30 Day Blogging Detritus, March Edition

Day 4- Random words mean stuff. Maybe.

Use the following words as inspiration for your entry: inquiry, curiosity, investigation, suspicion, and clandestine. (You need not use the words in your entry, but if you do, please highlight them in bold or a different color.)


Hmmm. All of these words have stirred up all kinds of impressions in my head, as I'm sure they have for everyone else here. All of them have something to do with examining the world and reality around you, and it kinda goes in a little bit of an order depending on who you are.

I mean, for me, at least it seems like suspicion leads to inquiry to curiosity then investigation then clandestine. Or maybe others have it another way depending on how they've lived. I suspect the sequence of these ideas is personalized to my own experience, which is kinda depressing when I go back and look at it. Maybe. At any rate, these particular words strung together make me want to keep them together.

So, the overriding theme of these words hits personally to me right now in the form of references to trust. I've had a lot of challenges in my life when it comes to trust, as I'm sure many of us have. My shrink says I don't actually have trust issues because I would've had to learn what trust looks like in the first place to have issues with it. Which is pretty dark when you think about it, but damn if it isn't true.

But these days- I thought I had sorted it out. I'm not a spring chicken anymore, and the issues of trust are some I thought I had reigned in, to a point. But recent events have tested my ideas of trust and what it really means to be able to take someone at their face value. And there are, it seems, varying degrees of trusting someone's face.

As I said, I'm no spring chicken, and this ain't my first rodeo where someone with my heart in a vice has tried to mislead me. I don't want to say I was prepared for the emotional fallout, I wasn't. But you know what? In a way, I was able to stand back and take a look at it anyway, regardless of the gin and tears.

I always think of the term suspicion in the feminine form because I think of her as somewhat protective, actually. The problem is that suspicion isn't particularly rational so you've got to put a leash on her, but man is she ever intuitive. Sometimes deceptive, but intuitive when you need her. During this particular event in my life, she proved to be pretty helpful.

So I sat back and let the rest do the work, and in an odd and unexpected turn of events, it all unraveled in the best way I could've asked.

It has, however, led me to question what do I actually have to depend upon for security? Upon examination, I realized not much.
All the time I have is borrowed, all the money's gone tomorrow.

I learned as a kid that all these are the things we need to cling to.

Time, money, dependency upon others for our happiness- all of those exact things we have zero control over were what we needed to control. This led to a LOT of questionable behavior and decisions throughout my teenage and young adult years. (Maybe beyond that too, but don't f***ing judge me, OK?)

Don't give up on me now, though, because here's the triumphant comeback of the summer chicken: I get to learn from that s*** and teach my kids better.

I get to show them that now is all we've got so you better be ready to at least accept it. I know life is s*** when you're a kid, I remember. I've got twins who are 14 and one who's 9- all boys, and they're a dirty, sticky ball of f***ing malcontent. But at least I don't expect much more from them, I'm not trying to make them something plastic, I know how s***ty it can be.

I also drill into their heads that it's not their whole world- which is something I didn't figure out until my forties. There's time to laugh and time to be in love and time to be pissed off and all the s*** in-between. Suspicion leads to inquiry to curiosity then investigation then clandestine for them just like all of us- not necessarily in that order.

But at least they know there are no damn guarantees and nothing lasts forever. So hug someone next to you and skate in the parking lot with your root beer.

'Till the cops come.

-TPB