Category: Uncategorized

How do you catch up on life when it moves too fast and never stops? I don’t even know where to begin with this. I recently started seeing a therapist and we both agree that I should start journaling again. She suggested I start small, set a timer for myself and just write. I always try to have some sort of cohesion or reason to my journal posts but this won’t be that. I’m currently sitting in my office and wondering how many minutes into this 25-minute timer until I am interrupted by my team’s needs or my mind’s remembering of something that I forgot to do.

Earlier this week I was possessed by the phantom of my past excellence. I found myself working the front desk on Monday and Tuesday with exuberance and guile the likes of which I haven’t expressed in my work for many years. I had almost forgotten how good I am? …was? …had been? at this hospitality thing. I had almost forgotten how easy it is? …was? …used to be? for people to love me. It was a pleasant reminder of how and why I have made so many connections in my life. I also made $25 in tips and had a guest buy me lunch. #winning

Such guest love is very rare post-pandemic. At first I thought it was because the guests/people have gotten worse and become more selfish in this post-apocalyptic world. Then I realized that it’s the spirit of service that has been in steady decline since (before) 2020. Of course I want to blame these younger generations and their overinflated sense of entitlement combined with soft egos and a general disdain for face-to-face, interpersonal communication, but it’s not all their fault. I mean, it’s mostly their fault, but I suppose we old-heads can take 20% of the blame since we were so wrapped up in surpassing and impressing our parents that we neglected the tutelage that the little shits needed. Oops. Our bad.

I don’t know if I will be able to recreate that spirit of awesomeness again but I sure hope so. I like liking my performance even if it’s shit-work. My biggest problem with being good at hospitality work is that I feel like a house-nigger, the favorite and most tolerated of all the slaves. But that’s a conversation for another day. My 25 minutes is up.

Pour out my soul to control the hurt
Why must Earl Simmons swim in dirt
I’m gon’ make it work–
28 and trying to get baptized
Priest scared to touch me
Cuz he said I gave him bad vibes

~DMX

I was late to the rap game. My boyish romanticism was largely supported by R&B back in the Nineties when Rap music first started weaving into the mainstream. I remember liking Tupac’s “Dear Mama” song and decided that rappers were pretty cool, even if I couldn’t understand their too-fast lyrics, but I didn’t really start getting into Hip-Hop until the 21st century. When I did finally get into the game, DMX was one of my first favorite artists. He was much more gangsta than I could ever hope to be, but I was drawn in by his storytelling and honesty on the mic. He reinforced my belief that vulnerability and weakness are not the same things.

Pour out my soul to release the hurt
Why must Q Bostick swim in the dirt
Can I make it work?
Desperate to feel alive at 39
Queen scared to date me
Cuz she said I gave her sad vibes

~Q

I think everyone agrees that dating in these modern times is the worst. It’s insanely difficult and also dangerous. Global anxiety has crippled social growth and development. Trust issues are a prerequisite nowadays, and not an unfortunate side effect. Dating has become less about partnering our strengths and more about pairing our weaknesses. We seek to match vices more than virtues because a drinking partner is a lot less work (and more fun) than a study buddy. I’m guilty of it, too. I don’t think I could date a woman that’s not 420-friendly. Is that fair? No, but I’m not willing to give up the habit. I haven’t wanted to work too hard at love (or anything, for that matter), so I have only been open to the riff-raff and trash that wafts in the wind, just looking to get higher and higher.

I have not been intentional about dating for a few years now. After my last relationship ended, I was solely focused on my role as a father until the pandemic came along and the Kid left me to follow her own path. I was emotionally wiped out in the fallout of that catastrophe. I have spent the subsequent years healing, and searching for acceptance. I always thought that acceptance would mean relief from the pain, but I am having to re-evaluate that belief.

The assessment that I gave off “sad vibes” left me unsettled, but not unsurprised. A few weeks ago my sister was surprised to hear that I wanted to date someone, and I was surprised that she was surprised. She explained that I just didn’t seem like I was interested in the act. As a hopeless romantic, I’m always interested in the possibility of love; however, after hearing her assessment, I had to admit that I had unintentionally made myself emotionally unavailable in the years following the heartbreaks of my dad’s passing and my daughter’s leaving.

Now here I am trying to dive back into the dating game but I have not built myself nor my confidence back up. I have spent so much time being small and feeling less than as a result of my losses that I approach every potential partner with the assumption that IF she even sees me, surely she will leave me, too. I manifest my own worst fears and then wonder why it happened.

A lot of this trauma is the result of my own disappointment at being unable to connect with my daughter in a timely fashion. If I can’t get my own offspring to see me, especially when she’s so annoyingly similar to me, then what hope is there for a stranger with no ties? I know it’s an unfair comparison for so many reasons, but I can’t shake the fact that I don’t feel seen by anyone. And this latest rejection is just proof that I still have more changes to make before I can emerge fully from my cocoon.

The truth is, I don’t feel sad, but I don’t feel happy or fulfilled either. I want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be appreciated. I am not sad. I am angry that my plans have all failed, and I am tired. I am tired of this cycle of grief. I remember being told once that “Happiness is a choice.” I also remember the Green Goblin counseling the original Spider-Man that “We are whom we choose to be… Now, choose!”

I choose…