I was thinking about how warm and fuzzy I felt when someone called me "genuine" recently. I appreciated that. Yet like anyone I question my own motives and regret the perception, however unjustified, that other people I care about have somehow ceased to believe in me.
At the same time I happened to look up the word "maudlin" when I came across it somewhere. I ought to post the definition above my countertop so I can read it every day: maudlin. Adjective. Given to tearful or weepy sentimentality, often alcohol-induced.
Bingo.
Sentimentality, my most guilt-ridden but least consequential indulgence. It’s this stupid goddamn fall weather that makes me feel this way.
Yet these feelings can be somewhat productive as I consider a particular anniversary coming around when I think of a special person who taught me maturity, restraint, and a willingness to give other people second chances. Third and fourth chances, for that matter, just as I have graciously been given third and fourth chances.
This person taught me not to project inner turmoil onto others. To recognize faulty, irrational thinking and unproductive thought cycles and to regulate the peaks and troughs of mood. I am grateful for that.
Then I think of how I am ready to admit that I have not always been a good person. Again, the stupid fucking fall weather makes me sentimental for the past and, oddly, sentimental for events even as I experience them.
As for setting things right with people from the past, do I have to do that? Yes. No. Not necessarily. I am not in an AA program, after all.
Every day is a new chance to be a good person. If you live out the day supporting and validating others, being productive, and showing grit even if you are inwardly frustrated, then you have helped set things right with new people. You don’t have to give yourself over to guilt and regret, the very worst emotions in life. Why regret anything at the age of 26? Let’s save that for some cantankerous later stage of life when I can brood and reminisce in a comfortable worn plaid easy chair with my coffee in one hand and my Kindle in the other. And maybe my 20th pet rat sleeping in my shirt. Maybe he will be Razar II, after my very first rat.
Included: Afton State Park in early June. Sun dawning resplendent over the peculiar landscape of that region of southeast Minnesota. It was just as the meadowlarks started to come out.
pseudoisaac 