State of the Barely Blogging Blog

Life gets in the way

Here I am again, apologizing for not writing. That’s the real problem with me never quite figuring out what this space is.

Do I have things I want to say? Sure. I’m increasingly aware that no one wants to hear what I have to say. My voice is just one more in a cacophony of mewling sounds, designed to distract us from life. But that’s how liberty works. We all get to exercise our free speech, and then we have to use some discretion on whose free speech is actually worth something.

I mean, you do get what you pay for.

Still, I want to have a place to talk about things that aren’t always explicitly political now that, well, everything is political. Everything is so political I can’t keep track anymore. Are we boycotting Target again? I don’t know. Who really cares? It’s all descended into white noise.

But what is the point of saying things if you don’t have anything to actually say? You don’t need to be political in the sense of advocating for a candidate or a specific cause, but if you’re advocating for some sort of ideal… well, then your words really don’t mean anything. There has to be some there, there.

So, yeah. It’s been hard for me to find the there.

As they say, the personal is political, and personally, this has been a pretty awful year. However, its also provided some closure. The wife and I finally called it quits, and I got the paper to prove it and everything. And the lesson here is that it’s not really an ending, not in the sense that I thought it would be,

It’s just a new chapter. And here we are, still connected by the same fibers of family which bound us in the first place. We don’t live together anymore, but I’m still sending her texts about band and soccer. And for her to pick up her stuff. Everything has changed, and nothing has.

She seems happier now, brighter. There’s still the same things that bothered me… she’s as unreliable as ever on picking up the kids, but… I don’t know. It has a different tenor these days. Same song, but in a different key. She’s not a bad person or anything, we just didn’t fit together anymore. That’s how life goes.

And so I keep reminding myself I have this space. And I keep meaning to write, but I don’t. I want to write, I even make the outline in my head, I simply can’t bring myself to do it. Because to do it is to move on to a new chapter again. And I’m trying to hold on to the one I’m in as long as I can.

Hold the kiddos tight.

That’s the thing. I’m trying to live life more fully these days. With all of the horribleness surrounding us, it really is important to try to enjoy the life we have. So many times, we do things, but we’re only doing it to catalog it for social media. Or we’re in a different place because we’ve buried our nose in our phone.

I’m not pointing fingers or trying to condemn anybody. I do it, too. These phones we have are pretty nifty, and addictive, too. So it takes real effort for me to keep it in my pocket and just… be. To cheer the kiddo playing soccer and not record it. The memory will be good enough.

My biggest campaign is to have dinner at the table every night. Does it work? Not really. The daughter has rehearsals and the son has camps, and there’s always one more thing to do or errand to run. But, half the time, I actually cook something (poorly), and we sit at the table and we maybe say a few words to each other before we bury our faces back in our devices.

Well, we tried. And we’ll try again tomorrow. That’s the best we can do, right?