my careless contagion

Taylor Swift is a masterful creator of what seems like an endless stream of songs about love, loss, and, quite possibly, her love for Ed Sheeran. In her song The Story of Us , she says, "I don't know what to say since the twist of fate when it all broke down and the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now." If there's something sadder than a tragedy, then I'd agree the lyrics fit you and me. Your daughter has asked about that boy who wanted to marry you, said you always told her about him. But you don't remember saying that at all. You thought you buried me, left me behind, but I'm right there in front of you, a question mark in your daughter's mind. Some people can't be buried. I should know. I forgot so many faces, so many names, so many places, so many times. But I could never forget you. When the clouds were making rain in my basement apartment in McCook, you were making out with another boy. When he wanted more, you said yes. You ...

I'm the biggest fucking loser on the planet at this moment. As I close the door and step inside, my guts are churning. Just stepping inside tears me up. What should be the easiest thing in the world has become like a knife in my guts. The goodbyes get harder every time.  Little boys shouldn't cry so much. Little boys should be happy-go-lucky, tough as spit, and ready to take on the world. Every car ride shouldn't be so sad. I shouldn't hear him wailing as his mom pulls away. Will this ever get easier? I don't know if I'm making it harder or easier by walking away, but it hurts like hell every time.  Give it time, I hear. Tell him it's okay to be sad. Tell him he can be happy for the time we had together. Call me tonight. We can talk about your day. Oh, hell.  I've lost all. I sit in solitude, and the tears won't even come anymore. I'll schedule my tears for tomorrow when I have tears to give. I'm all out today. I went to sleep cryin...

I watched the movie Passengers because it has Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence in it. I figured, what could go wrong?  Well, plenty. I guess this is where I should say, "spoiler alert." Most of the movie you feel incredibly sorry for Chris' character, then Jennifer's, then both! It's a love story set in space. Their spaceship is bound for a distant planet and they are in hibernation for 120 years. Tragically, Chris wakes up and finds he has 90 more years to go; his pod had a failure and he is doomed to spend the rest of his life on this ship alone. After a year of this, and after becoming suicidal, he falls in love with a sleeping passenger, Jennifer's character. He wakes her up, which is the most horrible thing a person could do, really. He lets her believe her pod failed, of course, until an android bartender spills the beans. When she realizes he doomed her to living and dying on this ship, she kicks his ass. Rightly so. It was a selfish act, utterl...

Here's a little gem from the pop culture abyss that is Breaking Dawn , one of the Twilight movies. I've seen this movie, of course. Vampires are cool, especially sparkly ones. This song made it to a billion views on YouTube, which seems utterly impossible to me. That's the power of a good teen movie/book/multimedia juggernaut, something that packages unbridled lust with romance and, uh, bloodlust. But, that's not my interest in this song.  The line that sticks out to me is, "I have died every day waiting for you." Although I don't consider myself a patient person, I've exhibited patience quite a bit in the past. I waited the greater part of two decades for a woman to come around and realize the kind of person I am and who she was callously abusing. My patience finally wore thin and, tragically, I realized that even if she came to her senses at some point in the future, my ability to trust her was irreparably damaged. Without trust, there ...

Where do I start? I feel like I've always been a failure. When did I start believing that? As the youngest child, you do everything later and slower than everyone else. Then you have two parents (ideally) to compare yourself to. You never win the comparisons so you stop trying. I did well in school for the most part. I did okay in athletics. I wasn't ever popular, nor did I desire to be. Those kids were assholes. The older I got, the more the world I knew lurched away from me. I was lost.  I've never been good at any job I've ever done. I just kind of wing it. People have a propensity to hate me because I'm so bad at what I do and I really should feel bad about it, but I don't. I struggle and no one helps me and that's okay. My life is struggle and failure and an occasional success that scares the shit out of me. Like, where did that come from? The law of averages gives me an occasional home run.  When you've been a screw-up as long as you ca...

The author with a full-blown case of the Blatz circa 1978. You can tell when you're talking to a real alcoholic because they'll identify themselves as one, even after going years without drinking. The mechanisms that make them an alcoholic were there before they started drinking, as well. I consider myself an alcoholic who doesn't drink. My father was an alcoholic. Well, he still is. But he stopped drinking many moons ago. It's been said that people use alcohol as an excuse to do and say what they want to do and say; it's okay because they were drunk or buzzed and didn't mean it. It's like kids saying mean things on the playground and then, "Just kidding," making it even worse because why are you crying when I was just kidding? It's a one-two punch. Well, my dad was a womanizer, too. Swore like I've heard no one else swear. In fact, I've never seen anyone get as angry as my father. I thought he was going to kill one of my ...

Guard your heart. Out of it flows the issues of life, we're told. Your heart is described as the center of your being. It's your core, your essence. With all of it, we are supposed to love the Lord our God.  My heart had drifted from my ex-wife many years ago. It's safe to say I loved her, but she did everything she could to defeat that love. To protect myself and my heart, I started to float free. Eventually, I imagined life without her. Those imaginings turned into pleadings and a desperate need to leave, which I eventually did. When I met a certain woman, it was, as we called it, "a slippery slope." We fell headlong into each other, and it was ridiculously good. Until it wasn't. We were both married, me deeply unhappily so. I cannot say how she felt about her husband at the time, but I do know she loved him much more than I loved my wife, and much more than any man could ever expect to be loved.  Our relationship ended before we ended our m...

I don't exactly love this music, but I've always liked these lyrics. And the video features Kristy Swanson, a longtime favorite. I don't know how many times I've seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but probably too many to say without shame in my voice. I, of course, identify with the sentiment of the song. Who doesn't fantasize about going from flipping burgers to singing in a parking lot? Oh, not that part of the song. The lyrics. Although I do enjoy a good hamburger.  There's hope in this song, hope that all we need is one more chance. If you've had your bell rung too many times in bad relationships, it's sometimes hard to muster hope. But, the alternative just seems way too close to laying down and dying.  What has begun to dominate my internal lexicon is the word "after." I'm living in the after of so many things. I embody after , though I strain toward a new beginning. Any new beginning is tainted with after , though...

With any great hurt or disappointment, there are a number of stages one walks through in the aftermath. There is usually some anger, wildly fluctuating feelings of betrayal, etc. The range of emotions can take your breath away. Somewhere in there, you will probably do a "what happened" sort of retrospective. I've been writing these pages in the effort to gain perspective on what the hell went wrong in my life. For all practical purposes, I'm nearing the end of this process, and, I believe for me, the next stage is acceptance.  I have to accept things about my life I'd rather not. But, there is no way to move on until I do. I've accepted the fact that I couldn't save my marriage. There were things in both of us that conspired to destroy it, things I didn't even see until years after the damage was done and all the goodness leaked out. Likewise, I couldn't save any other relationship I've been in, however strong it may have seemed in the ...

I could have written about my hangnails or something, as the instructor never read our work. One of the last things I had on my list to write about this summer was this pesky letter that's been haunting me since 5-6-1996. But, I first had to read the letter, which I didn't want to do, as it felt like a can of worms. But, I'm getting good at opening cans of worms. The first thing that struck me was how poorly written the letter was, how sloppy my handwriting was, and the fact that I included a blank page (?). But, it was an honest letter from a no-BS kid who was really glad to be done with the "hell" of high school. Little did I realize I would be launched into another academic abyss very soon. In many ways, going to a community college (for a kid who got a 29 on his ACT) was like going back to the 8th grade. I met the woman who would take up more than 20 years of my life on 5-6-1997, exactly a year after I wrote this letter to myself. What in...

The Little Prince is a children's book written in a different era. Like so many children's books, it has remained popular. There is something about it that makes parents want to pass it along to their children. I came upon the Little Prince as an adult and read it in disbelief. It deals with love and loss like few adult books do.  I painted the Little Prince on his planet for my ex-sister-in-law many years ago. When I gave it to her, she started crying; I guess the Little Prince resonated with her. I'm a terrible painter, by the way, so I'm sure my skill or lack thereof had little to do with her emotional response.  Everyone has their favorite quote from the book. For my ex-sister-in-law, it was, "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed." That has stuck with me for many years.  For brief moments, I feel I tamed my ex-wife. She was a different person when I met her. She became something else over the years. She was wild, staying...

  The author's letter to himself, written in 1996. Perhaps he was too bored to write "death." The last day of high school in 1996, my Physics teacher assigned the class the task of writing ourselves a letter. I don't remember exactly what the point of the exercise was, but we had to wait a significant amount of time, say, 10 years after graduation to open the letter. It's been more than 22 years, and I still haven't opened it. I'm a little annoyed by the fact that it has been sitting there so long, just waiting for me to open it. I tell myself I know what I wrote so I don't have to open it, but, honestly, I have no idea. I know I was a dewy-eyed young man with some untarnished ideals, but I had also endured quite a bit of heartache in my 18 years. Graduating from high school seemed anticlimactic. My mind had already started to wander down the path I thought I was going to take. There was college to look forward to, a career, lots of f...

Let's try something different.  I've examined many of my faults and failures. I've tried to right things that are wrong. I've flagellated and abused myself; I've cried and fumed and thrown my hands up. Sometimes you have to admit to yourself things could have gone a whole lot of other undesirable directions. What happened in your life happened for a reason, whether you can figure it out or not. So, accept it and move on.  I issued a challenge to myself to find some good things I could take credit for. I may end up saying that I can't take credit for anything, as my life has been touched by God. If anyone gets the credit, it is Him. That is true, of course. God gets all the credit. But, let's look at some of the things He used me to accomplish.   When I thought I'd never get to have a child, it happened. It was too late in life; it was extremely stressful for wife and child and me, but it happened. God blessed me with a son. I would hav...

Eight months ago, when it felt like God just wanted to break me and give up the girl I was in love with, something strange happened.  It wasn't unusual that God took me by the collar and made His point. I feel like I've channeled Jacob much of my life, and with the same results. The story of Jacob and Esau is a study in desire. Jacob wanted the things of God more than Esau did. Jacob didn't know how to go about getting those things so went about it all wrong in his headstrong way.  Eventually, God humbled Jacob and wounded him while wrestling, crippling him. Anyone who has been stubborn with God can attest to the futility of wrestling Him. Jacob must have been in a league of his own. The one thing he had going for him was his thirst for the things of God.  When I was wrestling with God in December, I fully expected the answer to be that I had to give this woman up, this woman I loved. I was ready for that. To my astonishment, His answer was quite the contr...