crazyoldgringo

I am perplexed at how uninteresting I must be. A boy that I helped raise is now thirty three and getting married to a wonderful woman. Some time has passed since I heard from either of them for no reason that I am aware of, then the Facebook message comes from his betrothed that they are getting married and would like to include me.

What does this mean exactly? Why isn’t he communicating this to me? What does include me mean?

When I retired I pulled down all my social media accounts because they were tied to my business which meant email, phones etc. If I felt people were interested in keeping in contact then I would pass on the new information. That number could be counted on one hand and he wasn’t one of them.

In my travels back and forth between Mexico and Phoenix I always stopped by for shared wings and beer. The distance is four hours. I live in a place that many want to come to because it sits on the Sea of Cortez and is a tourist town yet in ten years they have made the visit one time and that was for her birthday with many of their friends. I was an after thought which is the theme of this post.

During at least one of my trips I told both of them that there is an emotional return on investment (E-ROI) in play which means that hopefully you get out of relationships what you put in to them. If a person isn’t getting fruit from planted seeds he needs to tend to another garden. It seems that the conversation didn’t resonate because I have never recieved a randon call, text, email or smoke signal asking about me. I’m getting older and not as robust. Seniors suffer from chronic loneliness which is as damaging as cancer.

The first elective college course I had back in the seventies was Introduction to Social Work. I was a product of the child welfare system living in a series of fosters homes and even by myself at 15. So my interaction with caseworkers left me with a desire to be one. In due time I will write about parents that got me there, but the essence is I am hypersensitive to abandonment which has caused some personality quirks.

During the seventies there was a socio debate about nature vs nurture, the prevailing thought at the time was you can mold the personality of a person through environmental intervention. These days the thought is nature or genetics plays a much bigger role. Go figure. I have only to look at my parents to understand where I am, but thank god there were extraordinarily kind people in my life that left an inprint too. No good deed goes unpunished or, DNA, like water, will find the lowest point and no amount of leading by example will make much difference.

This young man and his mother showed up on my doorstep one day after just three months of dating. He was ten and just moved from his home in California he shared with cousins to a friends house in Arizona. The cause of the move was discord between his mom and aunt. Within three months more discord with the friend who also wanted her out so on my doorstep they appeared.

In hindsight I should have said no way. I knew nothing about raising a boy or his neurotic mother. Soon enough there was disfunction in my home too. Not with the boy, he was easy. The mother had many issues and I found it difficult to get out of this toxic relationship because I knew he would be dragged along to endless stops after more discord.

I hung in though it was very tough. During this time I got him into sports taking him to every practice and attended every game. There were camping trips, football games. After three years the rancor was too much and he and his mother moved out with my help. Still, because she was willfully under employed, I made the choice to help by giving her support for him and in return I got him every other weekend or special events like guitar practice every Wednesday night.

His mother received nothing from his father, an itinerant drunk and drug addict. At his high-school graduation only two family members were allowed to attend, one was his mother, the other was his long lost dad while I got to sit at home. I bought him a car for graduation which was an unearned indulgence.

His teenage years had some hickups but he made it through high-school and embarked on a path of self indulgence that I suppose is a bit of a right of passage. That is if you call flopping at a stoners house, not working and getting high all day a passage. During this time I’d meet up with him and hand over $50.00 Jack in Box gift cards so he could at least eat. I also paid the car note till I took it away because of traffic citations stemming from possession of alcohol. I also found pot in the car.

Somehow he has been able to move on to manhhood to where he is today. As a parent/stepparent, hell his mom and I never married because she is a train wreck, I guess I’m supposed to be unselfishly grateful he is healthy, happy and productive and should not expect anything in return. I have learned that I can’t care more about a persons “stuff” than they do.

After seeing recent news articles in the paper about young thugs called Gilbert Goons beating a young man to death for the fun of it and a gold chain with one of the alleged perpetrators fathers attempting to cover up his sons actions, I take some solice in my very proactive position of knowing where this former boy was at all times and making sure my hand was on his shoulder guiding him towards manhood. But not much solice.

If asked, neither he nor his mother could tell you how many brothers and sisters I have. Where I went to school. Where I grew up. She did know how much was in my 401K though. They know nothing because they were never interested enough to ask. No, Hey old man I know your knees are bad and you’re getting older calls to see how I’m doing.

I have a trust and a life insurance policy with him as beneficiary. His now deceased father left nothing. His impoverished mother lives in a converted chicken coop and will play a substantial role in the wedding. As a gift she will do a tarot or astrology reading no doubt. I sent a check, but did not respond to the informal notification of nuptials because it seems as an after thought and I will again be relegated to the rear seats as an observer, but not really a participant.

Sending a check was just a sign of affirmation from me and I know he is not even a little mercenary. I won’t be at the wedding and am living with the plan of not caring more about other people than they do for me. I practice informal emotional stoicism. This ambivalence towards people is epidemic, I know I’m not the only one. So what’s the take away? Maybe in a perfect world we all get what we deserve and sometimes we kick and scream at that realization?

The only wisdom his mother had was “Men are stupid for a pair of tits.” She would know and I would know. I’m sixty six now and wiser and have the superpower of being able to say no. I choose not to be an after thought.