Good morning everyone and thanks for your kind words. I'm still here.
As I sit here thinking of what to write, the thing that comes to mind is honesty, brutal honesty. Honesty put forth not in a hurtful way but in a detached and cool kind of way. And that I can't be responsible for someone elses emotions and whats happened in the past.
My biggest personal problem is focus and attention. My thought process right now is so extremely disjointed. I have no flow. The dots just don't connect. I have been watching other people the last few days very closely, normal people, at the ballfield and in my neighborhood. My personal definition of what normal is, and yes I realize normal is a very subjective term, is a thought process that moves smoothly from the moment they are in to the next one. It's almost like they have one foot in now and one foot in the next second. Sure everyone thinks about the past and future but those thoughts are secondary to the moment to moment, "what am I doing right now" type of purposeful thinking.
Heres an example (this is over-analyzing but iits where I am). My step-father and neighbor were helping me work on my car last night. They are just neighbors to each other. They don't hang out but are just civil to each other for a minute when they're paths cross. While they were working on a problem I just sat back a little and watched. When two average people communicate, its like a dance with perfect timing. When one speaks, he might not be done with his sentence but when the other gets the gist of the communication he gently steps in, even if only with a 'yes' or a grunt and the original speaker doesn't mind this mild interruption. Its like #2 is saying unconciously, I hear you and this is my response. #1 doesn't stop his flow when this happens, just continues on. It really is like a delicate dance where both partners give and take on a very split second pattern. Reminds of that book 'Blink' which I think I'll re-read
I never saw that growing up. It is a magical and very alien thing for me to watch. My mother and grandmother bullied each other for the stage and my poor meek grandfather just got smacked around. I can't remember a single conversation as I've just described. It was just so weird. No memories of 'normal' people visiting, of parties, of just sitting and chatting, of playing. Yeah, thats it, no playing. Just 3 people caught up in themselves and work. My wife gets so mad, because when she comes home and asks where the kids are, I tell her they're outside playing and I don't know exactly where they are (the 10,9, and 7, not the 3). Because I had such a noose around my neck, I let them run free, maybe a little too much but IMNHO for their long term development its better to err on that side. Mom's, before you send CPS, we live in a small rural neighborhood of 7 families, all in plain sight and yelling distance. No city living with drugs and prostitutes on the corner
Finally, in the vein of honesty. My real problem is to me, it's all about me. The absolute worst crime against humanity is to spoil a child, giving in to temper tantrums because we can't handle them. You folks are being kind to a stranger and I thank you so much. But in the face-to-face world where we don't have time to think about what we write, my kind of personality gets old to people quick. Many people's quick response to that last sentence is "well, get to work on changing that" to which I answer,"to what". Its like trying to describe riding a bike to a newborn. Give him a bike, a book about riding, lecture him for hours, empathize, listen, etc and he's still not going to ride that bike.
What I'm really looking for right now is human connection with at least one guy (no offense ladies, please keep your support coming, I greatly appreciate it) who was an only child with a hovering mother and no male role-model and lots of religious coldness who, when things started to break down in their late 30's, fought this battle and won. I knew 3 guys in my home town who pretty closely fit that bill and they all took their own lives. Howard Hughes and Elvis had this problem and rotted to death around 40. I'll not lose my dignity.
Normal people know who they are. There private and personal lives match up. They have a deep deep sense in their psyche that they and others are OK. They have a deep sense of right and wrong. Yeah they may smudge their taxes a little or get mad at a guy cutting them off in traffic but nothing stops them in their tracks, they just keep stumbling forward.
Anyway, thanks so much for your efforts. I look forward to your responses.
