But You're Older

Here we go again. It’s been nearly a year since last I put anything in this thing. What has changed? I’ve moved into a supervisor position at the afore mentioned medical warehouse, so that is fun.

If one of my co-workers had his way, I’d have a ‘friend’ at work. But I don’t play like that.

I found myself staring wistfully down an aisle at work this evening, ruminating on all of the bad decisions I’ve made in the last fifteen years of my life. Trying to come up with a better way of fixing everything than the plan I came up with a few months back. After that, I had to get my speaker and an iPod…I just couldn’t stand being alone with the things going on in my head anymore.

Speaking of iPods…The iPod thing sort of spiraled out of control for a couple of months. I now own ten of those plus a Zune.

I’ve done some streaming on Twitch for various things, but life got in the way.

I jumped into M:TG again for about a month. Still haven’t played an actual game with anyone for around ten years, but that is whatever.

Star Trek is actually good again these days. Lower Decks is fantastic, Strange New Worlds is equally fantastic, and Picard managed to undo the damage the movie damage to TNG’s legacy.

I’m not real happy about the state of my overall general health, but that comes of eating like crap and not doing anything about it. I guess I need to change that. More than that though, my mental health, while somewhat better than my days at The UPS Store, still leaves a lot to be desired. I feel like, for lack of a better phrase, excessive screen time, has messed up my ability to focus on things like books or think through a coherent sentence/story/idea.

It is interesting how much the phenomenon of “doom scrolling” has affected my ability to think like I used to. Yeah, not a fan of that. I’m thinking it is time to back off on things like the Kindle, Smart Watch and phone time in general. It is interesting…Where I used to pick up a book, I now pick up my phone and start scrolling through crap I don’t care about. Recently at work I’ve been reading an actual, real book on my lunch break and it is glorious!

Not just because the book is The Princess Bride.

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war
For a leading role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here
We’re just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here

Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future

It is the end of July. I really need to go back and fill some holes in my posts!

I have gotten really bad about this!

Time. Flowing For Forever.

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." - Ford Prefect

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books there are many memorable quotes from all of the major characters.  Ford Prefect seems to have the majority of them throughout the series though.

The above quote was one of his very first memorable lines.

The whole thing seems like a silly throwaway line at first, but if you actually sit and think about it for a few minutes that first part makes a lot of sense.

I am sitting here thinking about the past.  It started out because I was thinking about how I really need to get back into the kind of shape I used to be in.  When I could run my just under six minute mile and not even feel winded after five or six miles during my brief career in the Army.

That was even after not really running at all for two and a half years.  Before that all I really did was however long the teacher in gym class decreed we must all run, but I was always running circles around the rest of the class.  For a while it was always me and a girl in class who were basically always at the front and lapping everyone else, but she moved away in high school. Shame really, I always enjoyed her company during the three years I actually knew her.

But I digress.

That led me to thinking about the people I met and interacted with while I was in the Army.  I have not seen or heard from a single one of them after that ended.  More my fault than any of theirs, I will be the first to admit.  I was the one with all the addresses after all.

Anyway, over the years I have occasionally tried to look up someone from those days here or there on Facebook or Twitter with little to no success.

For people that made as much an impact on my life as some of them did, I feel that it was positively criminal for me to have not kept up, but here we are.

That led me to thinking about my Arby's days.  Again, there were a lot of fun people I met while I was there, and a lot of them have impacted my life.  But as I sat here actually thinking about it this evening it occurred to me that the only real, lasting relationship/friendship I got out of the nine years I spent there was my Jeep. 

Lame, right?

There are others that I have met along the way. My friend in San Francisco.  My former Starbucks lady-friend from years and years ago who moved out of state.

One I occasionally talk to and the other I actually managed to find on Facebook last winter. 

The latter I actually wanted to find.  Something terrible happened and she was there for me in a way that I did not feel like anyone else was at the time.  She spent her entire lunch break just sitting at a table in the cafe with me while I stared into the distance and tried to process the tragedy that had befallen my family the week before.  I felt that I never properly thanked her, and that was one of the few regrets I have been carrying around with me, so I found her and rectified said situation.

But Arby's co-workers?  I tried to track down one of the older employees from those days last year. Found out she retired.  I kept up with a few from my sister.  Saw former Big-Boss at Five Guys one day about six months before I got married, but we didn't really talk.

I see some people here and there in Kroger.  I never say anything to them because we worked together so briefly that I would just be that random, vaguely familiar looking weirdo at Kroger.

It really is amazing how much we can change over time.  How much the people we associate with can impact us (if we let them).  I know we all have friendships we have let fall by the side of the road.  Some of them we regret, some of them we do not regret.

I really need to find some other "old friends" and do some serious catching up. It should be easy in this modern day and age, and yet we do not bother ourselves for whatever reason.

If there is regret about losing touch with someone, find them.  Time is not as infinite as we may wish.
Like Ford said...Time is an illusion.