Softball

Ok, a few weeks back, I signed up for our church’s softball team.  It has been a couple of years since I played due to having a crappy retail job that allowed me no normal free time (just a note: I don’t think there is such a thing as a non-crappy retail job… I’ve had my share of them, and every single one of them pretty much sucked).  The last time I did play, I ended up tearing my calf  during the first game on my first trip around third (no, I didn’t stretch… I never used to HAVE to stretch).  Anyway, I was pretty excited to be getting back into softball.  I love the camaraderie of being on a team, I love the spirit of competition, and I just plain love anything that involves hitting something with a bat!  I signed up during church and was excited when I got home and told my wife.

“I signed up for our church-league softball team,” I said with a big smile on my face.

My wife didn’t smile.  She looked mildly shocked and the air slowly began its escape from my balloon (you could almost hear the squeaky, fart-like sound of the escape).  I expected words of encouragement or maybe a little I’m-proud-of-you hug.  Instead I got, “Aren’t you too old for that?”

“Wha… what do you mean?”  I’ve never actually seen my puppy dog face, but I know it has been extremely effective in the past (well, ok, not “extremely effective”… but it worked once…).  On this day, however, the power of my big hazel eyes and pouty lips pulled off nothing.

“Last time you played, you pulled your calf in the first game and you were out the rest of the season,” my wife pleasantly reminded me.  “You also spent a large portion of a month just laying around complaining about your leg.  You were the one who said, two years ago, that you were ‘too old for this…’ let me see if I can remember the exact word… oh yes, I believe it was ‘…crap’.”

The memory of a woman is a frighteningly complex series of processes that serve a primary purpose of making the male in her life feel as absolutely small as possible at any given moment when it most works to her advantage; this moment is seldom less than at least one year from when the actual event occurred and almost always comes as a complete shock to the male when the memory is revisited.

“So you think I’m too old for softball?” I asked, the puppy dog thing still trying to work its magic.

“No, you think you’re too old, remember?” my wife reasoned.   “I’m simply showing my support by agreeing with you.”

At this point, the puppy dog has run away (I’m sure to be hit by a large car) while I try to figure out why what she is saying should not make sense.  Suddenly, it comes to me.  “But that was two years ago… and I didn’t stretch, but I will from now on… and I really want to play again!”

“Well, if that’s what you want, I’m okay with it…”

Why is it that when a woman agrees to let you do something you really want to do but you feel they really don’t want you to do they can agree to let you do it and make you feel guilty as sin for wanting it in the first place?

“… just don’t come crying to me if you hurt yourself again.”

So it was agreed: I would play softball, not as a young man who could help the team, but as someone really too old to be playing who was reluctantly allowed to play by his wife (with noted reservations).  My initial enthusiasm lay on the floor in the form of limp balloon remnants exhausted of all former glory and now a mere mushy pile of latex and saliva.

This is gonna be a great softball season…

The Dreaded 40

Sometimes at night, just before I drift off to sleep, I sense something moving under the bed.  On my way to work on some mornings, I glance in the rear view mirror and see a movement in the backseat… but nothing is there.  At various points throughout the day, usually in the shadows, I sense foreboding movement while everything is stationary.  The presence I feel more and more as time goes by is the dreaded age of 40 creeping up on me.

Turning 30 sucked.  Turning 30 was kind of like the true end of childhood.  Turning 30 meant I had to start being responsible.  Turning 30 meant that it was time for everyone under 30 to start looking at me as an adult.  Turning 30 sucked.

Turning 40 is going to MAJOR suck.  Over the last 10 years, my body has started to sag; not that I didn’t sag in the first 30 years… I’ve been a sagger for most of my life… it’s just that the sagging has become much more noticeable over the last 10 years.  I used to think man-boobs were funny.  Man-boobs are most definitely NOT funny.  Gray hair has taken up a permanent residence on my head… and on my chin.  I used to think it was kind of cool when I’d spy a new glistening white hair amongst my brunette locks. Yeah, it ain’t cool anymore.  My 30s have been a slow decline in body and spirit.  I really can’t believe that my 40s are going to be better.  Turning 40 is going to MAJOR suck.

No good can possibly come out of turning 40.  There’s a guy I work with who just took the 40 plunge.  The dude used to be really active, you know, riding his bike all the time, going on hikes, not the kind of guy to sit still.  Then he turned 40… and everything changed.  He turned 40 and shortly thereafter he got The Gout.  Seriously, The Gout!  Now he  walks slow and funny.  He isn’t active anymore… because of The Gout.  He spends a large portion of his time sitting around with his gouty foot elevated griping about The Gout.  Something that everyone who has to turn 40 can look forward to: getting to the age where the old-person ailments start kicking in… The Gout, Rheumatism, Shingles, Arthritis, Cirrhosis, High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Dropsy, Dementia, Alzheimer’s… oh my, what good times lie ahead!  And that’s just the diseases.  That doesn’t include all of the fun stuff like hair on the back and coming out of the ears, liver spots, wrinkles, weakening strength, hunching over, using a cane or walker, losing hearing, and more and more and more!  Of course, turning 40 gets you just a little closer to that wonderful senior discount at Perkins (yippee).

I’m already beginning to act the part of a 40-something in certain ways.  After a long day at work, sometimes I’m just too lazy to lose the black work socks in exchange for white socks.  So, yes, sometimes you will see me mowing the lawn with shorts, tennis shoes and my stupid black  socks up to my knees.  I swore I would never go there, but there I am.  I always wondered how a man gets to that point that wearing black socks with tennis shoes and shorts doesn’t seem dorky.  I’ve come to realize that, yeah, we know it’s dorky, but we just don’t care.  In my case, I’ve been married for almost 15 years.  It’s not like I give a crap about what the cute young women driving by think of me while I’m mowing the lawn.  They weren’t that interested in me 20 years ago when I was single and less saggy, so why would they glance twice at an almost-40 sagging dude… the color of my socks isn’t going to make a difference.

In college, I used to imagine how my life would turn out.  With my business degree, I was going to take the business world by storm.  By the time I was 40 I was going to be raking in six figures in some high powered position with some major corporation.  Well, 40 is less than 6 months away, I ain’t making close to six figures, and my position is about as high powered as a Nerf dart gun.

I think this is the point where the mid-life crisis kicks in… a major benchmark (40) is approaching and those stupid goals (money and power) haven’t been reached (and most likely never will be reached).  If only I could afford a stupid convertible sports car.  Guys going through a mid-life crisis are supposed to get a stinking sports car, right!  Yeah… I’m screwed on the sports car thing.  At least I get an affair with a hot  woman half my age, am I correct?  Mid-life crisis guys at least get the young hottie, right?  Oh yeah, too many hotties have seen me mowing with those stupid black socks up to my knees…  CRAP!  Did I mention that turning 40 is going to MAJOR suck?

The Purpose

When dreams and reality collide, we’re often left with one big pile of happy stinking joy.  Seriously, a humongous pile.  So, what exactly do I mean?  Some people actually achieve their dreams; not many, but some.  The rest of us settle, or wait, or settle for the fact that were put on this planet to wait.  What are we waiting for?  We’re waiting for our dreams to come true.  Why are we settling?  Because we are terrified that if we actually try to accomplish our dreams we will fail… and if we fail at our dreams, what do we have left?  So, we settle and we wait and we are envious of those jerks who actually accomplish their dreams.  Half the time we can’t even figure out what our stinking dreams are!

Oh, did I mention that we justify?

  • Man, I really want to start my own business… but I need to wait until I’m financially secure.  (people who haven’t accomplished their dreams are rarely ever going to be financially secure)
  • Wow, I really want to go back to college and major in something that will lead to a career which doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out every morning on my way to work;  but I’m too old to go back to school, and I’ve got to worry about how I’m going to put my kids through college, and money is a little tight, so I guess wanting to gouge my eyes out every morning is something I will just have to deal with.  (education does not guarantee happiness or success… it never has and it never will… trust me)
  • I really want to write a novel, I’ve got all kinds of good ideas for a story, and my writing isn’t bad, but I need to reach a point in my life where I have more free time to devote to my writing.  (the only time you will ever have enough perceivable free time to try to break into writing as a career is when you are dead…  you can’t write when you’re dead… this also goes for exercising to get in shape or lose weight, learning a new skill, volunteering in your community, and just about anything that would be an addition to your schedule… although you will definitely lose weight when you are dead but not in an attractive kind of way… just ask Nicole Richie… I believe she has died multiple times)
  • I really want to start my own blog, but I need to wait until I actually become an expert at something.  No one wants to read a blog from some jerk who isn’t an expert at something. (even if you are an expert at something… which I am not… there is a really good chance that there is already someone who is more of an expert at your area of expertise than you are who already has a blog… this should not discourage you… there can never be too many choices from which to gain knowledge or be intelligently entertained)

We settle, or we wait, or we settle to wait.  It’s as if we’re waiting for the lottery of life to suddenly hand us a jackpot.  Look at that, no effort and all of a sudden all of our dreams have come true!  Seriously, can we be any more ignorant than we usually are?  Please don’t answer that question… I’m trying to muster a little faith in humanity:)  The major problem most of us run into with the settle-wait-hope approach is that given time, heat, and pressure, “settle-wait-hope” tends to morph into “stew in disgruntled bitterness”.  No matter how blessed we are or how great the family and friends we surround ourselves with are (this is the “happy” and “joy”), we still have that big pile of STINK surrounding us because we haven’t realized that personal dream.

I turn 40 later this year (which scares the crap out of me) and feel like I may be on the verge of a mid-life crisis.  I have a job I don’t hate, my friends are encouraging, and a wonderful wife and kids who make life worth living are living their lives by my side.  Yet somehow, the mild stink in my life has rapidly turned into a horrendous stench and I often find it difficult to breath.  Thus, a blog?!?

I have had more than my fair share of meaningless, dead-end jobs.  I know a little about a lot but a lot about nothing.  I’m probably not the ideal sort of person to try to start a blog.  However, I am searching for my dream (whatever that may be) and I figure this may be a start… not a good start, but a start.  I am hoping that by posting on this site a couple of times a week I can start to figure out what my dream is.  Of course, there will be a lot of complaining too, because those of us who have not realized our dreams tend to be cynical gripers.  I’m looking for input.  I’m looking for direction.  I know that some Joe or Jane off the street commenting on a blog is not going to open my eyes to some magical world of self-fulfillment (or maybe he or she will), but dialog is always good.  Good dialog is a great way to open one’s eyes to new ideas, and new ideas tend to lend themselves to the beginning of the fulfillment of dreams… or at least this is what I keep telling myself:)

I am by no stretch of the imagination a cheerleader.  “Motivation” is not one of my stronger traits.  By following this blog, you are in no way going to be enlightened or find a new more positive way to look at the world (or maybe you will).  You will not be persuaded to search out your own dream (I pray that you will).  Entertainment is unlikely (but possible).  Crap… you might as well go to one of my links and find a real blog to follow that will teach you something (but you could hang out with me as well and maybe… just maybe, at the very least, you’ll get an occasional chuckle following the mid-life ranting of Adventurer Rich on the adventure of everyday life in small-town America while he attempts to prevent life from just passing him by).

Are you up for the adventure?