Horrible realizations about yourself - Page 6

I have the same feeling about my younger brother. But not due to age. He speeds and drives like an idiot. And our family has had terrible luck with car accidents in general (especially me, I've wrecked quite a few). My father was killed in an accident almost 10 years ago (got the phone call in the wee hours of the morning from my grandmother) and telling my brother was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I keep thinking one day my Mom will call me with the horrible news.

Yeah, this. I wouldn't be too ashamed of it. Just because people banged/were squeezed out of/got married to your relatives doesn't necessarily make them awesome (or even passably decent) people.

I think realising your parents are infallible, can be horrible people and have done horrible things at some points in their lives is a pretty fundemental part of growing up. It's just about learning to accept that everyone has failings.

My personal horrible realisation is that like Jake I have no idea what to do with my life and I'm slowly starting to realise that as an actual person I've become far harsher and nastier and horrible then I ever wanted to be.

And learning from their mistakes hopefully. It's too easy to develop the same habits if you let it.

What's horrible is coming to the conclusion that there is really no one in your life, immediate relatives included, that you're having difficulty imagining being gone. It feels really weird, coming to such a realization.

Oh, dude... I'm so sorry. I know about it a little. My next door neighbor in my old building had Alzheimer's, and the woman across the hall and I were sort of the "second team" to keep an eye on her and call her sons ASAP if anything happened. We had to make a couple of scary calls to her son to have him come over right away, etc. Good luck, hon, I'm so sorry.

Spike - yeah, you're right. There are a few members of my family who I would put into that category - I love them very much, but I also have issues with their behavior many times. Dark makes a good point though - I learn from their behavior to keep myself in check.

I always used to joke with my early, early, early-stage Alzheimer's-suffering grandmother that she'd get to meet me for the first time all over again whenever I came to visit. She usually got a huge laugh out of that until the day that she couldn't remember why it was funny anymore, and then it all just kinda stopped being amusing to both of us and turned fucking tragic. Good luck, Judas.

It's not really bad with my Dad yet. He's sharp as a tack sometimes, but occasionally his mind will totally wander off in the middle of a sentence and he'll totally lose his train of thought. Holding a conversation with him is a real task, and my frustration threshold is really, really small.

Since I graduated from College in '04 I've become more lazy and unmotivated than I ever thought was possible. I basically sleep walk through most days at work, and probably spend at least 50% of the day reading the CHUD boards or other websites.

I used to pride myself on being a hard worker. I put myself through college by working two part-time jobs while attending class full-time. Also, during the summers I worked both of those jobs while also working 40 hours a week for the Ohio Department of Transportation. Even after graduating and getting the job I have now, I continued to work a part time position for nearly half a year. By then I felt as if I had earned the right to slow down a bit.

I think a year or two ago it really started to hit me that by working so much while in college, I missed out on a lot of much needed experience. Being a video production major means doing a lot outside of the classroom, and if you're working 25 hours a week that is a very difficult thing to do. Not having a multiple shoots on your resume or a really nice internship really hurts in the long run.

Indeed. My dad was awful. AWFUL. I learned how to be a good dad by doing the exact opposite of everything that he did. He kept fucking up time after time after time. He would only call when he needed money or a place to stay - even actually LIVING with my (then) wife and I for about a year without a job. But for some reason I never gave up hope or lost ALL of my faith in him. Then, just before last Christmas, when I got the call that he had been arrested, YET AGAIN, I said I was done. I didn't have anything left. Once he got out he tried to call and such but I was cold and distant and stubborn and by God I didn't give a shit anymore.

Then earlier this year I got the phone call, while shopping for earrings with my daughter, that some people had broken into his house, beat the hell out of him and shot him three times. And as hard as I tried I couldn't deny that I DID give a shit after all. Yesterday would have been his 56th birthday and my horrible realization: I'm not even sure I would have remembered it if he were alive.

I don't even know if I had a point in any of that, honestly.

Nothing wrong with venting a little, especially with it being fresh on your mind.

I was in a similar position about a year ago. I'd been with my current employers for four years and I hadn't progressed at all within the organisation and I just found myself first not caring and then starting to aggresively not care. My job is working with people largely so when your hearts not in it starts to show and it started to feel like I just couldn't cut it anymore doing what I'd been doing for years. But then my team had a restructure and I found myself being the only guy with actual working knowledge of our recruitment processes within the team and suddenly I felt that sense of worth and interest come back into my job. I'm balancing work with University at the moment, but if there's any advice I'd give you it's try and take ownership of what your doing. Trying and get involved in projects or groups or anything to make yourself feel like you're doing a difference.

I'm on this bandwagon as well, I love my father but I've learned he is a selfish asshole.

I am realizing that my career has already reached its apex. Short of taking up some kind of crazy hobby, I am locked into a path that will not deviate for the next 20 years. I work as a systems administrator at a local college. It's an enterprise system used by all of our 20k students and 1500 staff, so it's "important", and I get a lot of satisfaction out of my job. But this is pretty much it for me now. The money and benefits are too fantastic to walk away from to pursue something more challenging. I am a computer programmer by training and trade, so this was a good "next step".

Before this job I was doing high-level Ruby on Rails paired programming at a firm using Agile development practices and all of this cool new stuff. The crash spooked me into exploring other options, as with two kids/wife/house/cats I literally can't afford any risks or to go unemployed for longer than EI lasts. But short of getting into the management/VP rat race, I have absolutely nowhere else to go here. In this economy I am lucky to have such a stable job (our universities and colleges are provincially/federally run (excluding private/business schools), and I am part of a very large union) and I do not take it for granted. This just feels "it" for me.

I've taken on an insane amount of freelance to compensate and keep my foot in the programming pool . I feel lucky to find freelance work given how many firms are not spending money on IT, but it seems if you know Rails there isn't a lack of opportunity. It's affecting my family life and I think I will need to give that up at some point all together. Should that matter though? Should I just let it go and embrace where I am (even though mentally it seems like a huge step downwards)? Systems administration isn't like programming. Sure you are still problem solving, but there is no room for artistry. There is always a nearly finite set of things that can go wrong, and with larger software packages like the one I am supporting those problems are almost always well documented.

The one thing I am clinging to is that I will have the opportunity to teach in January as part of my job. They are letting me teach a Ruby on Rails course that is offered here as part of their Computer Programmer/Analyst diploma program (in exchange for borrowing some of that department's resources for my department's numerous grunt jobs). I've never taught a full-time course like this before so I am nervous but hopeful. If it doesn't pan out, I am not sure how I will feel.

Bah, I am rambling. These revelations are not the most horrible things ever. I just got out of a two hour meeting and all I could think about is "I will be at meetings like this until I am in my 60's..." It was sobering and a little bit depressing.

With you there. I despise a lot about my dad, despite the good qualities he has as well. As a matter of fact, I don't even need one hand to count the family and friends that I really can say I love and want/need in my life. I don't think that's a horrible realization though, until Thanksgiving comes around and you have to deal with all these despicable people.

Some family members called yesterday to wish me a happy birthday and we had to do that weird dance of pretending to give a fuck about each other's lives and such. Love that. Okay, so your live-in girlfriend just had another kid and still don't have a job and your dad's paying for your car. Cool, so same time, same shit next year, right? Great!

Heh. Yeah with us it's "Oh great! You're having your 4th kid and you don't have a job yet and they just had to bring your girlfriend to the hospital to get her stomach pumped because she over-drank again? Well that's just super! Give us a call sometime!!"

I find not getting along with relatives is incredibly liberating. Especially if they know we don't like them.

I just text my siblings a happy birthday greeting. Still trumping their lack of acknowledging mine, so I figure it's cool.

"Oh, hey, my stepdad's desire for gainful employment! Why don't you go hold hands with my eventual novel or screenplay and you two can go be convenient fictional constructs together!"

okay sorry for turning this into "Horrible Realizations About Everyone Else", y'all

You guys have it rough in the parent department. But acknowledging that you're the best of your DNA pool isn't a horrible realization about yourself. My dad, while recognizing he was human, fallible, flawed, etc., was still ten times the grown-ass man I'll ever be. THAT'S a horrible realization about yourself.

My situation is very different. My siblings and I are incredibly tight and genuinely like and love each other. We meet for happy hour all the time, go over to our houses for dinner, go out for birthdays, etc... Hell, I even get along great with the extended family. It's really just my Dad that is proving difficult for me. My relationship with him has slowly changed over the years, and I've found out alot of things about him that I really do not like. Dealing with those negative feelings and then having to be responsible for the next stage of his life is pretty daunting to me, and I'm really not dealing with it well. Seriously, I'd be hosed without my older brother running with this whole situation.

Meh, I think it's just a common thing with our generation. I seriously feel like the parent/child roles are reversed when it comes to my family. My mom can't manage money, goes batty when I offer them advice and even offer to help them set up a budget, and then gets mad when I (helpfully, not fanatically, mind you) lecture them about not being able to keep their vices in check just to get ahead on a fucking bill.

I really wouldn't worry too much about not living up to your dad's example - I kinda wish that I was in a situation where the bar hadn't been set so low that all I had to do was just sort of shuffle over it.

Earlier today, something good happened right when I happened to be doing a kind of yawn/upper body stretch. I just rolled right with it into a triumphant, full extension/volume "I DUDDITS!"

Seriously, there's nerds, and there's losers with no taste, and then there's what I am.

Despicable.

At 37-years-old, and 5' 7" inches tall, some kids I held when they were only days old now tower over me.

My daughter's half-brother Marshall, whom I fed with a bottle, has a couple inches on me at only 11-years-old.

I have never been afflicted with Esprit de l'escalier, as it's called.

The first time I ever heard of the term Esprit de l'escalier it was from the only story by Chuck Palahniuk I ever read, Guts.

The quote and definiton is:

"People in France have a phrase: "Spirit of the Stairway." In French: Esprit de l'escalier. It means that moment when you find the answer, but it's too late. Say you're at a party and someone insults you. You have to say something. So under pressure, with everybody watching, you say something lame. But the moment you leave the party…

As you start down the stairway, then -- magic. You come up with the perfect thing you should've said. The perfect crippling put-down.

That's the Spirit of the Stairway."

Words do not elude me when I'm really pissed. I know what I want to say and I say it. To most this is an enviable gift. To me it's a curse. The "perfect thing you should've said" is too often a friendship ending moment. I have learned the hard way to keep my mouth shut when angry.

I once had a girlfriend storm off crying because I "was making too much sense." The things I say as a crippling put down are often too truthful for people to ignore.

Today it was pointed out to me that my Bea Arthur impression sounds exactly like my Tony Curtis impression.

I'm glad somebody finally said it. We've been so embarrassed for you all these years.

It should also be pointed out that it is no longer October...

Horrible:
I've become quite mainstream in my movie tastes. I blame the last girlfriend.

I have horrible taste in women. Always go for the "quirky" types and it never works out. The love of my life was a Paula Poundstone type minus the ties and jokes and instead was very religious.