Statements

I'm reading over bank statements for the Shop.  1 whole year of you stressing out about money.
I think of you not knowing where your money is coming from but not making hard
enough choices to change it.  Might be my ignorance, I suppose.  But I can't believe your best
option to change your money situation was to die.  Call me crazy.

World lines and regret

Listening to Christopher Hitchens describe the first memories of his mother, in such detail, I feel jealous that anyone might have such a detailed memory at a young age.  It's hard for me to organize those early memories, as I've always had a hard time arranging events in a linear fashion. 

But I've done my best to look back and the only one I can think of is Mom rushing us out of the front door.  She had shoulder length hair, wore those hideous and gigantic 70s sunglasses, and was smoking a cigarette.  Regrettably she was angry, or at best irritated.  Andrea is in that memory and I can only assume she was walking and talking.  But I remember her face clearly.  Unfortunately, not much has changed.  I suppose that her illness, and my distance from her, has caused that irritable woman to disappear forever - well, as far as how it would impact me.  For that I'm grateful.

When I think of my Dad...I think my oldest memory is of him watching as I rode a roller coaster for the first time.  It was at a carnival.  Like a carnie carnival.  He was watching as I was riding this kiddie roller coaster and not enjoying myself at all.  I don't remember how he took my crying, etc...because I can't remember his face.  Just his polo-style shirt, work pants, and his hands on his hips.  It made me deathly afraid of roller coasters until I was 13.  I was talked into riding another roller coaster, XLR-8, at Astroworld, and that day I got over it.  My dad was sitting next to me on that roller coaster.  So I guess my first memory is extended for 13 years as my dad helped me get over my fear.  Good for him and me.

There is a piercing feeling that I experience, knowing that those memories will be all that I have, etc...The inescapable feeling of loss as I come to grips with my inability to control time; the bastard.  It's all I've got and, while I know that there are others with worse - and I don't care, I wish terribly to be able to insert other memories in their places. 

The daunting feeling of not being able to turn around is a tight grip around my chest.  There is a young boy back there that's in for a wild, apathetic ride and a life full of unanswered questions.  I feel for that young boy as if there were something significant I could do to shelter him from the crap he'll go through.  But what a waste of synapses...My consolation is that there exists a world line where we are the tightest, most loving family I know - that nothing would truncate our abilities to love and support each other...and the rest of my life would be enriched by it. 

I'm so far away from that boy, it's shocking.  He is a different person - not even close to me.  A stranger.

I can only shudder at the thought of what Izzy's first memory of me will be and how my actions through her life will balance against it.  I can only hope my growth will help mitigate the trauma I will inflict.  Anything to prevent her feeling this way after I've died.

Mariana Has Nothing On Me

Look at this low that I've been brought to
How is it that this far can be gone this soon?
Caution has thrown the wind at me

Another whirlpool of emotions that I'm not prepared for
I never am, as it's meant to be I suppose
Sick and tired of being sick and tired

Am I the magnet or the unwitting conductor? 
There's too much time for this and not enough for everything else
If it persists longer, the bent reeds will rest at right angles

Look at this low that I've been brought to
How is it that this far can be gone this soon?
Caution has thrown the wind at me