Sometimes You Have To Let Things Go
Sometimes you have to let things go is the kind of phrase I hate hearing because I am intimately acquainted with it, It is part of the joy and the curse of being passionate, opinionated and protective.
Word came from back home a few hours ago that the crazy neighbors were messing with my family and the fire in my belly went from 1 to 8 and I mulled over catching a plane home tonight.
Truth is that the event that triggered this thought wasn’t particularly egregious. But when you take a series of events even the trivial begins to carry some weight and as a father, brother and son it made me think about the flight because I want to be around for those just in case moments.
I am not the biggest, baddest, toughest or strongest SOB you’ll run into but I am one of the most tenacious and once you get my attention you gain the gift my trying to decide whether sticking your head in a vise would be more effective than putting a gun in your mouth.
Those Are Words Of a Writer
I don’t own a gun or a vise so you can look at that last sentence as being a writer’s way of adding color to a post. But it would be wrong for me to say that when you mess with my family my first inclination is to provide you with a dozen roses and my apologies for our upsetting your world.
When you mess with my family I see the list of infractions you are responsible for and remember any and every moment I felt like I didn’t come through for them.
There really aren’t many of those, but I don’t know a parent who doesn’t feel like there is something they fell short on. I don’t know a single one who doesn’t wish they could get a real life version of an instant replay.
Things happen and rarely are they of huge import. Rarely are they life altering events that shatter your world and turn it upside down so sometimes you really are better off letting things go.
But when you are far away things take on a different tinge and even if you trust all those that are back there completely it is hard not to want to be there because you think you should be the one telling the crazy neighbor they can either remove the barbed stick they shoved up their ass or expect to hear from the police.
Be Like Bluto
When things get a little tense I like to work out, to write, to listen to music and use humor to vent. My kids have heard me talk about all of these things but they aren’t old enough to have watched one of my favorite speeches. This one always makes me feel better.
Nor are they ready for the Caddyshack moment either:
Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and I make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas.
Angie D’Annunzio: A looper?
Carl Spackler: A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
Actually, that is not completely true. I have said Gunga galunga to them a time or two. They probably think it is just me messing around but one day we’ll have the big reveal.
One day they’ll get to see there is often a method to my madness and a reason for why I tell them sometimes you have to let things go.
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