Sunny in San Diego

Vicariously missing the night

It’s been a strange year.

A little over a year ago I was an out of control thirty something single guy with a good job(albeit kind of boring, with lousy management, and dead end-ish), good friends, a cool roomie, and tons of new people to meet and plenty of wonderful places to explore. Times were fun. There were no worries, no real responsibilities, no real cares, and nothing really pushing me in one direction or the other. I guess you could call me a drifter. But an adventurous drifter tying to find oneself in the world. Everything was new in a sense. Everything was old. Everything was an exploration of riches.

I didn’t really know where I was going nor did I care. I was out to have fun. I was out to explore the world. And I was really free for the first time in my adult life. There were other moments along the way, but there were always barriers. Sometimes I had no money. Many times my friends had no money. Other times I had a girlfriend. Other times I was back in school or working mad hours. And most of the time I lived in places where nothing really ever happened. It was the same crap, different day theory. People never changed. They never cared to explore or learn or think outside the box. A lot of people had the mentality of hopelessness. It wasn’t that it was a bad life, it was more or less the feeling of being stuck in a place with nothing really happening and no desire, want, or plan that anything would ever happen. Lots of complaining. Lots of people who see pictures of the world and assume they’d never see those places. I was never one to have that mindset. I needed to explore the world for whatever reason. And for most of my adult life, I did try and explore what I could. But it was always moments. You can only see so much in a weekend.

A short weekend is far different than moving to those places and really discovering what they were about. What the people were about. What the companies were about. What the culture was like. What the real history was like. And meeting the people who lived in those places, grew up in those places and/or moved to those places. That’s when you discover what it’s like to be living/from such and such place. And when I moved out west, it was the first time I really experienced that. However again, I was not free, more like open to exploration while being attached to by a nagging grump who really didn’t see things the way I did nor did they care. Again, nothing wrong with that, but it makes things less adventurous when they aren’t an adventurous person and they constantly complain about that fact. You could say they were more or less a person who was glad to get away from New Jersey.

And looking back, it must have been great to have traveled around and lived in many places without worrying about paying for this or paying for that. Who wouldn’t enjoy that kind of freedom for a bit. Somebody else worries about the bills. Somebody else worries about transportation. Somebody else worries about rent. Somebody else worries about jobs. Somebody else gets to be the bored such and such and explore different places and people while you work all day. So again, the freedom wasn’t there when half your money is being spent on a very ungrateful person who really isn’t into the same things as you. You can’t really go off and explore Mt Rainier when you have somebody who doesn’t like that and would be upset if you went off by yourself for a few days. It is what it is I guess.

Looking back now with a clearer mindset, it was something that never should have happened from the start. But sometimes you do stupid things, then try to prove others wrong, and then just get into a routine. The god honest truth was I really couldn’t stand that person from day one. There were qualities that I did like, but mostly, they were a person who was rather dull, boring, hopeless, and unintelligent. I’m not saying she was stupid, just not somebody you’d ever consider educated even if she had a degree. Some people are ambitious. Some people are adventurous. I’ve been called those things at times. I’ve also been called stubborn and careless and aloof. But she didn’t have any of those traits. We really shared nothing in common. Why the hell we ever got together escapes me.

Well, I was down on my luck, stuck in a place I hated, bored, lonely, and worked all the time, so things happen. She was a person who was down on her luck, bored, hated where she lived and knew I had my own place far away from where she lived. Stupid things like that happen all the time and then they end. Unfortunately it just continued to drag on and on and on and on. There were a million fights. A million arguments. I’d say almost every day went by where I was miserable or just had that aloof attitude and did my own thing. Whether it was going on adventurous escapes and she tagged along with her disinterested grumpy attitude or I spent a lot of time writing, working on videos/etc, or I spent lots of time on my computer. It was what it was and it was never really good. And the truth is I really had no desire ever to marry that girl.

If I never joined the Army, we’d have never been married. That’s just the facts of life. But I felt like it was the right thing to do since I was going off to ‘war’ and who knows what happens then. There were feelings but mostly the entire relationship was filled with that notion that I’d never be one of those people who fell in love or found love. We would watch some movie about people falling in love and I’d feel like that’ll never happen to me. Sad really but it was what it was. Even years later when I’d make some adventure videos to show on the net and to show my family places I’m living and visiting, people would say the two of us look like side kicks and not a couple. Her father even told her that one time. It was what it was. I honestly didn’t like her as a person. Like I said, i found her to be boring and a pest. I also always felt like I was being used or more like she was just leaching off of me all those years.

You could say that if things were that bad, then just move on The sad truth is at one point in my life, and hopefully I’m different now, but I’d be the kind of person who would stick at a job I hated for years and years. One of my first jobs is a case in point. It was boring. It was filled with people about to retire or talking about retiring. It was old technology. As far as jobs go, it was kind of a job that doesn’t promote career growth. I did meet a lot of great people and I did learn a lot, but at a certain point, many people were telling me I needed to find another job or I’d be stuck like them. But I hate interviewing. I hate being forced to meet new people I may or may not like. Oh don’t get me wrong, I love meeting new people. I just don’t like meeting a lot of people who are judging you like techies do and then you are forced to work with those same people who might be smart as hell, but about as personable as a brick wall. Add to the fact I’ve never been one who was too high on my own abilities on top of the whole working with old technology problem and bam…. stuck at same job. I remember working day after day being bored and thinking, “i guess I’ll be stuck here forever doing this same crap.” It was depressing. Especially considering I’ve always been a creative person and this was as far from a creative job as you can get. Maintaining 35 year old technology wasn’t exactly doing much for me in any way. Which brings me back to the relationship issue. It’s the same analogy. At some point you just figure your life sucks and you’re stuck. I would have probably been better off alone, but nobody really things like that. At least not me. You just accept being miserable and lifeless.

To this day that job really hasn’t helped me in my career. I should have stuck around for maybe a year and then found something better. But I lived in Southern NJ where there wasn’t much better and it was the whole dot com bust era. Years later as the department was cut back, my manager pushed into a different department in a different city, my office roomie retired, and then I was laid off and got my ‘escape’ I guess. Who knows what would have happened if that didn’t happen? Maybe i’d be stuck in misery land? I should have quit, I should have found something better, but at some point you become driven into the mindless submission of ‘this is your life’ and you suddenly wake up and realize you’re just like everybody else you grew up with. Stuck in a dead end life with no hope. And you just live in misery hoping that one day you’ll win the lottery. How the hell did I wind up at that point? I don’t know. Same thing went with the whole relationship. I do remember a time when I first moved to Seattle how annoyed and tired of her I was and just wanted her to go back to NJ and I stay in Seattle. Of course, she had no place else to go, so it was what it was.

You become content I guess. Or more like you give up on happiness and just accept things for what they are and deal with it. I spent most of my adult life working in a career I really can’t stand. You build things that most people don’t ever give you credit for. You spend 100 hours and get paid for 40 hours building something that might just get canceled anyway and you have to start over. You work with a bunch of anti social arrogant pricks who aren’t as smart as they think. You work with lots of managers who have no clue about technology but proceed to assume they know what the hell you are talking about. Then you get pushed into the fact that most of your time these days is spent trying to comprehend what somebody is saying because they don’t speak English. Most of your time is spent speaking to somebody 10,000 miles away. And again, they don’t speak English. But these people are more qualified than your former co-workers who were let go? Yeah if you doing all their work qualifies them, then I guess so. The sad truth is that it’s boring as shit and serves no purpose. Most of the time your fixing or updating something that really doesn’t need to be fixed. Or you upgrade something that really doesn’t need to be upgraded. You build reports that don’t show anything different than the reports you built last week. You build systems and analyze data that essentially puts thousands of people out of work. How the hell are you supposed to feel when the same shit happens to you? For years us techies have been eliminating peoples jobs, we’ve been the reason behind number crunching, crashes, firings, lay offs, etc. We just don’t get the blame but everybody uses the numbers, reports, and data we provide. Maybe it’s karma that a lot of tech jobs are now going to India and to visa workers. Because for years we’ve been putting lots of people out of work and never gave a crap. If you work in IT long enough and for enough different companies, you start to figure things out and you start to become the goto person. You also can’t ignore the truth. We are the reason lots of people lost jobs. You can hide under those facts, but it is what it is and you must deal with it. It just kind of sucks to feel that way in a career that you really hated since day one.

It was always just a job to me. And the longer I go in this ‘job’ the more dead I feel inside. So the freedom was never really freedom. My adventures, sky dives, ocean dives, swims, runs, bike rides, hikes, etc are more or less escapes from the truth. I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie. I’ve always been adventurous. Hell I’ve always been a little out there. I build a baseball field with a backstop and all long before Field of Dreams came about. I tore down an old swing set, got some old pipes and nets, dug up some sand and gravel, found some cheap bases, and built a baseball field at my parents house when I was in 6th grade I think. I spent a couple of months every weekend when I wasn’t playing baseball or studying building that damn field. I did it all for the big memorial day weekend. What kid in their right mind would have spent all that time by themselves building a baseball field for no real reason at all? I guess me.

Anyway I’ve gone round about nothing here and need to finish up. Now I have a adorable little son who is wonderful. He’s a bit stubborn, he’s grumpy, he never sleeps, but he’s a wonderful little boy with a great future ahead of him. All this leads to nothing really. I have no real point to this story I guess. If I found an IT job in some biotech out to save the world company, i’d enjoy that. But will that ever happen? Who knows. Until then I guess I need to find myself. And a point would be not to waste soo much time doing things you don’t like to do, being in relationships you don’t like, and just doing or being in places you don’t like. You only live once. If you spend most of that time just marching to whatever people tell you you should do or banging on a wall because that’s just the norm and you’re too afraid to climb over that wall, it’s really never worth it.

At the end of the day you have to look in that mirror. If you spent half your life stuck in something or stuck somewhere because that’s just the way it is or that’s what other people tell you or because you’re afraid of the unknown or afraid of change, well remember, they aren’t the ones looking back at you. You are.

Today was a weird day. Another door may be opening and who knows where that will lead. It could be interesting or it could be crazy. This door could be hot. It could be cold. Who knows. While another door is still open but it’s more confusing. Plans were made and it seems this door was open and welcoming. Good company waited inside this door. But the door seems to be closing ever so slightly and nobody is home. Is this a sign of things to come or just over analyzing nothing? Who knows.

The easy thing about only opening doors that remain open for a minute is you never care. It’s just a knock, a wave, and a goodbye. Then you just move onto another door. Kind of like kids singing Christmas carols or selling cookies. If one door is closed you find one that is open or at least will be opened. Problems arise when the door is open and you get invited in for an extended stay. Now it’s no longer just a view, but actually needing to find out what is behind this door. Maybe it’s opening yourself up to new experiences. Maybe it’s hoping these new experiences will be great. Maybe it’s a fear of the unknown. Or maybe it’s really a fear that behind this door might be something special and that something special might slam the door in your face one day. Open and shut isn’t as easy as it sounds. Sometimes knocking on doors and speaking from the outside is the easy part. Actually getting invited in is where the vulnerabilities start no matter when you actually knock.

Have you ever been told that you ruined somebodies life? I don’t think I had that much power over anybody before until last week. Somebody, many already know who, sent me a message(this after she supposedly lost my number, deleted all contact on every internet site, etc) claiming I ruined her life. I never replied. I don’t stay in contact with people like that anymore. At first I tried to remain friends for whatever reason. Then it became obvious that there was no point remaining in contact. We weren’t friends. Not even close. It was more about showing up each other. She’d send pics or messages or leave a comment on how she’s in love, planning to have kids, doing this or that. I’d just complain about having no desire to date anybody and how I spend all my money going out all the time. And we probably only exchanged messages about 5 times in the past 4 months. Only times she contacted me was when she needed money. Anyway she got pissed the one time I told her no and the rest is history. Of course I deleted her number but I’ll get a text message from some random number saying I”m an a-hole or the whole ‘i ruined her life.’ I find that funny really.

Seriously after all the crap she put me through and continued to put me through she’s going to go down that path? What a pathetic excuse for a life. Maybe I shouldn’t go that far. No I will go that far. She made her choice or choices. She did what she did for whatever reason and continued to try and mess with my life. If we just broke up and moved on, then it is what it is, but she tried to leach and leach and then I guess when others weren’t giving her a damn thing anymore she blames me. Go figure I should just shut up. But those who know me know I won’t. Some people are just pathetic excuses for human beings.

She cheats, has an affair, refuses to get divorced, continues to cheat, calls the cops on me, tries to play some game where her and her bf screw me over, then tries to finagle even more money, then after I buy her a car and am the one who moves out, she can’t find anybody who will pay her to do whatever, she moves on to Texas. She hates it there and tries to get back with me. I wanted nothing to do with her so it wasn’t going to happen. Then she drives back to San Diego and stays over some guys house who she sells something or does something for and then doesn’t get paid and she wants me to handle the matter. She almost gets stuck cause she has no money and nobody is giving her any and she asks me for a few bucks. I wasn’t giving her anything more at that point. And I still tried to be her friend back then for who knows what reason. Wow….the stupidity of my stupid mind. Then who knows what happened. She met some new guy in Texas. A marine who supposedly she loved and he loved her. She gets a job and a tattoo. But then her car breaks down, she gets laid off, and she asks me for money. I tell her no and she goes psycho. I am glad she lives in Texas and not in San Diego because who knows what she would have done. I already got hit in the head with a damn frying pan once and she almost ran me off the road another time. Nobody really knows all the stories. People often wonder about certain things. Sorry but most of those other stories just aren’t leaving the vault. Sometimes you have to keep things locked up for your own sanity. Sometimes you wonder what the hell you saw in somebody for her to go that psycho and then you see moments over the years that might have explained those situations. Or maybe you just don’t want to look into that mirror and admit you were stupid. Or maybe it’s hard to figure out where the hell you went wrong. Maybe I should have listened to a little old lady a long time ago. A little old lady who told me I should just find a nice Jewish girl. Maybe I should have listened to her.