petty inconsequential

Today I would like to indulge the petty emotion of a bruised ego. Something tainted my optimism when I got out of bed this morning. Maybe it’s the fact the moon slid into Aquarius last night. Or maybe I’m absorbing the negativity of a character I’m writing. Or maybe… maybe I’m a little ruffled by inconsequential details.

But, today is really the wrong day to allow oneself to be ruffled by inconsequential details. I’ve decided that Veterans’ Day isn’t about wearing my yellow ribbon (I don’t have one anyway) or even a poppy… which I do like because of its… okay, because it makes me a pretentious Anglophile. But those are just symbols and lip service.

The fact is I got up this morning – at the same time I normally do – but I don’t have to go to work, so I lingered another half hour contemplating some scenes I would write later today. Contemplating other thwarted plans for the day… when the sourness entered reality. Silly, really, because the sourness will fade by the weekend – maybe even by the end of today. And, in the whole grand scheme of things, it isn’t anything at all.

I don’t know what it is like to be a veteran. I watch my dad and have some comprehension. But as he gets older and the spotlight of memory shifts, I don’t think my understanding is complete. Nor never will be. I don’t tell him thank you on arbitrary dates mandated by the government. I sit and listen to these memories when they come up in conversation. Sometimes I will even prompt the conversation by asking him his place in certain events… or his perspective on other military history.

All I know is that it never leaves him. I know it makes him sad – both for the fact it took something from him he will never get back… and also because it was one of the best times of his life. And so I think today, when I grumble in my pouty self-indulgent poor me, seriously? You think that’s rough, Jessie? 

Because, come on, let’s face it. Life isn’t as bad as we make it sometimes. And even these vets… well, even they have some joy in the way they look back on the war. I’m not saying I know that for a fact or really understand it… but doesn’t it make sense when living so close to death each and every day you start to recognize the bliss of its simple existence? 

So anyway… just another ramble… in lieu of a patronizing Facebook status. I am thinking of vets today, of my dad, and deciding that any day is a good day. Even if some things suck. They get better.