Sunday, November 9, 2014

"Really" Concerned People Post

My youngest son is struggling with a moral issue.  He's trying to figure out how to tell my two younger siblings they're not welcome at my funeral when I die.  He thinks they're hypocrites.  He's also trying to figure out how to find replacements for them, so it will look like people cared about me.  "Dad," he says, "You have like, zero friends."  Two hypocrites fill more space than zero.



"I really hope they don't come after the way they chose not to be in your life," he says.  This is quality father-son time, planning my funeral.  It's also proof that my sons aren't idiots.  They're not buying the most recent display of concern put forth by those two buffoons.



Stock

I think it's fair to say I've had a rough couple of weeks, and to be safe, I'm just going to round it off and call those weeks a "month".  
I've had a rough month.  
A quick re-cap, to be sure:

  • The Intern Credential that CSUMB issued to me was never valid because they 'goofed'.
  • The Intern Credential that wasn't expired on October 10, and my 'supportive' team of Advisers at CSUMB refused to provide documentation that I had completed my credential coursework (as my Program Advisor had done), documentation that would have kept me employed.  
  • They also refused to work with me to rectify the mistake they made by working out a way for me to take the two courses that my Program Advisor failed to identify as missing in my 'Credential Checklist Exit Interview', while simultaneously maintaining employment, so I lost my job when my invalid Intern Credential expired on the tenth.  (Obviously, I recommend you look elsewhere for teacher training, and avoid being made a scapegoat for future mistakes made by the faculty of the 'Collidge of Educashun' at CSUMB. Already had the opportunity to steer 2 individuals away.).
  • This was a job, mind you, that my District wanted to keep me in.   My Supervisor said "..your students wrote to the district" in an effort to be heard, and "I have been inundated with phone calls and emails about your exit... I have heard comments like, 'he was so inspirational', 'my child will be devastated when I tell him', 'he was the type of teacher you see in movies made about real-life teachers...as well as needs more structure blah, blah blah" (her words).
  • Instead, CSUMB ignores my inquiries as to why I'm being punished for numerous oversights on their part, and continues to blame me.
Nevertheless, I can learn to understand these unfortunate lapses in decorum and integrity, and move forward.  I can.  I'll survive, and rise above, all of them.  

That's what I do.

What troubles me most, what I do not understand,
is how the younger male, and female sibling, who disowned me eight years ago have suddenly appeared in the voice mailbox of my closest friend out of 'concern'.

This, leaves me baffled.
Concern for what?

Worry, You Won't 

Let's see.  Eight years have passed since either sibling has expressed concern about me in any regard.  
  • Concerns like, "Do you think he needs our support during his divorce since his spouse is completely dismantling him with lies, and taking all his stuff and their money and us, his family, and the gas barbeque he has yet to use?"  
  • Concerns like, "I wonder if our evil Step-Bro is alone this Christmas or this Thanksgiving or this April Fools Day since she's in his chair at the family table?  Eh, serves him right because it makes me feel better."  
  • Concerns like, "I wonder if it hurts that we see his children at our whim, and don't give a crap if he doesn't like it, even if we haven't allowed him to maintain contact with the children we own, or introduced him to the new ones.  We'll have plenty of people at our funerals."  
  • Concerns like, "I wonder if he feels gypped getting self-righteous siblings like us when The Beaver got Wally, and The Brady's got a Bunch, and Hell would have had to freeze over before he would have done this to any of us?"  Those kind of concerns.  Real ones.

Concerns like those go unmentioned and unacknowledged, but one of them thinks they see a picture of a guy with a gun to his head on my blog, and they're so concerned they leave voicemails for the one dude who took a chance on me saying "Please call back so we can tell you how concerned we are.  Pleeeeease let him know we're concerned."

Concerned about what?  
That I'll kill myself, and they won't have anyone to ignore for the next eight years?
Idiocy.


Don't call my 1 friend ever again for anything that pertains to me, and the deeply concerned you.

Ever.

Is it just me, or is this comedic?

When I asked my friend, the voicemail, why they didn't call me if they were so concerned he said, "They did.  But you didn't pick-up, and they didn't leave messages, they said."

1. Pause for a 30 second, blank stare into distance. 
2. Follow with a rapid, back and forth headshake vibration thingy, brought to an immediate halt, with a wide-eyed, blank stare, and 
3."WHAAAT?!!" 

Oh.  They were that concerned. 


Roll Module

What is it about our best intentions that bring out the worst in us?  My concerned sibling is taking my son surfing in Big Sur today.  He does lots of nice things like that.  Fatherly things.  As if he's filling holes left by me, in that role.  He got his credential at Stanford.

He does stuff to provide an example of what a 'real' Father would do, like take his son on surf trips, or to Stanford football games, if he went to Stanford.  He provides the example for how to turn your back on a sibling based on lies that are easier to swallow than a truth you never agree to hear.  My sons may need that someday, if they choose to abandon each other for the women they marry.

I wonder, sometimes, if he forgets that my neglected sons see that, and his refusal to inform their Father that he has children of his own now, children he has a double standard of familial engagement for.  One that states I have no say whatsoever in his involvement with my offspring, while he has absolute dominion over my involvement with his.



Ass.  Hole.
With a credential from Stanford.
  
And they do.  

No matter who's lead they follow, mine, his, or their own, I hope they don't ever become the person made from that mold.

Con, Sir

We all tell ourselves we're concerned about things that we're not.  I know I do.  There's a payoff in what we publicly worry about.

"I'm concerned about the environment."
"I'm concerned about the economy."
"I'm concerned about the quality of education."
"I'm concerned about my public image."

The payoff comes by way of the perceptions of others, and how those perceptions suit US.  Not what we're concerned about.  US.

"He's a great guy.  Really cares about the environment."
"They're great siblings.  Really care about their brothers well-being."
Except quite often, the greatest concern in all we're concerned about is oneself.

You don't need to claim to have called someone who rebuked you to sell an opposite perspective to anyone.  And you don't need to leave voicemails with his friends.  Just own it.

It's OK not to care.



You are not concerned about me.  Concern doesn't choose the spouse over family, over blood.  It just doesn't.  Concern doesn't treat people the way you have treated me.

You are concerned with looking concerned.  That's it.


That's why you call my 1 friend.  You call him in an effort to represent yourself in a different light than the one I've painted you in, the one he sees, on his own.


Now, fuck off,
and go away.



It's official.  No one at my funeral....


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