Trying This Again

If I had to nail down a reason for why I just disappeared from writing and maintaining a presence here, it would probably be that the me that I knew for most of my adult life gave up its ghost with my workplace transfer nearly two years ago.  Perhaps for too long I tied up too much of my self identity in being who I was at my job in the days when my reflection in a mirror usually returned a smile.  In the past ten years or so I tried on various mid-life crises, and although some of them shook the whole foundation of my self identity, being of my own choosing they were under my control and didn't take me anywhere I didn't want to go.  The job change, though, was out of my hands, and, unfortunately, it has changed that view in the mirror more than I dare or care to admit most days.

The sad truth is that for 28 years I was genuinely happy to get up in the morning and go to work, and then overnight that all changed, and I kind of don't even know who I am any more because, as I said a few sentences ago, I allowed too much of my self perception depend on who I was at work.  Even more than that, I gave my heart and soul to the schools, the colleagues, and the kids with whom I worked at in the past; I don't have enough left to invest in another place.  I do my job, and I do it well, but without my heart being in it and with my step missing the spring that buoyed me so well for 28 years.

The opus I started here a month short of five years ago at this writing was the work of a different Joe.  As I am now I find it nearly impossible to fit my feet into his shoes, though every now and then I try as I'm doing at this very minute and feeling woefully inadequate.

And, to trump it all, I lost my Daddy on the last day of last October.  I had said so many times through the years, both to myself and to those to whom I am very close, that I would never feel like I'm a man (rather than a boy) until my dad was gone.  Well, he's gone, and here I am, still his little boy riding around on a little scooter.  He had a beautiful death with mom, my sister, and me there with him, and I learned at his funeral Mass that I truly do believe all of the things about God and heaven and the afterlife that I was taught as a kid.  Even at the end he taught me something, and some days I talk more to him now than I did before he died.

I read or heard somewhere through the years that the visionary musical satirist and humorist, Tom Lehrer, once said that he stopped writing funny songs "because nothing's funny any more."  Although I can't substantiate that I can readily identify with it because on too many days I feel that way myself.  I look to eke out some simple joy from some familiar thing or activity, but too often, as I do at my workplace, I feel like I'm a stranger in a strange land.

Anyway, if you knew me in the past from my writings here, that's the long and short of my absence.  I have felt at times the desire to write here, but without the impetus to get my butt in gear.  It was Carl and his dad at the start of a spring ride to Scranton a few weeks ago who kicked me a little into wanting to write again when they said that they missed the blog and that that they liked my style of writing.  So, I'm going to try this again, and I'm going to try my best not to be full of doom and gloom even when I'm feeling it.