I don't get it

Make this clear from the start-

For too many years I was an angry man, angry at myself, the people around me and the world in general. This anger was something I chose. It was created by me, instilled in me and nurtured by me. No one else.

No one can make mad except me. No one can make you mad except yourself.

It is easy, too easy, to point fingers and say "THIS! This is why I am angry." This being an external source. It's also a lie. I chose to be angry and I chose to let that spill out into other areas of my life. I let other people push my buttons.

I've come to know these buttons too well. A few people can still push them. That old rage bubbles and I have to back off and remind myself -

I ain't that person any more.
What happens now is a good thing.
This will make me better and stronger.

2 AM

And yet despite that seething resentment, because that is all anger is, I have 2 a.m. friends. I have people in my life who are loyal to me as I am to them. I have people I can call at any time, day or night, and we pick up a conversation as if it was interrupted by one of us going to the bathroom. 

Yes. I have people in my life who are not blood kin but are closer than that. These people will ... nuf said. I have done for them and they will do for me. 

Why?

I don't get it.

TRUTH AND PAIN

My daughter Susan asked Robin how she can work for me. 

Damn. That hurts. If the truth hurts, yer living wrong. I have to change. Reality will not adapt to me, I must change to flow with it.

I asked Robin the same thing.

"Well, you do your thing and I do mine. It works," she said.

wow.

I have run other people away from working for me, literally. One lady, a preacher's wife, came to interview for a job. I talked to her. Then, I said as I always do to people who think they can work here, "I'm gonna leave. You talk to (whoever is in the office). Ask what I am like to work for. You decide if you can work for and with me. I do not want to know what you talk about or what is said."

I went for a walk. I came back and the lady was rushing out the door, nearly at a run. She said something about not being able to work with and for me. A few others tried to work here and could not.

That's on me.

Other people worked for me. They left for better jobs and better pay. They told me that except for the pay, they would stay. They told me, "You need me, call. I'll come help."

REGRET

I sit here thinking back on the days when I was a walking bucket of toxicity, a ball of rage, a flamethrower hosing everything.

And yet, there are people who saw this and stood by me. They still do.

I don't get it.

And that is my regret - that I hurt too many people without just cause. That I drove away too many people because I refused to control myself. That I chose to be someone I now look on with sadness and regret.

I cannot undo that damage. If I could, I would. No sacrifice is too big to erase, not just heal for that leaves a scar, but to erase as if it had never been. I would do it.

Maybe.

Then again, erasing will leave a hole, an empty place, a lacunae. What will fill it? Damfino. Would that hole even be noticed? Damfino.

I also wonder about that these people I hurt without cause, will they look at it as a beneficial experience? Will they say, "That too was a good thing."? Will they look on what happened and believe they came out better and stronger for it?

I hope so. I do not know. Still, I wish it had not happened.

BIZARRE

Even more bizarre, sometimes I meet people. We spend a few hours together and they are a 2 a.m. friend.

Why? I don't get it.

Other people I meet, we spend a while together and they walk away never wanting to see me again. That, whether I get it or not, is something I'm used to. 

But those people who hang around, want to come back and so on, I don't get it.

She Who Must Not Be Named is one of those who met me and took an instant liking. Over the decades she has defended me to those who attacked me in her presence. Did not ask her to do this. She did.

"Ben Baker has integrity," she said. "You can tell him something [in private] and it stays there."

Well, yeah. That's the way it is supposed to be. Nothing unusual there, to me anyway. <shrugs>

But why? 

What do other people see in me that I cannot see?

Some of these people say I am a good man.

I am not. I am trying and frequently failing to be better. Don't they see all the pain, hurt and misery I caused in others and suffered my own self?

I don't get it.

Dreams I'll see

My dreams can head off the deep end and start swimming down. I'm too old to believe I'm unique in this, but some times I do wake up and wonder if anyone else is quite as weird.

People who know me are now saying, "Yeah. Gonna have to find people in an mental ward to find weirder dreams than yours."

I also have dreams about people, places and events. I have situations that recur, regularly, with people and places that made a real impact on me. These dreams reflect what happened and how it shaped me into the person I am today.

Not all of these dreams are welcome.

OUT WEST

Spent a year out west living in Henderson, NV., the second biggest city in the state. It shares a City Limits sign with Vegas. It was my first professional job as a journalist. I'd freelanced for the papers in Troy, AL., and worked on the college newspaper. The Henderson Home News and its sister papers the Boulder City News and Green Valley News were the first papers where I made all my living as a writer.

It was good. I learned a lot. I made from friends. Out there I learned the real power of the media for the first time. That was also the first time someone tried to get me to run for office, namely the Henderson City Council.

I did not know while living out there, but I missed the South. I missed trees. I missed being able to grab my canoe and hit a pond for an evening of fishing. I missed being able to grab a gun and step into the woods to get something for supper. I missed so much more.

I really did not know how much I missed. I got the first idea of it when we (wife) and I crossed into Texas. We stopped at The Big Texan in Amarillo, home of the 72 ounce steak. The waitress took our order. She spoke with a Southern accent. I wanted to hug her. It reminded me of a Tennessee family I saw at The Hush Puppy restaurant in Vegas. I heard their accent and it was hard to not run up and hug them.

I got catfish. Real catfish. Real deep fried catfish. I could almost hear the gas burner under the pot holding the hot grease.

I was so happy to get back to the South.

DREAMS I'LL SEE

For years I dreamed of living out there again. It is much less now. For a long time, I dreamt I was back out west either working for or looking for a job with a newspaper. I'd wake up and be angry. Yes. I know I am the only person who can make me mad. These were (are) my dreams and I do not like them. I got angry because my brain apparently feels I need to go back out there. 

Yes. They are just dreams. I do not get angry any more, but I do not like these dreams. I wish they would stop

No. Just no. For years I swore I'd never go back, never go too far past the Mississippi River. Texas, certainly. Past that? Noooooo.

I have visited the northeast part of New Mexico for a freelance job twice and I will go back more, at least as long as I keep the freelance job. It is wonderful there. Live there full time? Don't think I could do it.

Also been to eastern Washington State to hunt with Jesse. I do not consider that to be out west, event though it is geographically. Don't want to live there full time either, but go back to visit and hunt or fish? Absolutely.

FLORIDA

Got into an argument with an editor at the Georgia paper I worked at after returning from Nevada. He was the editor and I was a reporter. Moved to Florida.

Spent 2.5 years working for John F. Lee at the Apalachicola Times and the Carrabelle Times. Unlike the erstwhile Georgia newspaper editor, I have kept in touch with John. 

John Fred Lee taught me A LOT about how work at a newspaper, how to be a boss (both good and bad) and how to do a lot more. I checked with him before writing this. He was an ass at times. Yes, I have his permission to state these things.

Shari actually told him once, "I wish you had lupus."

I. Was. Floored. She told me she'd never wish that disease on anyone. And yet, in a moment of pique, she did. John Fred Lee could do that to people. He was the most divisive person in Franklin County when he ran the newspaper.

JFL shows up sometimes when the Sandman comes. We talk about me going back to work for him. Except as of this writing, he's not at the paper any more and has not been there for years. Still, impressions.

Yes, I met a lot of people there, people who took me and Shari in, protected us, fed us, helped us and even helped pay some of our bills when she had to quit work because of her lupus and the need for a hip replacement. To all of you, thank you. I wish I could tell you how much it meant.

Anyway, yes I dream about being back on the Gulf of MEXICO coast and working at the paper with JFL. Sometimes the dreams are good, sometimes bad. When I recall people who were there for us, wow. Too many to name, but three must be. The Miller Clan, led by Xuripha and the Pennycuff clan led by Charles. They did so much.

Then Jesse. He came up mean and nasty. Drinkin', Fightin'. Womanizing. He'd go to work, get done and spend money on chasing those three things. 

Then he found a Savior. He lived for his Risen God.

For a while anyway. He's gone to his reward.

He found out he had lung cancer. No insurance. He could not afford the expensive treatments. His only work was what he could get there in Franklin County before development exploded the place. He knew his time here was limited.

And yet, he paid to have a telephone installed in the house where we lived. Shari was fresh off a hip replacement and needed a way to call for help. We couldn't afford a phone at the time and this was well before cell phones were affordable and available in rural Florida.

You find a person friend like that, you have something worth more than Elon Musk's empire.

When Jesse comes around in the middle of my snoring, I'm so glad to see him again.

CANADA

Sometimes home is a place you've never seen before. Think of the song Beulah Land.

I could not live there full time. I am allergic to snow. It makes me break out in urges to move to the Equator. Some days I still think I could manage that. I know I could manage it if my beloved South ceased to be.

Will and Maggie.

I frequently dream of going to Canada. I wake up happy and full of joy that I was in the Great White North and then as I wake more, I realize it was just a dream. It has, a time or two, brought me to crying because I was not truly there.

Here's also a place where my dreams derail from reality. One time, I was dreaming about being there and coming back to the US. We rode a golf cart through the border checkpoint which looked exactly like a flea market. Booths, stalls, tables, people lined up on both sides selling about anything you can imagine and some things that defy imagination.

Customs had a small office just a few yards part, the US on the south side and Canada on the north side.

Bizarre.