Life…What does it really mean??
Thursday, July 5th, 2007So, today I just turned 28…Right now I am supposed to be out with the boys partying, but I opted to stay in and postpone the party until tomorrow night….I am too tired to go out….I guess that’s a sign of getting old….
So much has happened since my last blog, yet I don’t really know what to write. I had a blog all written mentally a couple weeks ago, but with no internet in my new apartment I couldn’t write it, as a result no new blog a couple weeks ago, but what I decided to do is try to regurgitate that blog for you, my loyal readers….
One of my biggest disappointments of not only 2007 but of recent times, was the fact that I couldn’t buy my childhood home from my mom. My mom decided to sell the house I grew up in and move out west earlier in the year. She gave me until April to try to find a way to get a mortgage and be able to pay for one. I tried everything, and my last desperate act of trying to get my dad to go in half with me on this house. I failed miserably and it left a bitter taste in my mouth….But when a guy chooses love over money, you could expect those things to happen. Needless to say, in May I had to come to the reality that I was going to have to part with the house sometime in the near future….
My mom sold her place in 5 weeks and had until June 21st to get out…the week of the 21st was a somber one for me…..past failures and bad decisions that I learned to live with and accept crept back into my memory…These are things that got me into the situation where I could not only not get a mortgage but the money to afford to have a mortgage anyway….Like I said, I choose love over money….Not love in terms of a girlfriend, but a career…teaching over corporate america, chump change over a nice salary +commsion….being that I’m not a “real” teacher yet, even less money than even broke teachers….
The week of the twenty-first started off as a bad week for me for selfish reasons, but that then escaluated….
One of my least favorite things to do is move, nothing aggravates me more than moving….In what would be my mom’s last night in the townhouse, the pressure was on…things had to be moved out, and moved out NOW!!
I recall loading up the car several times. I was making trips to my apartment, to my storage unit, or to my grandmothers back to back to back; getting grumpier and grumpier with every trip….not only was I feeling sorry for myself for losing MY house, but I also HATE moving with a passion…..Plus, I had my grandmother getting on my nerves complaining about things being moved into her basement, I had my mom driving me nuts on what to do and what not to do and what to do with the boxes, etc and I had a storage unit that was almost filled to the brim and an aparment that was a cluttered mess…..talk about a bad day….I was pissed!
Then it happened….
As I’m driving around my home town(my mom, my grandmom, and storage unit are all in the same town, and I am one town over)….I noticed a lot of activity at my hometown’s train station….there was an accident on the tracks…..I found out later that evening that a 12 year old girl got hit by a train. On the same railroad tracks that I used to play on as a kid age 9-14, that little girl lost her life…..I didn’t know the girl, but I was devasted….
For some reason, I was internally parylized. I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe because it happened at the same place I used to play. Maybe it’s because I love kids? Maybe it’s because I might have been the girl’s substitute teacher? Maybe it was because she was 12 years old, the same age I was when I moved into the same townhouse I was losing…..I couldn’t figure it out…
In the grand scheme of things, losing a house like the way I lost mine isn’t such a big deal. Yes, it sucks because of the circumstances in which I lost the house, but who really cares…..like there are other fish in the sea, there are other houses on the market…and when the time is right, I’ll get mine….
When a young innocent person like this little girl loses her life, it really makes you take a step back and just think……for a good week and a half, I couldn’t get this girl out of my head. What a sad world. There is so much that we take for granted, especially when we are young. Here, I am whining over a stupid house, when a child dies……are material things really that important? Instead of being a grump, I could have been happy for my mother and her move…..It’s crazy how selfishness and self pity help us lose sight on what’s really important in life…
I’m having a hard time putting into words what the hell it is that I am feeling but I think by reading what I wrote you could get the gist at what I am trying to say…..
It was a crazy couple days…..right after I found out the girl was 12 and I was 12 when I moved into the house, the numbers 1212 just kept appearing…it was creepy….my storage unit number, my new pool tag number, I happend to check the time right at 12:12 everyday….everywhere…that number was everywhere, liscense plate numbers, bills….I thought, maybe it was a sign. I decided to play the lottery. I Spent $40 in two days on tickets with those numbers and mutiples of them and won $0….Then the number just disappeared….
I figured it was just a coincidence….
A couple of nights later me and my buddy Alex went out and ran into two extremely drunk ladies…the kind any scuzzball would love to meet out. My first instinct was to leave them alone, but my buddy ended up befriending them for the night. He was talking to them, and I was getting aggravated. Nothing pisses me off more when I am surrounded by piss drunk touchy feely people…Well, we found one, and her friend who couldn’t even stand up…
Alex asked if I would mind taking them home, because they could barely walk. He drove their car, I followed. We made sure they got in safely. It’s possible Alex and I saved these ladies lives. Of course we could have been rewarded if we were dirty dudes, but we are decent men and decided not to take advantage of these sloppy drunk ladies…
To add more to this mess, little did we know, one of the ladies had kids…they were upstairs with their friends. Alex, who was also a little drunk decided to mingle with the kids. He went upstairs and started chilling. Although I didn’t want to meet them (for the sake of getting noticed, Ironically I did sub for them) I ended upstairs too.
Against my will I hung out with the 12 and 13 year olds for a little bit…..Another bit of irony, the daughter told me she was best friends with the little 12 year old that got hit by that train….it was sad. She showed me the myspace page she made for her friend. It was the night before the funeral. The kids were shook up. They talked about what happened. I tried to be a big brother type for these kids and listened and tried to guide them…I just wanted to try to ease their pain alittle bit..I think I made them feel better (at least alittle). Like most kids do, they loved me. It was cool to be there for them in that time of need. Especially when I ended up there by accident. Who knows, I might have even saved their mother’s and aunt’s life too by driving them home….
As I got in my car I had a bittersweet feeling. Part of me felt good doing what we did, but then another part felt like I wasted a good night away. I was looking forward to going out, because for the month of May and June I didn’t really go out at all, and I ended up chilling with two drunk hags in their 40’s and their kids…..After dragging Alex out of the house, I told him that he was a funny guy and thanked him for a wack ass night….I got in the car and turned on the ignition. Before I pulled out of the driveway, I let out a sigh and looked back at the house I never wanted to be at again….then I saw the address, the number on the house- 1212
I guess I was supposed to be there all along….