Risk
At the cottage last night, Richie asked me to play his new board game with him. I wanted to talk a little while with the adults instead.
"After dinner," I said.
"Ok," he answered with a lowered head, and then spent a half hour setting up the board on the cottage floor.
Early in Richie’s life, I avoided the consequences of some of my failures by helping my sister through a rough period; moving to Buffalo, living with her, and watching her six-week-old son during the day while tending bar at a regional theater during the evenings.
I was perfect for the role then, because I was caring enough to be mostly trusted to look after an infant, but irresponsible and hung-over just often enough that my sister knew she needed to get her crap together so that they would not need me anymore.
Six months later, she moved back to Rochester and I stayed in Buffalo for the rest of the year, then moved back to Rochester too. I was Richie’s flawed but well-meaning ne’er-do-well uncle who kept his act together enough to do two things well: get a pilot’s license and be trusted and adored by his nephew.
I was dating a girl I really didn’t like that much, bouncing between two different forklift driving jobs, and going to community college. I did most of these things with a hangover. I didn’t have much going for me, but somehow, it seemed that Richie always thought I was amazing.
I felt the same about him.
My sister met Richie’s now adopted dad just in time for me to need to move away to complete my education. Without Chris, I never would have felt comfortable living more than a few minutes from Rich. As flawed as I was, I was his only stable, young male role model. But because Rich now had a dad, I could go to Utica where I found a degree program that really inspired me and I got my act together.
But even after moving a few hours away, Rich and I have stayed really close and have an unusual bond. He’s turned into an 11-year-old kid whom I consider a role model for me most of the time. He has a strong sense of himself and his own capabilities; as a natural leader, he looks out for other kids wherever he is, and he’s deeply sensitive without being easily manipulated.
In the decision-making process for the move across the continent this year, I had quantified and bundled all the emotional reasons not to move to California into one package. All of the intangible reasons not to go got weighed and acknowledged, then stuffed into a crate mentally stenciled with REASONS NOT TO GO.
There are a lot of reasons not to go.
After dinner last night, reality and time struck. We never got to play the game Richie had set up. He had to go because his family was going to Darien Lake in the morning. I am not going to be back in town for two weeks, and then following that, I won’t be around for a long, long time. I could see that Rich was getting upset as we packed the un-played game up into the box; he was hiding his disappointment that was not really about the un-played game, but the fact that I was moving thousands of miles away. It was hitting him that I was really leaving soon and that we won’t have time to do things like play "Risk" together for a long time.
And it hit me that we may never get a chance to play that game now. Kids are fickle and they grow up quick. In four-to-six months when I see him again, it will be some other game. Then it will be something else, and then it will be girls, then cars, then college. And moving across the country suddenly means that I will be that type of uncle who is there for all the parties and milestones of his life, but not one who really is there to see him grow up or be a part of that process.
I thought I had weighed all the factors, all the benefits against the risks. But I still have to wonder if I’m doing the right thing. The things and the people Kelly and I will miss are much harder to think about individually than as a part of all the sentimental reasons to stay here.
I’m not getting cold feet about this, just realizing all the implications of this move.
You can still be close to Rich but it will take a little more effort, email, letters, phone calls, etc. I know it is not quite the same but the bond you have is not a fragile thing it is strong and flexible, it may change but it will not disappear.
I'm much happier with this move now that I know the plan and what airport to fly into. Although I will miss you both dreadfully, especially "my friend Kelly."
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Your title should really have a warning message to family members.
SOME of us read your blog at work and SOME of us are all red, blotchy, tear stained and depressed now.
SOME OTHER PEOPLE suck for doing this to SOME people while at work.
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What time do you work? I thought my job had bad hours but 5:24 am is definitely worse.
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I get it now, I'm eastern-centric and forgot this blog was set to Pacific standard time, yet another reason to not like California, Chuck & Kelly will be able to sleep while the rest of us drag ourselves off to work and then they will get to stay up later. At least we get the network shows first.
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Yeah, Richie is taking your move pretty hard, but like Tammy said, email and phone calls do a lot. A written letter that he gets in the mail addresses soley to him will do more. He is getting to an age where he needs some privacy and someone to bounce these bigger decisions off of....I see you and letters sent thousands of miles as doing that for him.
We will ALL miss you, but I think Richie will the most.
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Sorry for the depressing post. That's just where I was last night. I think you're all right that it's all manageable with a some effort. I think that knowing when the next trip out there or back here will be will help too.
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There's always video conferencing. It allowed Heather's dad to get his first view of her pregnant belly last night. Not as good as being there, but it's a little more immediate than other things. Try Skype or AIM or ichat.
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BTW: you should set up the RSS feed feature on this blog.
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Video conferencing is a GREAT idea!! But don't get any ideas about the pregnant belly. Its not allowed so far away from Aunt JJ.
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Can we point out that the girlfriend mentioned in this blog is not your beautiful wife? I would hate people to think you didn’t like me that much.
Jeffrey—Is Heather having any weird cravings (i.e. pickles, ice cream, genetically-modified corn)?
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No real weird cravings per se, but she's entering a phase where she wants to eat anything she sees. I've taken this a step further, of course, and accused her of wanting to eat a tractor.
I suppose the cliche thing is to eat pickles and ice cream, but since we have one of the good pickle places and one of the good gelato places near by our apartment, we pretty much each those things anyway (although not together).
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I crave those pickles, and I'm not pregnant.
Seriously, Chuck, even I cried. You have to put some kind of warning on these, although I guess "Risk" was kind of a spoiler. Still.
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And, Jeffrey, here's the feed I'm using:
http://blog.howdaddyisdoing.com/atom.aspx
He also has a feed set up for podcasts, although I don't know why:
http://blog.howdaddyisdoing.com/podcasts-only/rss2.aspx
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Did I miss the feed links or did they just get put on? I am pretty immune to the obvious (although I have noticed my wife is pregnant).
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I just added the feed links. The podcast one is an accident, I'll fix it later tonight. I'm really new at this.
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I don't remember how I got it, but I put the feed in my Bloglines right when Chuck started the blog. Maybe I wished it there.
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It's entirely possible that the feeds were once there by something I did by accident, then disappeared as mysteriously as they appeared. I have almost no idea what I'm doing here.
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It's the same with my site. I keep telling myself that someday I'm going to spend more time figuring out what I'm doing. You know, when my "to read" and "to watch" pile is a little lower....
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Risk concerns the deviation of one or more results of one or more future events from their expected value. Technically, the value of those results may be positive or negative. However, general usage tends to focus only on potential harm that may arise from a future event, which may accrue either from incurring a cost.
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I think nice portal. Congratulations. Last Hidden object Games and Mahjong for boys, my Download Free Games collection, and new Running Games, Five Finger Pellet.
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I do not intend to repeat this website, but I actually like the template. May you touch upon which theme you are using or is it customized for this blog?
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I am interested in your template. Where did you download the template?
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