Just Like (a) Human

Yesterday, while hanging out with some of my dorm mates who enjoy WWE Wrestling, I heard that Chris Benoit, his wife, and his child were found dead, but with no details.

Being that I had my laptop on me at the time, they all asked me if I can try to get them some more information about what happened. Unfortunately, despite drawing and summoning all of my resources, and even using the Wikipedia booster gave me almost nil, other than confirming that it was not another angle for the show like Vince McMahon’s ‘death’. That was one thing they wanted to know. The information about how it all went down wasn’t available to the public at that time, so unfortunately, they wouldn’t know.

Fast forward to today. I come in to work, and accept a couple of hours of VTO. I check TMZ.com to see if they had any information about Benoit’s death, and was surprised at the article they had published. Lately, at least to me, there’s been a lot of murder-suicide cases, with someone slaughtering the whole family that’s on hand, and then offing themselves so they don’t have to account directly to us as humans for their sins, their crimes, and their transgressions.

This is, perhaps, a bit too disturbing, how people just think like this.

I know what it’s like to want to die, but, I guess I don’t understand why someone feels they must also off family members that are dear to them at the same time. It makes little to no sense whatsoever. I’m just wondering if anyone, be they a star, or maybe sub-par, will ever logically say to themselves, “Oh man, I’m in too deep. Let me talk to someone before I drown myself in this problem.”

I was just wondering, is all.

[tags]Chris Benoit, WWE, Wrestling, Death, Murder, Suicide[/tags]

As I sit here this afternoon, I have my lunch sitting on the desk in front of me. Sure, it was a big no-no when we moved into this house — Mom wanted me to get used to not eating in my room, away from people. She said it was anti-social, and bad for my health.

For a while I kept that promise, eating in the dining room, even though I chose to do it when the rest of the family was gone somewhere, or was asleep. I still kept the promise of not eating in my room then.

I’ve taken to eating in my room more often now, because she’s gone. I don’t have her here to verbally reprimand me for doing it.

I sit here this afternoon, with my bowl of phở and a mug with green tea, sweetened with only one teaspoon of honey. I neglect to locate my cameraphone, because my desk is a mess, and because this is a bit of a private image for me.

Yet, the thoughts that pop up require me to talk about this.

The bowl and mug, I noticed as I stirred honey into the hot green tea before me, each symbolize one of my late parents.

The bowl is a ceramic type deal, white, with a thick and a thin hunter green stripe around the rim. The bowl’s contents, the phở itself is white, like the bowl, and the green onions and the packet of vegetables that come with it are varying shades of green to match.

This bowl is the papa bowl. My dad loved hunter green. Whenever he bought clothing for me, he’d try to get something green, if he could get away with it. Long before he passed, he would make food, and when he put it in bowls, he would, perhaps subconsciously, color code each of our bowls. This green-banded bowl was his. I had a blue-banded bowl that was nearly identical. Mom would get the light brown band for hers.

The mug is another ceramic type deal, cream colored, with light brown circling the outside of the mug. Within the light brown band are cream colored circles that would remind you of the 5 bone in dominos. The green tea in the mug is close to the color of the band on the outside of the mug — a brownish hue.

This mug is the mama mug. When I was very young, Mom would always have her morning coffee or morning cocoa from this very mug. There was a couple of other mugs she would drink from, but those were gifts from me, and from one of her children as I grew.

Somehow, I managed to pick up each one of these while making my lunch, though it was completely unintentional.

I didn’t mean to go into this while my lunch is getting cold, but…

I think that sometimes, we as humans do things that make us feel comfortable, or invoke thoughts of past comfort to make the present a little easier to bear. The bowl and mug remind me a lot of mom and dad, whom I miss dearly, but they don’t make me hurt inside like looking at pictures. Maybe it is because they invoke thoughts, old memories of me as a child, where I felt safe, loved, and warm.

Am I the only one who sees it like this?

Time to add more honey to the tea, and eat.

[tags]Spirituality, Comfort, Past, Symbolism[/tags]

I’m tired of crawling through life, living paycheck to paycheck.

I’d love to be able to save some money. Y’know, bank it off, have some reserve to work with, so I would be able to meet my needs should I ever have a problem. You know… sorta like the way life insurance works.

To that end, I found that Liberty National (perhaps the best Life Insurance company I’ve ever dealt with on a personal level) is hiring, but I have to be licensed to sell insurance first. So, all I need to do is figure out how to pay for the licensing class, and then give them a call back.

This would be awesome on so many levels for me.

As a person with one thing far too important to lose, I have more of a reason to get up every day, and follow my leads to try to sell life insurance (and the other products). Everyone in America has a need for Life Insurance. In fact, thanks to my mother having a life insurance policy, the unexpected cost of having to purchase a wider coffin, and additional burial space to fit it was able to be paid for out of the insurance money, rather than my aunt and myself having to find some way to come up with the cash.

Small businesses always need some sort of insurance benefits for their employees. I’d be able to come to them, and show them how they can save money, and insure their employees. That, too, would mean I get paid.

If I get paid, then I can pay my monthly bills, repay my debts to a couple of excellent friends who have spotted me loans, get someone to help me manage my budgeting properly to allow me to: clear up all my other outstanding debts one by one, repair or replace my car with a slightly less dated vehicle (I drive an ‘89 Mazda 323, of which some of its parts are becoming nearly impossible to find and replace; I can probably replace it with a vehicle that’s used, but in far better condition, or depending on how well financed it is, a new vehicle).

So… starting goal marker: $99 to take the licensing course.
Once licensed, reapplying at Liberty National.
If rejected, then I can still apply at other insurance companies with a leg up on the competition.

Moving forward… I think I mentioned a bit back that I had started going to church. I’m enjoying the services, and the time I spend with the members at Manhattan Avenue Church of Christ. I am starting to feel that maybe the Lord’s Word is having an impact on me again, now that I have watched people who truly believe what he says in the act of worship and praise. The church is a small, quiet one, but it proves that you don’t have to shout three city blocks to reach the person sitting in the same room.

Our church has no musical instruments, other than our voices, and the occasional toot on one of those little tuning wheel thingies (which I detected by ear, but haven’t seen) to get us going. We do not need musical instruments to praise God, as it was explained to me by Marcus, our preacher at Manhattan Avenue Church of Christ.

Spiritually, I think I am becoming calmer.

Now, if I can transfer that to financially, I will be able to move forward, and get out of the rut that my life has been in for the past six years.