one piece. I treated my dad to lunch and went on my way to find a new phone.

So why does this story speak poorly of Atlanta?

It entails all the anxiety and stupidity I feel when I enter the city. I'm always pissed off at the traffic. I can never find a place to park and when I do, I freak out about getting towed the whole time I'm gone. I do stupid things here like drink too much and miss a perfectly good overpriced show at an overly hot and humid outdoor venue. I spend entirely too much on robotic parking meters, crappy concession stand bottles of wine, and expensive dinners that don't even include good beer. I sweat like a freak and even though I do that in most places in the South, I feel like the humidity skyrockets once I'm in the city. Pair that with unclean air and uncontrollable claustrophobia and you get a panic attack waiting to happen.

I know I've had some good experiences while in the ATL, but the bottom line is that I just don't ever want to be there for more than a few hours. I just don't feel like myself if I'm there for too long. So what then? Is Athens that much better? Well, yes, but as I'll explore in part 2, it may be time to say goodbye to it as well.

(You're probably tired from reading my ridiculously long post, so go take a nap or something. Part 2 on the way...)

Mountain time

It’s Thursday night in Nathrop, Colorado. I haven’t written anything up to this point in the trip yet, but nothing inspires me more to write than a beautiful Colorado breeze and a couple of growlers of fine brews. Troy’s snoring echoes in the background while my iPod plays the tunes of Sam Beam and David Bazan. The fire has finally sizzled out at 12:58 mountain time and I sit here in a pitch black trailer having no business being able to type as clearly as I am.

This trip has been nothing short of amazing. We’ve climbed mountains, drank aimlessly, and drove endlessly through trails that my measly sedan would have never dared to undertake. The stars have always been there in the night sky, but they beam brighter than any other night sky I can remember. There’s no other place I would rather be right now. Life always seems so much clearer when you’re thousands of miles from home and imbibed to the point of existentialism. I often joke about how I have more fun than other people, and tonight is one of those nights where the joke takes on truth that others may sadly never experience.

As with any trip, my mind has hiked through paths of worn and unworn trails, escaping to places that just don’t exist in city life. The usual questions pop up in your mind; the who am I, how have I changed this year, where will I go from here? Though they matter, they don’t really seem to make a difference year in and year out. It’s like looking at your new year’s resolutions year by year and realizing that they’re all a sham. Trying to wrap your thoughts around your being is just a superfluous act of self-indulgence. Why does it matter?

Here’s what I care about on this trip. “Seize the days.” In a few days I will be back in the car on my way back to my parents to pick up Chester (who I miss dearly by the way) and thinking to myself, when will I be out there again? Have I done all that I could to enjoy life today? This question should be asked of ourselves at the end of every day. Whether we like it or not, we have only one life to live and there is no guarantee of tomorrow. I can be the healthiest vegan runner man in the world and die from a freak car accident, or I can be a sort of healthy beer drinking, casual smoking, care-free fool who lives until some form of cancer catches up with him at the age of 75. One way or another I’m going to enjoy life. That is the only guarantee I can be sure of. We can only control so little.

I think all of us have control issues. It comes with being human and not God, or whatever creator you may or may not choose to acknowledge. We want to control our circumstances, relationships, health, well-being, etc… Unfortunately, we can’t do any of those things. We may try in various forms, such as the food we eat, where we live, or the types of friends we hang with, but none of it is in our control. The crazy healthy veggie dogs could have some crazy chemicals that warp our stomachs, or the places we live may flood and ruin our prized possessions, or worse yet, the people we love could turn on us at a moment’s notice.

All that we can guarantee for our lives is that we live the best life possible each and every day. We can’t put it all in some savings account that we hope will reap benefits in the near future, or have some idealistic five-year plan that sees us in a boat on a river with no cares in the world. We can’t waste our lives hanging out with people that don’t truly love the real you. So for the love of God, please find the “real you”.

Sadly, there are too many of us who wait for “those people” to come around, or for those stories to come to fruition. The “real you” is closer to you than you know and the sooner you find it and embrace it unabashedly, the more meaning your life can have. If people can’t appreciate you for you, then throw them out the window, or into the makeshift fire, or the apartment dumpster, wherever you can throw them. I wish I would have realized this years ago, but at 27, I guess it’s not too late. And it won’t be too late, because today was a great day because I willed it so. Tomorrow will be the same. I hope yours will be as well.

Acceptance

I feel like I've talked about this topic before, but sometimes people need to hear the same thing over and over. We're a thick-headed bunch of people. Me included.

There are very few places where I have felt completely accepted. I am lucky to have had them, for something inside me says they are quite rare (which is rather sad I must say). I should also add that these places are/were not so much about physical location, but about the people that made me feel accepted. If it were all about physical location, then I would be all about some South Georgia... and that's just weird.

So since you're wondering exactly where I'm talking about in South Georgia, it's none other than the towns of Valdosta and Ocilla. The people I experienced and still experience from these places are incredibly welcoming and remarkably genuine. The memories I have from V-town and O-town are full of dinner tables, people laughing, and wine flowing. No one had hidden agendas, petty jealousies, or secret judgments. We all genuinely wanted to be exactly where we were at that moment. We didn't agree on every little issue in the world, but it didn't stop us from enjoying each others' company. It sounds so easy, but why is it so rare?

If this all just sounds like I'm spewing nonsense, then I am quite happy for you. Maybe your family's holiday gatherings were always full of everyone loving everyone... genuinely. Our holiday dinners in Shreveport weren't terribly awkward or anything, but I sure can't say that we all truly wanted to hang out with each other when part of it was nothing more than obligation to see family. Even at home with the immediate family, I don't necessarily feel completely accepted 100% of the time. We're getting closer to that reality, but the feeling still isn't always there. Maybe it's harder with immediate family. We have such expectations for our parents and siblings and they of us. It's hard to simply say "this is me" and get the "okay" response from your mother, or your brother, and so on...

When it comes right down to it, that's all acceptance is. I have different beliefs and stances than many of my friends and family, and the ones that just say "okay" are the ones I want to spend time with. My parents are Conservatives, my sister and brother-in-law are way more "Jesus-y" than me, and my brother can be a tad bit insensitive to what he deems "stupid poor people". Hopefully I say "okay" to them as much as the people in O-town and V-town did to me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I don't do this as much as I should.

So to all my friends out there reading, I'm sorry I don't always just say "okay" to who you are. I'll keep working on it. Just do me a favor and make sure you're doing the same to the ones you love.

Stupidly Idealistic

Yesterday was my mom and dad's anniversary. 34 years of marriage! The whole family went to church together (which could be a whole other blog post, but I'll spare everyone the usual ranting) and then drove downtown to this old "tea room", also known as a restaurant. We all packed in the family van on the way there, where my brother and I were in typical form by not getting them a card or anything, whereas my sister and her hubby were right on cue with a card and some restaurant gift cards. My mom always has to read greeting cards aloud, which can be quite annoying or hilarious, depending on your mood. So as she blabbed the words of Hallmark, I decided I would recite to her and my father an original greeting card message from the heart. It went something like this...

"Dear Mom and Dad,
Even with all the bickering, nagging, growling, and grinding of teeth you two have gone through in these many years, you must have done something right in all of it, because I still have this crazy desire to spend my life with someone. So thanks for staying together.
Love,
me"

Sweet card right? My brother followed with something equally clever and witty and probably funnier, but I still like mine the most.

I know love is probably written about more than any other subject in the world, but I think it's a lot simpler than anyone really cares to realize. It's all just a choice. Sure, there's attraction and infatuation and all that other crap that comes with romantic love, or common interests and sense of humor that comes with friendship, but the bottom line is we choose who we love. You don't have to love anyone. Plenty of people don't actually "love" their families. They just say it out of obligation, or in many instances never say it at all. I daresay that I don't actually "love" all my relatives. How could I when I don't even know them? I've chosen not to be a big part of their lives and they've done the same. It's not a big deal. Of course all this choice has to be mutual to really work, which I suppose is "the hard part".

My parents are constant proof that love is a lot simpler than so many people make it out to be. My grandparents the same; They recently celebrated 70 years together (I also forgot to give them a card). All they did was make a choice to be with the other person and one year after another rolled on by. I guess they just never got so caught up on all the other stuff; the "who am I" question, the "how can I forgive them" question, the "what are we" question, the "what do you believe" question, or the other fill-in-the-blank questions.

As the Avett Brothers say... "Decide what to be and go be it."

So I say to my friends, family, and random strangers out there...

Decide who to love and go love them