T.M.I. - Cause & Effect Essay

Stephen Griffin

English Comp.

4/25/11

Cause & Effect

                                                            T.M.I.

  Recently I’ve made the decision to stop, take a deep breath and accept the reality that has been staring right at me for quite some time.  Unexpectedly, the reality slapped me in the face (Me: How dare you, sir!).  He said to me, “Stephen, wake up.  You’re making an idiot out of yourself; more than usual.  Take a step back and look at your actions.  Stephen, it’s time to face me.  Have a seat.  Are you ready for this?  Stephen, you’re lonely and you need to accept it.”  I immediately replied, “But Reality, I don’t want to be lonely.  I have girls to talk to.  I can make this happen.  I don’t have to be lonely.  I don’t have to think about bad stuff.  Look, I even have cigars to help calm my nerves and a fair amount of beer to help me ignore “you”, Reality….you bastard.”  But, no matter what I said to convince myself that I had a quick solution to a very in-depth problem, Reality would follow me everywhere I went.  I could not escape him.  Inevitably, I had to let Reality sink in.  I was lonely, and I was attempting to do anything and everything I could think of to fill that void.

  Who wants to be lonely?  I don’t think anyone does.  But sometimes it’s a phase that we all have to go through.  I am as we speak.  I have my daughter every other week.  I’ve had to change the way I handle not having her around.  On the weeks I didn’t have her, I would do anything to fill the empty void while she was gone.    You see, I’m a dad.  That’s a full time job that I look forward to day after day.  It’s something that is ingrained in me.  It is a part of who I am.  Not having my little Chompy running around trying to bite my butt (Slightly annoying.  I’m not sure how that started.), asking me why the rhinoceros stabbed me in the arm (My doing, of course.  I had a pretty bad zit on my arm one time.  I told her that a rhinoceros wanted my pizza, so he stabbed me in the arm.  I incite imagination; shoot me), calling me Dad Dad (My favorite) or yelling out as she holds her cup in the air; not even looking at me, “Dad Dad, more juice!” (Me: “Ryan, how should you ask politely? Ryan: Please….) is a tough pill for this guy to swallow.  Those are all things that I once took for granted.  Now I hang on to every moment that I have with her.  Not having her around all the time has completely changed my life.  How I’ve handled not playing dad on a daily basis has hurt me in couple ways.  That’s probably why Reality decided it was time for me to get slapped.

  One of the ways I handled loneliness was being what is called a “Serial Texter”.  I would meet a girl and based on maybe only one thing we had in common (You‘re divorced too?!  Are you kidding me?!), I would immediately attach and declare the woman to be “The One”.  I would tell myself, “Oh Stephen, thine troubles are over.  You never have to be lonely again.  Oh happy day!”  Thusly, I would text away.  I’m quite sure it was annoying and I feel like an idiot now, but what can you do?  What’s done is done.  It’s weird how your brain ignores all factual evidence, common sense, red flags and the stupidity spewing from your desperate need to fill a void (I may be doing that now, but at least I‘ll get a good grade for it.).  Subconsciously, I didn’t care who they were, what they were about or if I was coming across as desperate, which of course, I was.  I just went to work on establishing a relationship and consequently looking like a desperate, lonely dude.  That would be an accurate assessment.  I’m happy to say that period in my life is over.  Now it’s on to the next challenge.

  I love a good cigar, especially cheap, corner store cigars (I live on the Westside, so of course, I love a good corner store.).  If the pack of cigars cost more than two dollars, I don’t want them.  I have standards to uphold.  I would smoke these cigars as I sat on my porch trying not to think about things that were happening around me that just made me feel bad about myself or things that I knew I could’ve done differently throughout my past, but didn’t, which caused an overwhelming amount of guilt.  Somehow, I convinced myself that smoking, which I had quit for a year prior to starting back up, was a better alternative than facing my good friend, Reality, and coming to grips with him.  I’m proud to say that I was once 260 pounds, but through a lot of hard work, was able to lose 90 pounds of it.  I did that mostly by running.  I would run three miles a day, no questions asked.  There were even days that I would run five miles or more.  Well, smoking put an end to that.  I could no longer run the distances that were helping me to maintain my weight loss.  That combined with drinking a few more beers than I should on a nightly basis when I didn’t have my daughter, really put me back on track to being overweight again.  Basically, I was falling apart.  I wasn’t being a good dad, I wasn’t moving forward in my life in a healthy way, I wasn’t setting a good example for anyone around me and my mind was not focused on the things that I should’ve been focused on.  Changes needed to be made.  I no longer smoke and alcohol intake is reaching a reasonable level of consumption.  I’m a work in progress.   

  Loneliness is a hell of a thing to go through, especially when you aren’t familiar with it.  If it’s something you never expected it’ll take time to settle into.  I am, but it hasn’t been easy and I know that more work needs to be done.  Now, you might say, “Stephen, maybe you should keep a few things to yourself.  Maybe you’ve said too much.  You know people are going to read this and think that you’re crazy.  You‘re not going to get a date by writing stuff like this.”  I would understand that, but at this point in my life, I’m not concerned about what others think of me and more than likely, people already thought I was crazy anyways.  Furthermore, I no longer live my life for the approval of others.  It’s an endless cycle; a battle that you’ll never win.  I’m not even concerned with impressing a girl right now (DUH…Obviously!).  I’m concerned with getting my priorities together, doing what’s best for me and my daughter, enjoying my friends and family, and just allowing life to happen “to” me for once.  I’m a tired boy.  It’s been a tough past couple years and I need time to recover.  I’ve undergone a life altering experience and have had to come to some really horrible realizations, which have lead to some pretty tough times.  I need time to grow, to accept, to comprehend my reality, reign in a semi-chaotic schedule, make sure my “dad skills” are intact, and focus on establishing a new life and what I actually want it to be.