Me

Obviously I don't write anything here. I read a lot of blogs and my "writing" is done mostly in comments and observations of others. However, since luckily no one reads this blog, I can post some things for me to save for my own posterity. I wrote this in response to some observations someone made regarding the "progress" people have made over the years. The preceding only to remind myself and to jog the memory of the original post.
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I think we're all guilty of the "want it now" syndrome in some sense. But I think there's a difference in wanting it now and getting it now. If I can afford it, I get it, and if I can't I wait until I can. If I want or need it badly enough I'll put it on a credit card, but only if I can pay it off within 3 months. While that may not be the epitome of restraint I think that, for me, it works. That's just my own personal rule that I set for myself.

As far as Shadow's oberservations, I agree. There was a time I liked being out in public--whether it being in the bars or out amongst the public, so to speak--but after bouncing in the bars for many years and getting to see up close and personal the different types of personalities and types of people that said people are becoming, I got tired of it quickly. Now I'm a homebody that only leaves home for work, groceries, and the occasional foray into the mountains. I'm perfectly happy being at home reading my multitude of books and watching the news (that's a different discussion in itself!)

When and where I grew up I feel I was lucky. I had travelled literally around the world and then some--and then settled into the middle of nowhere southern Wyoming. We had one channel on TV which we were lucky to get. If it was windy (always) or snowing then we could forget reception. So I read books. A lot of them. I read the entire World Book Encyclopedia by the time I was 12, and James Michener's Hawaii at the same time. Not exactly grade school reading level. My mode of transportation was cross country skis and I can't count how many miles I'd traveled on them---teaching myself to downhill on them, jump, and practicing for my own aspiration of the Biathalon in the Olympics by shooting with my .22 at the most distant twig of a branch on a tree that I could see. I did many projects out of the American Boy's Handy Book and thought of myself as self sufficient--able to handle most any situation in the outdoors. I built snowforts in snowdrifts able to literally hold 20 people in comfort. School was a boring necessity--very easy and just a place that held, for me, angst and fear of getting my ass kicked for being small and not quite like everybody else, although I tried to fit in.

I told you that so I can tell you this: I feel I failed.

A failed relationship later and a son, 14, who lives 200 miles away. A boy who I absolutely adore, and can't seem to find enough ways to be there for him. And in that sense I have a tendency to not be able to do the right things by him. I feel that we're close, but not as close as we used to be, and so I have some sort of flawed thinking that I need to do something, anything, to help recapture what we once had. He has no interest in school, so grades are a continual battle. I am holding his cell phone hostage in exchange for grades. The fact he even has a cell phone speaks volumes to my own bad parenting skills. In my own defense, he's 200 miles away and I really wanted to be able to call or text him at will. I miss him always.

But the point is that he doesn't have the opportunities I did. He lives in a city, unable to venture out to the beaver ponds at will and go fishing. To grab his gun and head out into the woods to shoot what boys will. To explore in the barn and climb a half fallen tree and pretend it's an airplane high above. To strap on a pair of skis and see how fast a 70 knot wind can push him--coat open and held aloft to attempt to fly. To traipse the fields with no worry as to when to be home, only to be home when you got there. I had these things and so much more. Unstifled. Free. Completely curious. Wondering. My son shows none of these traits--captured in a city and bound by rules. A product of government schooling and social axioms. He must be subject to so much peer pressure, much more than I probably had to endure, than I can even imagine in this day and age. ......to be continued.....