Upon this date, the date of my birth, I now observe the start of year thirty-six of my existence and with it, as has been long standing tradition, I feel little older and only slightly more informed than at any point in recent recollection.
Yet I now find, for the first time in my life, I do in fact feel wiser, in stark contrast to my birthday last year, wherein I felt more foolish and less informed, than I had at any other point in my life that I can clearly recall, by dint of information oversaturation and rampant emotional distress.
Wisdom, is loosely and commonly defined as instinct applied with knowledge and tempered with experience, to result in insight. Given my personal experiences over the last two years now, my instincts have been retrained and honed, my knowledge expanded, and my wisdom forcibly upgraded beyond all desire and expectations I might have had previously.
Having been called an "old soul" since my formative years always sat with me as odd, in an almost but not quite out of place fashion within my heart and mind, yet I now realize that my almost (and that is highly debatable!) unflappable, stalwart ruggedness and ability to be, as my mother has said since I was 12 or so, the so called "Master of the delayed reaction" or rather my forced talent to stop myself from knee jerk emotional reactions, and the fallout they always result in, has in fact preserved and safeguarded me throughout the trials, struggles, and heartbreak of the last two years, from almost losing my job (twice) to losing my father, my wife and best friend, to losing thousands of dollars to dishonest and exploitive persons, weeks worth of sleep, and damn near losing my optimism and sense of humor if not likely some sizable part of whatever "sanity" I have been repeatedly accused of possessing.
This is not at all without its cost of course, and there are regrets and sorrows aplenty, tinging and tainting memories and lessons aplenty but the saving grace is, bitter as it may be, that it all is, she is, now past, and what has been done and said cannot be changed, nor I think should it be, and above all else, I am no longer obliged to be tied to or revisit either her, or any of it. It had its place, but things, and people do change, and rare are either that last even a fraction of the frail and humorous human notion of "forever" and I am lucky to have had roughly ten years of a relationship, nearly seven of which was a fairly healthy romance, that sadly failed due to a combination of terrible timing, distractions, unaddressed health issues, exampled abusive tendencies (narcissism) inadvertent and unintentional neglect, emotional PTSD, questionable advice from people of questionable motivations and the mixing of SSRI's and booze, the majority portion of it all, does not now, nor did it then, fall upon my shoulders, although I gladly take up the burden of what did then, and still now does.
Now most of that is no longer my problem anymore, and while I would hardly call this a "starting from scratch" or "starting over" phase for me, I am now in more than a few ways starting from someplace far behind, or at least far to the side of where I had dreamed and expected of being now, when I pondered such things in years past. To put it plainly, I have lost much these past two years, more than I have ever lost at any time in my life prior. There is a strange sense of being both lighter, and heavier for it all, and I cannot say that I am at this stage, comfortable with it. I may yet do so, and I may never do so as well, only time will tell.
Yet I find a strange sense of freedom now, shed of my once cast iron, voluntary obligation, a freedom balanced with a weight of responsibility, a sense of opportunity one might find when exploring a new place by accident from a mistaken turn on the road, a sense of adventure and potential, of guarded optimism at the unknown, and of coy awareness at the recently learned.
The struggle now is to not allow myself to fall into distraction by looking back needlessly, or pining for some sort of reconnection or reconciliation or restoration. While I still and always will desire to have answers to my final questions, and would be eternally grateful for that last, meaningful (or not) good bye, I am at peace with the simple fact that is I may not ever get any of that, and I must be okay with it.
I'm not okay with it, not at all, it isn't right, it isn't fair, to either her nor myself, but the nice thing is, since life isn't fair, it really doesn't matter, because I can absolutely live with it, just like everything else I've had forced upon me by the will of others because of their terribly selfish and short sighted choices.
It is from here, at this place of acceptance, imperfect as it is, that I can forgive Kristen, and thus allow for myself, the clarity I now need to actually get about the business of actively living my life again.
Now if only the REST of the stupid world could just get the fuck outta my way and let me do it...
All things being equal, I have learned a great deal about myself, about others, about the world at large, and about just how unyielding and unstoppable I can be, in contrast to how tender and gentle I have been in the past. And that I attract hurt, outcast and otherwise damaged personalities (mostly females it seems) to me, because by comparison I have most of my shit decently wired when compared to them (or males) of a similar cut. I'm far from perfect but I realized very recently that compared to most of my peers and most anyone within 20 years of me, I'm shockingly boring and unwarped or damaged, aside from a few specific and highly intense experiences that have only served to reinforce everything else about myself. As such I draw others to me like the proverbial flame attracts moths.
I still have that softer side within me, but I do not think times will be looking for a gentle or tender man for a while now, but rather that quiet, steely resolution, bordering on defiance, that I have always had, at my core, buried under the layers of gregariousness and gentility I had found refuge within for so many years.
But if the writing on the wall is what I think it is, and means what I think it means, and given the state of social media, and how ingrained it has become, and the light it has shone upon social progression and decay, I'm thinking yeah it does, and as such I should return to my core form.
In the meantime, I now heal, inside and out, mentally, emotionally, and physically and go about my life looking for the next thing to do while I position myself as best as I can. As for what, I cannot say beyond what I want, and what will be, are rarely if ever, one and the same, and, all told, when they are, they rarely stay that way.
It only took me nearly 35 years to figure that out. Thank God above it took me much less than that to figure out who I am, and want to be, some people never figure either out.
Until next time,
~Caleb
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