Searching

My 11th grade English teacher says she remembers me as "always searching." Ha! If she only knew. It started again on Friday night with The Boy Scout. I don't know why. I decided that I just had to let him know that my NaNoWriMo was inspired by him and come hell or high water I was going to find his address. It didn't take me long, maybe twenty minutes of searching. I can find just about anything that I set my mind to. You just have to know where and how to look. If it can be found, I can find it. The rest of my evening was spent writing Him a letter. I even sought out the envelope and stamp. It was signed, sealed, and ready to be delivered before I ever went to bed. This should have been my first indication that something was wrong.

Signed, sealed, delivered! I'm . . . yours?

Saturday afternoon I mailed the letter with the approval of Mojo Jojo. The rest of the weekend was spent with family, but by Monday afternoon I began having "sender's remorse." So, what did I do? I went home and started googling an old rock star acquaintance. It began as "Hey, I wonder if his band is touring, I sure would like to see them." Then it became, "I wonder if he remembers me. We used to joke that we were cousins." Soon it was "Hey, wouldn't it be awesome if I wrote something about him? But what's my angle?" At this point, I still had a noble and admirable goal: creating legitimate work for myself in the hope of getting published. It was when I started thinking about the angle that things went awry. "What if I could prove we were related? That would make an interesting essay."

It's merely 24 hours later and I have made an Underwood Family Tree more intricate than any I have seen up to this point, all in the hope of proving that my old friend Ron and I are related. We share a last name after all. It's possible. Highly unlikely, but possible. 

Cousins?

"Why the hell am I doing this?" is the question I find myself asking as I realize that I have spent every spare moment on this project since last night. "What am I searching for?" The question is, what am I ever searching for? This isn't the first time something like this has happened, and odds are, it won't be the last. I've spent hours upon hours and even days at a time looking for long lost friends, ex-boyfriends, military records, celebrity phone numbers, and arbitrary historical facts. I search for things and I find them. It's what I do; but it's never enough. At the moment, I'm looking for a connection between Ron and myself - but then what? I'll start looking for some sort of meaning in that connection. I'll start wondering what we have in common. Is there some essential sameness that we share? Who are my people? What are they like? 

My father's mother. I wonder if she was a searcher to.

Since my dad died when I was 12 I've never really known anyone else who shared his blood. Save for some notable exceptions, I haven't felt much kinship with my mother's side of the family either. I often have this feeling of being un-tethered and adrift in the world and while it's liberating in many ways, in others it's quite unpleasant. So, what if Ron isn't related to me? Then what? Maybe that's not so bad either - if we were to find that sameness were still there. The same goes for The Boy Scout, All I'm really looking for is some semblance of sameness between us that we might be two balloons that drift together for a bit before popping. This is what I crave the most - connection to a soul who speaks the same language I do. They are so rare and hard to find that when I think I have seen that spark in someone I can't help feeling optimistic. 

Of course, there's always the chance that I'm manic right now and that instead of merely searching for connection in an uncaring world I'm simply making trouble because I'm geared fer't. I can't help thinking that I haven't done anything destructive though. I've been creative. I've been writing. I've been making a family tree. I've been making CDs. I've been volunteering. (Yeah, I totally volunteered at That Sprout's school twice already this week, and I've got another 2 hours ahead of me tomorrow.) I might be manic, but if I am, I'm putting the energy to good use. Better that I should be searching for meaningful connections when my meds stop working than carnal ones. 

"Meaning is not found in things but in between them." Norman O Brown
For what it's worth, my Uncle Lavern had a son named Ron. Could be related to my Ron.

I bet you're wondering what it is about these two that fascinate me so much and make me crave some kind of a connection, aren't you? Well, with The Boy Scout, it's the NaNoWriMo thing. I think we could jive on an intellectual level and talk about things that I can't talk about with anyone else. I crave stimulating conversations and Mojo Jojo and j^C can only be put upon so much. They do have lives and I get lonely and bored. I need mental stimulation. As to Ron, that really does have to do with a craving for family. I really do hope we are related. He's a really nice guy and it would be nice to find that I'm related to someone that is close to my age and who has similar thoughts and interests as me. Like I said, I don't have any family on my dad's side, so it would be really neat to acquire a cousin, and I think it would make for a very interesting story. That being said, I would like to add that I love and cherish the family I already have, namely j^C, That Sprout, Mojo Jojo, Captain Tesla, Merlisser, and the family I share blood with whom I don't have cute blog names for. You are all wonderful. :-D