Thursday, August 2, 2012

What Makes The World Go Round


I'd worked full time since I was 14 then I lost my job unexpectedly and have gone the longest I've ever been unemployed... never called in sick ever and I've had well over 100 medical appointments in the last 18 months... married my high school sweetheart and she left in the middle of a mess... ran since I was 8 years old and after being found collapsed after a couple of trophies, I'm way too afraid of the heat... how do you get confidence, faith back when so much has been whittled, no whacked away?

The medical system and lack of communication is frustrating. This is one of those days that overwhelms you. I may have done it all wrong keeps going through my head. When the Livestrong media company called, they pointed out they didn’t want me to clean the house too much and I made the same joke that I often make which is absolutely true, “When people notice the mess, I say it’s not always this bad. It’s usually worse.” But when they came over to shoot the video, the guy I’d talked to tried to prompt the joke to his team and said, “Is it always this bad?” and despite it being something I always say… well I forgot to. I remembered a while later and made the joke and everyone laughed of course. That was always one of the “tools” that my neuropsychologist said. They get me along well socially which is frankly how I’ve always paid the bills but turns out it’s not doing it now and having majored in psychology and religion, fascinated by the things that drive people… and that's not paying the bills and that’s scary. Having learned the health insurance mess so personally first hand, I’d been trying to get Kiana’s mother to make sure Kiana put her on her health insurance but now I realize that hers while better in the case of an emergency than mine was, is $360 a month. I sent less than a polite email to her mother about not providing me any information and then providing me the bill. Still, I will find a way to pay it because this way is obviously better than if something were to go wrong with her medically. I had been asking her for 2 months and she had provided no info and got around to providing it after she’d signed up which according to the decree since I expected to always have her on my insurance intending to always be on a very solid plan, I signed up to carry hers (by Texas law, it’s usually the noncustodial parent who is required to pay for health insurance but I offered to take this on myself). Ironically, I could have actually bought better private health insurance for a child because as it should be health insurance is cheaper for children.  

I’ve gone out with a girl a few times in the last few weeks for the first time wondering if I should be open to something serious since I’m a little more at ease with not dying; people think it was the pain of my wife leaving me that was stopping me but it really was the same thing that probably helped my ex leave, I don’t have capacity to ask people to sit around and watch me die. This girl is great and fun to talk to and solid all around in many ways but I do wonder you know what the hell I’m doing. But I try to not tell her much about all the mess because ironically I think no one should sign up for that but I wonder if hanging out with her has been some of the boost of confidence. She’s established in her career and a solid athlete and somewhere I want to just tell her to go away, or as my friends say, let her know she can do better. But who the hell signs up for a single dad with known health issues, a tough ex to deal with and no current income? 

I still have not given up on dream type jobs and still applying for some but this has been one rough roller coaster. When this all started, I had $10,000 is savings for a rainy day, naively thinking that was enough and it would have been for a car issue or a house issue or even a broken arm from sports. It turns out that’s a joke. But all that has come just keeps taking some steam out of me. The one coping mechanism right now… running is on hold with that pulled hamstring (I’ve never pulled a muscle before) showing up as a serious bruise on the back on my leg… I go to my running groups where the people I coach and train with are in a different league than me in all types of ways. I miss the cycling; there’s a reason world class runners come out of poor countries but no world class cyclists do. The equipment is a different deal. I got accepted to Harvard once upon a time. I used to work in sales and make a lot more money (and a lot longer hours, where they bragged about me doing things well into the evening). I’ve volunteered for a million things in my life, helped out with various things. This has been the meaning of life to me. It helped at some point when the ultimate community helped with the medical bills when they started and the running group helped with the trip to Duke. Long before any of this I did an interview for Junior Achievement an organization that teaches kids and taught me how to deal with money. I was the lead fundraiser for them for the first marathon relay I did. I’ve helped raise more money for non profits in the last few years than has ever been in my bank account. I was amused that someone sent me an article that too much altruism can be found in the brain, of course in the left temporal lobe (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711123005.htm). Did I do it all wrong? Emerson wrote that most men live lives of quiet desperation… well mine has gotten obnoxiously loud some days.

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