Change Only Happens When Change Happens

 

It took me many years, decades actually, to realize that “Change only happens when change happens”.

My change is in it’s infancy.

My metamorphosis was a slow slumbering crawl through the first five decades of my many lives. Fifty plus years of puberty fuelled irresponsibility, leading into the drug induced blurring of my twenties, thirties and coming to rest amidst mid-life’s crisis frantic forties.

A life educated by living as a nomad on the streets since the ripe age of twelve.

Teenage years wasted by federal incarceration’s subduing me till my mid twenties. Release plunging me into a decade long continuous quest to consume as much alcohol and use as many hard drugs as possible. In my twisted perception of your adman reality I would jokingly jest that, “The more drugs and booze I could consume the less there would be that may fall into the hands of youth.” I was doing a public service.

The first marriage was to my boss’s daughter.

A beautiful young lady whom I purchased from her mother for fifty dollars.

What started as a fantasy became a reality. 

Problem being, the reality I walked within was not as conformed as her societies reality.

From the day we drunkenly slurred our Sacred Vows to the day we joyfully signed our “Decree’s Nisi” was but eight short months.

For some odd reason my beautiful model of a spouse could not handle the way I was behaving immediately after my dear Mother, Mary, was brutally butchered with an eight inch boning knife.

I have yet to hear of her since the Peace Bond was placed by the Court.

I may or may not have went on a drunken binge.

During which I may have accidentally told her whole family,  from Grandma to the youngest, exactly what snobbish, high class bigots I honestly believe them to be.

Although, believe or not, I can say that the marriage was a farce from day one.

It was months of my drunken bride and I consuming expensive ryes and cognacs daily with “The In-laws”.

I had married out of class.

Me coming from the stark reality of a life of everyday people.  The in-laws, (wife included), exist in what could politely be described as, “the most arrogant, narcissistic alcoholic Scotchmen you could ever meet”.

Hence my using that as an excuse to continue being the drug addicted alcoholic, with a  great personality, of a man I perceived myself to be.

When intoxicated I was very charismatic and lovable but still an asshole. Even most who hated the verbal me loved the asshole me.

The second marriage brought “chaotic stability“.

Becoming a Father was a positive metaphorical experience.

Gave me the courage to stop hiding behind self-pity and false happiness.

Taught me how to  become a “man”.

Although we are long time since seperated we still speak daily and maintain a strange relationship.

It was/is what works for us.

Over forty years we have shared life and sons.

Most interactions are civil and peppered with segments of prior love.

Suffice to say that the not so civil days were a reminder of why we have separate addresses.

Long story short …. life went on. Such as lives do.

Over time all the physical traumas my body has suffered these past few years has greatly aged the physical me.

Now, in the twilight of my latter years I identify as a ‘true realist’.

The reality we all speak not of is that “life is what it is“.

Later in life,  when you reach your prime geriatric years, you realize that you have no justification in continuing to “put on a false face” or say what you think the other person wishes to hear.

You become the “wise elder”.

Your words their teachings.

In layman terms, you “man-up”.

And living life in reality becomes the norm.

Words heard are words said.

What you see is what is seen.

Feelings felt are emotions lived.

It is what it is.

“Or is it?”

The greatest lesson life gifted me is the realization that  ……

“Change only happens when change happens. “