So, I should be grading…

…but I’m going to update this thing instead since it’s been roughly an eternity since I have.

For those keeping score at home, you know that this is my second year to teach.  Last year, we taught John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to our juniors via movie.  The movie is, for the most part, pretty true to form and a good adaptation (John Malkovich plays an excellent Lennie, in my opinion).  This year, however, we decided to actually teach the novella to the juniors.  For the win.  They LOVE it.  They get into the story, the get the symbolism behind the characters, the themes, the whole nine yards.  OM&M is the only Steinbeck novel I’ve ever read (I once owned Grapes of Wrath, but foolishly parted with that one in a gift exchange, which I still kick myself for), but it makes me want to tackle a Steinbeck summer marathon of reading.  The man is brilliant.  Anyways, I digress.

Without giving too much away to those who haven’t read this classic, the basic premise of the novel is as follows:  two migrant workers (George Milton & Lennie Small) in the Great Depression era, recently fired from their previous job as ranch hands, find work on a new ranch in Soledad, California.  The two men have a dream of some day being self-sufficient landowners themselves and not having to migrate from job to job.  Therefore, one of the main themes the novel espouses is that of the loneliness and isolation, since many of the men traveling from job to job during this time period are alone.

In class today, we read the fourth chapter of the novel, which centers around the life of the stable hand, Crooks, who is the sole black worker on this ranch.  Understandably, he is isolated from others and rightfully embittered as a result.  In his dialogue with Lennie, Crooks utters, for me, one of the most poignant lines in the novel, which does a brilliant job of encapsulating the novel’s central theme:

“A guy needs somebody – to be near him…A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody.  Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you…I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” (73)

I was surprised at myself for fighting back tears at this point.  I’ve read this multiple times before, but for some reason, this time it was more real.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not lonely.  At all.  I have amazing friends, both coworkers and those finishing up at A&M.  However, at the end of the day, it’s just me.  Living alone for the first time has been a great experience for me.  I come and go as I please, I assume sole responsibility of me (getting rent in on time, cleaning up after myself, cooking, etc.), etc.  It’s great…for now.

Essentially, I think this is a fear that many struggle with – loneliness, that is.  While I am surrounded with amazing people, I also fear that many of these people are temporary.  My best friend is moving to Dallas next year, friends from high school are getting married, and married coworkers have lives that revolve around their spouses and families.  I am not so immature that I can’t come to the realization that just because people are married, doesn’t mean they are abandoning someone.  They just have…how can I put this…insurance.  That person/those people will always be there for them.

It’s odd, but I just have this unfounded, irrational fear.  It is not a debilitating fear, just one that is hovering.

Such are the ramblings of the single man…

God, I sound like Eeyore.

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