Growing Up (Growing Old)

We start out growing up and end up growing old.

We start out wondering if she will dance with us, grace us with a kiss; and end up wondering if we will ever be able to retire, wondering what awaits beyond the grave.

It happens quickly. Too quickly for the mind to absorb. The mind remains young as the body betrays.

A lot of what happens in between is a crap shoot.

I met my magic wife because I attended Northeastern University and made the mistake of majoring in accounting. The first work-study assignment was at the company where Carol worked.

Accounting was misery for me and a mistake as an academic concentration and later as a career. However, had I chosen writing or psychology or anything else more suited to my soul, I would not have met Carol and would not have Keith and Craig and Emily and Karen in my life.

My life would be darker for that. I wouldn't make that trade for anything. Not for anything.

A crap shoot.

My aunt called me to wish me a happy fifty ninth birthday. Couldn't believe that I am fifty nine. She cannot believe that she is 82. Her mind tells her differently.

Somewhere along the arc of my mother's too short and health challenged life, she told me the same thing. I don't remember which birthday it was, but she told me she couldn't believe it. That in her mind she was twenty one.

When people getting to know me ask me questions about my life, there is always the inevitable question about kids, and then how old are they. My cutesy answer, practiced hundreds of times, is that "they are 32 and 29, which makes no sense to me because I feel like I am 32 or 29."

Those words are honest and there is a touch of fear there.

There is so much chance in our lives that you have to wonder if you have any control. But you at least have to act like you have control or you will lose your mind.

The best you can hope for is to learn. Keep learning. Learn from your mistakes so you don't keep hurting yourself.

Sounds basic but we humans are masochistic. And often trapped in cycles or learned responses born of stubbornness.

Learning has to occur on a higher level too. Learning about life. How things work. Figuring out how to negotiate your time on this planet to make your life as much your own as is possible.

A lot harder to do today than ever. Choices are minimal and they are harsh. The people who have their hands on the reins of your life are more callous and less caring than any human has a right to be.

Then again, I could be completely wrong. There are those who see endless opportunity in limited choices. Learning to sing for the sake of the song.

Growing up. Growing old.

There is a lot of chance in between. There is also some choice about when the growing old begins, even an ability to never grow old in the minds of certain magical, mystical people.

One More Truth

One more painful truth.

Writing is the only talent I have. A true talent, a thing I was born with and was born to do.

It could change my life, improve it, even if only in a small way.

I have not tried hard enough to do anything with it. I have not even come close to trying hard enough to do anything with it.

I have lied to you and I have lied to me about my Herculean efforts.

That is one more harsh and painful truth that comes to me as I look into the mirror in 2013.

Herman Melville

"Melville's words fly out like sea spray and there is no saving him or his book. He knows it as he looks out on Mount Greylock, all serene and lush and green. He will fail as a writer and his failure will be this: his only audience will appear after he is dead. His life will turn inward, fame will not come to his home, his family will dissolve around him. He will struggle with life until the end of his life and when he dies people will be surprised because they assumed he had perished decades before."

From "Some Of The Dead Are Still Breathing" by Charles Bowden.

As Far As I Can See

"The only advantage to being grotesquely obese, as far as I can see, is that you are never cold."

Anonymous

No Better Words

"This year I will be more thoughtful of my fellow man, exert more effort in each of my endeavors professionally as well as personally. Take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it. In this coming year I will seek knowledge from those wiser than me, and try to teach those who wish to learn from me. I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can."

Written by Duane Allman in his diary on New Year's Day 1969.

I quoted this on January 1, 2012 and I am going to make it my New Year's tradition.

I can think of no better words, no better inspiration to begin a new year.

Reflection Part Two

I have been thinking deeply about my life. I have been thinking deeply about this blog.

The blog has become a part of me. I can't stay away from it. I tell myself that it is because I am trying to build a following and that writing erratically won't help that.

That is bullshit. The blog is one and a half years old now and my average daily hits are around 15. Sometimes 45, sometimes 2. Obviously I have not created a burning desire on the part of the blog reading public to read my words.

It is my blog, my words, my brain and my life. It is my fault that nobody reads it. If people found it compelling I would have been on Letterman by now.

For now I write for myself. It is the only place I can get as close to honest as a human can get. I air out my soul here and it makes me feel good.

The blog has an interesting (to me) history. I started it as My Brain Is Oatmeal because I felt it described my mental state at the time. Decided I didn't like that title, changed it to Booze And Blues, which  is closer to what I am all about. Found out there are 63 million blogs out there with that name so I went with Whiskey Wisdom, which I am comfortable with.

In the beginning, it was all about me whining about how horrible life is and especially how horrible my life was. At some point my son Keith, who  has an amazing zen-like approach to life, told me that he skipped over the really negative stuff and said nobody wants to read stuff like that.

Side note: I love the fact that I am at a point in my life, have been for years, where I learn from my sons. I did the Dad thing, did the best I could do, and now it often seems to me that they are wiser than me. Pretty cool.

Anyway at that point I made a concerted effort to write better. Less whining. Obviously I have not succeeded completely but I do believe I have changed.

Recently I started re-training my brain. Reading deeply of inspiring minds. For two reasons. To make me smarter, and to see that reflected in my writing.

It is a work in progress and one that I will continue because I believe in it. I am wrestling with evolving, with changing the way that I write and the things that I write about.

I got naked with my mind and tried to truthfully critique what is wrong with my writing.

I still whine a lot. Too much negativity. That is a waste of time and it is not good writing.

I swear a lot. I think it makes me look strong and passionate. It doesn't. It makes me come across as less intelligent than I am. Truth be told I use it for shock effect as well. That is immature.

I go off on rants about things that inspire me and talk about how that is how a life should be lived, that is what life is all about. I think that is disingenuous because I don't change my life to meet those loftier standards. If I write about it and forget about it, what is the point?

I talk a lot about what I want my life to be, how I want to live, what I want from myself, what I think life should be. But again I do not follow through. So the words are empty.

I am a passionate man. I want the passion of my writing focused to a laser point.

When I talked about my life previously, I admitted that changes have to be made but refused to name them. Those things are personal.

Here I am laying out my weaknesses right in front of you because that pushes me to rise to my own challenge.

In a way what I want from this blog in 2013 is to document my own progress as I force myself to evolve.

Not with empty promises, hopes, and dreams but with solid words carefully considered, and hopefully, with a telling of things I have accomplished.

Happy New Year to anyone who stumbles across my writing today.

May 2013 be The Year for all of us.

There Is No Magic (?)

It would be nice to have a clear line of demarcation between 2012 and 2013. But life doesn't work that way.

On December 30, our water heater crapped out. 2012 just had to have the last word. I despise that year and hope it rots in hell. We have been without hot water entering day three now. The water heater gods will be here tomorrow.

On December 30 I woke up with what I thought to be a cold. We visited Craig and Karen, and by the time we left I knew it was much more than that.

I woke up yesterday in sweat soaked clothes, I woke up today in sweat soaked clothes.

I started a tradition last year I named The Annual Joe Testa Birthday Bash And Open House. It was an attempt to make sure my birthday was not overlooked ever again. This is year two and the party has been cancelled due to illness.

As much as I wanted to wake up this morning - my birthday - to blazing change and energetic hope, I instead sit in a house with no hot water, no birthday celebration and I am physically pretty well punked out.

Not what you want from a fresh start.

My plan last night was to get home from work, eat steak and nap until midnight when Carol would wake me up for our wild celebration. We always stay up for the transition and I am glad we do. There is something there, there really is magic in that moment. Somehow I stayed awake for most of the night. Watched The Three Stooges Marathon during some of it.

Anyway I felt like crap but was glad to have celebrated in the coming of a new year.

Strange thing this morning. Standing in the kitchen shortly after seven, meditating to the Keurig drip, and I felt this determination. It was not a mind thing. It came from within and it came unbidded.

Surprised me. Because Carol and I have been savagely raped and beaten by 2012 and the poison has dripped over into 2013.

I don't know what it means but I do know it means something.

All this crap might seem like the end of the line. Apparently my spirit doesn't think so.

I love my birthday. I love the uniqueness of it. I will miss Craig and Karen and Keith and Emily and Edward and Paula and Bill today. Miss them deeply. Because I love them. And because if we do celebrate my birthday it won't be on my birthday, and that has become important to me.

But I have the best wife who has ever existed. Two magic cats. A recliner. College football. And an excuse to do absolutely nothing.

You gotta take what you can get.

P.S. - Happy Birthday to me. I am not a bad guy.