The Balancing Clown...

Japan was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I started my trip by realizing two seconds after I buckled my seat belt on the plane that I had lost my cell phone. Instantly I jumped out of my seat and started searching like a drug sniffing puppy in customs for my apparently indispensable gadget retracing the route I had taken while boarding the plane. After getting permission I ran back into the terminal hoping I would find it somewhere near the gate where I had spent the last half hour before boarding, but what just a few minutes earlier was possessed by the amount of people necessary to fill up a Boeing 747, now was as empty as a grade school classroom after the final bell of the day. I dropped my point of contact information at the counter in case someone had found it and decided to return it to some lost and found booth later on. I re boarded feeling defective, as if my ability to lose something so important meant that my mind was no longer as sharp as it should be at my age. One moment it was in my hand, the next it was simply gone.

The flight was long, a bit over eleven hours of pondering why bad things happen to good people. Like most losses in life, even something as simple as a material thing brings with it some of the phases we encounter when losing much more important things. Desperation, frustration, anger, sadness, and a resignation. Fortunately or maybe unfortunately for me, I have lost much more important things in my life so even though I tapped into all of the above emotions momentarily, it was not more than an hour later when I was already resigned that these things happen and that I would just deal with it when I got back home. Mystery chicken and rice, two rum and cokes, a sleeping pill, and a comfy travel pillow and I was knocked out for at least three hours allowing myself to get some of the rest I was going to need to complete the long day ahead of me. To my surprise, when I woke up from my over medicated nap I found myself having a bit of an anxiety attack because my body felt like it was freezing all the while I was sweating profusely. Should I tell anyone?, I questioned myself mentally. I put in some extra effort and forced myself to the lavatory in case it was motion sickness since the ride had become unusually rough while I had passed out trying to remember how to count in Japanese. It could of been the chicken, or maybe my overzealous effort to force myself to sleep with too much of a good thing. I even considered that maybe I had fallen asleep so hard that I might of put too much weight on my neck with the travel pillow and blocked some of the oxygen I needed to keep my brain doing it's job properly. A couple of prayers and less than 15 minutes later I was already feeling much better and thanking God for sparing the old fool I saw reflected in the bathroom mirror.

Yeah, eventful...that would be a good choice of word to describe how my trip to Japan had started, and pretty much how it would end. As we got closer to Japan I decided to pull out a sheet of paper and write one more time all of my point of contact information to leave with the crew in case the cleaning folks might eventually run into my stealthy phone. I flew with a co-worker with whom I am very fond of but was seated several rows apart during the trip. When we deplaned and finally got out into the terminal area in which another co-worker was supposed to meet us, we realized that our arrival was almost a whole hour earlier than the itinerary described. In a way this was very nice since what awaited us was a bus ride from Narita to Yokohama of an hour and twenty minutes and we could really use the early arrival time to stretch, and walk, and assimilate a bit of airport culture before sitting down again on the bus. Just as we were heading to the door to breath in our first breath of Japanese air, a voice over the speakers was calling my name to the airline counter. Yes! The cleaning crew had found my mystery phone and the little note left behind had paid off. I guess good things happen to good people too!

My whole trip was full of simple, yet frustrating little problems that kept happening and then solving themselves sooner or later. For example, the automatic teller machine at the base worked perfectly for my working companion, yet when I stepped up to do the exact move he had just done with my own credit card and ZAP! The thing swallowed my card after completing my transaction just like that! At this point I could only laugh, I just could not understand why the demonically possessed contraption played nice with my co-worker and two other clients that walked to do their business right after me, yet it found my government credit card so damn yummy! I wrote down the phone number that was given on the side of the machine in case of problems, walked into the building right next door to find a readily available phone that did not even required me to put any money to make the call. An apologetic voice answered and in less than 10 minutes a very nice lady and gentleman arrived in their cute car to retrieve my source of gold. Just like that, everything was back to normal again.

You have to believe me, I could write paragraph after paragraph of crazy things that kept happening, including an encounter with a Spanish/English/Japaneses speaking gentleman that took mercy of me while lost trying to find the correct bookstore to buy a book my younger son had requested from me before I departed. I had searched for almost 45 minutes the underground shopping area with a map in hand given to me by another bookstore that did not have the book but was kind enough to do a phone search and find another bookstore that had it. Everyone else in my search party had given up after the first 15 minutes but I was too stubborn and knowing that the place existed was good enough to make me keep trying. On one of those profoundly concentrated moments in which I was staring at the red dot on the translucent mall map that obviously had to mean "you are here", a kind broken English voice walked from behind me to offer me a hand. As the Japanese gentleman walked me over to the correct location, not only did he show me the way, he also had the kindness of heart to let me know that the first time he looked for this same store, he himself had gotten lost in the underground. This made me feel so much less dumb. Being grateful I offered a not so truthful compliment about his wonderful ability to speak in English when he revealed that he also spoke Spanish. Instantly we switched to my native language and he started telling me how much he loved to go dancing salsa at the local clubs on the weekends. He even waited until I had book in hand before escorting me back out of the store in conversation when I asked him which of the two languages he preferred, Spanish or English? Maybe also not so truthful of himself he said Spanish making my heart feel all warm inside for the beautiful compliment. I asked him why he preferred Spanish, then he said in an almost whispering voice, "because Spanish people are kinder to me." I was so happy to know that someone else that speaks my native tongue had made such a wonderful impression on this man, instead of what could of been the total opposite.

My life is full of wonderful and beautiful moments that somehow surround themselves with crazy instances of what might feel like sheer madness. I lose it, then I find it. It is taken away, then it is given back. I am totally lost, and somebody finds me and brings me back to the right place. Even though in the middle of it all I sometimes feel completely broken, I somehow manage to function, to be part of something that works. What I thought to be the most important piece of equipment to be able to do my job on board ship this time was not working properly. The data which I so eagerly collected so some very smart people back at home could spend hours creating briefing products for the next day to be used in important presentations was stuck in the machine. Eventually I found another way to get it to them so that they could do their jobs. It meant that I had to work four times harder than I really expected to work on this trip, but I have never been one to let things go wrong if I can help it. When it was all done, at the end I realized that what mattered was not whether the machine was broken, instead what seemed to matter was whether or not I was broken. Even though I started this trip thinking that I was mentally losing it, apparently what is left of my brain was good enough to get the job done right.

I confess, in a way that you might think is sad but I sure as hell need to say it as I truly see it, in the past 13 years of my life I have many times felt as if I was broken. This is not a pity seeking confession, not at all. I just want you to know that if you have ever felt this way, you are not alone. Not being able to fix my marriage and going through a divorce put me in a position that forced me to evaluate how much of marital dilemma was because of me. For a very long time I kept feeling guilty because as much as I tried to fix it, I just was not able to rescue a 21 year relationship. Of course, much of the guilt was driven by me being the one that apparently gave up by leaving and later filing for a divorce. My non-quitter personality and mentality contributed to assuming that by walking away I was a loser. Worse, if no matter what I tried I had not been able to fix things, my mind gave into the idea that maybe I was broken, damaged goods, to put it in simple terms. It did not help that on top of it all I also found myself in such a complicated situation with my oldest son. He too contributed to my sense of being damaged. If it were not because of the contradiction brought about by my youngest son personality and behaviour, I probably would still have it in my head the idea that it is because of me that these things are the way they are today. However, I know differently now and understand that even though I sure as hell must have contributed to my failing marriage, I cannot and will not take the guilty emotional road, much less full blame for it's outcome. Ditto to my son's condition, which I am so sure is not my fault either.

So, if you start to walk on the same road of feeling broken as I was once strolling about, please reconsider and try to see your life for what it really is, and not for what anyone else might think it should be instead. Dust your yourself off, lift yourself from the guilt road, and give yourself some credit where credit is due. Like they say, "it takes two to tango." In whatever relationship you are in, unless you are totally wicked and without remorse, if things are not working out and you are giving it your all, chances are that the other end of the rope is not being held at the same height you are holding it. I remember having a toy as a child named The Balancing Clown. It was actually pretty simple yet very cool. A toy clown was riding a unicycle while holding an arched balancing stick with a weighted ball at each end and traveling on a string that was held between two height adjustable posts from one side of a table to the other. As long as the two poles where at the same height the clown remained still in the center of the string. We would take turns spinning an arrow dial that would land on one of three different colors. The arrow would indicate which color you would raise your pole making the cycling clown move closer to the opposite side of the table. Whoever got the clown over to the other end first would win. If every time you lift your efforts to make things better in your relationship, the other side does not raise to the occasion, sooner or later you will push the problems all the way to the other side of the relationship and your partner will either have to do something about it, or eventually lose you. Even as a parent this analogy applies. You give, and give, and keep giving because they are your children and you love them so much that your source of giving is close to infinite. At some point your children need to give back some effort of their own, otherwise the load is too much to raise on their end and their lives will be full of hardship.

Once in a while I still feel a bit broken and I think this is normal. The difference between now and then is that before it was because of what others made me feel, and now it is because of what I allow myself to feel. Other people should never have control of your feelings, that is a job that is too important to hand out to anyone else but yourself. I have control of my own feelings, and even though for a moment I might allow others to change my mood, in the end I am the one that decides what I am going to feel by making the proper adjustment to the value of the contributor of my emotional state. Being flipped off on the freeway means absolutely nothing to me because when it happens, and it has happened, I did not mean to upset the other driver. I might make a mistake and pull into a lane while someone is in my bind spot, then he or she has all the right in the world to get upset with my driving, however, since I know I did not do it on purpose I shrug my shoulders, lift my hands in an "I'm sorry" gesture, and go about my day like it never happened. If you are offended by something I say with no intent of hurting your feelings, I will apologize from the bottom of my heart, but will not stay and beg for your understanding because it is pretty much up to you to decide when you are no longer upset, and not up to me.

It rained almost everyday that I was in Japan. I had a choice of getting wet on my one hour train ride and later walk to work, or buy an umbrella. Yep, I bought the umbrella. It is all about choices. I also had a choice of coming back from work tired and going straight to bed, or changing my clothes and heading out to discover new places, food, and people. You guessed it, I put on my comfy tennis shoes and hit the town every night. I figured that I would rest when I got back home. As I rode on the immensely crowded train on a rainy day, every time we went into a tunnel I could see my reflection on the glass window I was facing to view the landscape. On one of those self portrait flashing moments I saw myself and was impressed by my own image. Inside I was full of excitement and wonder because of all that I was absorbing from this temporary adventure that made me feel like a kid. The reflection spoke otherwise and whispered into my mind that I was tired, old, and sad. At that same instant I realized that I needed to fix that about myself. I might not be able to make myself younger, but I sure as hell should be able to not look so tired and sad. A few weeks back during a funeral a friend made that same comment to me. She said that she had noticed that lately I seemed much more tired and my moments in thought revealed too much sadness in my face. Well my friends, this is because I am genuinely tired of the stress I have been dealing with because of my oldest son's situation, and of course I am genuinely sad for his well being. However, now that I am aware of this, I am making a new effort on my side to lift the rope on my end of the table and bring the balancing clown back to the center so we can play together again. It truly is much more fun to play when both sides want to win. ;-)

Dad