Xmas thoughts

Well, here I am again; Staring at my open office text editor (plug) determined to write about something. It's definitely been a while and a lot has happened that I could have written about. Yet, things are rather difficult when the things happening are personal. That's not to trivialize anything I've said over the past year and change, but the reality is that I have been able to detach myself form the things I have done or been apart of. I haven't been able to do that with the things that have happened since I've come home. I could just as easily have a change of heart and leave Iraq and the rest of the world to their own business, but I could never just detach myself from my friends and family. Selfish or shallow? Possibly, but that's just the reality of the situation.

Anyway, my life has been moving at a very rapid pace. Especially compared to the last 4 years where I've had the luxury of looking at every move and decision with the knowledge that crunch time wasn't for months or even years.

No more.

I've flown across the country half a dozen times in the last few months trying to get school and the next few years of my life situated. I'm registered for classes, I have my classes and have made all the necessary arrangements, and now it's time to DO, which in a lot of cases is easier said than done. I still haven't come to a specific consensus of what's the right thing to do. Of course, being back in Chicago hasn't been helping. Everyday I'm confronted with the rampant impossibility that permeates every corner of this place. When I say impossibility I mean the inherent promise of prosperity that is the basis of this country and is yet unattainable by a significant portion of this society.

I can ignore it in other places, but here I can't because it's my friends and it's my family. I can't be in this place for more than a week without having to deal with the people close to me being damn near killed or going to jail and the utter poverty is impossible to avoid.

I know I should be happy that I have so many good things going on in my life, especially considering what I've been through. I just can't help but feel bad when I go to my buddies house in the projects, only to see his nieces struggling to get by in a household that the word broken only begins to describe.

I can't escape the feeling that I've somehow abandoned these people who have been instrumental in my life, even if I know it's self destructive and utterly useless. Suffice to say, I acutely remember why I felt the need to leave in the first place and realize that while my heart will always be here, that this can never be my home if I ever want to do something for myself and those I care about.

The rest of my life has pretty much been filled with relaxing and having fun, things I really haven't given myself the luxury of for the last 6-7 years. I wish I could say it's been a good thing, but the reality it's not. I haven't really done anything constructive, unless of course you call drinking myself stupid more than a few times and getting out of shape constructive.

So, I'm actually kinda anticipating the start of school even if it means 3-4 hours of sleep every couple of days and little to no social life. There's a part of me that wishes that I could really relax, but then there is the more powerful urge inside of me that precludes that from happening. One of the most significant being the desire to never be like my father. I bring this up because I recently sat down and “talked” to my father for the first time in over five years. I don't have any love for the man, but there are certain aspects of my life that I feel that are unavoidable and they are a direct result of the relationship I've had with my father; which is due in no small part to the relationship he had with his father, and his before him. I had hoped that maybe he had actually changed a little bit like my mother and everyone else had tried to convince me of, but he's still the same person he's always been, and that is to say unbearably conceited and completely oblivious to the world outside of himself.

I'm not gonna get into bashing the man as I've tried very hard to move him out of my life and I came to realize a long time ago that my life and future has everything to do with myself and nothing to do with him or his actions. It's my responsibility to mitigate those various inherited flaws that I've been struggling with for awhile now. Needless to say, I don't feel the need to ever speak to the man again and I only extend him the courtesy of existing for the sake of my family who has undoubtedly suffered because of our enmity over the years.