The Changing Days and the… Not So Changing Days

One of my best friends gave birth to her first child over the weekend. She is the first of my friends to reproduce and I couldn’t be happier for her and her husband. Nevertheless, the baby’s birth is a harbinger of this slow crawl towards old age.

I’m 25 now and, while that’s not really very old at all, it still amazes me how long I’ve lived. 15 simultaneously feels long ago and not so long ago; 30 seems far away but near. I’m on the old side of being young, I think, but I’m not in one of those depressed moods where I think my best days are behind me and I’m useless.

It’s just that I’m not a guy who handles change well. I’m slow to adapt. But it’s time I face the facts now: I’m getting old and there’s nothing that will stop it. Life is precious, too, and I don’t want to waste it. I feel like these past three years have definitely been filled with more waste than use, but that’s probably just my internal critic making an overly critical judgment.

When I think about how life is changing for me and everyone I love, it simply amazes me. This is life. Living. Doing what everybody before us has done before, in some fashion specific to their time, place and experience. People get married, have a family, have their ups and downs personally and professionally, grow old, die.

I’ve seen my friends get married, now have kids. Childhood friends move away to start new lives. Erratic personalities simmer down and, eventually, settle down. Even I have succumbed to calming down. I don’t get as anxious as I used to, I don’t overthink every moment of my life. I’m a little more comfortable with myself and where I’m at. Maybe it’s just mitochondrial malaise or hormonal fatigue, but I am calmer.

This post is more of a ramble because I’m a shitastically bad writer these days. I haven’t even tried to keep the skill sharp lately (not that it was sharp before), so, forgive the vagueness of my specifics and the meandering nature of the thesis.

Life changes and we’re powerless to stop it. That’s what used to get me so worked up. It’s why I was so averse to change: I couldn’t control it. What’s with this incessant need to control the world around me, though? Is it symptomatic of short people? Maybe the explanation lies in my inability to play baseball well. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Rest assured, though, that my want of control is in the past. I’m beginning to appreciate change. It’s a slow turn to appreciate, but it’s happening. The beautiful baby in the arms of one of my best friends certainly went a long way in helping to affect that change. There’s something about my friend now that seems utterly different and yet she’s still the same woman she was before; only now she has a baby. So, maybe change is a series of events, like plot turns in a story, that we build up as something bigger through our emotions. In this case, my pure joy elevates my friend’s motherhood to monumental change.

My ex-girlfriend’s emotional instability, however, elevates her recent unstable behavior to disturbing change. Nice transition, right?

Basically, Ms. Ex-Girlfriend attempted to solicit the sympathy of visitors to her website and my personal attention by posting my Current Girlfriend’s e-mail address and blog address to her own (Ex-girlfriend’s) guestbook. And that personal information was left in addition to a nasty message that teased my Ex for not being able to keep me in her life. Also, the phrase “he’s my man now” was employed. Suffice it to say, several angry e-mails from my Ex’s rabid community of page visitors were quickly sent to my Current Girlfriend, some of them grasping the English language, but most aiming to be cruel.

Obviously, Current Girlfriend had to make some changes to the way she conducts her on-line life, and that’s a shame. It sucks that classless fools would target an innocent person whose only crime is being involved with me (fair warning to the rest of you). But when you’re a small, petty person, your options become extremely limited when you feel as though you deserve a second chance. My Ex and I have been separated for over a year now, and in no uncertain terms am I even remotely interested in having anything to do with her from this point on. She had her second, third and fourth chances.

Now I am a happy man involved with a wonderful woman.

The surprising part of all this was when I stopped to consider whether or not Ex was capable of pulling some stunt like this. I didn’t have to consider it, really, because I just knew it to be true. I just knew that she could do it. I knew that she would take the time to research and discover my Current Girlfriend’s e-mail address and then craft a message that would demean a complete stranger (Current Girlfriend) while maximizing the pity and attention she could receive from others.

So even though life changes around us and to us (that doesn’t make sense: life doesn’t change to us; but, you get what I’m sayin’, right?), the essence of what life is and what/who we are maybe doesn’t. Perhaps certain life experiences/changes affect significant change in our behavior/personality/emotions, but I think these times are profound, like perhaps the birth of a child. Or getting married. Or the death of someone close to us.

I’m sorry for the godawful hokum and psychobabble. I have reread this post and I’ve found it to be almost completely unnecessary. This is frosh philosophy. There’s no excuse for my lack of insight, creativity or emphasis; let’s just consider this Spring Training and I’m a pitcher reporting for my first camp. I suck because I suck. But maybe after a few weeks of practice, some simulated games, I might be able to get my velocity back. Maybe.

P.S. Comments below are always appreciated.

P.P.S. The Killers’ new album, Sam’s Town, isn’t amazing, fantastic, great, good or terrible. It’s somewhere between those last two.