I Feel Okay
Oddly, I am writing this as a sort of catharsis for myself. It seems strange to put something out in public when it is mostly meant to satisfy me, but I think just saying it out loud can be all a person needs sometimes, and that is what I am doing here. The title is totally accurate. Today, as I write, I feel okay. It doesn’t seem like a high standard, but it works. That entire preface out of the way, here we go.
A week and a half ago, my girlfriend broke it off. We had been dating for six months which is the longest romantic relationship I had ever been involved in. Yeah, that isn’t very impressive for a guy about to turn thirty-three, but it was a milestone for me given how hard I have found (a) finding dates and (b) maintaining a relationship. I attribute many things to this. I am introverted, I hate bars, I don’t drink, I can be a bit of ass, I have high intellectual standards for who I will date, and etcetera. (I am sure I could bore you with many more reasons, but who gives a shit.) Needless to say, I didn’t feel great about the end of this relationship.
It came about in sort of an odd manner. We had been fighting since Christmas about some very trivial matters and the fact that we lived a three hour drive apart hurt the situation. We couldn’t really have it out, so to speak. The point is that the argument lingered for about a month before we got together again. I thought this was a chance to patch things up and possibly move on. We had a great day together, saw a movie, went to Barnes and Noble, and had a nice supper with my sister in tow. Overall, it was nice. On the way home, she dropped the friend bomb on me. DAMN IT! I accepted this of course while internalizing the previously written profanity. (Profanity is something I rarely internalize in case you are curious.) Because of the long drive home and the late hour, I had to stay at her apartment. Fuck me, that was a long night. (See what I mean about internalizing.)
I got back home, moped around for a day(hence no video a week and a half ago), and started to figure out what was next. The following week decided that I needed a thorough kick in the balls so that didn’t help. Work was a pain in the ass. My job can be a bit of drag and I am sure my mood didn’t help, but everything seemed to go wrong all god damned week. I even had to work a 3pm-3am shift which I avoid like the plague. I hate being at work until three in the morning. As if life being a little shitty wasn’t enough, my now ex-girlfriend wanted to really prove the “friend†concept by contacting me through text or Facebook every day. It made it really hard to let shit go. I was to the point of boiling over. I also had to deal with a problem on my credit card and some other little bullshit that was magnified by my bad mood.
The apex (or nadir depending on your opinion of shitstorms) of all this shitstorm seemed to be on Monday. I had planned to shoot Tea with Wallace with my buddy Mike Butler who plays Leroy. Butler is a great guy, but flaky as hell. He just flat didn’t show up. I was so pissed. I messaged him that I felt disrespected. (By the way, this isn’t the first time he has pulled this on me.) He answered back, very defensively, that I was expecting too much on a day he had to go to work later. I nearly went through the roof. He had promised me. How the fuck was this my fault? I didn’t respond for a second. I calmed down. I told him it was okay. I would do the video some other time and find someone else. Butler is still a good guy. He just isn’t reliable for stuff like this. I decided to keep our friendship intact and not be a giant douche bag.
Monday was a gorgeous day here in Nebraska. We had unseasonable warm weather in the high 60s. I just went for a walk. I went for a three mile walk, I talked to one of my oldest friends on the phone, and just let it go. The moral of the story, kids, is that life likes to shit on us now and then. I kind of had mine recently, but it wasn’t that bad. I feel okay today as I prepare to work 11am-11pm shift (which is how I prefer to do twelve hours when I work over the regular eight). I just felt moved to put some of this down. Reading it back, it seems like no big deal, a mere footnote in my life full of ecstasy and bullshit abounds. We roll with the punches the best we can. This is me rolling one more time. All is well and I hope anyone reading this can feel like it will be okay next time they receive that preverbal kick to the junk. (One may argue that analogy doesn’t work for any ladies reading this, but I say getting kicked anywhere kind of sucks.) No matter what we go through in life, all people do it, so don’t worry too much. It is just a thing we do.
Also, I just watched the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Sorry Tim, the plot was too thin for me to like it. That is as close as I get to being a movie reviewer these days.
