I'll Miss Ya, Mission

This is weird. It’s my last night in this tiny apartment with the kids. On Monday, Sarita, the kids and I are moving to a glorious estate in the suburbs. And that place is only glorious in comparison to this little dump and technically Merriam is probably more hood than suburb. But, man…I’m going to miss this place. Lotsa memories. 4 and a half years of them. That’s half of Blake’s life. Riley was in first grade when we moved in. Now they’re like real, live kids with personalities and stuff.

I tell them stories about when I was a kid back in Michigan. And one day, they’ll tell their kids stories about that apartment they lived in in Mission, Kansas. And I’ll tell them the rest of the stories about this place. I feel like I was a dad Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and then the rest of the week I lived out the college lifestyle I never got to, because I was too damn married or Christian or something. 4 and a half years. That’s how long college took me. And that’s how long it’s taken me to get my shit together a little bit…I just started laughing aloud at myself, because “shit together” and me don’t go together…but what I meant was I can almost afford a house again. And I don’t even have to be Sprint’s bitch this time around. I’m still a bitch to work, but I’m proud to be my own bitch. I don’t know what the fuck that means…but it’s fun to be self-employed and to work hard and see money sprout up or at least it used to before these last few down months.

Anyway…I was going to have a little retrospective of my time here. I wish we could do that thing like in the movies where it goes do-do-do-do-do-do-do and you’re right back to porch times and story times gone by. But, my memory these days is not as crystal as movie flashbacks, so let’s start with last night. I went to the bathroom. Like a man. I stood up. I unzipped. And I’ll be damned if that fly that had been bugging the family all night just decided to land right on my manhood. I was shocked at his audacity…or was it her audacity?

It was the single worst bathroom experience I’d had since that time at Sprint where that guy bumped in to me while I was taking a leak, because the urinals were too close together. Which of course let to me making a video of the incident and getting fired. See…look it’s the circle of life. Something happens to me in a bathroom and it’s time to move on to a new chapter. But, what the hell…I’m all over the place…I haven’t even closed last night’s chapter.

So, the fly lands on my shaft and of course I’m aghast. I don’t know if I’d ever been aghast, but it was awful. Where had that fly been? I would have wrapped up in one of those hot fudge condoms they sell at the clarette if I had known I was going to be violated.

The violation meant war. I immediately zipped up and marched to my fly swatter. I came back pissed off and if this was an actual movie flashback, the soundtrack song that would have been blaring would have been Azelia Banks’ chorus on one of her many tender love songs. It goes, “Ima ruin you cunt”. That fly was fucking dead.

And there he was. All smug. Sitting on the toilet bowl up against the lifted up seat. I took a mighty fucking swing. That didn’t go great. I must’ve slipped or the swatter ricocheted off the seat or something…all I know for sure is I made contact with the toilet water. With authority. I splashed that water all over the place, including my face and open mouth. What. The. Fuck.

On one of my last nights in this place I lost to a fucking fly.

There were better memories here than that sexual assault at the hands of an insect. Like that time that guy with the Mohawk asked me if he could get a beer that didn’t have an ice cream sandwich in it. Or all the sausage fests. Whatever that means. or taking shots in my kitchen with jaron rush. or my buddy and i working our mad game to get one girl to come home with the two of us. Or the wine out of the bottle night. Or the Norway post party. A lot of meaningful story times happened here. Along with a lot of me drinking liquids. Oh shit…I even bought a coffee table…like adults have. And I wrote a lot. And I went to therapy. And I’m still all fucked up and also still awesome.

And I can believe that…like the other night when I got sloppy yet again…I realized I was trying to earn my way back to awesome by not drinking these last 6 days. But, that’s the kind of shit I used to pull when i pretended to be a Christian. I’d try to earn grace. I’d fuck up and I’d try to be good for a month to make up for it. There’s no making up man. That’s what grace does for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it, but it felt good to realize this week again when I fucked up again that I’m awesome all the time, even in the exact moment when i'm fucking up. I never really felt that about myself, but Sarita told me that once after some other thing that I fucked up.

Just be awesome by being yourself. Just stop beating yourself up. Just stop thinking you need to measure up to anyone else. Or that you need to pretend. Or that other people have their shit together. Or that you’re not good enough. Just stop thinking that you’re not okay. You’re not okay. That’s true. You’re awesome. So go find the awesome parts of you and do the things and hang out with the people that make you feel more awesome.

And that’s one to grow on. Ha. I feel like I turned into an after school special right there, but that’s it. It’s taken a lifetime for me to even have a glimmer of a feeling that I’m awesome…even as the fly is laughing at me while the toilet water lands in my mouth.

And my kids are awesome. And they get that about themselves already. The one thing that I’m most proud of is that I picked this place because it was cheap and it was within walking distance of clarette. Not really…well, that really is why I picked it, but what I’m most proud of is that I’ve become a better dad while living here. I’ve written my ass off day in and day out to get my head to better places. I’ve worked hard at it. And I’ve failed a lot. But, man…I adore those kids. It’s so weird to think that they’re going to come back into town after vacation with their mom and come back to a new house, with bedrooms for all and more than one toilet and grass and shit. I might not have given them much materially these last few years, but we’ve already had a lot of the commodity I value most…the real. And they know how I feel about them.

Oh see…another memory…that made me think of the line from “to kill a mockingbird” where scout says something like, “my father looked at me mildly, amusement in his eyes.” That’s how my kids catch me looking at them. And what the hell? I just about proved I read a book. Actually, I read two books while I lived here. That one and the count of monte cristo. That’s a big deal, because I was an English literature major and I guarantee I didn’t finish 2 books in my whole college career. What a waste, right? No man…I wasn't ready for those lessons yet. I had to go to the school of mission terrace apartments/hard knocks/clarette club to get some real life lessons. It’s been a good run. Thanks for the memories guys. All you fuckers who have been here and been part of my life as I’ve experienced all this turbulence these last few years…it means the world. I’m awesome. You’re awesome. What's next?