8-25-05

First, a little housekeeping.  The Links page has been updated.  RPG World and It's Walky have been removed.  RPG World was dropped because Quartey is no longer updating it.  It's Walky was dropped because...well...enh.  A new comic has also been added:  Crashlander by James Hutchinson.  I'll review it before the update review at the end of September; just wanted you folks to know it was there.

Commencement

Summer is ending.  School is beginning.  For some, school has already begun.  A new flock of young people are moving on, trying new things.  I consider this time more of a commencement than the graduation in May (or June).  Young children are getting their first taste of the social morass that will dominate the next 2 decades of their lives; high school graduates are stepping into college. College graduates and those who've chosen to stick with high school are just now having their reality brought home to them:  This is their life, the one they chose; school's out.
          The future is a scary place to go, especially when you're young.  The first days of any new experience feel like a Spielberg hallway, stretched out into darkness with too many doors, too many choices, not enough time to decide.  You look back and find that the playground you just left is empty, the sandbox filling with leaves, swings already blowing in the autumn wind.  You look around and everything's changed:  Some friends have gone, some new ones have joined you, all of them are strangers now; so are you.  And still, there's that hallway, swallowing you whole.  No going back.
          Move on.  The future will keep moving forward whether you do anything or not.  Move on.  You don't really have a choice, unless you make one.  Take the steps; go forward.  Pick a door.
          Don't get your tights in a wad if it all doesn't turn out as perfect as you thought it would.  Move on.  Life is funny; it hands you difficulties and triumphs.  There will be times when you can't remember what it ever felt like to be sad.  There will be times when happiness taunts you like a fading dream.  Move on.
          1986 was the worst year of my life.  My first marriage was falling apart.  I spent the first half of the year unemployed and the last half in a dead-end job that barely paid the rent.  On August 19th, my wife finally admitted the impossibility of our marriage and left me, taking our fourteen-month-old daughter.  And I—I followed a path I'd already been on for some time and slid into a nervous breakdown.  Some forms of madness can be helpful.  Sometimes you need to reboot.  Even after the initial crash of my wife's leaving, I continued to be hammered by blows to my psyche, my worldview.  A bank error destroyed my finances and I found myself living hand-to-mouth.  A badly-driven construction truck destroyed my car; if you want a real physics lesson, figure out the vectors of a 7-ton dump-truck rear-ending a 1978 Oldsmobile Omega at 25 miles per hour.  My friends were gone.  My family—they had their own difficulties.  The oil glut of the previous year may have jumpstarted the rest of the nation, but here in Houston where 75% of all jobs are at least partially oil-related, we were hard-pressed.  I was alone.  By Christmas, which I celebrated by taping a piece of paper with the word "tree" taped to a dowel rod, I was so numb that I had taken to self-mutilation.  It didn't feel good, but it felt.
          I wanted the world to stop but it wouldn't, so I had to learn to deal.  I learned to lower my expectations to match my surroundings.  For a while, my standard of a good day was one in which I woke up breathing and went to bed in the same condition.  I began to see light.  I learned to avoid situations that encouraged me to sink back into depression.  I sought new people, new places.  I learned that the only means I had of improving the world was improving myself.
          You will have bad times.  With any luck, they won't be as bad as 1986, but they will be bad.  Move on.
          You will lose friends.  Sometimes they'll be gone in a burst of tears and shouting, but most likely they'll just fade away from you, distracted by other concerns.  It doesn't invalidate their past friendship; it just means they won't be there tomorrow.  Move on.
          You will have days and times and people that so fill you with joy and wonder that you feel like your heart will break.  I know I did.  1986 introduced me to Donna, and in 1989, standing with her at the altar, I thought I would die of the happiness I felt.
          Life happens.  It gets better.  It gets worse.  Learn to deal.  Move on.