Feb 2016

Hello there math-girlies,

You are asleep in bed.  It is a Sunday night and I am getting near to bedtime.  The Superbowl is on.  In Midwest the streets are desolate.  It is like driving around on Christmas eve after the stores close.  Nobody is there.  They are all with family and friends to watch the game.  This is the land where the children move Halloween for high-school football games.

I really have no connection.  In middle school the folks who picked on me, hit me, spit on me, stuck kick-me labels to my back, drew things on my jacket in class, and basically ... I quit society for their sake.  I fought for years to be outside, to be nothing, and eventually I won.  I did it, in retrospect, because their only "you fit in" language is physical violence, and we moved so darn much that I got to re-fight that losing battle often enough that despair was the only option.

It has been 25 years or so.  Those who were the pedantic kids are different people.  I'm sure some of them are decent folks.  The memory of who they were is cleansed by maturity, the revisionist history of the self and being on the giving end of their intentions versus the receiving end of their actions.  It is sad that in the wounds and anger done to teenage me, I carry a memory they have long forgotten.

Big math-girl, I am watching you.  You are changing again.  Right now, and in the last ~6 months, you are transitioning to a stage where you are experimenting with preteen ideologies/world-views/paradigms/content-of-your-character.  You seem to be staging yourself for your within-puberty self.  I see some of the drama.  I see some of the nobility.  I see some of the willingness to step outside of the bounds you have.  It scares me.  This is a world engineered to eat your heart, to eat away your soul.  I want you to have your soul.  I want you to have your own heart, and not have anyone eat it.  I'm doing that by providing structure, by coaching, and by praying praying praying.

Little math-girl, I am watching you too.  So much of what you do is because of your big sister.  She draws you in her wake.  While the parents are a sol for your orbits, your sister is a gas-giant and she drives your weather and eccentricity.  I love your jump and run.  I'm not sure of your fake-cry fussing that devolves into laughter and then back to fake crying.  You seem to be exploring the fuss, and I wonder if it is because either your math-mommy or your big sister respond to it.  I have tried and tried to teach you courtesy.  You will have none of it.  The ability to have it means you can interact well with others.  It is no guarantee, but it is an opportunity, to be more socially successful in life.  You will have none of it.  I will keep trying.

I'm tired, and I find that when I am tired I am more grumpy.  I don't want to be.

I am working to pay bills.  I am scheduled to be working hard at that for the next 30 years at least.  I do hope to live that long, and to have good employ so that the bills can be paid.  We will see how that goes.  I have slightly more than work, so I cannot say "all work and no play" but I have a lot of work, and for the foreseeable future will be working hard.  I hope that I am able to work smart, and that I can have time for creatures in my life - you - who make it much richer and much more amazing.

Can I tell you something sad?  I have to tell someone.  Nobody reads this, and you likely will not for years.  Maybe I can tell your future selves.

I have very few friends here.  I am working on it, but building depth and shared anythings is nearly impossible.  I feel like folks are friendly toward me, but none of them really care to ask if I am doing well.  When I am in the room, we can talk, but there is only one person in this state who seeks me out to talk to me and ask me how I am doing.  I ran into them in a store last week, and it felt good to see them again, but I half wanted them to go away, because I knew that I was going to go back into the near complete social vacuum in which I live.  The idea of knowing what it was like to have and miss one friend while I'm in that vacuum is worse than just being in there without the defining contrast of a recent contact with a friend.  I was angry about it.  I really can't tell anyone though.  What do I say?  This reminds me of "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch"  where he said that having hope reduces the likelihood of survival, and abandoning it and living day-to-day without a focus on the light you do not have within every day gives better chances.  

I hope you live in a world where you have the kind of peace and wealth that bright lights of friendship are very very rarely reason for anger or sorrow because of their light.   
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