I did a lot of thinking over the last week after I picked up and threw a 30-pound two-wheel dolly. Or “hand-truck,” if you prefer.
Perhaps some context…
It was last Wednesday. A day off from my hell job. I drove from Oklahoma City, where I live temporarily in a Georgian Orthodox monastery, to Tulsa, OK. It’s about two hours, which isn’t much compared to some of the other road trips I used to routinely drive, but it would be enough to get some serious planning and thinking done. Or so I thought.
If I’m being honest, that’s when the pot started heating up. Hrrrngh, I shouldn’t even have to be making this commute…Hrrrrngh…
I’d planned to use the day off to downsize a storage unit to save some money. (Shouldn’t even NEED a storage unit…Hrrrngh…) However, other well-laid plans had fallen through, and long story short, I was also going to take the family out to a nice place in Tulsa for a day-early Thanksgiving dinner.
So, time was now short (Hrrrrngh…) to do a big job; to basically stuff 100 cubic feet of stuff into a 50 cubic foot unit. I despise having to do big jobs in cramped conditions in a short timeframe. I did it for ten years with my moving company.
I.
Despise.
It.
You might say I was in a mood by the time I was on-site.
The key to making the downsize work was putting the large section of the couch up high, Stonehenging it on the end of the other section and some sturdy white cabinets. The couch thusly airborne, it would provide a spot for the voluminous random stuff like kid-made bows and arrows, oversized purple unicorn “stuffies,” and boxes of business paperwork I’m required to keep for reasons (Hrrrngh), while leaving floor space for other, heavier things. The trick was getting that big mother from one unit to the other and then up high.
I was doing this by myself. Here’s where it broke me…
I have a literal decade of experience moving heavy things from one place to another. I practiced that for literally 1/5th of my life, which believe me, is not something I say with pride. So, I have no one to blame but myself for what happened next.
I wrangled the couch onto the two-wheel dolly (barely) and started rolling it to the other unit about 100-feet away. Problem: There was an incline between the two rows of outside storage units, a V-shaped gully at the bottom of such a slight incline that it was almost imperceptible. However, physics and gravity perceived it, and even though the couch wasn’t that heavy, it was enough to list hard to port, and down it went.
I almost stopped it, but at the last second I made a snap decision to get clear of the listing couch and avoid being smashed into red, Theo-based paste.
You’re welcome, kids. The Provider lives another day.
I’d had two-and-a-half hours to build up a good head of steam, as they say. I was primed and ready for a blowout, and had even gotten to the brink several times. But this? Oh no. This was the coup de grace.
I looked at the upside down couch on the concrete for about one second, then picked up the two-wheeler and I sent that sucker to flight.
I’m not proud of it. (Well, I’m kind of proud of the distance I sent the thing). I’m even less proud of what I said in that moment. I let a GD fly as well, bringing the total number of times I’ve said that in my life to about five. It reverberated up and down the rows of closed storage units like the echo of the final Judgement gong.
I’ve asked for divine imprecation so few times in my life because even before I understood the reasons why it’s so evil, I intuited it. Even in my darkest, most lost times, I knew there were lines you just don’t cross.
But on Wednesday, I did. With forethought. Just a few nanoseconds of forethought, but I knew what I was doing.
And just as shocking as that act itself was the realization that I had some “realigning” to do.
As I said, I did a lot of thinking during the last week. As I was outlining topics and stories for this week’s newsletter, I realized I had about five different possibly essay-length thoughts to share. I doubt I’ll actually publish five times this week, but here’s today’s thought vis-a-vis my blasphemy laden storage unit down-sizing:
Repression is a thing. You can call it “discipline,” “prudence,” or just plain old “keeping things to yourself,” but if there’s shtuff you need to deal with, you’d better deal with it. It’s coming out one way or another.
For me, I’ve thought of the last several weeks, (not to mention the last year) in terms of “the struggle,” or “the battle.” (Vivere est militare!) I should have noticed something else I was doing: I’ve been withdrawing from everyone and everything. A classic sign of a potentially serious problem. I told myself I was just getting real with myself and “facing hard truths,” etc., but really what I was doing was pushing things down harder and harder until, theoretically, the pressure should have been creating diamonds. I may get a diamond or two out of this Situation by the time it’s all said and done, but in reality I had ignited and compressed a beryllium-circumstantium shell surrounding deuterium-frustratium core. Instead of taking 600 billionths of a second to ignite, it took about two hours.
It did only take a few billionths of a second to realize I needed to go to Confession, though.
Funny how that works. Some idiotic sin makes sense in the moment, but then you realize you have to reschedule your whole Saturday…
There’s something to be said for manly stoic reticence. I’m still a big believer in eating your pain most of the time. Aside from growing a respectable carpet of hair on your chest, the intellectual and spiritual insights gained from shutting the hell up are pretty powerful. But there are, without doubt, things that you shouldn’t bury.
There we go. An insight. I’m going to go ahead and email that to my 16-year-old self.
I’m going all-in on this, folks. It’s a joy and a mission. More on that in a near-future newsletter, but apparently, against all expectations, common sense or reason itself, men are finding value in these musings.
Nothing could make me happier.
Except, perhaps, being able to support my family by helping other men get their lives in order. So, if you can spare $5 per month for a subscription, I’d appreciate it. As they say, that’s less than a cup of Starbucks. It’s less than a Max/Hulu/Netflix/Paramount/Prime subscription. Even less than Apple TV, which is actually pretty surprising.
If a subscription is out of the question, then share your thoughts. Most of the time, this is like shooting messages in bottles into outer space. Or, like posting on X. I have no idea why subscribers keep signing up. My mom can’t possibly be setting up that many dummy accounts.
/Tin cup rattle.
Your MA isn't setting up any tin cup accounts. May your insights make your cup runneth over. You've earned and deserve it. Powerful writing, not to mention hand-truck launching.