Category: Uncategorized

A Proof of Concept

The fourth of July is most certainly a day of celebration for me. I am a dedicated American and believe that the democratic process can allow for change. This country is not perfect but I firmly believe it can become better. Though the fourth of July is more important to me for another reason. It is the day my daughter was born. She is what is most important to me. She is the reason I’ve been trying to pull myself out of the mire I’ve sunk into. Last year I missed her birthday as I was enduring probably the worst period of my life, coping with job loss, divorce, losing the woman I love, alcoholism, being pushed out of my daughter’s life, and trying to find a new home. I still regret not being strong enough to be there, if I were a better person I could have been there.

However, on her third birthday, I was there. I could be there for her. And it was a very good day. She seemed to have so much fun and verbally expressed that she was happy. Her mother did a good job organizing things and she deserves thanks. Zelda’s b-day was held at a Chuck-e Cheese, where she constantly darted between every game. She had some obvious favorites and was just enamored with the full-on stimulation provided. I was able to see the friends she made and their parents. All in all a good time. Recently I’ve noticed she always gets upset when she and I have to say goodbye, I wasn’t sure if she just didn’t want to or because she didn’t want to say goodbye to me. I was able to get a definitive answer as I explained “Baba is going home in this car, and Zelda is going home in that car”. She wanted to go with me as she understood I was not going to her home. It was the purest definition of bittersweet as it made me glad she wanted to go home with me but it hurt so much to tell her she couldn’t and see how upset she was after.

Unfortunately what else I have to say is more about me, because I have just recently finished a move from Indianapolis, Indiana to Fresno, California. It’s been about three weeks and I’m finally settled in. I did this to be closer to my daughter and this birthday was both a really good day and a proof of why this was the better choice I could’ve made.

I rented a U-haul and drove four hours north (thanks to traffic) to pick up my things from my wife’s. Spent a few hours packing, then drove home around midnight. I got home about 3 am and unloaded the van by 4 am and promptly went to sleep. Since then I’ve been organizing and putting things in their place, getting groceries and whatever else I need. While there’s still some tidying to do everything is just about done. Now it’s a matter of living on my own for the first time in my life at the ripe age of 32. In fact since high school it’s been one of my dreams to just live alone. Like most dreams the romantic vision and the reality aren’t congruent but it’s still good.

Going forward I need to get a job, keep going to AA and figure out what visiting with my daughter will look like. It’s a little scary especially being unemployed but I have hope things will work out. Hope is not something I’ve had a lot of in the past 18 months. Anyways this is just an update to what a next chapter in someone’s life can look like.

It’s Not All Bad

This is meant to be a follow-up to my previous post, The Next Chapter. I’m worried it came across as too defeatist or negative when it was just meant to be a frank look at my situation. It should also be noted that my situation has been rapidly changing over the last month or so, and where I was when I wrote that is quite different from where I am now, mentally at least.

For the first time in probably a year and a half I’m hopeful for myself. Not because I believe my wife and I will get back together, not because anything has improved in regards to my relationship with my in-laws, and not because I’ve finally landed a new job. In fact none of those things are true but because I’m able to start living on my own terms. My wife is even reluctant to let me spend time with my daughter which is both frustrating and painful. However I’m no longer stuck in a quagmire of hurt, struggle, disappointment, self-doubt, and hopelessness. I am still hurt and struggling and disappointed and so on but I’m not content to stay there. Tomorrow may not be a better day or the day after that but I’m determined to keep moving forward until I do get to be genuinely happy again. Without change I will just slip into an abyss of self-destruction and no one wants that, most of all I do not want that.

When I finally move into my own home, or apartment if you want to be technical, I plan to set aside a corner of things for my daughter. That way I’ll have a visual reminder of what I’m fighting for, why all this pain has been worth living through. The future is uncertain but I can’t let the natural chaos of life deter me from experiencing the beauty that can exist within it.

In short, life is difficult but if I don’t work at achieving something better for myself I’ll never have that and I believe I can do that work, I trust that I can do what needs to be done.

Where Does My Trash Go?

As a wee lad back in elementary school we had a school field trip to a nearby landfill facility to learn about the processes. They had a green house with plants grown using the landfill soil that we were allowed to keep (I think, memory can be an odd thing). That was probably the last time I ever had to think about it. This year as a family we’ve started producing more trash than I was accustomed to, mostly recyclables. Noticing this trend my curiosity awoke.

Some cursory research later and I’m forming an idea of how things are done. Our house is serviced by Republic Services and every week they come to empty a landfill, a recyclable and a yard waste container. After it gets picked up it goes to a transfer station north of here where it’s processed and stored.

Recyclables are sorted and then sent for breakdown and re-use. If you go to Republic’s website they’ll mention their Polymer center which is meant to be a long-term large-scale plastic recycling plant, though it’s not meant to open ’til 2023. Ideally it’d be nice to know where individual plastic types end up, how much of a product really ends up being recycled, and what happens to the non-recyclable material. The truth is probably rather ugly. Most recycling processing plants are actually off-shore and the garbage companies sell what they can for re-processing. Everything else is other stored for a potential sale or re-directed to a landfill. To truly get to the bottom I’ll have to reach out to Republic directly and wait for a statement.

For the landfill, there’s a similar process where it’s sorted at the transfer station and then brought to another landfill site. The closest Republic owned landfill near me is the Keller Canyon Landfill about 15 miles away. By all appearances this is a well-maintained landfill. Even the google pictures show a nearby hill with cows grazing. The most recent issue occurred in 2018 when a contractor falsified radiological data allowing radioactive material to enter the landfill. The cleaning and potential contanimation were treated seriously and the follow-up helped remedy damage. Though this raises the issue of what pressured an indpendent contractor to falsify intentionally and why does Republic use conctractors at all?

Without opening an inquiry with Republic or more serious research I’m left with more questions than answers after all of this. In the end I don’t know how motivated I am to learn just how little we actually achieve with our attempts at waste reduction. I had hoped that I wasn’t as wasteful as I thought but as long someone else takes it away every week it’s not my problem right? It’s far too easy to think like that and I know burying my head in the sand won’t help. This is a real issue and perhaps we’d be better served if I follow-up.

https://www.republicservices.com/blog/yesterdays-waste-leads-to-tomorrows-energy

https://www.republicservices.com/blog/one-persons-trash-another-persons-energy

Click to access 2021-Republic-Services-Sustainability-Report.pdf

Sonder

This word is one of the neologisms devised for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. The dictionary itself is an attempt to provide language for feelings or emotions without a clear label (there’s also a YouTube channel). I came across it by chance and gladly so.

n. “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

John Koenig

It’s strange that my finding of his work was a largely insignificant moment but afterwards I gleaned a sliver of insight into another’s life. First off, I’m quite jealous. John’s prose evokes very specifically but appeals broadly. It’s one running sentence but it’s skips, and hops are natural. Already just this one word has required some meditation to be only as uncomfortable with it as I am. This I see as a good thing. A chance to confront mental blind spots and learn about perhaps-not-so-obscure-anymore sorrows.

A usefulness of this feeling is a humbling of self, I think. Recognizing everyone is their own actor is essential to respect, sympathy, and other foundations for healthy relationships. Conversely, I remember telling a friend some time ago that as much as I always wanted to be a hero in any story I was more likely a forgotten character of minor importance, and I truly believed that then. Feeling that you are a background character in your own story is too humble; balance then is the antidote. You can be a hero in your story just don’t be a dick in everybody else’s.