in my reply (to your last post here)

once again my words were too many to fit into the comment box so rather than extend the babbling you inspired with this post into three or four or more comments (and trying to keep the parts in the right order), here it is here (with this introduction in case we both seek reference some time down the road when time lets us forget :)

coincidence?... so i've been away for a week or more and you find your way here after more than a year of being away (373 days) and me, sven longer (449 days), but then, who's counting? :)

and it just so happens that i paused in my daily writing two days before you posted this entry until now, a week after you posted these words, but again, except for the potential irony that i am desperately seeking something (communication, validation, appreciation, reinforcement, ego-stroking, more genuine meaningful deeper praise, comfort, caring, love, attention, and most of all distraction, or some combination of the lot) and here you are communicating and i am not even here to read and respond as immediately as i ordinarily would have had i been checking in and blogging daily as i had been for most of the last thousand years, or bakers dozen, at least...

whatever, right?... i mean, time is meaningless and i found your words moments ago so for me, they were written moments ago and i shall respond to my perception of your words because that is the best any reader wishing to communicate can do, respond to the perception of the meaning of the words a writer writes...

i am so happy to see words from you here :)

what did you say again? (laughing at the folly of my babbling and my self-soothing, however egocentric, babbling from excitement and distraction-seeking and excessive mental fatigue as i am just getting home from lunch with a friend after not sleeping at all last night so aware going on thirty hours or more now... can i find a cohesive response at this point?... well, i promise i shall try and if i don't i shall respond again after sleeping and being more certain i have more than a few brain cells working together)...

lives lived...

somewhere in my writings i pondered this many times and at least more than a few times rather analytically in terms of chronology... birth to adoption (patterson to brooklyn), adoption to divorce-single-mom-grandma (to east ny), second dad new world (to canarsie), down the block, changing friends, changing names and the sp, disillusioned with education (waltzman kills algebra), finding love and falling (high school), community college and work, the end of the innocence (dec 1), the army (and the changes), wasting away everywhere (drug, sex, and rock and roll years), the professional begins (bdc), moving up - moving out, back to school, following the dream (lake buena vista), early retirement (new house), the dream of love and family (toronto), the street (buffalo-orlando), starting over (ubc), bff (jackson), the softball years, unplanned vacation (pine harbor), almost ideal job (the quest), and now (yet to be named)... reviewing that in more detail i left many chapters out, but not tooo many lives, so how many is that? (laughing at myself as i review the outline of the life i recall)...

yeah, so i guess it's time to move on to your third sentence, second thought...


another thought i've given much time to over the years and with lament and accepting the same responsibility, but hopefully with more hope than i have at this moment (it's a sad month, this november, but this mood is not where i've lingered long in this life in spite of never leaving the sensitivity of it) and just pondering that i am certain with all the positivity left in me that i am capable of reaching out with an optimistic smile to anyone i've cared about because the caring was always genuine and remains as genuine today...

still i do see the meaning in your words and i do and feel the feeling of watching the online world pass me by (and the physical world as well, but that is another pondering for another time)... in the past two weeks i have reached out to at least a dozen people offline via text and phone and a few online through personal messages and many more online through public facebook posts... and four people i've not seen in many months or years shared fun time and i will see more at a thankgsiving dinner this week and a party thrown in honor of my return to socializing next saturday... so i have reason to raise my optimism in spite of the current events in life near (see (e)thereal blog)and far (facebook) this month and last (casey), for that matter...

keep trying to connect... are we connecting?... i offer my experience as it directly relates to your words, but can i do more than focus on me?... ask you what you mean, perhaps?... ask you if you want to share specifics?... if you want to talk?... just this week i learned facebook has a phone call aspect to it's chat feature and i wonder how far it reaches (sure would save money on international calls... unless there's some unmentioned charge i'll find out about next month)... wanna talk?...

you matter to me... i know in my experience that is not true for many people as many people allow detachment and even dismissal of others due time passing between communications but once my heart cares about someone, my caring does not diminish over time... and while i take responsibility for letting silent time pass, i do not take responsibility for other people who diminish their caring (or who simply dismiss others) due to time passing between communications... this is how i see it (and live it)... as awkward as some make it, if they ever really cared, they still care... if they don't care now, they never really did...

so what happened?... is the 'this' you refer to the emotion of __________ (up, down, depression, loneliness, hopelessness, desire for me, excitement, wishing you were somehow here again, wanting more connections that last, something else?)... any changes in your mother and wife status?... share what you wish to share in response to my questions...

perhaps this post you wrote was a momentary release of excess emotions and the writing and posting was enough to bring you back to your smile (i am hopeful, remember?)...

I gave up trying to not walk around with my mind, heart, soul, whatever) wide open... trying to close up or shut down just does not work for me... i just absorb the pain and rain and turn it into hope and rainbows... ok, so it doesn't always work, but that's the plan :)

distraction helps a lot :)