Cuttin it down to the roots

So… I guess since I don’t feel like I’m ready to actually talk to people… well some I want to talk to, but that’s a different issue. Seems a bit unconventional was to get this off my chest, but I think it’s a good forum.

Yeah, so my MIL tried to kill herself Thursday night. How do I feel about it, seems to be the most resonate question… Well… I’m pissed. I’m trying not to be, but I am! I’m pissed because my children were here when she did it! I’m pissed at the emotional havoc that has been levied on not only my oldest child, but my wife. I’m pissed because it all seems to be pointed at me! Like it’s my fault she got drunk, took an assload of pills and then cut her wrists! Y’know, cause I was right there MAKING her do it. I’m pissed at the shear selfishness of the act! Not considering the damage left in the wake of her actions! We basically have to completely rearrange our lives in order to compensate for her selfishness! I’m pissed that my family has been put in this situation. I’m pissed that I am this pissed! Basically she has forced her will upon everyone with any appearance of caring for her. Which from her point of view, does not include me! That fact seems to be one of the key factors, at least in her mind, reasons for why it happened. I don’t fall at her feet and grovel and worship her, like her late husband did, so I automatically hate her! This leads to another reason I am pissed, the fact that she expects me to! She has turned the focus of what should be a festive season to her and her inadequacies! My biggest concern is for what long term effect this will have on my almost 10 year old! The child is amazingly strong, but is scared to go to sleep in her bed, because that night she was wakened and whisked away so she didn’t have to see the actual event, but was subjected to the fleet of emergency vehicles in front of the house! I am fiercely protective of my children and their physical and mental health! I was able to overcome the psychological effects of my childhood, but I do my damnedest to not inflict any harm beyond what might rise from the natural maturing process and I try to circumvent as much of that as possible, too. It’s been hard enough having to deal with the fact that she, the MIL, now lives with me and thinks that it is now HER house. Coupled with the facts that I am being forced to go to school, which I don’t like, in order to maintain some small ideal of income, because The government that is so concerned with my well being saw fit to give tax incentives to companies for shipping jobs elsewhere! Things haven’t been all roses and chocolates on the home front either. Recent, well not really all that recent, re-connections have caused turmoil. Factor in an ally/instigator for the other side and the odds become almost insurmountable from my standpoint! The one voice of calm in this seemingly ever growing storm has and probably will remain silent. I haven’t figured out whether it is worse to not find a “happy place” or to find one and have it ripped out from under you. Which is a whole other issue, unto itself.

I’ve built for myself a glass fortress, transparent by nature, but still walls to keep me insulated from myself and others. The few that have been allowed entrance, including me, have only served to weaken the structure from within. I care about people, but am reluctant to let them in, as past experience has taught me that if they don’t truly want to be there, then they will find a way out at the expense of the integrity of my “defenses”. I feel like I have lost so much of me in the past year, that there is a high probability that I shall never recover from it. Sadly… one voice could help drown out the overwhelming white noise that fills my head… yet silence. I would love to win the lottery! I could do so much good among my friends and family and it would allow me to escape. Escape from all that is weighing upon me… away from the bitterness and sadness… away from myself!

I’ve gotten away from blogging… Mainly, because I felt like it was just a random culmination of thoughts, but I guess that is what it is supposed to be… Not necessarily structured and formatted, but just me… what I think… how I feel… who I am… A lot of people beg for followers wanting to gain popularity. I just want a few, true friends to read it. In order to maybe shed some insight on me, to me. I had so much more planned out in my mind, but here’s what came out. I should do it more often… as a means of release. y’all wanna read an comment, feel free… if not, then don’t.

Randomosity

Randomosity… not really a word, I don’t think… Just my generic term for a collection of random things. So, if anyone actually follows this with any kind of regularity, which I doubt, they might see the heading alot, but I don’t think there is much danger of that.

In my last post I touched on the fact that I think that some funding should be diverted away from some of these huge ass athletic programs that we have in our schools now, and spent on technology education. I’m reading, well listening to, the book The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. It kind of pisses me off and inspires me at the same time. I live in an area that was hit HARD by NAFTA and the resulting exodus. So when I hear the stories in the book about how great things are in India, it pisses me off! Although I can see why companies would want to better their bottom line by outsourcing, else be “outsourced” right out of existence by their competition. It’s a double-edged sword. It also serves to more emphasize the fact that Americans as a whole, including myself, have become complacent and lazy. In fact I am being lazy, to an extent, right now. While I am working on propagating my online presence and with it my personal brand, I really should probably be working on the nursery. The main reason I chose to do this, rather than the manual labor, is… I do manual labor for a living! I handle approximately 35000 pounds worth of wheels and tires in an 8 hour shift. BY HAND! I’m sure, if anyone is actually reading this, that you are thinking that this is impossible. Well let me break it down for you… wheel and tire assembly is about 200lbs each. I do one side of a Class 8 Truck which means most get 5 tires per side. Simple math tells us that would be 1000lbs worth of wheels and tires per side. We run anywhere between 35 and 40 trucks a night (2nd shift). Again with the simple math… 35000 to 40000 lbs per night, by hand, by 1 guy, who also has to separate, sort, install lug nuts and torque, said lug nuts… all in 8 hours. Not so impossible now, huh? By no means easy, but still possible and a VERY GOOD reason why I don’t feel like going and doing any demo in the nursery! Anyway, back to the sword… This country has a long and rich industrial history, which NAFTA did wonders for, by letting it be easily shipped else where! (In case you haven’t noticed, I strongly oppose the NAFTA and those who pushed it through! Thanx, Bill!) Well, when those jobs suddenly up and vanished (again, Thanx, Bill!), there was no infrastructure in place to retrain all those workers! Some of who had come from a long line of family that had worked in and raised their family around those mills and factories that were no longer there. What then? Even where I work… There are no jobs for most folks, who merely have a high school diploma and have been making an extremely good living. They call it “unskilled” labor, mainly because some college educated fuck nut never actually had to work somewhere like that before, but also because they don’t have a college degree. Okay, so now they have no jobs and no “marketable” skills, the government, that allowed their employer a get-out-of-jail-free pass, wants to re-educate them. I know alot of folks that aren’t all that much older than me, that have never, nor have the desire, to learn computers. These people that have done the same thing for the last 30 years and made a good living at it are now being forced to do something else. Complacency? Maybe. Irresponsible governing? I’d say more so, but that’s just my opinion. The biggest question is: What are we going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen to another generation? Sure there are 14 and 15 yo kids out there who can code like a pro, but they also feel like they should be paid that way! I have, and am still trying to, get my degree on. Alot of the kids that I encounter in school feel like they should come out of the gate making $50k/year! I have been with my employer for a decade and I make that. My wife has been teaching for 13 years… not even close! My Mom has been teaching for 30 YEARS and she doesn’t even make that, or if she does, just barely! They were bringing in Temps where I work, back in 2000-2002. Most where younger kids trying to get their foot in the door, but their attitude… most, NOT all… was that I should do more than them, because I made more, despite the fact that I was trying to train them to do their job AND do mine!

Okay… I’ve even lost myself at this point and I’m not even sure where I was headed… Randomosity… that about sums it up!

Just goes to show that I’m so tired I can’t even keep a train of thought, or at least focus it enough to not be a long disconcerted rant which is what this has turned into…

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L8r T8rz