Mid-Century(ish) Modern Guy
Looking back at fifty years. Looking forward a bit into the future.
Howdy, y’all!
Have you missed me?
I’ve missed posting and interacting with y’all. I’ve been meaning to write this post for several weeks. I don’t have any ready excuses, and I’m not going to try to find any. Sometimes I just don’t know what to write and I’m not one who can force it very well. Today I feel ready to write. So here goes:
I was born on July 11, 1973 at 4:02 p.m. in Amarillo, Texas. It was a Wednesday, and the doctor that delivered me was named Dr. Hands, the best/worst name an OB/GYN could possibly have. My mother had to have an emergency c-section after 15 hours of labor, because my heart had slowed down to four beats-per-minute.
Obviously, I survived. I weighed 9 lbs. and 5 oz. and I think that I was 21 or 22 inches long*. Maa would know for certain—speaking of Maa, she always calls me at 4:02 to wish me happy birthday. It’s a fun tradition that she also follows with my sisters. Unfortunately for them they were both planned c-sections and were born at 7:48 and 7:43 respectively. She used to get her birthday call from Grandpa Noah at 10:30 p.m., which is when she was born.
*I just talked to my mom and she said that all three of her babies were 21.5 inches long.
THAT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO, Y’ALL!
Fifty years. Half of a century. The big Five-0.
Do I feel fifty? In body I feel seventy-five going on eighty, but in spirit I remain stunted somewhere between my late teens and early twenties. This has its benefits and detriments. I’m not much of a pearl clutcher when it comes to the things that young people do. I realize that my generation was doing their own versions of things that made our Boomer and Silent Generation parents have moral panic after moral panic. We were just wearing unbelievably baggy pants at the time.
While I never owned JNCO jeans, all of my khakis and jeans from this era had enough material in the legs to make another pair of pants from them. Part of this was the style of the day, partly it was because I am built like a bird: large upper body with skinny little legs and no butt. To get pants that fit my waist, I had to have baggy legs and a baggier bum region. Big-and-tall pants designers must have had models with major badonkadonks and tree trunks for legs.
Enough about 90s fashion—I was talking about how the antics of the youth of America don’t make me reach for the smelling salts. But, as I said earlier, being perpetually young-at-heart has its disadvantages as well. I have never quite grown out of that feeling that I am somewhat immortal and impervious to injury. Which is patently ridicous considering my myriad health problems and a fairly recent brush with death. I do not drive automobiles aggressively, but I still act like the warning lights on my body are not burning incandescently bright. I am somewhat under the delusion that I will have another fifty years in this body. Intellectually I know that I cannot live long with the health challenges that I am facing and that I must make rather drastic changes in how I live. Emotionally I cannot deal with this. Let’s call this demerit one of having been stunted in my late teens and early twenties.
I look back on my work life to this point (“career” is far too strong of a word to call what employment I have strung together over the years) and mostly what I see is a lack of focus, and the all but inevitable repeated failures that accumulate when one never plans for, or even bothers to look toward the future. Living one day at a time might be the way to survive for those in recovery, but for me it has resulted in a life of profound angst.
The jobs themselves were not the problem—many people that started work at the same time as me at the same jobs went on to get much more responsibility and money than I did. They created careers where I ended up in a dead end. I think that my employers could see how I lacked any vision for myself; that I was content to just get by. Content is not the correct word—I was disgruntled in all but a few of my jobs. But did I strive for anything? Did I keep my many negative behaviors or habits in check or discipline myself to perform at my highest capacity? Maybe for a few weeks before the novelty of a new job and the stress and challenge of learning new tasks passed. But then I would find myself in a rut of my own digging. Please know that I still tried my best at every job I’ve ever had, but without a clear picture of what I wanted to do with my life, I was rudderless and lost. See the years eighteen to forty-nine.
At the ripe old age of fifty, I have a clear vision with what I want to do with my future, and a somewhat clear path to get there. I recently registered in a program to be a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist/Certified Recovery Support Specialist (CPRS/CRSS). It is an eighteen week program with classroom and internship elements, and I am so excited to start later this month. It will be at Malcolm X College on the West Side of Chicago. The course will be hybrid in delivery. I will mostly be attending classes in-person and occasionally by Zoom. My classes will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. There is a bit of a hiccup—I work 2:00 p.m. to Midnight on Fridays. At first it looked like my work was not going to allow me to take off Fridays to complete this training, and that I was going to need to tender my resignation. Thankfully, as of my last conversation with my boss, I will be able to take them off. This means that my income will be going down by about a third. Just in time for our rent to go up by over twenty percent. That coupled with the ever-increasing cost of living has me just as anxious as I am excited. More anxious than excited really. I am not sure how Jennifer and I are going to make it through those eighteen weeks, honestly. We’re broke as a joke. But this is a career that I have wanted to do for almost a decade, and I need to strike while the iron is hot.
The course itself is free of charge, and there is apparently a living stipend so that income loss might be offset. I do not know for sure, but hopefully all will be made clear at the program orientation that is this evening on Zoom. I will let y’all know how everything goes in my next post. Which will be much sooner than this one was. Hopefully.
p.s. I am on Bluesky Social now. You can follow me there now. My username is: @jeremydnichols.bsky.social
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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This is fantastic news. When I worked for NAMI, I knew a bunch of certified peer recovery specialists. They did great work and filled a much needed void; there’s something to be said for connecting with someone with a shared lived experience. I hope the program goes well and you find the work fulfilling.