the past shaping the now vision of the future

While out smoking in the rain the other day, I was once again trying hard not to focus on this displaced and stuck there feeling. Out of nowhere, I suddenly thought of the words "I've already made and lost fortunes in my lifetime." I can think of at least one person I know that said something along those lines, and I'm fairly certain some famous person or other said something similar to it in regards to how continued effort even in the face of failure will yield rewards of one kind or another. But it definitely got my brain reeling in another direction.

I cannot recall, and couldn't then either, of ever hearing much about the in between times in circumstances like that: the making and losing of fortunes. (I'm realizing as I write this that it's hard to define exactly what I mean by in between times, and I'll get to that in a bit.) There is one person in particular I did actually know before he passed who certainly lost one fortune in his life and had to rebuild, but it wasn't so much of a cycle for him. Although with him, I definitely heard the tale of what happened in between the fall and the start of the next rise.

And that led my brain to thinking about how we can and sometimes do break down parts of our lives into chapters or scenes with nice little headings that summarize, well or otherwise, what can be found within that encapsulation. And that's where I was trying to figure out when the upswing actually got recorded as a part of the process, or the bottom was recognized as whatever part of the curve, etc. etc.

As much as I try to think outside of the so called box, I know that I often view my life in relative terms to what my memory recalls of my past. It's part and parcel of the idea that Utopias never work because if there is no bad, how can we appreciate the good?

Right now, when the concept of hand to mouth isn't even giving justice to how we're living, I feel that I am at a dead low of sorts. I know that things could be worse. We could be homeless. We could have no jobs at all. We could have no food at all. He could be dead and I would be that much more dismal on top of everything. But, my memories of what I perceive as better times are still quite strong, and therefore are dictating to my neural spaghetti that right now I am not happy because of how different they are in the lacking sense of what made the happy as happy as it was for me overall.

Three things of note that I read today that relate to this for me are:
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."--George Orwell

"I think, is the perception of my Gen Y e-mailers that they dutifully set up their lives based on assumptions that suddenly no longer apply. "--Emily Bazelon "The Real World Threw Up All Over Us" http://www.slate.com/id/2214712

"It’s easy to feel that one isn’t working hard enough, that one should try harder to save money or take on additional work. To rebel publicly, even to engage politically, would mean exposing your own inadequacies, so most people just hunker down and keep plugging away at those monthly payments." -- Sudhir Venkatesh "Feeling Too Down to Rise Up" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29venkatesh.html?pagewanted=1

The reason I find these three quote significant right now is because they all reminded me of the other day when I realized I wasn't exactly waxing nostalgic so much as I have been struggling to figure out what's realistically next on the agenda of my life--what will be the formative aspect of my next life chapter.

There are definitely rules that have changed, some of which happened well before the final realization that we weren't surviving anymore, we were perilously close to becoming tenants in a type of tent city if we didn't take serious action. The first one that comes to mind at this moment is that we no longer fight about money. And as simple as this may sound, realize that according to some statistic that I'm too lazy to look up right now, money issues are the number one reason for divorce by such a wide margin that you have to say it's not a horseshoes or grenades comparison moment.

But despite the changes that have already come, even those accepted without a grudge, we both still feel stuck. When I try to do something with a spare hour or so I find myself with, I once again realize how the contents that need tending to from the move are primarily in off-site storage in mostly not marked boxes, and we are still in the process of taking the few boxes we still have here that aren't very helpful right now for whatever reason back to there so we will have room to bring a few that might be relevant back to here. This of course, is when I start calculating driving time, what time of day it is, gas that will be used even with our hybrid, and then how many more days until we are supposed to be moved out of our temporary housing and then I find myself yet again coming to the conclusion that it's not worth it. And then I waste time trying to find something else I can do with my available time that somehow seems more meaningful rather than blowing time playing a game or once again browsing my usual web haunts. (Oh, like writing here--and obviously this isn't much of a usual web haunt, so you figure it out.)

And this is the point where I find my original clear thought muddled and unresolved as I want it to be before I need to take care of something else. I may come back and try to wrest this better later, or time may not allow it.