NEXT YEAR, MAYBE THE YEAR AFTER

Next year shows up fast, so fast that you haven’t gotten over anything from the last year.

Suddenly you’re stacking the new ‘get over it’ on top of the old ‘get over it.’

You used to care about getting over things.

What happened? This happened:

It’s hard work to get over anything. Sometimes too hard. It’s tiring.

I remember going to Paris and feeling jet lag tired until I got over it.

It was a Rick Steves tour that promised miles and miles of walking every day, but that’s not what tired me out.

Once the jet lag eased up, the weight of history dropped.

Walking on streets well documented for their historical importance was a burden I’ve never felt before.

Standing on the place so soaked during the revolution that they had to move the guillotine to more stable ground gave me a sinking feeling.

That tidbit came from a bicycle tour guide, so it must be true.

How do you get over man’s inhumanity to fellow man when there’s always someone poking around enough to make people react in ways they never thought of?

French wars and French peace have had consequences on the entire world, from the Battle of Blenheim that saved the world from French domination in 1704, to the Paris Peace Talks in 1973 to end the Vietnam War.

I’ll never get over knowing guys my age in high school who had older brothers dying in Vietnam, or listening to an Air Force medic talk about flying wounded soldiers from the battlefield to U.S. hospitals in Japan.

I won’t be getting over it next year either.

 

One Way To Cope

Do you feel like your father put in the time to set you right in the ways of the world?

If it’s yes, then you’re with the lucky ones.

Too many people are raised without the moms and dads they needed, not us.

I’m happy to say my marriage has lasted longer than my parents, though my Mom got twenty-five years with two husbands.

She followed her mom who got fifty years out of her second husband.

The years do fly by like water from a broken down damn. (Hey John Prine)

Too fast? One way to get over it is by playing a musical instrument.

Like what? Take it from a guitar daddy when I say, “Like a guitar.”

With a guitar you get to learn things like notes and nut and strings and tone wood.

And you get to make noise, string noise, drum noise, maybe voice noise?

If you can stand the sounds, and keep learning, it all improves.

That’s when you stop thinking about what your parents went through when you learned to play the saxophone in the school band.

Your guitar won’t squeak. You might find it fun, or at least funny.

Instead of next year, why not pick up a guitar now.

Then next year, when someone asks you how long you’ve played, you can say, “One year.”

People like being around others who share challenges, who like to share strategies.

There’s plenty of evidence that playing a musical instrument makes you a better person, or at least a little better.

If you know anyone who needs a boost, give them the music talk.

 

You Know That Person, Sometimes You Are That Person

 

I choose motivated and hopeful no matter what.

There’s more than enough of everyone else.

What I do is fix on an event or action, a person, place, or thing, that isn’t too FUBAR.

When I can’t find anything else that works, I look at myself.

Maybe this is one of those tactics for next year, maybe now.

My usual self-talk is about not doing enough with my life, not trying hard enough, not being good enough for anything.

And I’m fine with that most of the time because evidence shows I’m doing enough, trying, and I’m good enough.

My boat rocks when something happens anywhere and I wonder if I could have made a difference.

It calms down when I dwell on excuses to do less, quit trying to do anything, and accept my worthlessness.

I’m sure there’s a psychological term for quitting, but I call it The Blues.

No, seriously, the blues, like “da DA da da.” Those blues come out of a guitar played with two fingers.

Do that often enough and long enough and it makes you start thinking about the other eight fingers, so you add one more, then another.

Before you know it you’re back to trying harder, doing more, and feeling ready to buy a van and hit the road with that guitar.

Feels good, but if you can’t shake that ‘fuck everyone and fuck everything’ mood, remember this is an election year.

Register to vote like a good citizen.

Think of it like your duty, but without the drill sergeant aspects of learning what your duty is. Just follow instructions in the previous link.

If you find a candidate who says the equivalent of ‘fuck everyone and everything,’ who says, ‘this fucking place is so fucked up only I can fix it,’ who says, ‘I’ll do whatever I fucking want to do, fucker.’

If you find that candidate, don’t vote for them. They’ve got problems far beyond the usual fuck everyone and everything the rest of us carry on occasion.

Vote for someone who knows the grind.

Vote for candidates you’d like to educate American sons.