Mrs.Jones

The world is always changin' you know. That's the way it's meant to be. Bin Laden is dead. I'm engaged and livin' with my fiance. Still broke though. The more things change...

We're all still broke I figure. Spendin' money on wars. Talk of a new war to make four. What's 1 more? Kinda wish somebody'd just be a man and say, “yeah, we fucked up” and get outta there already. Of course it ain't that simple. Never is. People dyin' over a thing, gonna be a big hurt if it ain't for sumthin' important. Prolly a good reason to make sure we have a reason to send the boys off to die. A full tank of gas ain't worth throwin' my life away for. Fattenin' the pockets of somebody else don't seem worth it either. But here we are. Killin' and dyin'. Killin' and dyin'. Killin' and dyin'.

Even if a man goes to war and comes back whole he's still gonna have a hole in him. All the death and destruction and the bombin' and the blood, that's gotta do damage, more so than you can see. The news treats it like it's just numbers and statistics. We just destroyed a family's home. We just lost Mrs. Jones her only son. It's not a game with a score card. Wars like the ones we're fightin' aren't as clear cut black and white as som would like to think. It's not the good guys in white against the villains in black. It's a struggling empire lookin' for resources held by poorer nations that don't want a starbucks on every corner and don't agree with bein' used up just to be forgotten. The poorer nations fight back with sneak attacks and threats to innocents. Nobody's a good guy in that story. Both are just desperate to keep their way of life.

Wanna know what to get a mother for her day? Bring her back that son that got sent to war. Bring back the boy she taught to tie his shoes, the one that used to play with his Tonka trucks in the driveway. Bring back the boy looked to her for comfort. The one that she helped turn into a man.

Of course there are patriotic reasons to join the armed forces. There are a dozen others besides that. But no mother raises her son to be a killer or to hide his pain in a bottle. A mother wants her children to grow up and be happy and healthy. War is made to kill and break the spirits of those who were once those children.

Things I Don't Know 'Bout Love

In this world there are lots of things I know nuthin' about. I'm bad at math. I don't know how to make bread. I don't know how VHS tapes worked. I'm smart enough to get around and get into trouble but what I and just about everybody I know can't get a grip on is love. Everybody's in it. Nobody can define it. And everybody gets offended if you say theirs ain't real. How do you know when you're in love? When do you find love? How do you make love last? Ionno... I thought I'd been in love before. Now I have a different opinion on those “loves.” I think the best way to really understand love is to look at your family. Most families have a lot of love in them. Love between siblings or parents is different from romantic love but it's still love. You can have a brother and he is gonna be your brother forever whether you love him or hate him or treat him bad or good. Death won't stop it. Change in distance won't do much to it. But love isn't as indestructible as people make it out to be. In movies and books you can find instances where love moves the universe, saves humanity, makes people do the right thing, and all darkness ceases to exist. Love itself is a scary thing. So, no it's not true that love will beat and over power anything. In fact, it can be the reason for a great deal of trouble. Fall in love with the wrong person and you could spend years committed to someone that won't love you back. Fall in love with the right person and you still might fight like you're gonna kill each other. Love is like most things: takes a lot of work and a lot of losses to get it right. I'm with a girl that I love. You know how I know? I just do. It's that simple to me and that inexplicable to you. It feels different than those other “loves”. The only difference I can really explain is that this feels permanent. I can see forever with her. I know that we'll fight, that I'll mistreat her, that she'll mistreat me but in the end I know we'll work it out. That's the hard part about love. You gotta talk feelin's. You gotta be honest and upfront. You gotta recognize you don't own the other person and that the things that piss you off are often the things you love about that person. Without those bits of work and understandin' love will never be true. I met her when we had two classes back to back. I talked to her in both and walked with her to these classes. I was so heartbroken at the time I couldn't see anything but my own anger and sadness. She saw that and somethin' clicked in her that said I was the one. She knew right away. I fought it long and hard because I didn't want to be in love. I was afraid of bein' hurt again. Eventually, she broke down all the walls I had built up. She got me to realize and admit that I loved her. She fought her way into my life and my heart. She lives there now. I couldn't be happier with all of our adventures. We sneak into pools that shouldn't be locked away from us anyway. We sneak into overpriced movies. We drink til we laugh or cry dependin' on the occasion. We sing awesome songs to each other. We tried runnin' out on our dinner tab...and failed. We chase each other down in the streets of Galveston and hide in bushes. We moved into a cozy lil apartment together. We will travel the world and see what it can offer us. We are young and vibrant and amazing and in love. That's what love is. It happens when it happens, whether you're ready or not.