MY LIFE - JUNE 1999

June 10, 1999

Life just isn't without its challenges, is it? Today, I had a few of them to endure, some of them more challenging than others, some more serious than others too. I just have to wonder a couple of things about life. Why did I get stuck with a life where I find myself on the short end of every possible stick there is? I'm probably just being ridiculous, but I'm really beginning to wonder why I continuously come up short. The latest scenario involves Jennifer, who I've been talking about since first talking with her in January.

Today she left for Texas for what I assume is the entire summer. We obviously didn't reach our goal of getting together before she left, since early today would've been our last chance and that would've been a lot to ask of her. Last night, I was a bit upset that she was going to be gone so long and I said so in an e-mail that I sent, but don't know if she got. In it, I talked about how much I'd miss her and about how things just didn't work in our favor. What I found in the mailbox outside our house today made me regret that e-mail.

I got a card from her that I knew was coming, but didn't know what was in it. I found out today when I opened up an envelope and found that card. It was about as sweet a card that I have ever received and it told me what I knew, but had been longing to hear. The card itself is a long passage that describes our situation perfectly. The easy part of our relationship is that we love each other, but the difficult part is that we are so far apart. The irony of the situation was clear to me as soon as I finished the passage. Then in the card was a message that she wrote to me personally. For the first time in a long time, I was near tears as I read what she wrote. One of the last lines told me what I needed to know, that I just needed to trust her that things would work for us when she got back.

I reread the card a few times before carefully putting it back in its envelope. I will keep it, since it is something from her and means a lot to me. The card told me that she was true to me, and while I already knew that, it was a lift for me seeing it in writing. She is serious about us working, which means I have to keep myself true to her unless I want all this to come crashing down. I don't want that, since it would do more than hurt her, it would hurt me in some way too. But I'm more concerned about her than me.

The summer then will be a challenge for the both of us. It's a long time before she comes back, and as I know pretty well, a lot can happen in a short period of time. I will do my best to remain true to her and to our possible relationship as time goes by, but as I just said, anything can, and usually does, happen. That will be one challenge for me.

The other big challenge was trying to work with Mano. Again. I swear, he makes any situation about ten times tougher than it has to be. I shouldn't have to come in and bail a pharmacist out of a tough situation, but I do time after time with him because he just can't explain anything without butchering something. It drives me crazy that he's so meticulous too. I thought I was bad, but he's even worse. Someone wanted an explaination of a note that was on a bag, an erroneous note since the patient hadn't been taking the medication in question. Mano made it difficult by deciding to check the medication in the bag just to see what it was. Then he went to the shelf, grabbed a bottle of the same medication, then compared it.

Uh, that was great Mano, but THAT WASN'T THE MEDICATION IN QUESTION! I then explained to him that it was just a mistake and that there was nothing to check. He continued anyway, and I walked away, all the while angrily throwing an empty vile into the trash can with a little emphasis. There would be several other incidents during the night, which prompts me to ponder how he ever became a pharmacist in the first place. Yes, I learned some stuff tonight (don't let him do a prescription on his own; you might be there a while), but the main thing was something I already knew. He's extremely slow and he has to ask you why you did something a certain way just about every time. He is the only person who can leave me flustered regularly, and I'm making it a point to strangle Tom, the pharmacist who put Mano on the schedule for the night.

I pray I never work with him again, or I swear I'll go crazy. And I certainly don't need any help with that one.

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I do have to wonder why I have so many challenges to face in my life. The thing with Jennifer, that's a test of time. Mano's a test of my patience, and my dad being back here is a test of just about everything for me. Jennifer once mentioned that sometimes we face challenges to make us stronger, but I have to wonder, just how many challenges does a person need to face in their life? I certainly think that I haven't faced many more than anyone else, but they all seem to come at once, in a barrage that makes it that much difficult to contend with.

I've had a couple of mini challenges with Jennifer that until now, haven't resulted in much more than a good talk and us clearing the air and getting past them. Now she's gone for the summer, and that's going to be a test of time for me. If I do make the whole summer without being fazed, things will be fine as far as I'm concerned. However, she's got to get through the same test, which makes this challenge that much tougher. Just because I make doesn't mean that she will, no matter how sure she is right now. Fact is, anything can happen. That is what will make it even more remarkable if we make it through the whole summer being true to each other.

I guess that's just how life is though. It doesn't seem fair to me that all this shit has happened to me repeatedly, especially in the world of love, but it has and will probably continue. I've always been someone who's gotten second and third looks, and even a whisper to a friend or two, but nothing more. It seems it's easier on many girls to look at me but not talk to me. This isn't always true, nor will it ever be, but it's still frustrating nevertheless to get a look, then nothing else. The general idea seems to be that I'm nice to look at, but that's really it.

I also seemed to be blessed with a constantly wild family situation, a situation that I would gladly do without. I know there are people who've been, and still go through, rougher times than I have and do now, but it's still a lot for one person. One odd compliment is when people tell me that if they had been in my situation, they probably wouldn't of come out of it nearly as well as I have. Some people have told me that they don't think they would've made it at all and that I'm a better person for what I've done. I know that last one, but I never thought of what I went through as something that was extremely difficult until recently.

Sure, there are tougher things to survive, but many of those are self-inflicted and things that could've been avoided had that person made a different choice. That's how my dad wound up in the messes that he's been in. Now that I look at what I was part of, I can see what made it more remarkable that I came out the way I did. It was a situation I couldn't control. I could've taken a number of different routes and turned out to be something completely different. Yes, some of those routes may have been somewhat better, but many of them would've been worse. I made the best of a situation that I really had no control over and couldn't stay out of regardless. I didn't bring on my problems myself, they came to me and there was no way that I could get out of the way.

I now take it as a compliment when someone says they wouldn't have survived the same thing I was a part of, instead of just shirking it off. It is a compliment, no matter what.

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Still warm, still muggy, and still rainfree. I really hate this time of the year for that. The only thing I get out of the warmth is that every other good-looking girl is wearing very little in terms of clothing. Shorts are really short and there's sometimes a lot of skin showing. These are beautiful girls too, which will make my situation with Jennifer all that more interesting. Not only do I have to deal with her being gone, I have to deal with it during the time of year when clothes just seem to disappear off of some of the best looking girls out there. These are girls who know they're hot too. Keeps things interesting though.

Anyway, I do hate this weather. I'm definitely a person who lives for low 70's and and the lower 50's at night. I can't sleep in this weather at all, especially since all my bedsheets are sticky and I can't sleep with a blanket, which creates an odd handicap for me. It sounds strange, but I've never been able to sleep with a blanket at least partially covering me. I can't explain it, so I doubt anyone else will be able to either. Right now though, I can't wait until fall.

That is unless you're going to buy central air for our house and a car for me with air conditioning. Any takers?