Raw stuff is usually gross
It's been a year and a quarter since I last posted; comin' back with a whole lot of raw, and like the subject says, it could easily be gross.
State of the Gordo, October 2010
This may be divided up into different sections later, should I decide any benefit could be gleaned from such an endeavor.
It’s 1:07 AM on Monday, November 1st, 2010, and I’m in the Top Stop Chevron off the I-215/I-80/Foothill Drive Junction. I’m also wearing that straw hat made to look like Luffy’s from One Piece, donated by Judy and converted by Sean.
This is the soonest I could sit down to talk about the State of Gordo on October 31st, between the hours of 3 AM and 4 PM. It’s not often I need to sit down to talk about the State of Gordo, but maybe that’s why the Gordo in between those hours is something I want to talk about. He personifies all the things I don’t usually feel are appropriate to talk about.
By the way, if you’re wondering what the deal with that time period is, I’ll tell you: he was sleeping, and somewhere in there, he was dreaming. It was the kind of dream where he transcends time.
Yeah, that is a long time to sleep. It’s always that way for me. So, I guess for me, that’s not all that long to sleep.
*ahem* Anyway. The following will (probably) consist of some awkward content. Maybe it’s just awkward for me, maybe it’s anti-awkward for you. That would work just fine for me, but just so you know, I fear that this might be one of those times where my foot finds its way to my mouth, and if that has to happen, I’d rather it happen when nobody’s looking!
It’s happened when people are looking, before. It’s happened when people I’m fond of, people who possess opinions I value, have been looking. Truly regrettable. I am very sorry for that.
Let me tell you the other feature of the situation that multiplied the disturbing effect. October 30th and October 31st, 2003 were historic days in my life, and in the time I was sleeping between October 30th and October 31st, 2010, I was dreaming of a scenario that was startlingly relevant to those days 7 years ago.
Let’s get the most awkward part of this out of the way very first. What was I dreaming about? What subject disturbed me so? Well, disturb probably isn’t the most proper word; it only fits in terms that it unsettled me from the groove I’ve been occupying for a while, moved me to a time and place where my disposition, demeanor, and philosophy differed from its present stage.
It happens often in my dreams. I tend to transcend time and space, but not to places where I get chased by anthropomorphic baked goods with a hunger for human flesh. Nope, I tend to dream about earlier stages of my life, where my perspective matches the insecure child that hasn’t learned the lessons I’ve learned and is subjected to events that used to terrify him.
As an example, I often dream that I’m back in High School and I’m faced with failing English because I slept through every single class that quarter. That’s not a situation I’ve ever been in; merely a scenario I used in that time period to motivate me NOT to sleep through it. Still, I dream about it.
Still, I’m getting off topic here. Yes, I was dreaming of a former-stage Gordo in a situation that never actually happened, but this wasn’t a fictional situation I dread. This is one I don’t allow myself to indulge in.
I was dreaming about Tina.
Yeah, immediately an awkward conversation piece. Why am I so reluctant to talk about this? Why am I always reluctant to talk about that time of my life? It’s simple, but maybe I’m the only one who thinks that it’s simple.
I was very unfair to her, to the point that I absolutely dread being unfair to her ever again. Talking about subjects related to her, or even directly about her, isn’t necessarily or intrinsically unfair, but it can too easily cross over into that realm. That’s why I don’t.
Those who know me most still might not know exactly what happened, and there are a lot of them that I imagine would be baffled by the above concept. How was the Jordan Bishop we’ve known all these years unfair to this faceless name of a girlfriend he had once upon a time?! Wasn’t she the one who broke up with him?
It’s that possibility that makes me realize that maybe I’ve been most unfair to her by not talking about it. The people who know me and love me would probably do the math like this: I heard she broke up with him, he doesn’t talk about it even when someone else brings it up, that means she broke his heart without any reason.
No, that’s not how it happened and I’m sorry if my silence has propagated that sort of assumption. And wait, before you start wondering if that means I actually did do something immoral, something you thought I wasn’t capable of, it wasn’t that either.
I certainly wasn’t abusive or unfaithful or anything like that; I was simply stupid. Naïve, maybe, if we’re being nice to me, but I think stupid is the more accurate word. I believed things that weren’t true, and I had the cognitive ability to predict and prevent them. I just didn’t.
She warned me, and I ignored it. She asked me to explore the possibility and I impulsively assumed I’d given it more thought and preparation than I had. That’s where I failed her, that’s the root of all my unfairness, and that’s the incident that made the breakup inevitable.
In my senior year and afterward I made preparations to go to school to become a computer programmer. It’s what I thought I wanted to be, and while it’s still a skill I think would supplement my new goal, it’s not my primary focus. But even that wasn’t the main mistake. The main mistake was thinking DeVry was a good idea.
No, it’s not even right to blame DeVry; it was the wrong choice, incontrovertibly. The mistake was moving to California thinking that I was doing it for anything more than to be with her.
I doubted it; I had assurances that WE doubted it, but we weren’t so naïve to think that nothing could ever break us up. She was concerned, since I was the one changing location and leaving home that far behind, that if we ever did break up I’d be find myself alone and helpless, far away from anyone I could fall back on.
The part about being far from home and without a plan (Though I had friends and family, and I can never thank them enough) to fall back on came to pass. The order of events that brought it about were different, but essentially, she warned me that it could happen the way that it did.
Even if I had wanted to be a programmer, DeVry wasn’t the school I should have gone to. There’s a strong chance that DeVry sucks for almost everyone and is never a good idea, but I’m not throwing the first stone on that one.
Sure, it’s true that we didn’t have DeVry here in Utah at the time, so all I knew about it was what the recruiter said and what a couple of my teachers had heard from friends of friends of family. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t equipped to find out more before I (almost) committed myself to going.
Long story short, it wasn’t right. My ‘peers’ were on a lower level than your average college student, and the average college student is on a pretty low level. If that offends you, don’t let it; the average college student is on a lower level than you expect, and you’re above that level.
Anyway.
I finally figured it out; early enough to avoid giving that institution a dime, but too late to avoid wasting a small portion of my savings and, most critically, my time. I couldn’t do DeVry, and I couldn’t do those dorms. I needed a quiet, comfortable place to make new plans and come to terms with my motivations. I needed to go home, desperately.
She told me beforehand that the long distance was tearing her apart. She told me beforehand that, if it ever had to go back to that, she didn’t know if she could handle it. That was part of the warning.
It had to go back to that, and as per her warning, she didn’t think it was wise to try going back to long-distance relationship until I figured things out. The moment I told her I was going home, it was over.
It’s 6:36 on November 1st, 2010 now. I’m at ARUP, eating chicken-fried chicken (yes, that’s what they call it), mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots. The feeling of melancholy I had this morning has dulled, but it’s not forgotten.
I was devastated when she stuck to her word; surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. To be in a long-distance relationship was to suffer the sweetest pain I’ve ever felt, but I must acknowledge that there was that component: pain.
It’s not the dominant factor, I’d say. It’s certainly not the feature that draws you to it. It’s simply inevitable; you want to be close to someone and can’t. That hurts. I didn’t think it was unbearable, but she assured me that she couldn’t do it anymore.
I begged and schemed; this was probably the time in my life where my foot most often found its way between my teeth. Through it all, she remained a friend to me, somehow managing to endure me while maturely and repeatedly reminding me of our new reality and how it wasn’t changing.
Eventually, over a period of time that was longer than it should have been, I came to realize that what she was telling me was true. It truly was a remarkable scenario, one that I’ve never heard of before; my friends and family were there for me, would have listened, probably really wanted to even. Still, my one and only true confidant was her, the woman I’d lost.
Yeah, it was hard, but what she did was harder than what I went through. I had cried and boggled over how, if she’d felt about me the way I’d felt about her, could she have not wanted to keep trying? One way or another, that conflict defined my grief, and it took me too long to realize that the solution was simple and self-evident.
Bear with me here, this is going to sound nonsensical at first. I still don’t know if she ever felt the same way for me as I did for her, but that doesn’t matter. You may want to bring up some strong evidence that you noticed that yes, in fact, she did feel that way, but don’t; it doesn’t matter.
I loved her and respected her, and she told me that she couldn’t be with me anymore. Loving and respecting her, I needed to understand that she understood what was best for her, and if separation was what she perceived best, than separation was what should happen.
Further, while it was always clear she was pursuing that goal, there were easier ways to get there than the one she took. With a thousand miles between us, she could have silenced me immediately and permanently and went about her life. She didn’t. She listened to my whining and pleading and brought me back to reality each time, and she somehow managed to do it mercifully.
She didn’t do that because she didn’t care. She did that because she did care. The lynchpin in all this mess was that she desperately wanted me to recover and move on and be happy. She cared about my wellbeing, and that kind of care is love.
It was time I respected that. I couldn’t let my grief turn love into possessiveness; it was time I respect and love enough to expect she’ll find her happiness without me, and it was time I learn to be happy without her. It was the only way I could possibly thank her for all she’d done.
It wasn’t a competition, but if it had been, I’d have been the loser, you know. I was born first but she beat me to adulthood. Touché, and good show!
It was only natural that we’d fall out of contact entirely, but I wish we hadn’t. It was clear that I’d wanted to stay friends from the beginning of the end, but maybe she already knew she couldn’t. I feel like I could handle it, but I’ve felt like I could handle things before that I actually couldn’t.
Again, that’s not important. Things are the way they are and they’re fine that way. I have learned from my mistakes and grown immeasurably since then. I feel like I’ve grown as much between then and now as I did between when I was eleven and then. I can’t even imagine how she might have grown sine I’ve last talked to her, and that’s a healthy development.
I guess I’ve got to remain wary, though, because for some period of time between 3 AM and 4 PM on October 31st, 2010, I had reverted back to the 18-year-old boy who was giddily awaiting her visit. It wasn’t a recollection, not a memory; I had lost all my growth between then and now and became that person again.
Considering the fact that it was 7 years to the day after she’d arrived to drive with me from Salt Lake to the coast, I’ve got to assume that my subconscious is more powerful than I’d expected, or that the ‘higher powers’ that might exist are testing me. If so, my subconscious or the powers that be are kinda dickish!
So there’s a more modern point to all of this, believe it or not. While it’s true that the fairest possible course of action for me to take was to get over her and move on, it’s still true that the year 2003 represents the biggest failure of my life to date, and revisiting it in that dream somehow compels me to start yammering about how that failure changed the course of my life forever.
They say you don’t know a person until you’ve seen them at their worst. If that’s true, there’s very few people who know me. My mother and siblings are among them. My dad might be. Tina was there to see it. I know I was there, so I’m one of them too.
This is assuming, of course, that that’s my worst. It’s the worst so far, but who’s to say it’s the worst that will be?
Still, there was a lot to learn from the worst so far. So much, that I think I can avoid some worse possible situations. That’s one reason to be grateful that all of this happened the way it did.
I have a direction; it’s to be somewhat directionless. Likewise, my ambition is to curb ambition. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle when I grew up. That hasn’t changed, but I’ve added some to it.
In High School and afterward I idolized Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Now, I still want to be like Spike, but I also want to be like Jet and the old guy that loves chess in the Bohemian Rhapsody episode, and what the hell you’re only allowed to choose one idol!
The point is, I’m a little more aware of what everyone should be aware of: there’s bits of everyone that are good, and bits of everyone that you should strive to acquire for yourself. Naturally, some people have more bits than others, but still. A single role model is insufficient.
I learned, from visiting the bottom of my barrel, that sometimes selfishness can be selfless. You need to know your limits to expand them, and sometimes you need to indulge in something petty or trivial in order to avoid crossing them and melting down.
Charity’s great, but the more you build yourself up, the more you add to yourself, the more you’ll have to give when you do give.
I know what it’s like to want to give your all to a person, to do everything for their sake and abandon your own interests, but even when you want to, you shouldn’t. You need to not only be able to walk on your own, but to enjoy walking on your own. You have to love yourself before you can love others. It’s healthier for you, and for the others.
Think of it this way: a man who can stand on his own is better suited to be leaned upon than one who must lean upon his lover. Don’t you want the person you love to be able to lean on you?
These seem like random lessons, arbitrary and irrelevant to one another, but they are connected. They connect in helping me discern a purpose, guiding me to the cause most worth fighting for in a world where there are countless worthy fights. What is that cause? I’m not quite there yet, but I do know one thing: I want to change the way people think. If not change, I want to impact it, add to the factors they consider, help enable them to make the choice that’s closest to correct as best they can.
So that’s why I’m not in school, that’s why I write and play video games and use so much free time for self-indulgence. I still have a lot to learn about me, about the world, and I especially need to discover the best way to go about bettering it. It’s in dire need; we’re at a shift in paradigm, perhaps the biggest in history. No use trying to play my part before I have any kind of idea of what that part is, though.
So I sit idle and search my ‘soul’ while the world moves on. College enrollment reaches record highs and job placement dips lower and lower. My generation graduates from Harvard to work at McDonald’s. Politicians argue over the trivial because they’re boggled by the relevant. The remnants of the ‘Greatest Generation’ are understandably scattered and consumed by their own problems. Their successors to the 70’s-born are stuck in a time where the nuclear family and fear of Russia defined America. They’re the ones in control now. Finally, we have our generation; riding our parents loans through college while we get wasted and flunk, or graduate and find that we would have been just as successful if we got wasted and flunked.
Obviously I can’t ‘sit’ completely ‘idle,’ so I’m working two part-time jobs at the moment: one at the respectable ARUP Laboratories, and one at the entirely unrespectable Top Stop Chevron off the I-215/I-80/Foothill Drive interchange.
This gas station seems like everything wrong with society. If it’s not the brainless loudmouth who thinks that anyone who says ‘Jesus has all the answers’ has all the answers, then it’s my ‘peers’ decked out in hipster-emo, ‘street’, or frat-boy regalia, and they’re looking to either hammer themselves or are already hammered and out for munchies.
My failure in California seven years ago taught me that I’m more fearful than many; it can cripple me. I’ve been working on how timid I am, and having been in a serious relationship did wonders for my confidence. The internal conflict I struggle with now is quite the opposite, and both my situation and the world’s situation exacerbates it. I now know anger.
Hansi Küsch, lead singer of my beloved Blind Guardian, sings it so well in the song ‘Tanelorn.’ It’s one line, 4 words, and only appears once, but it resonates so much right now.
“Still my hatred grows…”
Even aware of it, even if I tell myself there might be a good reason people are the way they are, I find that what was once intrinsic in my is slipping further than I wanted it to. My father taught me a unique flavor of compassion, patience, and empathy; my ability to exercise it atrophies every day, decaying under a mossy layer of disappointment. It’s unsettling; I once wondered if it were possible that I have a dark side, but now I know for sure: he exists, and he is not to be let out.
“Here on my own, I build a pyre of fire. Here on my own, I’m wasting life so weak.” The conflict that will define me while I pay off my car and whittle away at my second novel is the curbing of my hatred. I tread the line between optimist and pessimist, with the term that better suits me switching day-by-day. Still, the more I’m exposed to my fellow man in this capacity, the more I find tat a new label might fit me: Misanthropist.
I’m fighting it, of course, but successes and defeats are all private; I fight, and as I do, I’m reminded of another weakness of mine. I’m a creature that craves encouragement, and with a private fight like this, by definition I can’t receive outward encouragement for any triumphs or after any failures. I build a pyre of fire, but by doing so, I’m wasting life so weak.
It’s 7:14 PM on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010, and I’m at ARUP eating fried fish and tater tots. This week’s One Piece was already out, and as usual, excellent. I wonder if Roger was the original owner.
The dream from October 31st is almost gone, and the original feeling that inspired me to write with it. Still, over the past couple days, there have been several moments that were very not Gordo; emotional moments, brought on by almost inexplicable triggers.
In the cooler yesterday, there was a voice in my head, one that sounded very much like my own, but what it told me was too relieving to allow me to believe that. It validated my silly struggle, which is something I shouldn’t need validation for. That night had been going horribly from when I’d last written to that point, but after that moment, a moment that tingled all the way from my gut through my sinuses and out the tear ducts, my demeanor of discontent melted into relief and amicability.
I wasn’t crying, really; tears wouldn’t come. It was more like an electric sigh, like all the tension caused by the retardation I expose myself to was finally being released through my eyes.
Again, it shouldn’t have made a difference, but it was almost like I’d heard it from her lips; it was like she’d not only forgiven me for my unfairness, but gone so far as to claim I was never unfair.
Maybe, right then, after all this time, I had finally forgiven myself. I thought I had, and if I did, maybe I’d forgotten, but at that moment, it felt fresh and totally new.
This all started very raw, and maybe it should stay that way; it’s a hunk of mysterious material that fell at my feet, and clueless to its nature, I just had to explore it. I’m glad I did, whether it makes sense to anyone else or not.
I learned something; maybe you don’t have a strong understanding of how the knowledge pathed from its inspiration to my hypothesis, but just know that it did.
I learned that I, Richard Jordan Bishop, do need someone to listen from time-to-time. Here’s the important part: it wasn’t that nobody was willing to listen, because it turns out that saying it to nobody felt incredibly good. I’m the one that refused to believe that our Lil Gordo ever desired someone to just sit and listen, but I hope I never forget that such a desire is not something to be ashamed of.
It’s simply too rewarding when fulfilled.
At the very least, if someone would suffer through this meal, there's little chance they'll even attempt to finish it.
State of the Gordo, October 2010
This may be divided up into different sections later, should I decide any benefit could be gleaned from such an endeavor.
It’s 1:07 AM on Monday, November 1st, 2010, and I’m in the Top Stop Chevron off the I-215/I-80/Foothill Drive Junction. I’m also wearing that straw hat made to look like Luffy’s from One Piece, donated by Judy and converted by Sean.
This is the soonest I could sit down to talk about the State of Gordo on October 31st, between the hours of 3 AM and 4 PM. It’s not often I need to sit down to talk about the State of Gordo, but maybe that’s why the Gordo in between those hours is something I want to talk about. He personifies all the things I don’t usually feel are appropriate to talk about.
By the way, if you’re wondering what the deal with that time period is, I’ll tell you: he was sleeping, and somewhere in there, he was dreaming. It was the kind of dream where he transcends time.
Yeah, that is a long time to sleep. It’s always that way for me. So, I guess for me, that’s not all that long to sleep.
*ahem* Anyway. The following will (probably) consist of some awkward content. Maybe it’s just awkward for me, maybe it’s anti-awkward for you. That would work just fine for me, but just so you know, I fear that this might be one of those times where my foot finds its way to my mouth, and if that has to happen, I’d rather it happen when nobody’s looking!
It’s happened when people are looking, before. It’s happened when people I’m fond of, people who possess opinions I value, have been looking. Truly regrettable. I am very sorry for that.
Let me tell you the other feature of the situation that multiplied the disturbing effect. October 30th and October 31st, 2003 were historic days in my life, and in the time I was sleeping between October 30th and October 31st, 2010, I was dreaming of a scenario that was startlingly relevant to those days 7 years ago.
Let’s get the most awkward part of this out of the way very first. What was I dreaming about? What subject disturbed me so? Well, disturb probably isn’t the most proper word; it only fits in terms that it unsettled me from the groove I’ve been occupying for a while, moved me to a time and place where my disposition, demeanor, and philosophy differed from its present stage.
It happens often in my dreams. I tend to transcend time and space, but not to places where I get chased by anthropomorphic baked goods with a hunger for human flesh. Nope, I tend to dream about earlier stages of my life, where my perspective matches the insecure child that hasn’t learned the lessons I’ve learned and is subjected to events that used to terrify him.
As an example, I often dream that I’m back in High School and I’m faced with failing English because I slept through every single class that quarter. That’s not a situation I’ve ever been in; merely a scenario I used in that time period to motivate me NOT to sleep through it. Still, I dream about it.
Still, I’m getting off topic here. Yes, I was dreaming of a former-stage Gordo in a situation that never actually happened, but this wasn’t a fictional situation I dread. This is one I don’t allow myself to indulge in.
I was dreaming about Tina.
Yeah, immediately an awkward conversation piece. Why am I so reluctant to talk about this? Why am I always reluctant to talk about that time of my life? It’s simple, but maybe I’m the only one who thinks that it’s simple.
I was very unfair to her, to the point that I absolutely dread being unfair to her ever again. Talking about subjects related to her, or even directly about her, isn’t necessarily or intrinsically unfair, but it can too easily cross over into that realm. That’s why I don’t.
Those who know me most still might not know exactly what happened, and there are a lot of them that I imagine would be baffled by the above concept. How was the Jordan Bishop we’ve known all these years unfair to this faceless name of a girlfriend he had once upon a time?! Wasn’t she the one who broke up with him?
It’s that possibility that makes me realize that maybe I’ve been most unfair to her by not talking about it. The people who know me and love me would probably do the math like this: I heard she broke up with him, he doesn’t talk about it even when someone else brings it up, that means she broke his heart without any reason.
No, that’s not how it happened and I’m sorry if my silence has propagated that sort of assumption. And wait, before you start wondering if that means I actually did do something immoral, something you thought I wasn’t capable of, it wasn’t that either.
I certainly wasn’t abusive or unfaithful or anything like that; I was simply stupid. Naïve, maybe, if we’re being nice to me, but I think stupid is the more accurate word. I believed things that weren’t true, and I had the cognitive ability to predict and prevent them. I just didn’t.
She warned me, and I ignored it. She asked me to explore the possibility and I impulsively assumed I’d given it more thought and preparation than I had. That’s where I failed her, that’s the root of all my unfairness, and that’s the incident that made the breakup inevitable.
In my senior year and afterward I made preparations to go to school to become a computer programmer. It’s what I thought I wanted to be, and while it’s still a skill I think would supplement my new goal, it’s not my primary focus. But even that wasn’t the main mistake. The main mistake was thinking DeVry was a good idea.
No, it’s not even right to blame DeVry; it was the wrong choice, incontrovertibly. The mistake was moving to California thinking that I was doing it for anything more than to be with her.
I doubted it; I had assurances that WE doubted it, but we weren’t so naïve to think that nothing could ever break us up. She was concerned, since I was the one changing location and leaving home that far behind, that if we ever did break up I’d be find myself alone and helpless, far away from anyone I could fall back on.
The part about being far from home and without a plan (Though I had friends and family, and I can never thank them enough) to fall back on came to pass. The order of events that brought it about were different, but essentially, she warned me that it could happen the way that it did.
Even if I had wanted to be a programmer, DeVry wasn’t the school I should have gone to. There’s a strong chance that DeVry sucks for almost everyone and is never a good idea, but I’m not throwing the first stone on that one.
Sure, it’s true that we didn’t have DeVry here in Utah at the time, so all I knew about it was what the recruiter said and what a couple of my teachers had heard from friends of friends of family. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t equipped to find out more before I (almost) committed myself to going.
Long story short, it wasn’t right. My ‘peers’ were on a lower level than your average college student, and the average college student is on a pretty low level. If that offends you, don’t let it; the average college student is on a lower level than you expect, and you’re above that level.
Anyway.
I finally figured it out; early enough to avoid giving that institution a dime, but too late to avoid wasting a small portion of my savings and, most critically, my time. I couldn’t do DeVry, and I couldn’t do those dorms. I needed a quiet, comfortable place to make new plans and come to terms with my motivations. I needed to go home, desperately.
She told me beforehand that the long distance was tearing her apart. She told me beforehand that, if it ever had to go back to that, she didn’t know if she could handle it. That was part of the warning.
It had to go back to that, and as per her warning, she didn’t think it was wise to try going back to long-distance relationship until I figured things out. The moment I told her I was going home, it was over.
It’s 6:36 on November 1st, 2010 now. I’m at ARUP, eating chicken-fried chicken (yes, that’s what they call it), mashed potatoes, peas, and carrots. The feeling of melancholy I had this morning has dulled, but it’s not forgotten.
I was devastated when she stuck to her word; surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. To be in a long-distance relationship was to suffer the sweetest pain I’ve ever felt, but I must acknowledge that there was that component: pain.
It’s not the dominant factor, I’d say. It’s certainly not the feature that draws you to it. It’s simply inevitable; you want to be close to someone and can’t. That hurts. I didn’t think it was unbearable, but she assured me that she couldn’t do it anymore.
I begged and schemed; this was probably the time in my life where my foot most often found its way between my teeth. Through it all, she remained a friend to me, somehow managing to endure me while maturely and repeatedly reminding me of our new reality and how it wasn’t changing.
Eventually, over a period of time that was longer than it should have been, I came to realize that what she was telling me was true. It truly was a remarkable scenario, one that I’ve never heard of before; my friends and family were there for me, would have listened, probably really wanted to even. Still, my one and only true confidant was her, the woman I’d lost.
Yeah, it was hard, but what she did was harder than what I went through. I had cried and boggled over how, if she’d felt about me the way I’d felt about her, could she have not wanted to keep trying? One way or another, that conflict defined my grief, and it took me too long to realize that the solution was simple and self-evident.
Bear with me here, this is going to sound nonsensical at first. I still don’t know if she ever felt the same way for me as I did for her, but that doesn’t matter. You may want to bring up some strong evidence that you noticed that yes, in fact, she did feel that way, but don’t; it doesn’t matter.
I loved her and respected her, and she told me that she couldn’t be with me anymore. Loving and respecting her, I needed to understand that she understood what was best for her, and if separation was what she perceived best, than separation was what should happen.
Further, while it was always clear she was pursuing that goal, there were easier ways to get there than the one she took. With a thousand miles between us, she could have silenced me immediately and permanently and went about her life. She didn’t. She listened to my whining and pleading and brought me back to reality each time, and she somehow managed to do it mercifully.
She didn’t do that because she didn’t care. She did that because she did care. The lynchpin in all this mess was that she desperately wanted me to recover and move on and be happy. She cared about my wellbeing, and that kind of care is love.
It was time I respected that. I couldn’t let my grief turn love into possessiveness; it was time I respect and love enough to expect she’ll find her happiness without me, and it was time I learn to be happy without her. It was the only way I could possibly thank her for all she’d done.
It wasn’t a competition, but if it had been, I’d have been the loser, you know. I was born first but she beat me to adulthood. Touché, and good show!
It was only natural that we’d fall out of contact entirely, but I wish we hadn’t. It was clear that I’d wanted to stay friends from the beginning of the end, but maybe she already knew she couldn’t. I feel like I could handle it, but I’ve felt like I could handle things before that I actually couldn’t.
Again, that’s not important. Things are the way they are and they’re fine that way. I have learned from my mistakes and grown immeasurably since then. I feel like I’ve grown as much between then and now as I did between when I was eleven and then. I can’t even imagine how she might have grown sine I’ve last talked to her, and that’s a healthy development.
I guess I’ve got to remain wary, though, because for some period of time between 3 AM and 4 PM on October 31st, 2010, I had reverted back to the 18-year-old boy who was giddily awaiting her visit. It wasn’t a recollection, not a memory; I had lost all my growth between then and now and became that person again.
Considering the fact that it was 7 years to the day after she’d arrived to drive with me from Salt Lake to the coast, I’ve got to assume that my subconscious is more powerful than I’d expected, or that the ‘higher powers’ that might exist are testing me. If so, my subconscious or the powers that be are kinda dickish!
So there’s a more modern point to all of this, believe it or not. While it’s true that the fairest possible course of action for me to take was to get over her and move on, it’s still true that the year 2003 represents the biggest failure of my life to date, and revisiting it in that dream somehow compels me to start yammering about how that failure changed the course of my life forever.
They say you don’t know a person until you’ve seen them at their worst. If that’s true, there’s very few people who know me. My mother and siblings are among them. My dad might be. Tina was there to see it. I know I was there, so I’m one of them too.
This is assuming, of course, that that’s my worst. It’s the worst so far, but who’s to say it’s the worst that will be?
Still, there was a lot to learn from the worst so far. So much, that I think I can avoid some worse possible situations. That’s one reason to be grateful that all of this happened the way it did.
I have a direction; it’s to be somewhat directionless. Likewise, my ambition is to curb ambition. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle when I grew up. That hasn’t changed, but I’ve added some to it.
In High School and afterward I idolized Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Now, I still want to be like Spike, but I also want to be like Jet and the old guy that loves chess in the Bohemian Rhapsody episode, and what the hell you’re only allowed to choose one idol!
The point is, I’m a little more aware of what everyone should be aware of: there’s bits of everyone that are good, and bits of everyone that you should strive to acquire for yourself. Naturally, some people have more bits than others, but still. A single role model is insufficient.
I learned, from visiting the bottom of my barrel, that sometimes selfishness can be selfless. You need to know your limits to expand them, and sometimes you need to indulge in something petty or trivial in order to avoid crossing them and melting down.
Charity’s great, but the more you build yourself up, the more you add to yourself, the more you’ll have to give when you do give.
I know what it’s like to want to give your all to a person, to do everything for their sake and abandon your own interests, but even when you want to, you shouldn’t. You need to not only be able to walk on your own, but to enjoy walking on your own. You have to love yourself before you can love others. It’s healthier for you, and for the others.
Think of it this way: a man who can stand on his own is better suited to be leaned upon than one who must lean upon his lover. Don’t you want the person you love to be able to lean on you?
These seem like random lessons, arbitrary and irrelevant to one another, but they are connected. They connect in helping me discern a purpose, guiding me to the cause most worth fighting for in a world where there are countless worthy fights. What is that cause? I’m not quite there yet, but I do know one thing: I want to change the way people think. If not change, I want to impact it, add to the factors they consider, help enable them to make the choice that’s closest to correct as best they can.
So that’s why I’m not in school, that’s why I write and play video games and use so much free time for self-indulgence. I still have a lot to learn about me, about the world, and I especially need to discover the best way to go about bettering it. It’s in dire need; we’re at a shift in paradigm, perhaps the biggest in history. No use trying to play my part before I have any kind of idea of what that part is, though.
So I sit idle and search my ‘soul’ while the world moves on. College enrollment reaches record highs and job placement dips lower and lower. My generation graduates from Harvard to work at McDonald’s. Politicians argue over the trivial because they’re boggled by the relevant. The remnants of the ‘Greatest Generation’ are understandably scattered and consumed by their own problems. Their successors to the 70’s-born are stuck in a time where the nuclear family and fear of Russia defined America. They’re the ones in control now. Finally, we have our generation; riding our parents loans through college while we get wasted and flunk, or graduate and find that we would have been just as successful if we got wasted and flunked.
Obviously I can’t ‘sit’ completely ‘idle,’ so I’m working two part-time jobs at the moment: one at the respectable ARUP Laboratories, and one at the entirely unrespectable Top Stop Chevron off the I-215/I-80/Foothill Drive interchange.
This gas station seems like everything wrong with society. If it’s not the brainless loudmouth who thinks that anyone who says ‘Jesus has all the answers’ has all the answers, then it’s my ‘peers’ decked out in hipster-emo, ‘street’, or frat-boy regalia, and they’re looking to either hammer themselves or are already hammered and out for munchies.
My failure in California seven years ago taught me that I’m more fearful than many; it can cripple me. I’ve been working on how timid I am, and having been in a serious relationship did wonders for my confidence. The internal conflict I struggle with now is quite the opposite, and both my situation and the world’s situation exacerbates it. I now know anger.
Hansi Küsch, lead singer of my beloved Blind Guardian, sings it so well in the song ‘Tanelorn.’ It’s one line, 4 words, and only appears once, but it resonates so much right now.
“Still my hatred grows…”
Even aware of it, even if I tell myself there might be a good reason people are the way they are, I find that what was once intrinsic in my is slipping further than I wanted it to. My father taught me a unique flavor of compassion, patience, and empathy; my ability to exercise it atrophies every day, decaying under a mossy layer of disappointment. It’s unsettling; I once wondered if it were possible that I have a dark side, but now I know for sure: he exists, and he is not to be let out.
“Here on my own, I build a pyre of fire. Here on my own, I’m wasting life so weak.” The conflict that will define me while I pay off my car and whittle away at my second novel is the curbing of my hatred. I tread the line between optimist and pessimist, with the term that better suits me switching day-by-day. Still, the more I’m exposed to my fellow man in this capacity, the more I find tat a new label might fit me: Misanthropist.
I’m fighting it, of course, but successes and defeats are all private; I fight, and as I do, I’m reminded of another weakness of mine. I’m a creature that craves encouragement, and with a private fight like this, by definition I can’t receive outward encouragement for any triumphs or after any failures. I build a pyre of fire, but by doing so, I’m wasting life so weak.
It’s 7:14 PM on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010, and I’m at ARUP eating fried fish and tater tots. This week’s One Piece was already out, and as usual, excellent. I wonder if Roger was the original owner.
The dream from October 31st is almost gone, and the original feeling that inspired me to write with it. Still, over the past couple days, there have been several moments that were very not Gordo; emotional moments, brought on by almost inexplicable triggers.
In the cooler yesterday, there was a voice in my head, one that sounded very much like my own, but what it told me was too relieving to allow me to believe that. It validated my silly struggle, which is something I shouldn’t need validation for. That night had been going horribly from when I’d last written to that point, but after that moment, a moment that tingled all the way from my gut through my sinuses and out the tear ducts, my demeanor of discontent melted into relief and amicability.
I wasn’t crying, really; tears wouldn’t come. It was more like an electric sigh, like all the tension caused by the retardation I expose myself to was finally being released through my eyes.
Again, it shouldn’t have made a difference, but it was almost like I’d heard it from her lips; it was like she’d not only forgiven me for my unfairness, but gone so far as to claim I was never unfair.
Maybe, right then, after all this time, I had finally forgiven myself. I thought I had, and if I did, maybe I’d forgotten, but at that moment, it felt fresh and totally new.
This all started very raw, and maybe it should stay that way; it’s a hunk of mysterious material that fell at my feet, and clueless to its nature, I just had to explore it. I’m glad I did, whether it makes sense to anyone else or not.
I learned something; maybe you don’t have a strong understanding of how the knowledge pathed from its inspiration to my hypothesis, but just know that it did.
I learned that I, Richard Jordan Bishop, do need someone to listen from time-to-time. Here’s the important part: it wasn’t that nobody was willing to listen, because it turns out that saying it to nobody felt incredibly good. I’m the one that refused to believe that our Lil Gordo ever desired someone to just sit and listen, but I hope I never forget that such a desire is not something to be ashamed of.
It’s simply too rewarding when fulfilled.
At the very least, if someone would suffer through this meal, there's little chance they'll even attempt to finish it.