TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

#54 – The Healer

WILL

Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you never met your wife?

SEAN

What? Do I wonder if I'd be better off if I never met my wife?

Will starts to clarify his question.

SEAN (cont'd)

No, that's okay. It's an important question. 'Cause you'll have your bad times, which wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to. And you can fail, as long as you're trying hard. But there's nothing worse than regret.

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I don?t know why it is that I can always find a line in a movie that expresses something that I can?t on my own. Sometimes makes me think that film is its own sort of literature. I was thinking of this line riding home tonight, also about the cat because she?s feeling out of it and hasn?t moved from her spot on the couch since she came home from the vet yesterday. She has a certain amount of wisdom built into her; she knows that if she?s not feeling good she just needs to find a quiet spot and rest until she?s ready to face the world again.

I went to the bowling alley tonight, for lack of anything else to do. The whole world is wrapped up in it?s pseudo-pagan-mostly-commercial holidays and there?s not really a place for a guy like me in there. The bowling alley may be our only link to the lower middle class of America here in Fremont. The chairs, the bar, the linoleum on the floor and the fake wood paneling on the wall haven?t been updated since 1979. The same tired faces bowling chipped number 10, 12 and 15 balls on the polished wood floor. The same sounds of kids down on the bumper lanes slamming balls into the floor and trying to pinball their way to a strike.

There?s comfort in the bowling alley but there?s also this sad sort of desperation that makes me avoid it like the plague. Like the K-Mart on a Thursday night. This whole world of ?was-once-here-but-has-moved-on? that depresses you because you?re around it instead of wherever everyone else has gone. Like continuing to walk the school halls on the first day of summer vacation. I can only express it in vague terms like this because I?ve never been able to catalog it into single word or phrase.

All of this is just filler, to get me around to what I wanted to talk about. I think about the cat and about that Robin Williams? line from Good Will Hunting because I?m finally having one of those bad times that?s woken me up to the good things I wasn?t paying attention to. Not that I was totally unaware, sometimes I?d catch myself in the mirror and say ?You know that you?ve got things pretty good right now.? But I?ve been fighting the other side of the battle for going on four months now and it?s been wearing me out.

I know that most of what has happened to me and Nicole has been out of my control. I hate to admit to that because I don?t want to surrender myself to a world of chaotic probability. So I?ve been hammering on myself and hammering on her to make things better instead of recognizing that sometimes, life just sucks and that sometimes, it?s gonna get worse for you before it gets better. While this should (in a perfect world) help me not to get down on myself and other people and keep myself focused on doing what I can to make things better, the reality is that I need to take a step back and stop trying to fix it. It?s like that moment when you realize that you can fight a cold all you want but if your body?s immune system can?t hack it, you?re getting a cold and there ain?t a darn thing you can do about it. So, I watched the cat tonight and realized that I need to find a quiet spot and just sit tight until we?re all ready to face the world again. It?s only been four months since our world was shaken up (four months next week, matter of fact) and it?s premature to expect everything to be normal again.

I wish that things were normal, that none of this had happened. I wish Tom were still here or that he had some kind of massive trust account set up to help his kids and wife out so that money would stop being such an issue. I wish Nicole hadn?t lost her job. I wish that my transmission hadn?t decided to blow up last week and that it wouldn?t cost $1600 to fix. I wish that somewhere in an alternate universe we went to Europe this year instead of Phoenix and that all I had to show for this summer was a nice tan and stories about visiting England and France.

I admit it: things are broken and it?s beyond my power to fix them. I?ve been driving myself crazy and everyone around me to mitigate the damage but it isn?t happening. I?ve also been wishing that things had worked out differently and all that?s been doing is depressing me. So, I?m letting it go. I?m abandoning the baggage and looking at what we?ve got now and what we can have in the future. I?ve still got dreams and wishes but I?ve got to modify them to take into account the way that the world is different.

Doses of reality ? for me.

-Tim Woolery, 10/31/03