Writing Prompt #5: Do you prefer taking risks or having a safety net?

I have a set of rules. They’re rules for me, no one else. They started out as Gibbs’s rules from the television show NCIS, but over the years I’ve removed a lot of the ones that didn’t apply and I’ve added a lot that were more specific to me. This is one of them.

Rule #17: Risk is part of the game.

"Risk is part of the game [if] you want to sit in that chair."

It’s a quote from Star Trek: Generations, in which Captain James T. Kirk gently admonishes a young, rookie captain that if he wants to sit in the Big Chair, he needs to understand that his job is not to play it safe. A captain’s job is to risk.

That’s not to say that anyone should take undue risks. Kirk has often been known to advise caution, or to get his ship and his crew to safety, or to not make stupid decisions. Although often remembered as reckless, Kirk was never one to take unwarranted or unnecessary risks. He wasn’t a loose cannon. But when the situation called for risk, when lives were at stake or his ship was on the line, he wasn’t afraid to take risks in the name of a greater cause. He wasn’t afraid to take personal risks to achieve his goals or complete his mission. Jim Kirk was the epitome of taking measured, calculated risks, and that’s what he was trying to impress upon his younger counterpart.

In my life, I’ve often tended to play it safe. I don’t enjoy rejection or failure; no one really does. But I’ve often felt that I’ve been rejected or hurt or embarrassed so often in my life that I never wanted to experience that again. I especially wanted to play everything safe when my kids were little because they were the most important people in my life. I never wanted them to suffer for any risks I took.

The problem, I’ve only realized in the last few years, is that isn’t living. Life involves risk and failure. Life involves picking yourself up and trying again. Sometimes life involves taking a chance in the name of something that’s important. I’ve never been very good at that, but I’m trying. I’ve never been very good at going after what I want; I always prioritize other people or other needs or the rules or anything other than myself. Sometimes it’s really just an excuse to not put myself out there, to stay in my safe place and not to engage with the world on its terms. Sometimes I lie to myself.

I’m 47 years old; breaking out of that habit isn’t going to be easy, but I’m trying.

Writing Prompt #1: What person in your life knows you the best, and how did you meet?

Years ago, this would have been an easy question to answer: it was my kids. When they were little, I was the parent who mainly cared for them and we spent a lot of time together. I always tried to be honest and up front with them, and they knew me better than anyone, including their mother. As the years have gone by, though, we’ve drifted apart. I suppose that’s normal, but it bothers me. If I’m being honest, it breaks my heart every day. The fact of the matter is that they just live too far away for us to have a really close relationship. They’re all adults now, of course. Ben and James live in Sacramento, and William was living in New York until he decided to move overseas to London.

The reality is that I don’t have anyone in my life right now who knows me terribly well. I’m getting along better with my parents now than I have in years, but I don’t think they really know me that well. We don’t have a whole lot of deep conversations and we don’t have many shared interests, either. At one point, a couple of years ago, I would have said Rose Marie knew me best, but we haven’t been able to talk much for over a year and a half now. I don’t even have her phone number anymore. Until just recently, I was hoping this would just be a phase we’re going through, I’ve finally had to accept that it’s not going to change, so I stopped going to church (which was the only place I could even say hi to her at all) and I’m just going to stay away from her. I’m going to try to stay out of Perris altogether. It’s best for everyone involved, but it means I don’t have a best friend anymore and I don’t have anyone who knows me very well.

Obviously, I met my kids when they were born. I was in the operating room when all three of them were born, so I have literally known them their entire lives. Rose Marie was someone I met by accident at a Memorial Day barbeque. She came up to me while I was standing in line to get a hot dog and a hamburger and she asked me to watch the two little dogs she had on leashes while she used the bathroom. While she was gone, one of the dogs (the little troublemaker) turned around and yanked his head out of his collar and went running around the property. I had to leave the other dog with a friend of mine and go chase him down; I finally caught him after he was too exhausted to sprint anymore and I was able to return him to her, after which we started chatting and struck up a friendship that lasted almost ten years. She’s had two kids since then and I know both of them very well; whenever they see me, they want to tell me stuff and show me stuff and play, and they like to walk around with me and explore places while I watch to make sure they don’t get hurt. That ended a while back, though, and I don’t talk to any of them anymore.