 I know it's Father's Day but Earl wouldn't have been the father he was if not for Pat being the mother she is. So, I can't think of one without the other.
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I've got the perfect idea for Huey's next entrepreneurial venture. He should become the next Satan Seller. I surely could be his ghostwriter and editor.
 So, yesterday was entertaining. Louise got me thinking, though. This morning I'm thinking about responsibility, what it really means to live in the present, and the real reason I started writing with the theme of breakup stories.
One of my proudest moments as an instructor came about when I was at Auburn, A student who was working on the AU production of The Laramie Project asked me if he could interview me after class one day. I still look back at that interview as a pivotal moment in both of our lives--it certainly taught me about the power the truth has.
Normally I wouldn't respond to a comment like "mind your own business," but since Geez Louise walked right up into my virtual living room and basically told me to hush up (see the lone comment on the entry Wax Packs), I'm going to. People don't have to walk through the virtual door into my living room, after all.
I feel the need to clarify a thing or two. I checked with my sister, and she assures me that while there is irony coming through in my posts today about dear old Huey that there isn't anger or bitterness.
Apparently, not everyone sees it that way, though, as I got some sage advice on a FB post about "feeding the ghosts of the past." I removed said post and simply made the posts related to Huey not visible to that person. It's not personal. But, the comment felt a little like mansplaining to me. My post that read "That moment when your ex, who probably still owes you thousands, becomes a Life Coach and is doing a paid presentation at the Sizzler to show people how to go to college without accruing debt" wasn't bitter or angry. It was an observation. Everything in that post is factual. Some of the current people in my life weren't even sure which ex I was referring to--that's how not personal I made the post. That post is no more personal than when someone posts funny and mildly insulting observations about people they ride the bus to work with. You know, people who are minding their own business and have no idea that someone is creating their own version of "the People of Walmart" on a Facebook wall. To "feed that ghost" would be to continue contact with Huey and demand that he follow through on the debt repayment he agreed to back when we did the legal separation papers prior to filing for divorce. To feed that ghost would have been to try to prosecute him for identity theft later when he opened a credit card account in my name and used the card. I canceled LifeLock because it turned out that he'd listed me as living with him all over the South so I couldn't accurately answer credit questions about my own "history." I'm a writer. Writers write about their experiences and what has happened to them. I am at a point in my life where I find these stories funny now, not hurtful. I'm not angry. I'm not bitter. If anything I am so entirely grateful that I realized that a beard is not a good idea and that I got disentangled (as much as possible) from the mess that I was in by being legally attached to Huey. That being said, I hope that by sharing some of these stories that other people who have been idiots a time or two in their lives can see that we're all idiots at one time or another. I in no way absolve myself of responsibility for the choices I made at the time. I am a sentient being and understand that those things could not have happened had I not made specific choices. So, know that I'm not wallowing in anything, nor do I mourn for that part of my life. I'm extremely grateful that I got out while I still had agency and was capable of making choices. Do I think that it could have gone the other way? Absolutely. Having seen Huey put his fist through a plastic lawn chair (the solid plastic type), I do. Knowing that he apparently made remarks that he should have just gotten me pregnant and kept me that way as that would have solved everything and put me in my place after we legally split, yes, I do. I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent, independent, and strong person. I think that's been true even during my moments of idiocy. If it wasn't I wouldn't have kept pushing. I wouldn't be blogging right now. I'd probably be wearing long denim skirts and Keds and living on a converted bus with too many children right now. If my sharing my moments of idiocy leads to one person in a horrible relationship realizing they need to change something, fantastic. That's not "feeding the ghosts of the past." That's preventing the victims of the future. |
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