I went for a 4 mile walk tonight. I only intended to go for a mile or so, as cool down from my 3 mile jog. I didn't even realize I was going so far until I'd already gone 4 blocks past my intended turn around point. In the end I decided to walk to a new 24 hour tex mex place, have a burrito, and walk back. On my walk back I started tearing up, because I finally realized why my feet had chosen to go so far. My grandmother is dying.
I work two jobs. I'm the head tutor at my local community college's math center. It's a job I love, but it's capped at 12 hours a week and I don't have any hours between quarters, so I can't do just that. I'm also a retail drone at a local department store. It's a job I tolerate because I make enough to live off of there. Recently, my retail job has started scheduling me for every day I'm not tutoring, so today was day 15 of a 17 day work week. My grandmother was brought to the hospital nearly 2 weeks ago after she slipped and fell. I haven't been able to go see her because I've been working every day. My mother told me today that she regrets not seeing her grandfather when he was on his deathbed just because she had to work. I'm thinking of calling in sick tomorrow in order to visit my grandmother. It doesn't hurt that tomorrow is the retail job.
I started working out 4 years ago. I didn't realize it at the time, but this was the same time my grandfather was dying. He lied about his age in order to fight in World War 2, and was drafted into the Korean War less than a week after marrying my grandmother. In the 1950s he was one of America's top nuclear specialists, and is one of the men who trained the first generation of Navy SEALS. I didn't find out any of this until his wake.
I was bullied as a child. (Hey, I said this was stream of consciousness, didn't I?). I was bullied because I was overweight and had long hair. My father raised me with the ideal that not just boys don't cry, but that nobody should cry. I didn't find out until years later that when he was a child his younger siblings would occasionally cry with no provocation and blame him, resulting in his father beating him. Into adulthood, he still reacts to crying with anger. He also resented his father for it, which is why I never really knew my grandfather. So instead I learned to bury my emotions and move through life without feeling anything. I only started opening up again once I was almost out of high school.
I suffer from chronic depression. It's not acute depression, and I actually consider it to be the opposite. It's obtuse depression. I can manage it on my own, but in its own way, that just makes it worse. It's not bad enough that I feel I have any place complaining about it. Over the years, every time I've complained about some minor irritation, someone will point out their much worse situation. I think they're trying to show me that things could be worse, but it doesn't help. All it does is prevent me from talking about my problems, and bottle everything up.
My grandmother is dying. When she's gone, it'll be just me and my parents. My mother's parents died when I was still closed off from the world, and they lived several states away, so their deaths never affected me much. With both of my father's parents gone, there won't be anything holding my various aunts and uncles together. Most of them hate each other, so I don't expect to see any of them more than once or twice again after the funeral.
My mother is only 15 years younger than my grandmother, and they've had many of the same health issues over the years. Last summer my mother was rushed to the hospital because she could barely breathe. It turned out there was a mucus plug in one of her lungs that was preventing it from inflating even half way. I don't know what I'll do when she eventually starts going, since we were always there for each other when my father was dealing with his anger issues. He never struck either of us, but he is a wizard at verbal and passive aggressive abuse. My relationship with my father has always been strained, but that just makes me think of his much worse relationship with his father.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the direction my life is taking. Or rather the direction it isn't taking. I'm nearly 30 years old and live with my parents. I dropped out of high school and got my GED at around the same time the job market crashed. I've been slowly going to college the last 4 years, as I can afford it, and am 2 classes away from getting a 2-year degree. I have to pay for it myself because I was told in no uncertain terms that I am too straight, white, male, and middle class to qualify for financial aid. A friend of mine is currently saving up enough money to go back to school and get his Masters. I've been single for the past few years. Yesterday I congratulated another friend of mine on getting engaged. It honestly feels as though life is passing me by, and I don't know how to catch up to it.
As I mentioned, I started working out 4 years ago. Back then I lifted some weights whenever I felt like it, which wasn't often, and jogged about twice a month. Back in January a friend who was also working out only once in a while suggested that we run a 5k together in April. When he suggested that, I started jogging two or three times a week. When the day of the 5k arrived, we went out and did our best, finishing in about 35 minutes, which surprised the hell out of me since a week before I only managed to go 5 km in 40 minutes, and the 5k had obstacles.
I'm still jogging multiple times a week, and have been exerting myself in other ways besides. I recently went kayaking for the first time, and am soon going to go with a friend to a local rock climbing gym. I've also replaced some of my runs with parkour exercises. I want to learn swing dancing, but that would require a partner. Last week, I measured myself, and found that I was under 250 pounds for the first time since I was 14. My goal is to be down to 225 by the end of the summer.
I've finally finished crying, so I think this is a good time to stop writing. There's no moral here. No greater idea I was trying to get across. Just a lot of thoughts I've had bubbling around in my mind that I wanted to get out onto paper. Or digital equivalent.
tl;dr: Life.
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