Reflections on Past Selves

Great…that’s the best I could come up with for a title. I swear, I’m not doing this on purpose to give me an intro to every entry I make here…these really are the titles that pop up. Apparently, one of my past selves was a pop psychologist with no sense of imagination…I would suggest a Dr. Phil, but more of a dick, but, frankly, that’s truly beyond the realm of anyone’s imagination. That title, however, would be rejected by Hallmark as too smarmy and awful, and they would reject it via a heavy stick beating administered by a couple of shaolin monks.

Anyway, yes, my birthday was yesterday, and if you forgot, well, fuck you, too. Had a fine evening…went out for dinner, checked out Nine Inch Nails (SWEET show…the coolest lighting/tech show I have ever seen during a concert. Really trippy effects stuff going on), now I’m just in that delightful ‘cooling down’ stage, so I’m just sitting here, chilling to some Robert Johnson, sipping down some scotch.  And what does Cliff do when these things are happening…ASIDE from that. Yes, children, it’s contemplation and reflection time. No point in running, losers, the exits are chained…if there’s a fire, we’re all gonna burn! Actually, some of you may decide to START a fire to bring on sweet death, so, HA, we’re all covered in ASBESTOS! Sure, we’ll die of cancer, but that will be YEARS down the line, so if you’re counting on THAT to save you, you are an incredibly patient human being…also, you’re stupid.

As usual, I’m sort of ambivalent to the birthday itself. I don’t really make HUGE DEAL about it, anymore, because I think I’ve reached a point in my life where it doesn’t hold quite as much meaning for me. I don’t HIDE from it…I’m not going to be one of those pathetic twits who spends 7 years running claiming to be ‘in my mid 30′s’ after I’ve already past 45…those people scare and puzzle me, because I don’t understand where the fear comes from. You aren’t fooling anyone else, so, I guess you[‘re trying to fool yourself? That’s just pathetic. No, my birthday typically is a day when I like to spend time with people I enjoy hanging out with. It’s not a bad day, but I guess I don’t see it as ‘special’ as I used to, simply because I try to do things like that more frequently. I don’t really get why it has to be some ‘special day’ or ‘big occasion’ to do shit that I really wanna do. Just do it! Fuck…all those years, and Nike was right…and for using those 3 words, I probably owe them a few grand. Awesome.

I also don’t want this to turn in to some sort of warmed over summer version of New Years, with people making stupid, half drunken resolutions to change things that they won’t stick to anyway. What’s the point in that? Let’s all make one final resolution…STOP WITH THE NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS! Seriously, we aren’t going to go through with them, we all KNOW we aren’t going to go through with them…we are fooling nobody! Just end the month of trying, and then the collective shame as everyone admits to everyone else that “Yep, I’m a miserable failure, too!” (Actually, I’ve never bought in to the whole resolutions thing, so consider this my plea for all of you to just STOP). Do I have plans? Yes, but I like keeping them as ‘plans’ and not trying to imbue them with any added meaning by transforming them in to something somehow BIGGER. They’re things I want to do, they aren’t Optimus fucking Prime.

So, what to blather on pretentiously about? I guess I find myself sort of looking back and figuring out…who do I need to thank for getting me here to this point? Sure, I could look AHEAD and do it, but, not being a seer, I have no IDEA what my future holds, so it would be more of a guessing game. (Actually, though, it sounds like kind of a fun idea, so, on behalf of future Cliff, I’ll thank…oh, let’s go with…Neil Armstrong, Abe Lincoln’s ghost, Juju the Talking Dog, and the Indy Racing League girls.  I have no idea what those 3 have in common, but doesn’t it sound like it was probably one FUCK of a night?) And now, on with the wrenching emotionality and self mockery! (put a “Yay!” here if you wish…seems sort of weird to me, but to each their own).

First off, of course, come the friends and family. I’m not going to name everyone, because I’m pretty sure you know who you are, I’m lucky enough to have enough of you that it form a fairly substantial, and time consuming, list, and I’d probably forget someone, thus setting off some sort of war of words over my oversight. This war will lead to the unavoidable conclusion of my getting so fed up that I have to stab you in the face with a rusty piece of metal, and, really, that’s just leading to jail time, and we’re probably not that tight anymore. And, let’s face it, it’s going to be awkward for everyone else, too…so, let’s just avoid the listing and the inevitable scars. Thank you to all of you. I know there have been many, many, many, MANY times you’ve probably wanted to wring my neck (or, you know, scar me with a piece of rusty metal)…but you didn’t. You were willing to put up with my shit and see beyond it to the person I am/were/was/would be/wanted to be/etc., for which I am most appreciative. Oftentimes, I know for a fact that I really wasn’t deserving of having you around (or simply was so down on myself that I didn’t think I deserved it, anyway), but you all stuck around, anyway. I don’t really talk about how much you guys have meant to me over the years, and do now, but I am truly thankful to have people around me who I can laugh with/lean on/etc. when I need to. Thank all of you.

See? I warned you this was going to get weird! Maybe not as weird as waking up with Neil, Abe’s Ghost, Juju, and the IRL honeys, but still pretty weird. And this weird doesn’t even give you a wild story you can tell people at those inappropriate moments in the future when you’ve had a little too much to drink at the Christmas Party. Anyway, I’m making this up as I go (I know, SHOCKING, right?), so let’s see where the Hell this goes next.

Ah yes, the ladies of Cliff’s life. Most of you filled but a short period of time…Hell, there’s a couple of you whose names are a little fuzzy…or that I flat out DO NOT remember at all. Anyway, MOVING ALONG, you also deserve my thanks (well, most of you. To the one who wasn’t exactly single at the time, yeah, THAT was a sweet discovery! I ALMOST wish I could have had some sort of temporary version of crabs, just to pass them on to you as vengeance for, you know, a short period of absolute fear. Thanks.). From all of you, I also learned something…well, a lot of things, but, you know, not all of THAT is fit for public consumption (I have to confess something…I am purposely including little moments like that last line simply because I enjoy the thought of at least some of you squirming uncomfortably. Hey, I’m a jerk…and, let’s be honest, with some of the conversations we’ve had, I probably owed you one or something)…anyway, yes, I’ve learned that I am a stone cold pimp. Fuck, am I the man! Well, that AND the fact that maybe I wasn’t such a complete loser and shlub that every single person of the opposite sex would see me as…well, a complete loser and shlub. Ah yes, needless repetition…truly a sign of writing fuelled by lack of sleep, and not so much of a lack of alcohol. I’m a fairly self confident person THESE days, but I wasn’t for a lot of years, and if it wasn’t for all of you, I probably still wouldn’t be. I’m never going to me an absolute ladies man, but I also realize that I really don’t give a damn. Oh, what the Hell, thank you to the married chick as well…from whom I learned the valuable lesson that it’s best to make sure beforehand that the girl IS single. As an added bonus, when you ask them if they’re married, they not only answer, they also seem to think you’re joking, and laugh, which serves as a solid icebreaker…which is really weird, if you truly take a minute to think about it. Why is the guy MAKING SURE you’re single calming? Don’t you start wondering WHY a person would ask you that? Do you not care? MAN, you’re all whores. Is THAT charming, too? Only one way to find out…but who to convince it’s a good idea to try?

Before I move on to whoever ends up being next (though, really, I’m running low on people. I mean, unless I want to spend a few paragraphs thanking that Lucky Charms guy for his awesome breakfast cereal, or contemplating how meaningful my favourite fictional characters from movies and books have been in my personal development, I don’t see this going on for a whole lot longer. This won’t be one of those ramblings of mine that requires an intermission, I promise!), there is of course one woman from my past where things certainly were more meaningful, and lengthy (probably, those two things are SOMEHOW inter-related).

Now, I KNOW most of you are now pausing…your mind is filled with thoughts like “Oh shit…I thought we were DONE with this. Seriously, we aren’t all drunk, and we aren’t all sitting around a kitchen table surrounded by empty beer cans…I can’t handle the Heather subject sober!” No, this is going to come at things on just a slightly different, and substantially less whiny, tack (not that that’s a bold statement, quite frankly. Remembering…well, remembering what I actually CAN remember, Gilbert Gottfried would come off as less whiny in comparison to most of it). Anyway, what I want to thank HER for is…realizing it was time to end things (HA! Didn’t see THAT coming, did ya!) You may remember several long, looooooooong paragraphs ago, when I referenced a past self where I lacked any sort of confidence? Well, let’s be honest for a moment, and replace ‘self confidence’ with ‘feelings of self worth’. Yes, I had pretty much given up on everything…why try if you simply figure you aren’t worth the time, because you’re a miserable failure? That’s where I was sitting. She stuck around for a lot of it…lord knows why…maybe in some attempt to actually push me PAST that point, and get me to some place where I could actually feel half decent about who I was? I really don’t know…Hell, if current me met up with the then version of me, the last thing on my mind would be trying to guide me to something positive. No, I envision current me walking up to past me and asking “Dude, what the fuck are you doing? Seriously…you have a bunch of really good friends, you have this girl who’s in love with you, and wants to spend time with you for reasons I sure as Hell don’t understand…WHAT THE FUCK?!”, followed by current me introducing past me to my fists. (Would that violate some sort of time travel law, with the 2 me’s occupying the same space at the same time? Here’s a better question…why the Hell am I actually trying to salvage this? It went off the rails somewhere in the last sentence, and I don’t even know how it got there.) I didn’t like me, she did. However, her LEAVING is actually what I’m thankful for, because I finally had to look in the mirror and ask myself “What am I doing? Why do I keep being this guy, when I HATE this guy?”. I didn’[t fix myself over night, but eventually I got there. So, thank you for forcing me to man up and start dealing with myself…and thank you for trying to coax me there beforehand, as well.

Okay, last one, since I do still have to get up tomorrow and take my nieces and nephew to the zoo, and since my scotch ran out ten minutes ago, and Robert stopped singing about the hellhound on his trail about the same time. Thank you…to me. Not in some egotistical “GodDAMN I’m awesome!” way…but I thank myself for figuring enough things out in my life, and sorting through the mess I[‘d made of it, to get somewhere positive. It sucked, but it was worth it, and things have certainly been much better since I realized that, you know what, it really IS worth it, and so am I. I’ll end this now, and no doubt read it tomorrow and lament the fact that “THIS is what I used that scotch on? THIS? Shit, man, this was clearly cheap brand beer material, at best! Where were you when I needed you, TNT! YOU killed Johnny Walker…his blood is on YOUR hands!”

Oh, and goddammit, I AM awesome.