47 Years Of Weirdness

I saw a random Facebook meme this morning before work and decided to share it as my theme for the day. It said: "I'm Different. And I Like That Shit." I captioned it: "Happy 47 to me. I'm learning to embrace my weirdness. As if I wasn't annoying enough." What that means simply is, I'm not trying to hide my quirks like I always used to. I am what I am. Whatever that entails, whatever social awkwardness, whatever inappropriate comments, whatever abrasive, aloof, sometimes confrontational front I put up to get through the day, it's me. Not everyone likes me. Hell, most people probably don't. And that's fine. I find that when I'm trying to be someone else, trying to fit in and be likeable, it may work and it may not, but I don't like how it feels because I'm being someone other than me. It can take years for people to feel even a little comfortable with their traits. I feel like I'm slowly getting there. And it's not fooling myself into thinking that I'm actually the normal one and everyone else is the problem. It's acknowledging that some things I do are fucked up, some aren't, but they're all MY things. When I wear my normal khakis and collared shirt to work on Halloween and declare that I'm dressing as a big fat nerd, or when I shake my considerable backside to the music at the bowling alley while waiting my turn, or when I make a bad pun joke to my wife knowing she won't find it funny at all, I'm being me, which is different from everyone else, but what would being like everyone else accomplish? Nah, I'm going to enjoy the things that make me me, and I'm going to have days where I feel down about me and wish I was better, and I'm going to have days where I feel like I'm awesome, and everything in between. It's all good. I've always been different. Finally, I'm kinda starting to like that shit.

I Socialized And Made Friends, And Pigs Do Fly

If you know me, then you know that I don't play well with others. Eight years ago I took a leap and joined a bowling league here in suburban Memphis even though I didn't know a soul. I did it because I missed bowling and I missed competing although I'm not a very good bowler, but I also did it as an attempt to socialize and be around people besides my wife and co-workers. I may not be the friendliest, but I did want some interaction with people, especially here in a new city where I know nobody and wasn't going to have any chance to hang out.

The team I joined was kinda perfect for me, but kinda detrimental too. The team captain was Richard, who was an oddball with a limp and a weird sense of humor. He would express mean opinions about people, usually minorities or women, but in a "You get what I'm sayin' man?" chuckling kind of way. So we got along with not much more in common than dark jokes and sports talk. Fine for my comfort zone, but didn't help me as a person. The other guy was Charles, and he hardly said a word. He was pleasant but he was basically a mute. His voice was extremely gravelly, so that may have been why he didn't talk, but he seemed very introverted besides that. Fine for my lack of self-confidence since I didn't have to talk to him, but again, didn't do much for my growth and wasn't really much fun. This is a four-person mixed league which means that at least one person on every team must be of the opposite gender, and we filled our female opening with a lady who, like me, walked in and joined a random team with an opening. Bobbie was an older lady originally from Chicago, so we bonded over that. She brought her high school grandson occasionally, and I called him Youngblood because he reminded me of me: Big guy, quiet, kept to himself, had a girlfriend who was probably as important to his self-worth as "Giselle" was to mine at that age. So I offered advice to him sparingly and thought of him as a play-nephew. We were the worst team consistently every year. Our handicap was so high that, at my request, our team name was "Handicap Team" the last couple of years we bowled. (Hey, I wanted to call us "We're Handicapped," but Bobbie thought otherwise.) We finished 5th out of like 20 teams one year just because we would win so many games using that high handicap. We were one of the longest running teams, and we were used to each other's personalities. Then Richard started to change.

Richard's jokes became even darker and more cruel, making fun of people in the news suffering tragedies or people in the bowling league slipping or bowling bad. This despite his limp and his occasional fall on the lanes. Honestly, I chalked it up to more people, mostly white, being more and more aggressive and eager to share their opinions last decade since Obama became president and certainly since Donald Trump succeeded him. But this was more than that. Turned out that Richard had a tumor in his brain. He had a huge knot surgically removed, but the cancer returned. His behavior became more erratic, including going to bowl when it wasn't his turn, or taking even longer to get his gear on and off than usual. One time he started bowling on the wrong lane, and when calling his name didn't stop him, my patience wore off and I shouted out "Hey IDIOT!!" Another time, there was a Chinese church league that started after we were done on Wednesday nights, and they had to wait because we were often the last team bowling due to Richard's slow play. He turned to me one night and said out loud, "How does anyone know what those people are saying?!" followed by stereotypical Asian language mocking sounds that would make Shaquille O'Neal proud. I told him to knock that off, and he legit seemed surprised by my chiding him. "Why?" he asked, and I told him because it's ignorant.

All this came to a head right around the time coronavirus upended everyone's world. Early in 2020, Richard told us he would need another surgery for his brain tumor and he probably wouldn't be back that season, which was supposed to end in April. He tried to sound optimistic and vowed to be back the next year. But multiple brain surgeries didn't sound good, plus a bowler who knew nurses at his hospital told me that they said it didn't look good. Honestly, I think Bobbie and I were happy to get through the rest of the season without waiting for him to get out of the bathroom or hoping he knew which lane to throw on. And Charles just showed up and bowled every week. Nothing seemed to faze him. Most every public leisure activity started to shut down due to COVID, including our bowling alley, and our season ended early in February. I retrieved our prize money a couple of months later and mailed it out to Richard and Charles. Bobbie came to meet me at a gas station near her home in Mississippi so that she could tell me in person that she wouldn't come back to the league next season. Her drive to the alley was 45 minutes each way, and she had finally wearied of it. Richard and Charles got their money, and Richard thanked me via text. That was the last Richard and I would communicate. A league officer in August 2020 e-mailed me to ask if I had found new teammates to replace Bobbie and Richard, since Bobbie wasn't returning and Richard died. I had no idea until then that Richard lost his cancer battle.

I actually had a hard time dealing with Richard's loss for a couple of reasons. One, I don't handle loss well anyway, as depicted by me not attending my own mother's funeral. But two, I really didn't treat Richard with much compassion his last year alive. His breaking down was inconveniencing me, and his personality made me regard him as a pain in the ass more than a human whose health was failing. I didn't put his often awful choice of words and his brain tumor together until it was too late. It wouldn't have changed his speech, but it would have forced me to recognize that some of it may have been beyond his control. A counselor suggested that I write Richard a letter getting my feelings out, and that helped. I still have the letter. Richard can't ever read it but I feel like I shouldn't throw it away.

I did not return to the league in 2020 or 2021. I needed the time away so soon after Richard, and my wife was extra wary of me going somewhere social after we both caught COVID. But I decided to go to the meeting last week to get ready for the new season. Just like eight years ago, I was going without a team and hoping to catch on with a team that had a male opening. Unlike eight years ago, I knew the people in the league, and I was going to be happy to see them for the first time in two years. There was a scenario I imagined as the best-case, but my nature is to assume and prepare for the worst, so I just went to the meeting with my new ball ($72 for drilling, fucking inflation) trying to be ready for whatever.

The scenario was this: There was a team throughout the years that was comprised of a woman and her daughter, Margo and Missy, and they seemed to have different partners filling out their team all the time. I always had the most fun bowling against Margo and Missy because their averages were low compared to the rest of the league and they didn't take it seriously at all. They were quiet but friendly, and we developed a rapport because I feigned fear whenever we bowled them since they had even more handicap than we did. "OH NO, we're bowling Missy and Margo! Y'all always kick our ass!" They would smile and chuckle and swear that they didn't always beat us, and then every time one would throw a strike or spare, I would raise an eyebrow and yell out, "Oh, there they go!" And they would start laughing. It was always a blast playing them. I hoped that they would still be around and they would have an opening, but I started thinking of reasons why it would be a longshot: The mother, Margo, was in her 60s or maybe even 70s, so why would she still be interested in coming out to a bowling league post-COVID? And even if they were still in the league, would they have a random opening this year? And if they did, would they want me on the team? Just because we made each other laugh didn't mean that they would want me as a teammate necessarily. Well, it all came together, sorta! 

See, Missy and Margo were there last week, along with Al, who has been their partner for the last few years. I asked them if they had a fourth, and they all said they did last year, but they didn't know if he would be back. So I said, if they need a fourth, I was available. After some discussion, they called me over and asked me to come aboard. I was thrilled. There was a small issue that I knew nothing about: Their fourth from last year had shown up at the meeting. I never met the guy, so I didn't know he was standing there until he asked them about his spot, and Missy told him, "We got someone else. We didn't know you were coming back." I kinda felt bad about it because it then felt like they kicked him off to make room for me, their old buddy. But later it was explained to me by a third party that they didn't like him as their partner last year. Evidently, he didn't have etiquette as far as watching out for other bowlers before he rushed up and started throwing, and also, he was a bad teammate, often not showing up for league play and not calling or informing anybody. (When I looked at last year's standings and scores, I saw that he did indeed miss seven weeks of bowling out of a 34-week season.) Poor guy, reminded me of Richard.

That's when it dawned on me: I was being invited by Missy and Margo because I wasn't a bad teammate, because I made each matchup fun when we played against each other, because I was genuinely happy every time I saw them. And I made a good impression on them so that when the chance came, they eagerly brought me aboard. Wow, I can socialize and make friends after all. This third party told me that Missy and Margo were happy to see me when I came to the meeting. That was so wild to hear because I was so happy to see them. They were my ideal team to join, and it actually happened. I'm so used to looking at the dark side of things and dismissing any good fortune as happenstance, but I have to accept the reality of what happened. A team didn't really have an opening but made one just for me because they like me. That's dope. We may not win many games, but we'll smile and laugh and have fun, and that for me is winning.