No Laughter This Week (HOL 27)

House of Laughter 27

This week has been odd for several reasons. Most obvious is that Nancy and Isaac are down in Florida for the week. In the book “Trainspotting”, by Irvine Welsh, the protagonist, Renton, talks about being a junkie, and how everything that a junkie does, no matter how small, somehow relates back to doing drugs. Oddly enough this is similar to parenting. Basically being a parent is a 24 hour a day job. I wake up, I take care of Isaac. I come home for lunch, I clean the house so I can spend time with Isaac. I come home, I play with Isaac, bathe him, and put him to bed. Even when I sleep I listen for Isaac crying, then pretend to sleep and hope Nancy gets up to take care of him. He usually wakes me up though. Unless I wear earplugs. Which I usually do.

This week, my life is off center. People ask if I miss Nancy and Isaac, and I do, but the biggest disruption is to my sense of balance. I get to do fun things with friends like going to baseball games and seeing movies, but I still expect to get home and change a diaper and read a story. When they get home tomorrow, I will miss the freedom, but I will feel like my life is back on track.

The other odd thing this week is my introduction to the evil that is myspace.com. It started when I heard that some of the kids at church were being….well teenagers and giving out too much information about themselves, on the internet. I signed up to check out the website, promptly got very bored, and left. When I returned for a second try, I found a message from an old friend waiting for me. Within a few minutes, I had found dozens of people that I knew from high school. I sent out several e-mails, and got quite a few responses.

Most of the people were only acquaintances, but I still could remember specific stories about each one, and how through brief moments of grace or cruelty that each had some small effect on my life. I remembered the now openly gay man’s frustrated teenage plea that he was straight. I remembered the middle school remark of how I “Never cussed at all”, and how completely un-farking true that turned out to be. I remembered the very cool guy who stripped butt naked and streaked down the beach with complete joy and abandon.

At the same time, I also see people I can’t bring myself to send a message to. There are people who have hurt me or I have hurt, and I can think of no good reason for contacting them again.

As I remember these people, I can think of a huge lesson for Isaac. Treat everyone you meet with respect. You never know who you are going to meet again, or how you are going to affect their lives.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt