One of my favorite lines from a film (which I know I have mentioned countless times in other New Year blogs) is when Forrest Gump and Lt. Dan go to a bar, in New York, and watch the ball drop with two beautiful women; and the one with doe eyes watches and remarks “Don’t you just love New Years. Everybody gets a second chance.” There is a sadness and hope in her voice that says she’s seen and done things she wants to forget. It’s so small but so powerful. It also completely encapsulates the mentality behind the holiday.

Human beings are filled with hope and possibility. Even at our most broken moments we wish for something better to come along. It’s ingrained in us. We also have this strange notion that because a new year rolls into existence that somehow we’re different people or our situations are different. For the most part that is true. We are different beasts from one day to the next. (Every moment we experience is unique.) Yet we can’t change who we are as easily as the roll of a calendar year.

That’s why I am not one to do resolutions. They’re silly and more often than not never are completed. Why would we magically do something now that we hadn’t achieved before? I guess we’re also just insane. We do the same thing praying for a different result.

Typically I tend to steer clear of resolutions. I rather just try and live than make some grand pronouncement that I will do ‘x’. In the past I have attempted and failed. Why would now be any different? (Maybe because I’m not the same person?)

In the spirit of “resolution” I have decided to write something here, everyday. It may be short. It may be long. But I will try and put my thoughts to page as much as I can.

To help facilitate such efforts I have the “Writer’s Digest presents A Year of Writing Prompts” in my back pocket if my mind just isn’t coming up with something to write. (And there will absolutely be those days.)

I am about to write the most “first world problems” post of my life, and I want you all to hunker down and prepare yourself to get dizzy from all the eye-rolling you’re about to do.  Maybe take some Dramamine.

Okay?

Ready?

Sometimes it really sucks to be a nice, “attractive” guy. I use quotes because I think I am mildly pleasant looking, and I in no way think I’m that good-looking. I’m just going off of the instances when people tell me I’m “hot” and then immediately inform me that they want to “bed” me. (That last one is not a direct quote but more of a stand-in for the proper word.)

I say this because in the past few months I have met new people who have (almost immediately after our outing together) contacted me, privately, to inform me of their feelings. And this is after meeting and engaging with me with either my husband or my boyfriend. Evidently I exude this sense of “hey say whatever the fuck you want to me” that I don’t intend to do.

Of the instances that I have been accosted by gentlemen, I have only told the boyfriend. He won’t react the same way as the husband who will spin it into something else, primarily because he has been through this shit time and time again. (He also internalizes it and makes it about him and how “no one wants” him, etc.)

After these moments it becomes crystal clear to me why traditionally attractive people become assholes. The barrage of people who must hit them up is a lot (if even I just get a few) must get exhausting. I try to be polite to their advances but inevitably I am an asshole for being up-front. (They appear to take it that I find them unattractive or undesirable because of their looks or age. Nah, girl. It’s just that I am twice taken.) I never asked them to hit on me. Nor did I make it seem that I was flirting with them, at least I, in no way, intended to. I am not exaggerating when I say these people, who have tried to hit on me, got to know me with my significant other. Maybe it’s just the “polyamorous” aspect in which these people get the impression that I’m up for a fucking third… I don’t know. I just wish it would kind of end. I’m not looking for another and, in the end, how shitty would I be if I ended up cheating on TWO GUYS. And would you really want to be someone who was willing to cheat on two guys? Sometimes men don’t think about the long-term. (I understand, I am just as guilty here…)

The lesson I am learning is to be cold and aloof, and that goes against my usual way of being. (Don’t get me wrong, I can be an asshole it’s just not as frequent.) I’m always ready to make friends, (bizarrely I love people and find them interesting) but from my experience it makes situations complicated because the single (and from the most recent, married) guys will think I’m flirting or coming onto them. Sorry, dudes. I am twice taken. We’re all stocked up on significant lovers here in Josh land. So peddle that penis somewhere else.

I hate that I had to make my blog private. I did so because of the office politics that are current putting my husband under undue stress. However I wish I hadn’t, but I understand why it needs to be done for the time being. And it isn’t forever. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

In “going dark” it has revealed to me that I do enjoy the telling of my own tale. I like laying bare my secrets in a digital space and not caring who knows, as long as someone “listens.” My blog is kind of like that woman in the supermarket who starts telling the cashier clerk all about the drama between her sister and her mother because the checker happened to scan the apple she purchased.

This (and other things) has weighed heavily on my mind lately and my first instinct is to run to the blog and lay everything on the table. Yet, knowing it will just be solely for me has made it where I don’t care. Well, not that I don’t care, more than I don’t see the point if I’m the only one who would ever see it. I’m not writing for myself. I like to write so that other people can read what I wrote. Plus… I’m sick of my own fucking thoughts, let someone else take them for awhile.

The block will exist here and on twitter until my husband is either hired or fired from his current position. And in the mean time I just need to remind myself that I am doing this for his own safety and peace of mind.

I’ve tried to write this particular post multiple times already, and for the life of me I can’t get it right. I want to it to be pensive and inspiring but it won’t be that. It’ll be another post from a person who’s lost a loved one.

The previous attempts had all the stereotypical tropes. I claimed that it didn’t feel real. (Which it doesn’t.) And that he would be back any day. (Which he won’t.) but right as I got to talking about my doubled responsibilities my brain shuts off and I am incapable of forming thoughts. Ill take the hint, brain. It’s too much.

Regardless, today is/was my pops birthday. He would have been 67, which to me is entirely too young. Some of the most influential women in my life lived to be 80 and 95. So 66 is far too young to pass. Especially since he wasn’t ready to die.

My father fell and hit his head. In a matter of hours he was gone and left behind a body that could only stay alive by assistance. Once that help was removed (by my request) he was gone in less than a minute.

He wasn’t old enough to die.

The thing I battle with the most is do I miss my father or do I miss that my father cared for my failing mother? The second feels so cheap and selfish and if that is the case I hate that person. But it is very possible. Since his passing the burden of caring for my mother has fallen to me. And only me. And I don’t want it.

Today though… it is very real that I miss my dad. I miss his trademark laugh and sigh I could get him to do. (I loved making him laugh.) I miss that I won’t be getting him a birthday card. I miss that he won’t get to go to Red Lobster for the all you can eat shrimp and only getting one additional order, which he would take to go. (This is genuinely making me laugh by the way.)

I wrote on twitter the weird pattern of my patriarchal line of poetry… I am the age that my father was when I was born. And I am also the age he was when he lost his father. The same amount of time existed in our hello and goodbye. (I suppose it always does though.)