Disconnecting

I think I’m in the process of disconnecting.

Earlier this week, I logged out of Facebook and Instagram. I deleted all social apps from my phone. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll ever be going back. I’m just kinda done.

There was a time social media helped connect me to a past I missed. In those early days of MySpace, it was amazing to find old high school friends, old elementary school chums, people from earlier stops in my career. It was fascinating to catch up with people and learn who grew up and who didn’t.

The early days of Facebook were OK too. It widened the circle, and people whom I hadn’t talked with in years were suddenly part of my life again.

It also was a way to learn more about the new people I was meeting. To see their families. To travel to their vacation destinations. To share in their joys and, for the few who were actually totally real on the platform, their struggles. Yes, for a time, it was good.

It’s not like that anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time. And I don’t feel like playing in that playground anymore. So I left and we’ll see if I ever return.

But it’s more than that.

I feel like I’m in the process of disconnecting from a lot more than what happens online.

A few weeks ago, the final nail in the coffin of the relationship with my parents was hammered firmly into place by their reluctance to have a conversation to work out the differences we’ve had forever and the whole damn coffin was chucked off a bridge by my father’s attempt to drive a wedge in between me and my son. I don’t necessarily miss the parents I had. I miss that parents I feel like I deserved and that I see so many other people having in their lives.

But, as the saying goes, wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which fills up first … Which is really a disgusting saying but it certainly does drive the point home, doesn’t it?

So take away those social media connections and the very slim hope that used to exist that my parents would actually grow the fuck up and address their problems like adults and what is there left in my life?

Boy The Elder is 21, on the verge of his college graduation and his nuptials to a beautiful young woman who will be a great addition to our family. Every once in a while, he shows me that I still am needed in his life, but the truth is, BTE has been mature beyond his years since he emerged from the womb and his time needing anything from Dear Old Dad is rapidly drawing to a close. Yes, I understand (more than most) how much we always will want our dad and will turn to him when times are tough, but there’s a difference between him and the typical kid who returns to his parents’ basement after finishing his education. BTE isn’t like that. He’s ready to fly. And he will.

Boy The Younger is 14, and he’s becoming more independent every day. He still needs his dad, and he is honestly the reason I still feel like I serve some sort of purpose Here. Though he’s really good at keeping his own counsel and regulating his own emotions, he still turns to me for things. He likes that I coach his baseball team. He needs me to teach him to parallel park because that is something of a skill I have and something more than a challenge for Wifey Poo.

But he’s a high school freshman and soon will be entering the workforce through after-school jobs, and that will give him a different set of people to hang with, just like it did for his older brother. He’ll soon have wheels and money to spend, and that will be a good test run for our inevitable empty nest.

I think Wifey Poo loves me, but do I feel like she needs me? I’d like to think so, but I don’t know how accurate that is. She’s a strong and capable woman who busies herself with worthwhile pursuits. She knows I love her. I know she loves me. What we have is good.

But, in general, how needed am I really?

So I find myself disconnecting in more ways than just social media. For example, BTE’s car crapped out on him, a merciful end for a vehicle that has seen a lot of shit in its time. BTE needed some help navigating his way through purchasing a new-to-him vehicle, but he’s showing amazing maturity in the process and, ultimately, whatever he decides to do, it’s his decision. I might have opinions that differ from his course of action, but this is the first big thing where my job is to keep that shit to myself because he’s gotta sink or swim on his own accord. I’m here to throw him a life preserver if he truly is drowning. But he won’t. He’ll figure it out. He’s good at that.

Thus, I find myself much more disconnected from this situation with the car than I would have, say, six months ago or a year ago. I could get more deeply involved. It’s just not my place to. So I’m not.

And that’s a good thing, I think. Because right now? Right at this moment? I’m exhausted. The bullshit with my parents and taking that final stand in conjunction with BTE and supporting his wishes knocked the fuck out of me, and yeah, I’m sure I’m grieving the loss of my parents while at some level smarting over their callous disregard for their child, who never asked to be created and sure as hell never asked to be treated the way they’ve treated me.

On top of all that, my current day job situation is challenging. There are many, many things that aren’t what they should be, and though I hesitate to talk about them publicly, the truth is this: I’m rapidly drawing very tired of driving an hour each way to a job in which I am treated like an idiot and in which I’m talked to in a way more reflecting of the horrible way my mother talked to me than the way I should be talked to as a respected professional. I swallow the spoonfuls of crap because that’s my job as the one supporting my family, but do I like it? No. Does it create its own sense of disconnection? You bet your ass.

I was connected in some ways to the group I took improv lessons with. But now I have to pause and cannot sign up for the next class because I have to coach BTY’s baseball team through its spring/summer season, so I’m already feeling disconnected from most of those who are continuing on without me. I’ve done that once already, when I had to stop taking improv lessons last summer to step up and coach Jonah’s team, and I was left behind by the folks I’d bonded with so well in that class.

I have some semblance of a relationship with the fellow coaches on the baseball team, and I enjoy teaching them the game and trying to motivate them. We are a good coaching staff, and I think I’m a good coach when it comes to motivation and situational baseball. But others are better at teaching the fundamentals of the game. I can’t teach baseball because baseball came naturally to me, so I don’t know very well how to tweak a kid’s swing to make him a better hitter or mechanics to make him a better pitcher. I have assistant coaches who are really good at that, and so I’m really not needed there either.

I think when I started this whole disconnection process — which truthfully began in some ways around four years ago — I would find new and exciting places to plug back in, new and exciting people whom would welcome the opportunity to plug in with me. That hasn’t happened, and it’s not for lack of effort. I’ve done the asking and the planning and the inviting, and I continue to do so. But like I said: I’m tired. I’m exhausted. This isn’t the Here I want to live in, and that becomes more and more apparent everyday.

Which has me wondering why the creator of this absolutely huge universe is keeping my heart beating. For a long, long time, I thought I knew my purpose. I saw it through the brief life of my first son, Jacob. My job was to write. I wrote Jacob’s story, appropriately called Jacob’s Story, and it made a difference in some people’s lives. I’m grateful for that. I’m honored to be used in that way. I think it royally sucks that it had to happen that way because I’d much rather have my son in my life Here than to have to write about his brief life and death. I’ll take that up with God when I get There.

But it’s been more than 24 years since Jacob’s brief time here, and though I do think his short time Here can and does matter to some people, time marches on. That story has been told and been read, and sure, there might be someone else out there who encounters it for the first time. But I’m a much different person today than I was when I wrote that story in 2001 and 2002. Who isn’t different in the wake of fully processing four months of pregnancy in which the known outcome was always going to be the death of your child? Who isn’t different after picking out a tiny casket and watching said casket be lowered into the ground? For those who say time heals all wounds, no it doesn’t. The pain lessons. The scar remains.

I don’t think writing is my purpose anymore. Who reads anything I write? Not my family. I have no friends. I see the metrics of this blog. There are literally one or two loyal readers. But if I stopped writing, it wouldn’t matter. I understand that. I’m not Stephen King or Josh Grisham or Bob Woodward. I don’t have anything necessarily profound today. It’s easy to see this entire website as one big whine or vanity project. I don’t know if that’s wrong.

And so yes, I’m exhausted, and through that exhaustion, I’m finding it hard to continue these attempts to find places and people where I can plug in. Yet when I am alone and see people hanging out with people who are obviously their People, I am sad and lonely and just a bit jealous and more than a bit reflective on what could have been had things gone differently, had I made different decisions at different points throughout my life.

People like to say how we shouldn’t reflect too much on the past because we wouldn’t be the person we are today without the learning that came from the bad stuff. Cool. But surely there had to be easier ways without so much goddamn pain and loneliness that would have led to a better and more connected place than I am right now. Right?

I’m not sure what comes next. I recently reached out to two people in the continued effort to find connection. My aunt — a fellow Black Sheep — and I are Facetiming on Sunday, a virtual happy hour of sorts. An improv pal with whom I had great onstage chemistry is meeting me for dinner, drinks and an improv show next Friday. I’m looking forward to both, and so that gives me something to look forward to, which is a key ingredient to avoid the whole, “Why exactly am I still here?” question for a while.

To be blunt: I’m not suicidal. I think BTY still needs me, and I think BTE does too in some ways. So no, I am not thinking along those lines. It’s just that I don’t know exactly why I’m still breathing.

But I am. So I go on. That’s what I do.

People said in the wake of Jacob’s death that I was brave and that I was strong. No I wasn’t. I was neither. I had no choice. I had a pregnant wife who needed me and who was going through far more than I was and I had a developing child who needed my advocacy and whom I really wanted to meet, if only for a brief time. And then, just like now, my heart kept beating. I made no brave or strong decision. My heart kept beating, so I kept going. That’s what I’ve done when I’ve faced any of the myriad of challenges that I would sometimes have preferred to have stopped me.

So yeah. I go on, and a part of me holds onto the hope that it’s all going to somehow matter. Somehow. In some way.