Tag Archives: happiness
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day 2024
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Well Life
In my essay last month about turning 60, I declared I’ll never get “old”. But I also have to emphasize that I’m in a better place now than I have been in years. Much of it, I’m sure, has to do with the job I landed this past August. More importantly, though, I’ve realized that all I’ve endured during my seven decades on Earth hasn’t just brought me here – it’s made me who I am. We all base our views of reality on our own life experiences, and it’s something that none of us can change. It’s just a natural progression of life.
But, while we can never change what happened way back when – one vice that has always personally tormented me – we can make use of those experiences and go forward. We have to move ahead. We have no choice.
For me, I’m feeling the same way now that I did around the turn of the century. Over a decade ago – as I reflected on my life to date – I recalled the excitement of the new century and the new millennium. Overall, the 1990s was the best decade of my life – even now! I had come into my own as a person; finally understanding that I’m better than even I realized at the time. I don’t want to sound like a talk show victim, but I grew up shy and introverted; characteristics that carried into my adulthood. I didn’t boast the same level of self-esteem as my parents – something they never could understand. Making friends was easy for them, but it was a chore for me.
By the 1990s, however, I had come to realize I didn’t need a large gallery of friends to be whole and complete. And eventually I accepted my introverted personality as perfectly normal for me. Two years ago I got into a heated text message debate with a long-time acquaintance who insinuated my introverted nature is a sign of mild autism. Excuse me? He worked in the mental health field, so he knew all about those things. I’m a tech writer, so I’m not familiar with autism. Yet to me, it’s one step above mental retardation. I was offended – and shocked that he would make that assumption about me. We were cyber-friends and had communicated for years. But although we’d never met in person, I had believed he knew me well enough to understand who I am. He kept trying to reassure me that he wasn’t labeling me as retarded; that retardation was a completely different cerebral condition. But I remained unconvinced.
That I’ve never had many friends and I’m not a fan of my fellow humans is no indication of a mental disorder on my part. It’s indicative that people generally have pissed me off to the point where I want little do with them. That’s why the remote nature of this job is ideal. I might add that my years of reading, writing, jogging and weightlifting have been extremely therapeutic for me; in other words, they prevented me from either killing myself or becoming a serial killer.
But the period from 1996 to the summer of 2001 was a time of personal renewal; a realignment of my spirituality and priorities. The world seemed wide open, and the future looked endless. I felt euphoric, perhaps even naïve. I have that same feeling now, but I view it with greater caution. I’m much older and won’t take anything for granted. I know I have more years behind me than I do ahead of me, so I continue to pursue my various ambitions. I’ve made it this far – thus I’m not going to give up on myself at this point. I’ve given up on so many assorted dreams and projects in the past and almost gave up on life altogether.
And yet, I’m still here. Everyone needs to understand they’re worth the troubles that life throws at them. You’re all worth something. Please understand that and keep moving forward.
Filed under Essays
Merry Christmas 2022!
Filed under News
Missing This
In 1995, the British pop duo Everything But the Girl released “Missing”, a song that would become their greatest hit. Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt paired up 40 years ago to create EBTG. They found their title in the slogan of a store in their home town of Hull that promised to sell shoppers “everything but the girl”. I feel they’re one of the most underrated musical acts of recent decades. There was once a time – before the internet – when people could vanish from our lives and we relied on music like this to fill the void. Music always seems to fill the void of whatever or whomever we’re missing.
My old friend, Paul Landin, had discovered EBTG in the late 1980s and became instantly fascinated with them. He was especially enamored with Thorn. I know he traveled to England at least twice in the 1980s, but I don’t know if he ever saw EBTG in concert there or anywhere. Paul died in April after a year-long battle with liver cancer. Shortly after his death, a mutual friend, Mike*, sent a Tweet to Tracey Thorn advising her that “one of her biggest fans” had passed away. Paul and Mike had met at New York University in the early 1990s where they both studied filmmaking and found they had a mutual love of EBTG. They couldn’t have been more different: Paul, a Mexican-American born and raised in Texas and Mike, a traditional “WASP” from upstate New York.
A few days after Paul’s death Mike told me he’d dreamed of our old friend. “It might have been the edible I had last night,” he said via text, “but I felt his presence sitting across from me in the living room. He was smiling and he said don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.” Still, Mike lamented, he feels Paul had been cheated out of fulfilling his dreams of being a successful filmmaker/screenwriter.
Paul and I had a strange friendship; almost a love/hate type of interaction. I supposed that was because we were so much alike in many respects. Our fathers grew up together in East Dallas. Paul and I even attended the same parochial grade school in the 1970s (I vaguely remember him) and were altar boys at the accompanying Catholic church. We shared a love of good food and good cinema. As fraught as our friendship could be at times, I still miss him and his quirky nature.
Tracey Thorn’s reply to Mike* back in April
I miss a lot of aspects of my life. But isn’t that what happens to us as we get older? With more years behind than ahead of us, we sort through the intricacies and chaos of our lives and wonder how we managed to make it this far.
I miss the gatherings my parents and I used to have at this house. There often wasn’t a particular reason. Third Saturday of the month? Good enough! Family, friends and neighbors would convene upon this simple home and have the best time imaginable. We had food – real food! Not just chips and dips. People often brought dishes out of courtesy, but everyone knew they could actually have a meal. Ours became the fun house; where people could gather and always feel they were loved and appreciated.
I miss Sunday lunches with my parents. It was always a special occasion – even when I moved back here in 2007. We talked about anything and everything. Like music, food helps people bond.
I miss the 1990s and the excitement of heading into a new century and a new millennium. In some ways I miss the apartment I moved into in May of 1991; a relatively small one bedroom/one bath abode. For the first time in my life, I was truly on my own. I miss happy hours with colleagues at the bank where I worked in Dallas at the time. I still relish the period from 1996 to the spring of 2001, when most everything in my life seemed to go right. I know I can never go back (past perfect is only possible in grammar), but I wish I could recapture that feeling of freedom and happiness. I miss my blue and white lava lamp.
I miss the German shepherd, Josh, my parents and I had from 1973 to 1985. When we moved to this house in suburban Dallas in 1972, my parents had promised they’d get me a dog. Somehow I’d become enamored with German shepherds. My mother had a phobia of big dogs. As a child in México City, she’d seen a man attacked by a Doberman. But she swallowed her fears for my sake. Early on I noticed his eyes seemed to be tri-colored: mostly yellow-gold, but also green and blue. We didn’t realize how big he was, until we brought him inside the house. We would bring him in during the torrid Texas summers and (in his later years) during the occasional harsh winters. Putting him to sleep on Easter Saturday 1985 was one of the most traumatic experiences we ever endured. It’s not that we expected him to live forever, of course; we just never prepared ourselves for the end.
I miss my last dog, a miniature schnauzer I adopted from a former friend and roommate and named Wolfgang. I loved the sound of his breathing at night, as he slept. It remains one of the most soothing sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. My parents also fell in love with him, after I moved back here in 2007. My father especially developed a deeply personal relationship with Wolfgang. I realized how strong that connection was on the day my father died in June of 2016, when the lights flickered, and Wolfgang ambled down the hall. He stood before my parents’ closed bedroom door and turned to me. I knew my father was gone. Wolfgang died less than five months after my father did. I still maintain my father returned and got him.
I miss my father, George De La Garza, Sr. I love and miss my mother and everyone I’ve ever known and lost, but I miss my father the most. We had a unique bond that couldn’t be matched by anything or anyone. In my worst moments, I often wish he’d come back to get me. But then, all the plans I’ve made for myself wouldn’t come to fruition. And when I call to him and get no response, I realize it’s just not my time. I know. We could communicate without words.
So I continue and recollect the best moments of my past years and look forward to what I have left. Still, I’m always missing someone or something.
We all miss someone or something from our lives. Who or what do you miss?
*Name changed.
Image: Aeviternitas
Filed under Essays
Living There
Among my father’s favorite memories were the times he played baseball as a kid in his East Dallas neighborhood. Growing up in those environs more than six decades, with scores of other Hispanic families, ago gave him a sense of community and freedom. He had plenty of others, he once told me: holding me for the first time; buying this suburban Dallas home; working in the yard; and playing with our dogs.
“I keep reliving those moments over and over,” he said, following another late night talk. “If I could go through them again, I would.”
Most of my own best memories occurred in the 1990s – the best decade of my life so far. And one of the greatest was my 1991 trip to Ixtapa, México – a small hamlet on the nation’s Pacific Coast, northwest of Acapulco and far from the touristy ruckus of Cancun and Cozumel. That was the furthest away I’d ever been from home at the time and only the third time I’d been outside of the U.S. My first two international trips also were to México; college spring break jaunts that were hazy and less relaxing.
Ixtapa was incredibly soothing and quiet. It was the first time I’d ever seen the Pacific Ocean, or any ocean for that matter. The closest I’d come to an ocean was the Gulf of México. On my first night, the pounding of the waves along the shoreline echoed deep into my mind and lulled me to sleep. While I savored the beach and the warm weather, my parents feared for my life; that I’d be kidnapped by local hoodlums. That had crossed my mind, too, but I was enjoying the simple sights too much to worry.
The Ixtapa excursion allowed me to live out a few of my dreams: lounging along the waterline for hours; roaming through a quiet Mexican town, wallowing in the community without boisterous intruders or Americanized visages; stuffing myself with as much food in the all-you-can-eat buffets; and, of course, consuming plenty of alcohol.
Sitting in the sand, wearing a skimpy Speedo, and letting sea water roll around me remains one of the best therapies I’ve ever had. I thought, if some giant tsunami accosted the beach and sucked me into the Pacific depths, I probably wouldn’t mind. Another fantasy didn’t develop until the moment I stepped onto the beach, beneath a cloudy sky. I didn’t get to experience it, which is probably a good thing. It might have killed me.
A tall islet laden with tropical vegetation languished innocuously offshore – perhaps a mile at the most. I thought it beckoned me, and after a couple of days, I dared to attempt a brief excursion to its narrow shores. I tried swimming out to it, but quickly realized the allure was strictly my own cogitation. And I wisely returned to shore.
I returned home looking like I’d been attacked by some animal rights activists, which startled family, friends and coworkers. I couldn’t praise Ixtapa highly enough. I loved it then and I love it now. I hope I can visit again. If not now, then maybe in another life – if there is such a thing.
I’m not thinking of reincarnation, but rather, a life beyond this one. The post-Earth kind of life. Out there. Wherever it is.
I’ve never been so arrogant as to say I know exactly what will happen to me after I die. I’m certainly not a self-righteous evangelical Christian or “72 virgins at the end of the hallway” maniac. But, for the bulk of my life, I’ve wondered what happens to us when we cross over to that “Other Side.” What do people do? How do they navigate time and space? Why do they not visit us back here more often, especially when we call out their names in prayer?
I don’t know. But I’ve begun to ponder a simple possibility – why would they come back here? For any reason. As much as they love us. Why return to Earth? They’ve served their time in this life. So, what awaits them – all of us – on that “Other Side”?
All of those happy moments they experienced. The people who have gone before us are, perhaps, reliving the best times of their lives. They’re once again experiencing those events that gave them the most pleasure and made them feel the happiest. I don’t suppose this would include the times they might have hurt other people for pleasure – whether it was accidental or deliberate. Certainly not deliberate! I imagine others who shared those grand moments slide in and out of the reoccurrences. A sort of crossing time and space.
Therefore, my father is reliving the days he played baseball in his youth; when he first met my mother; holding me shortly after I’d been born; caressing my dog, Wolfgang, just a few years ago. He absolutely loved that little four-legged monster! Petting him was one of the simplest – yet best – pleasures my father had.
All of those things made him feel good. Why in the hell would he come back here to help me with Earthly troubles? Why would anyone want to give up reliving those special times to deal with plumbing problems and credit card debt? They’ve already dealt with that shit!
I can’t imagine my father trading in the joy of having his own lawn for a day of listening to me moan about lower back pain! Who in their right mind would want to make that kind of trade off?!
That’s why we don’t see our dearly departed that much. And it’s why tampering with séances and Ouija boards is dangerous. Disturbing the dead may be the subject of many bad jokes. But I think it’s wrong. It’s also kind of pointless. Imagine you’re undergoing a full body massage and a relative interrupts to tell you they got into a road rage incident. Wouldn’t you be pissed and want to startle the crap out of them, as they got ready for bed?
What’s it really like on that “Other Side”? How is it living out there? Again, I don’t know. And I’m really not eager to find out anytime soon! I have more stories I want to publish. I want to adopt another dog. So, I’ll continue paying my Earth-bound dues. And one day I hope to lounge in that Ixtapa surf for hours – not concerned with anything.
Filed under Essays
My Whorish Spirit
I wrote this poem in the summer of 1986, just as things were getting better for me, and I began to have more confidence in myself and my abilities. By then, I had asserted my desire to become a professional fiction writer – much to the chagrin of my parents who still saw me as a computer geek. But that’s when I first began to affirm that goals for my life must be made and pursued by me. And I conceded I would also stand alone in accepting any unfortunate repercussions from those decisions.
I no longer feared life and he people who occupied it. My desire for learning more about the world around me exploded, as did my passions for reading and writing. I’d always loved the latter two, but they took on new levels of importance by 1986. Some of my closest family members and equally close friends may have a different understanding when they hear me speak of my “whorish” nature. And they are more than welcome to keep their mouths shut.
Pardon me,
If I may sound critical of I.
But I realized once a short time ago,
That I’m a whore.
A whore of the spirits.
My mind and body and everything in between are open to everyone and everything.
It’s not that I have no moral turpitude.
I’m a glutton for emotion.
I’m a fool for curiosity.
I’m in need of knowledge.
And the people who possess it.
People like you.
I’m a whore of the spirits.
Your spirit and mine.
The spirit of anyone who’s lived in this world,
And wants to share their ideals.
I’ve let myself be used for good and bad.
For all others to enjoy.
Now I demand to enjoy myself.
And be a whore for my brain.
I have no more qualms of life.
I don’t fear mysteries of the human creature.
I frolic with my pod of friends,
In orgied lusts of the good.
Beneath a midnight sky or a crystal sun,
Call me as you please.
I gleefully admit,
I’m a whore.
Because I understand my true soul.
I’m in need of company,
But only to learn.
Always and forever.
I feed from that.
I must nourish from a bountiful mass of gray matter.
It’s my blood.
It’s my breath.
Shout at me, “You whore!”
And I laugh.
“Thank you, my friend!”
Because I know who I am.
One of the spirits.
Hungrier and thirstier,
For a tapestry of brilliant introspection.
Image: Harvard Gazette
Filed under Wolf Tales
Go On
My first two personal journals, which covered the dreaded year of 1985.
On December 31, 1985, I gathered with one of my best friends, his then-girlfriend and her older sister at the girls’ house to ring in the New Year. In my 22 years of life at the time, I had never been so glad to see a single year fade away as 1985. Just about everything had gone wrong for me. I was placed on academic probation in college because of my dismal grades for the fall 1984 semester; then got suspended for the fall 1985 term because I still couldn’t get it right. That prevented me from becoming a full member of a fraternity I so desperately wanted to join. In April my parents and I had to put our German shepherd, Joshua, to sleep. That fall I had my first sexual experience, which proved embarrassing and depressing. In October I fell into a police trap and was arrested for drunk driving. (My blood alcohol level ultimately proved I wasn’t legally intoxicated.) By Christmas, I was an emotional and psychological wreck. I’d come as close to committing suicide as I ever had that year. But, as New Year’s rolled around, I’d settled down my troubled mind and realized my life could continue.
I realized 1985 was the worst single year of my brief existence and hoped I’d never see another one like it. For more than three decades that pretty much held true. For the longest time almost anything related to 1985 made me tremble with anxiety. Nineteen ninety-five turned out to be almost as bad; instilling a phobia in me about years ending in the number 5. Ironically, though, 2005 was a pretty good one for me, and last year was okay.
Then came 2016.
People all around me are waiting for this year to die, like a pack of hyenas loitering near a dying zebra. Aside from a raucous political campaign – with a finale that seems to have set back more than two centuries worth of progress – we’re wondering why this year has taken so many great public figures and left us with clowns like the Kardashians. I could care less. This year has also taken my father and my dog and is slowly taking my mother.
Over these last six months, I’ve experienced emotional pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I’ve never endured this kind of agony. It’s dropped me into an endless abyss of despair. Early in November, strange red spots began appearing all over my body. It brought with it chronic itching sensations. I wondered if small pox had been reintroduced into society and I was one of its unwitting earliest victims. The rashes and the itching would come and go, like million-dollar windfalls to an oil company executive.
It all shoved me back to the spring of 1985 and the odd little sores that sprung up on either side of my midsection. They were painful pustules of fluid that I tried to eliminate with calamine lotion, ice cubes and prayer. They finally vanished, and only afterwards did someone tell me what they were: shingles. I had to look up that one in a medical reference. For us cretins aged 40 and over, WebMD was a fool’s dream. But I knew that’s what I had, and its cause was just as apparent – personal stress. My poor academic performance, Joshua’s death, thinking my failure to join that stupid fraternity was a reflection of my failure as a human being – all of it had piled onto me.
In November of 1995 – about a week after my birthday – I woke up early one Saturday morning, stepped into the front room of my apartment and repeatedly banged my fists against the sliding glass door. I was aware of it, but I felt I was compelled to do it. As I lay back onto my bed, my hands already aching from pounding on the glass, I asked why I had done something so bizarre at that hour of the morning. Then, almost as quickly, I answered myself. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I was experiencing serious financial problems at the time and I was having even more problems at work. My father had just experienced a major health scare. One of my best friends was sick with HIV and had been hospitalize with a severe case of bronchitis, and I’d just had a heated telephonic argument with another guy I thought was a close friend over…some stupid shit I can’t recall after all these years. So, after weeks of dealing with that soap-opera-esque drama, my mind cracked. Stress of any kind wreaks havoc on one’s mind and body. It’s several steps up from a bad day at the office. This is why U.S. presidents always look light-years older when they leave office.
So, as I smothered my body with cocoa butter lotion and anti-itch cream, I harkened back to 1985 and thought, ‘Goddamn! History repeats itself too conveniently.’ The death of another dog and more subconscious trauma. This time, though, events have been more critical than not being able to join a fucking fraternity or falling into a drunk driving trap.
But something else has changed. While my body reacted in such a volatile manner, my soul has been able to handle it better. I’m older and wiser now, and with that, comes the understanding that life is filled with such awful and unpredictable events. Yes, I’ve fallen into fits of depression. But I’m not suicidal. I don’t want to harm myself in any way. In fact, I want to heal and keep going. I didn’t kill myself in 1985 or in 1995 or in any other stressful period since then. I really just want to keep going.
I keep a list of story ideas; a Word document amidst my electronic collection of cerebral curiosities. When I peruse that list, I realize I may not be able to bring all of those ideas to life. But, if I didn’t try, why should I even bother with it? Why bother even with getting up every morning?
Something has kept me alive all these years. Something has kept me going. Earlier this month I noticed a cluster of irises had bloomed unexpectedly in the back yard. My father had planted them a while back. With Texas weather being so schizophrenic, warmer-than-usual temperatures must have confused the flowers, and they jutted their blossoms upward into the swirling air. I had to gather a few before temperatures cooled, which they did. They languished on the kitchen counter for the next couple of weeks, longer than usual. And I realized their presence is coyly symbolic. My father was telling me that, despite the heartache of this past year, life continues, and things will get better.
I still miss my father and my dog, but I care for my mother as best I can, even as her memory keeps her thoughts muddled from one day to the next. And I continue writing because that’s who I am and what I love to do. I can’t change what happened years ago, but it brought me to where I am now. I couldn’t alter the events of this past year. But it’ll all carry me into the following years.
Happy New Year’s 2017 to all of you, my followers, and to all of my fellow bloggers!
Irises that bloomed in our back yard earlier this month.
Filed under Essays
Chief Writing Wolf 