LIFE CONTINUES, MEMORIES INCLUDED

Life continues after bad things happen.

It continues, but some memories make it a heavier lift.

Maybe that’s why some writers keep things light and fun?

They don’t want to add to the burden we all carry?

What about those burdens?

I’ve held babies with my wife, babies with my kids, and both times I was convinced life continues.

Baby life continues with parents who’ve learned to put their burdens aside for the good of another.

My take as a parent was I needed to get them ready for life outside and away from me.

So I showed them how cheaters work, what lies sound like, and how fragile trust can be.

I did it without leaving a permanent scar.

And I did it while remaining married and not blaming their mother for all of life’s woe. (Hi honey)

 

Married Life Continues

The never-married people out there need to know one thing:

A wife is not your mother; a husband is not your daddy.

Your mom and dad are your mom and dad, not some stray you followed to the altar.

For the husbands: Your wife may say she wants her mom. That’s normal. You’re still not her mom, or even a close substitute.

To the wives: If your husband says he wants his dad, go to counseling. We like to keep that stuff to ourselves.

I’m a husband and a dad. It’s a role I took to from the start. Don’t ask me why.

Maybe good husbands and fathers come from families with rotten husbands and fathers and the kids are repulsed enough to be better?

My parents were competent enough.

Or, maybe I’ve seen enough losers fake their way through husbandry and fatherhood until the wife gets fat, they get ugly, and the kids turn eighteen and kicked out of the house.

Who does that? How does it turn out?

Ask your neighbors.

We never know how anyone is really raised unless we were there for it.

They could have been model children, then took a sharp turn at shithead corner instead of staying on track.

My age group was in junior high during the late sixties.

Over the summer some guys grew their hair out.

The only explanation that made sense was they’d turned into hippies and smoked weed and dropped acid and had funky hippie sex.

Or they just grew their hair out.

Either way, the perception in a small town wasn’t good.

Moms’ said: I don’t want you hanging around those types.

Dads’ said: What is he, a girl?

 

Life Continues For All Of 2024

No matter what the load you feel you need to carry, yours and others, time marches on.

One day you feel like you’re living your best life, the king of your castle, master of your domain.

The next day it all turns into a pile of trash down by the river.

If you have that constant turnaround day to day, you may want to talk to someone.

The voices in your head?

An old man in the neighborhood said he heard voices in his head. I asked if they were nice voices.

His wife said he was having side-effects from a new medication.

They sold their house and moved away not long after.

He was an old jerk from the start, complaining about everything, but not once did I suspect he’d act out, load a gun, and shoot the place up.

Of course I was sweet as pie in every exchange in case he changed his mind.

My ploy was if he did go off the rails with a gun he’d remember his favorite neighbor and not blast me.

Could someone explain what it is about shooters gunning down random people?

Life does not continue for them, shooter or victims.

Normal life full of normal stuff now has an asterisk in Kansas City.

So does every other place on two pages of mass shootings in 2024 on Gun Violence Archive.

Is that where you live? It’s not where anyone wants to live.

Life continues, but gun violence and mass shootings add nothing but remorse.

Can anyone do better than thoughts and prayers?

Who would that be?