Missed It By ‘This’ Much

Dammit, younger me! I was back fifteen years ago for a few moments, clearly and completely. The experience was less picture memory, and more intense sensory memory;

I was in San Diego, California, when I lived in the Clairemont neighborhood with a woman who remains one of my best friends, and her two girls, one of whom was five, and the other was two. I liked living in that area, but I was failing in my life, nearly ending it before I was able to get help and start my healing journey. I was trying with all that I had to be well and do well. I took a small computer systems course that condensed a two-year program into eight months. My son was four, and attending pre-school. When I picked him up in the afternoon, we’d play, and then I’d get dinner ready, and after dinner I got my son ready for bed, reading a book and lying down with him, rubbing his back until he fell asleep – or he didn’t fall asleep until I did – which was awful on the nights that no matter what I did he wouldn’t go to sleep. Then I’d do homework until about 2:30 or 3am – every night – except weekends when I had the luxury of studying some during the day, and I wonder why I was such an emotional wreck! I applied for dozens of jobs after the course and my internship was over, and all of the places I applied wanted someone with at least two years experience.

In our current political climate, I’d be told that I didn’t make a good choice, and if I wasn’t ‘making it’, it must be my fault, and too bad I wasn’t smart enough, or working as hard as those who were successful. But, I digress…

I wish I could convey what a complete experience being back there again was, but words can only lead – they cannot fully represent. Words can suggest, hint, attempt, but they cannot encompass. Encompassing requires several levels of sensation, and understanding requires being present, otherwise you can only approximate an experience. Alas, it was gone before I could fully appreciate the scene. It was a simple, ordinary slice of my life back then, and if it ever happens again I hope I get to stay there longer!

I tend to think I’ve heard, or read about, or encountered, everything life is capable of, and then I get surprised by a new paradigm. Life sure has been an interesting trip.