Uncouth PerspectivesNot on the rug, man.

There comes a time to move on.

People move, relationships end, death happens.  Life doesn’t stop and entropy marches blindly onward.

TIME! Is marching on.
And time.. is still marching on.
This day will soon be at an end and now it’s even sooner.
And now it’s even sooner.
And now it’s even sooner.

They Might Be Giants, Older

As we all do, I have seen many of my relationships (family, friends, lovers) end.  When I was growing up, I moved every year or two.  These moves were always dramatic, to different cities and different states.  Rarely was it across town, but even when it was, it was to different schools with different friends.  I got really good at making new friends, but I also got really good at spending time with myself.  I also got really good at letting go.

My father died when I was 25. A good friend of mine died when he was 27–we were the same age.  All of my grand parents and great grand parents are gone, most of them within memory.  (My mom is alive and well–and, since I know you are reading this, you better stay that way!)  Death is not a stranger and in some ways that is comforting.  When I was in high school, I went through the stereotypical depressed years.  I, in fact, almost died in my sophomore year of high school when I had a misdiagnosed case of appendicitis.  I went for a week and a half with a ruptured appendix.  For those of you not paying attention, the typical life expectancy is something like 48 hours.

I went through a very weird period where I personified Death (yeah, capital “D” Death personified-booooy!).  I imagined Death as anthropomorphic figure who rationed, reasoned, and maybe even felt. I imagined what it would be like to die and converse with this person.  You might understand why the first Terry Pratchett books I fell in love with involved Death as a character–and if you don’t, then you simply haven’t read enough Terry Pratchett and I insist you stop reading my drivel this moment and go pick up one of his books.  Ahem, anyways…

When I moved to California, I felt very lost.  Even though I hated Texas, where we had lived before, I had really started to feel at home there.  I was in advanced classes, I had some good friends, I even had girls flirting with me.  I felt like things were starting to come together and I was also working off of the promise my parents made not to move me when once I got to high school.  I can still recall my mother telling me “I had to move my freshman year of high school and I never want to do that to you.”  For reason beyond most mortals control, we did end up moving, and, yes, it was in my freshman year.  I remember on my birthday, one of the girls in my Honors English class gave me a snickers bar wrapped around an old stuffed animal frog for my birthday, shyly, about a month before we were moving.  All I remember is blurting out “I’m moving!” and getting away as fast as I could.

Romantic relationships end.  While I’m open to sharing many things with you, my faceless readers, these are mine.  If you want to hear these stories, I doubt you’ll read them many of them here.  But they do–and those of you who know me, know some of those stories.  Relationships, even ones ending, are important to me.  People are important to me.  I strive to not have messy endings and I think I’ve done a pretty good job.  I’m still friends with many of the people I’ve dated–just because something doesn’t work out doesn’t mean you can’t make something of it after enough time has passed.  Then again, sometimes you can’t and I recognize that too.

This is even more important to me when dealing with romantic relationships within social circles. I don’t tend to date random people–I’ve never been one to pick up on a random woman in the library or coffee shop or whatever.  And I try to be as honest as possible IN my relationships and part of that is working through problems.. and acknowledging when they’re probably unsolvable.  I prefer to break-up mutually and amicably.  This not only allows for, hopefully, no bad feelings, but then there’s not all this awkwardness in the social circles.  You’ve already lost a romantic partner, why lose friends as well?  And there’s a strong likelihood people in your social circle may date people you have, this is part of how social circles work.  If you date someone I have, I won’t begrudge you your shot at happiness, so don’t worry about feeling awkward about me.  I say more power to ya!

Emotions are hard things to wrangle sometimes, so I’m not suggesting that I’ve got good control over those all the time.  But I believe: you do good, you get good; so I try my best to do good, especially in all of my relationships (family, friends, lovers).  And this ties back to the whole death thing.  You never know when someone will leave you.  You never know when you will leave. So why mess around with it?  Get the best out of life.  When it’s worth it, hold on for dear life… and when it’s not, don’t hold on when you don’t need to.

There’s a lot more to life than carrying the past around with you.

It’s late Sunday morning and I’m sitting in my favorite grease-hole diner.  I think you know the type:  where the eggs are runny, the corned-beef hash is burnt on the outside and uncooked in the middle, the coffee is horrid, and the service is rude but reliable.  It really doesn’t get any better than this.

I’m by myself, reading a book.  Fork absently in one hand, book in the other, I am oblivious to everyone around me–that’s one of the reasons to come to a place like this, right?  Occasionally I chuckle from something I read.  I expertly scoop from from my plate into my mouth without much thought, a feat that comes from lots of experiences–and a few stained shirts and books.  Every once in a while I make the mistake of tasting the food, followed quickly by trying to fix this by drinking the coffee, which is of course also a mistake.  The delicate dance continues.

By some miracle, I make it through most of the food in front of me.  My stomach debates complaining, but it’s used to this and, in many ways, it is comforting to be full of greasy breakfast food.  At the end of a chapter, I put the book down and look around for the first time in a while.  I’m in the narrow window between breakfast and lunch rush and it’s quieted down since I first came in, though I know for the severs this is really the calm before the storm–this also means I’m on my own if I want a refill or to get my check.

I first notice the table across the aisle to my right.  It is an older man sitting with what appears to be his two daughters, who are maybe 6 and 9 respectively.  I notice him because he is ordering what I just ate, though he asks for his toast with extra butter.  This is, I assume, a polite way of saying “with any butter,” as the toast only comes in two ways:  traces of what might be the effort to put some butter on the toast but otherwise completely and absolutely dry or so sopping wet with butter that you could probably use a sham-wow before eating it and still have plenty left over to fill your butter snowmen molds.  I drift away for a moment, only to have my attention subtly pulled back.

“Ah, ha ha, what did the world do, uh, before text messaging,” he says, trying to appear clever, which only serves to highlight his discomfort at having what is probably the small time he gets to spend with his daughters taken up by one of them who is, yes, texting on her phone.  I think to myself that he would, perhaps, have better luck if he got a phone himself.  I try not to intrude long on his time with his daughters, but it is clear how uncomfortable he is and I feel bad.  This is highlighted more so when one of the girls says something starting with “my mom.”  I glance at him and you can see the pain he is trying to hide on his face:  “mom” shouldn’t need a “my” in front of it just like “wife” doesn’t need an “ex.”

I turn my attention elsewhere, letting the father have his short time with his girls.  Good luck, my friend.  In the next booth over from them is an older couple, perhaps early sixties, sitting opposite from each other in the bench.  The man is reading a book and wife is slowly chewing her food quietly.  After a few moments, the man chuckles and reads something aloud, which I assume he thinks is poignant but I am too far to hear, and the wife merely nods.  They sit quietly again for another minute or so and then he chuckles and reads something aloud, which I assume he thinks is poignant but I am too far to hear, and the wife merely nods.  This continues.  She is clearly bored and uninterested and he clearly does not care.  I wonder at how this can be, but before I get too far, I hear the ghosts of my own relationships past and being told not to bring the newspaper to the breakfast table (with clever retorts like “what better time to read the news than at breakfast?”), quickly feel guilty, and look away, giving them their privacy and shoving my ghosts and guilt back into the hole they belong in.

My eyes cross the aisle to the table in front of me.  Another couple, sitting across from each other, older than the last–perhaps in their late seventies?  Old enough to be noticeably old but not so frail that they require walkers or oxygen tanks or any of the lovely accoutrement which we earn on our final days before we turn in our return ticket.  They sit quietly, not talking at all.  I sit mesmerized.  Chew, chew, chew.  They do not even look at each other.  In fact, they do not even look up–well, I can only guess about the woman, whose back is to me.

It’s then that I become aware of how much I’ve noticed when couples are sitting across from each other.  It makes sense to sit across from one another, right?  This way you can talk, you can look each other in the eye, maybe a passing caress as you each reach for the salt.  And yet.. there is a time and a place for that, but looking at these two couples, I realize how far apart they are.  The table might as well be a bottomless chasm which engulfs all conversation and emotion.  I feel bad for them and I feel bad for every person I cared about who I did not take the time to saddle up next to on the same side of the table.  I vow to never do this again and secretly vow to try to actually remember.

I feel an abrupt jar as the table on the other side of the divider gets new occupants.  You know this diner table type, right?  There is almost one table that is shared between two booths and when someone pushes down hard on their side, your jumps up accordingly.  Mine does this and I find myself back in the present.  Three teenage boys sit down and begin talking at unnecessarily loud levels before they are even situated in their seats.  It takes a moment to sort out what they are saying, but I quickly understand why they are so loud:  they are having three separate conversations and trying their best to get the other two to listen.  I can’t even figure out what they are each talking about, but I quickly realize that I don’t care.  Not only because I doubt I share the interests of a teenage boy, but I certainly have no interest in what someone who competes so loudly for attention has to say.  Perhaps that makes me a snob, but I’ve come to be okay with that.

The conversation is clearly a contest.  Each boy has no time or attention to listen to what the others are saying.  They calm down a little once they get menus and drinks to where a casual observer might thing there are pauses and dialogue which consists of a statement and a thoughtful retort, but really they fall into the pattern of conversation without the reality of conversation.  I’m sure I see myself better than I am, but I wonder if I was ever like this.  I try to take my time to listen, but do I always?  Can I do it better?  I try, I really do, to not feel better than these kids, but I do not succeed.  I know I can have a good conversation and I know I can listen.  The question I ask myself (and I am unable to answer) is: do I use this knowledge as a crutch and assume because I can be a good listener I assume I always am?

Like many times before, I decided then and there that I never want to pretend that I am happy.  I never want to have a relationship–friend, lover, whatever–where the act of being together becomes more important than actually having a relationship.  And, here, I try not make any more assumptions for any of these people.  Maybe there is nothing left to say, maybe they are happy not talking, or maybe just having someone around to compete with is enough; but that is not always the case and perhaps I have too much a idealized or romantic streak, but I believe we can have more, I believe we can do more with our lives and with our relationships.

I think I’ve lived this principle well, but it’s always hard to see at the time.  My life is full of mistakes, but I try my best to learn from them.  I feel like, sitting there along with my book, at least I am being honest with myself.  I may be sitting alone but I’m trying to do it honestly and with dignity.

What kind of dignity is that?  I’m not really sure.  But it’s the best I’ve got and that is good enough for me.

I have two places I work out.  One is for the University I work for–a big, nice gym built for all of the students.  Lots of machines, lots of space, and, often, lots of people–but it never feels small and rarely feels crowded.  I also have a very small workout room at my apartment complex, which consists of two treadmills, and elliptical, two stationary bikes, three weight machines that cover the basic spectrum of muscles, and a set of dumbbells.  The room is smaller than my living room and kitchen–cozy.  I use the workout room in my complex often because it’s super convenient and it’s rarely used, especially at the times I go.  Rare, but not unheard of.

Working out is often a very personal thing.  Trust me, I understand this.  Getting myself to a place where I can workout on a regular basis has been a very long, uphill battle.  Not only was I incredibly socially awkward in middle and high school, but I (gladly, at the time) was able to get out of taking P.E.  I have cocked ankles and “pes planus” (flat feet).  At the time it made a lot of sense–I could have seriously hurt myself.  Knowing what I know now, though, and spending a lot of time doing things like hiking, running, playing racquetball, and foot hockey, I realize what a disservice not getting to do P.E. was.  Who knows, maybe not doing it then allowed me to do it now?

Whatever good or bad decision it was, one consequence is I never learned how to work out.  This is not just an issue about discipline, but even knowing how to lift weights, run right, hydrate, all of those things.  When I first started working with upper body weights, I hurt myself easy and often because my back and shoulder muscles had zero support–and not just core, but a lot of the muscles were just never used in things like marathon reading.

So when I say working out is a personal thing, I mean for many it takes incredible concentration.  Ironically, though, it took having people to go with to motivate me.  I know it is this way for others, but for me it had to do a lot with things like not knowing or understanding even how gyms or locker rooms worked out.  My last experiences in early public school with working out before I stopped doing P.E. were humiliating because I was so clumsy and so weak that I could hardly participate in events… and young boys are hardly understanding.

Thankfully, all of that is in the past and I’m much more fit and I’ve found a real passion for getting physical.  Which allows me to be observant as I work out now.  I have noticed that people behave differently at the two facilities.  Maybe because at the big gym there are a lot of students, but it is clearly more social there.  But even I’m this way when I go with my friends to work out.  Is it the space?  Is it the setting?  People are still focused, but it just feels more loose.

The rare time I run into someone in my complex, there always seems to be some kind of tension.  Maybe there is some sort of small workout etiquette I am just not aware of.  Maybe a lot of people who like the workout room like it because it is private–I can totally get that.  I just find it weird that two people can be in a room and hardly even say hello.  But I guess that is how it goes.  So many people don’t even say hello to their neighbors–funny how the closer the dwellings are, the less likely it seems people try to form community.  Especially in a pseudo-urban “young working professional” type place like where I live.

Really, though, I find the gym to be a nice tool.  It helps me get in shape and get the workout I need, but I try to spend my time doing other physical things as much as I can, especially if they are social.  If you can get community + fitness together, that’s an even bigger win to me.