Why Was My Name On The List?

   I feel much guilt for the fact I survived my fight with cancer. Winning can be very bitter sweet leaving you to wonder why me and not them? It may sound strange to many but after my treatments were done and I was told they had gotten the cancer I felt a loss much like the loss of a friend and a deep depression. I had not felt I had a purpose in my life for some time and when I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer suddenly I had something to fight with and I had a purpose. Once treatment was done I felt left out in the cold and wondering what now? even though I went into it with a survive it attitude I think the possibility you may not make it is in the back of everyone's mind. You try to not think that way but you also know it is always looming in the air. Maybe the way I lived my life knocking myself in the head and doing everything the hard way prepared me for the fight I was about to take on.

   Once again the loss of a cancer fighter has brought a wave of feelings and revisiting my own situation. Not that I mean to make their passing about me but it brings up many feelings and what If's. My family has also lost yet another to cancer as it has many others over the past few years. I am sad for many reasons first and foremost I am sad for the loss of the beautiful souls who fought for years against cancer and lost the battle. I am sad that I am not able to rush to the side of their family members and console them and be with them. I am sad for those left behind wondering why?

   Being given the news you have cancer forces you to look at your life and that can be very scary. Thinking of people you have wronged or just lost touch with. Thinking of people you wished you had taken more time to get to know many feelings and thoughts go through your head. When I hear someone else has been given the news or lost their battle I wonder if I was worthy of being able to win and live on. Why was I chosen to have another day and they are taken. Maybe it is like survivors grief I am not sure but although I am happy to be here I still can not help but ask why me?    

   I have never been really afraid of dieing but find it funny that when you know you may have a short shelf life or get an expiration date stamped on you, you start to see life in a whole different way. I my self felt at ease and more at peace being that I was able to be more myself than I had ever been in my past. I was able to say things to people and show my affections in ways I feared before. I have always been a hug type person when I see someone its my first reaction to give them a hug and in the past had shied away from that. Knowing I may die tomorrow made me feel braver and less fearful of letting people know I loved them. Kind of sad that the possibility of dieing helped me to feel more comfortable showing people affection.

   I hurt deeply when I hear that someone who had very young children has been taken by cancer. I think about all those moments the kids will miss out on Daddy Daughter Dances, Prom Night, playing sports or in the band and looking in the stands to see that empty spot because they are not there. I feel deep hurt when I hear a young child has been taken by cancer and can only imagine what a parent feels watching their child slip away. I feel deeply because I can not help but think maybe it should have been me and they should have been able to live on. There are some I would have gladly given my spot on the list if I had been given the choice. For some reason God put my name on the list to stay so I will try my darnedest to make the best of the gift I was given. I can only hope that I make those that did not make that list feel that I was the right choice to live on. God bless my sisters and brothers that are fighting now, won the fight, and to those who have lost. I send you a hug and my LOVE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>   STAMP OUT CANCER!!!!!!!!!! 

The One That Got Away.

  
   As the Old Year 2013 closed and the New year 2014 was just around the corner I started thinking of New Years celebrations from the past and of the people who had come and gone over the years. I sat in front of the window alone sick with the flue and watch as the snow flakes drift slowly to collect on everything piling up making everything in sight white and sparkling in the moon light. There was a time on New Years in my past I would have been in a club or at a party drinking and whooping it up overindulging to the point of becoming very numb. I wonder to myself did I do this because it was fun and I was celebrating the coming year or was it that I secretly feared what it would bring? Was I making myself numb to forget the year that was slipping away or numbing myself for what was in my future? Do not get me wrong I had fun and have some great memories of those New Years Parties just wonder why I felt the need to get so wasted and feel so miserable the next day to ring in the New Year?

   I can not speak for everyone but in talking to most people I hear them tell a story of the one that got away. When they speak of the one who got away they are not telling a fishing story they are speaking of that one person from their past  that either things did not seem to work out or the fact they messed up in the relationship or possibly the relationship never was because they were to afraid to take that first step.What ever the background story everyone I think has that one person in the past they reflect back on now and then and wonder what if?

   I have to say I have more than one what ifs or the one that got away stories. I also have to say most if not all those stories if told truthfully would not paint me in the best light. In looking back although I know relationships take two to make it work I have enough clarity in my life at this time to know I was more to blame for my losses than those I was with. I had a habit of wanting love but not knowing how to return it. I feel I am a very caring person and would give anything for those I care about including my life but in the past letting someone in completely to my world scared the hell out of me.The closer a person got and the more they became part of my life it seemed the more I would push them away. I at the time had no clue that I was pushing them away and in my mind thought I was giving my all to the relationship. I also had the habit of once one relationship ended I would jump head first into another. I am sure this did not show the person I was previously with that I cared when I could seem to forget them and just be with someone else so fast. The fear of being alone was strong but also wanting my own space was very confusing.

   There was one relationship that was strong and felt right and I felt I was able to give my all too but circumstances of life worked against it and in the end I let go because I felt it best for the other person. I would often wonder what if? or if I could only go back to that day when it all fell apart could things have been different? I have been lucky enough to reconnect with many from my past and explain and apologize for treating them the way I did and hopefully letting them know it was not them that was the problem. I also wanted them to know I did not do the things I did with malice or because I was an evil person just messed up and broken in ways I could not explain at the time.

   I have one friend who told me a story of reconnecting with their what if and told me they wished they had left it in the past. This person they had built up in their mind turned out to be just human and not the super fantasy person they had made them out to be. My friend told me it was a let down to lose that fantasy because it got them through some rough times thinking that maybe that super relationship was out there just waiting for the day they needed it. The reconnection dashed the fantasy and left them feeling lost in the fact their back up plan had been lost. I think we each have a fantasy life or love that we mentally go to when things get bad or not going as we wish giving us hope to go on at least I know I do or did I should say. I have figured out over the years that I needed for myself to drop the fantasy and live in the now not to say I do not fantasize because I do. I just do not compare my fantasy life to my real life I found that to cause problems in that my real life could never live up to my fantasy life. Fantasy life got me through some very rough times in my life but it became a problem when I lived in that world or tried to more often than to put effort into what was real.

   So yes I have some The One That Got Away stories and like I say looking back at those stories I find I am to blame for most of them. Getting passed the blame game was very hard for me in that I found it easier to point out all of their faults but I could not look at my own. Looking into a mirror at the person looking back can be very hard because the view you see is not always that of what others can see. I remember back in the days of my heavy drug use I had taken a hit of acid at a party and went to the bathroom to relieve myself. After I had finished I started to wash my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. I could see lines in my face of course intensified by the drug but there none the less. I could see things that I had never seen before because I would when looking in a mirror just glance and never really looked that close at the reflection looking back. I do not want to indorse the usage of drugs this is just me telling my experience. I stood there looking in that mirror for longer than I had ever looked before and I swear I could see my personality staring back at me and I did not like the person I was seeing. 

   That experience changed something in me and opened me up to the fact I needed to improve myself if I ever wanted to be in a relationship and not endless dating or another one night stand. If I had wrote a One That Got Away story a few years back I am sure it would have come off as, it was not my fault and would probably have laid the blame on the other person that was much easier than looking at who was really at fault and that was me. So to those I encountered along the way it wasn't you it actually was me.

Spring Forward (relax its humor people)

   I soooooo need a night that my memory foam mattress will have to seek counseling to forget. I am thinking I may have been a nymphomaniac in my past life and every so often that past life bleeds into the life I am living now. There are days its all I think about and God forbid the wind blows I can almost not contain myself. I know this is not something that should be talked about but get real we all think about it from time to time. Grant it some of us think about it more than others and maybe I more than most. Let me tell you those cold showers they tell you to take are a bunch of bunk and do little to change the building frustration. Lost in a sexual dessert with not even a mirage in sight. Maybe it is that whole spring thing and all the birds twitterpating in the trees or the warm weather who knows I just know I feel like a bottle of wine that will turn to vinegar if its cork is not popped soon.

   I am in no way asking for help because I can fix the problem by myself I just thought it wise to warn people not to get to close because I may not be able to contain myself. This long cold winter has been hard on everyone but well you know what I am getting at. I am ready to spring forward in the worst way.    

Moving Forward Means Coming to Terms With The Past

   As I get older I know it is inevitable that I will hear now and then of the passing of family, friends and people I have known in my life. That knowledge does nothing to make that fact any easier when the news of their passing comes. When ever I hear so and so passed I get that feeling of (But For The Grace Of God Go I) as they say. In my life I have almost killed myself with drugs, Cancer tried to take me down but I made it through so I ask why me? Why me yet they are taken? I was not one who asks why me? when bad things happened to me I ask why when the good came for some reason.  I functioned better when it was all falling apart but when it came to the good stuff that's what freaked me out and made me uneasy. How strange that I was more comfortable with the bad happenings than the good ones.   

   Over the years many people have come and gone in my life some stayed and some where only around for what felt like a brief moment but each left an impact or impression on me and the person I would become. There are conversations I have had with people that have stuck in my head some good some bad but an impression was made none the less. I remember someone making a comment one time about my nose and how big it is, I knew it was but them saying so made me more self conscious of that fact. I remember in grade school a teacher saying with me being in ear shot of her that she thought I may be mildly retarded when reading over my homework. I never really thought about how our words effect others as I was growing up. It is only since I have gotten to a stage of reflection in my life that I started to realize just how deeply our words and actions can build others up or tare them down.

   I started to realize how deeply words by others had molded me and effected me on my journey through life when I checked myself into a rehab for drug addiction. I know I talk about this a lot in my blog but I feel I have good reason for doing so. My drug use and that dark and also bright day I turned to Rehab was a big part of my life and was like a rebirth for me. I had to learn how to do everything without the drugs like a child taking their first steps. So if you feel I drone on and on about it that is why. Everyone has milestones in their life and most like to only revisit the good stops along the way as if they have lived a lily white life with no bumps or pot holes along the way. I have found for myself I must never forget where I have been or the dumb things I have done so as not to make the same wrong turns.

   I would learn in Rehab that although I was effected by things and people in my life in the end I and I alone made the choices. Learning this fact did not make things easier let me tell you it pissed me off to think I had done so much damage to myself and wasted a large part of my life doing so. I spent all that time worrying about how I looked to others or what they thought of me. My Father RIP was a major figure and cause of many of my problems and bad feelings toward myself. Many of his words and actions had stuck with me and most were not good. I wanted so much to feel he was proud of me and did everything I could to get that from him only to be disappointed at every attempt. I would learn later he was not equipped to show his feelings in the manner I wanted. For what ever reason the universe placed us in the same family and we were like fire and ice. I have since come to terms with that fact and stopped blaming him for my choices but as I said words and actions can effect others way past the moment they are spoken or done.

   I have been to more than my share of funerals over the years and in listening to a eulogy you only get a small idea of the deceased persons life and more often than not only touching on the highlights and omitting the bad. I would hope who ever reads my eulogy will also tell the lows I hit and the wrong turns I made because after all I am or was only human and yes I made mistakes. Like the photos of smiling faces in family albums at first glance it looks as though the family never had a bad day and their lives where full of  good times. Most never place any photos of bad times in their albums because most like to forget they ever had any bad times. I have learned for me to stay sober and clean I can not forget the bad times but I must try not to wallow in them and if I revisit them it is only to reference them as a warning for the future. 

  I look back on things I have said or done to people and wonder how it effected their life or if I had any impact at all? I would hope that the bad I did to anyone did not stick with them or sour their lives in anyway. It may sound as if I have a grandiose opinion of myself that anything I said or did had any effect on anyone but I know for a fact I have hurt people along the way with my words and my actions. Taking responsibility for my past and owning up to the fact I have done wrong was a big milestone for me. For some reason I felt I had to be perfect and if I made a mistake that I was a looser. This started very young I remember trying to write my alphabet and I did not like to use an eraser so if I made the slightest mistake I would toss out the whole page and start over. I would spend so much time trying to do everything perfect the first time and end up being frustrated if and when I could not get it on the first try. If I could not do it perfectly then I did not want to do it at all. I have never pin pointed why I was that way, maybe I was born that way or it was taught behavior but I do know it would cause havoc in my later life.

   If I could not do something perfectly on the first try I would act as if I did not care or had no interest in what ever it was. This would become a bad habit within my future self effecting my schooling, job performance,and my relationships putting on a hard ass attitude of I do not care but inside feeling defeated because I could not let myself  make mistakes. It would also make me fearful of trying new things and in many ways fearful of life itself. It became easier for me to walk away from things than to show any imperfections. If i did try new things I did so in private when no one was around that way if i did it wrong there was no witnesses to my failure. In Rehab they had us revisit moments in our past, those moments we had tried to numb away with the drugs. It was difficult to do but a much needed step to maybe finding the reasons why we turned to the drugs in the first place.

   One such moment came out for me and though it sounds trivial now, for some reason it was a big deal to me then. I was about 9 years old and my Dad and I stood watching as they built a new house next to ours and there was a kid maybe 12 or 13 operating a backhoe. My Dad went on and on about how smart that kid was and how he admired him for being so young and knowing how to operate such a big piece of equipment. For some reason I took this as a put down to me seeing that just the day before he was showing me how to drive a tractor and I was not catching on fast enough so he got angry with me and told me to go in the house. I walked back to the house after him yelling at me feeling stupid and like a huge failure. So when he kept going on and on about this kid I felt he was doing so as a dig to my inability to master the tractor the day before in a timely manner.  I still do not know if this was his intention or if he was just really impressed with this kid but I took it that I was a failure as his son.  I did not realize how that had stuck with me or how deeply that one small interaction with my Father had effected me until it came forth in a group rehab session. I kept thinking to myself how stupid it was that I had hung on to that one moment and filed it in my brain. I would dig back and find many interactions with my father that had effected me deeper than I had thought. 

   It would take me many years and I still work on building myself up and praising myself for the good I do but not in a manner of becoming full of myself. Excepting my imperfections and saying to myself it is OK to make mistakes and I do not have to grasp everything on the first try is an everyday battle. I have stated in an earlier post that my Dads Dad had come to live with us for a time and he had a calmness to him I never saw in my own Father. I often wondered how my Grandfather who was so calm and easygoing  had not influenced my fathers way of dealing with things more. My Dad never talked much of his upbringing other than to tell me how hard he worked at my age or what he knew how to do at my age. With my Dad not telling stories of how he played or anything fun I assumed he was never a kid growing up he was born an adult who popped out with knowledge of all things or at least to hear him tell it. I suspect this is where my fear of making mistakes came from but can not say for certain.

   Another moment that came out in Rehab was something that had happened in grade school. It happened in 2nd grade, the teacher was teaching something I was not grasping, so instead of asking for help and looking stupid, I started acting up and disrupting the class. Soon she had had enough, and sent me out in the hall. She left the door open and put me in a desk alone in the hall. I started making faces and bouncing around pulling my shirt over my head in full view of the class, and still even in the hallway was disrupting the class. Little did I know, the Gym teacher was watching this from the end of the hall. Now I know to this day, I was wrong but what he would do to me, was uncalled for and stayed with me for years. The gym teacher who was watching the show I put on, came down the hall grabbed me by the back of my shirt put me on top of the teachers desk, and told me to put on the same show I had been doing in the hall. He lifted my shirt up over my head and the whole class was laughing at me. I started to cry and wanted down but he forced me to stand there in front of the class, with me shirt over my head and me crying my eyes out, gave the class room full of kids much pleasure in pointing and laughing at me. I hated school from that day on and made up my mind that school was not a place I wanted to be. As I say, I know I did wrong, but in not wanting to look stupid I ended up look even more so and I hated him for doing that I hated myself even more for letting it happen.


   I hear people say often how resilient kids are, and how easily they rebound from things that happen. I laugh to myself thinking just because they do not show outwardly they have been effected does not mean that inner emotional damage has not been done. There is a child inside each of us people say, the problem for me is that the child inside me is in constant fear, of making a mistake or revealing any imperfections, and being viewed as stupid. The fear of being stupid or viewed as such, would crate anger inside me and I would lash out, in fits of anger at whom ever was in my path at the time. I am sure my teachers thought I was a brat, and that I gave them much grief, but I was actually crying out for help in the only way I knew how. I only wish I had had the teachers in my early life that I was blessed with in the latter. My first grade teacher must have understood me and knew how to work with me, because I never felt stupid in her class. My second grade teacher was very young, and seemed to like to humiliate kids in front of the class, if they did not understand the  lessons. Humiliation was not a good teaching method with me, and only made me pull into a shell like a turtle and give off that "F" it attitude.

   I know kids do not come with instructions, and grown ups are far from perfect but in looking back I have to say second grade was a turning point for me and not for the better. By the time 5th grade came around, I could care less what grade I got or if I learned anything, or at least that was the attitude I was putting out. Only one teacher ever reached me, in the years of 5th grade to 7th and she was a much older teacher who taught History. She taught history in a way that I felt like I was there experiencing it, first hand. She had such enthusiasm about history, that you could not help but get infected by it yourself. I would never have another history teacher that made me feel that way about it. I would still love history on my own, but hated learning it in school. I would read about history on my own, and the things that interested me, I would soak up like a sponge but could never get into dates and times of events, and that was what we were often graded on. My history teachers from that day on, were very stoic and would just drone on and on then give a test, I was bored and hated spending time in their classes.  



   I think if I would have been taught in a way I understood, I may have not felt so stupid and acted up as much. Who really knows if that would have made a difference, and it makes no difference now. as that is all in the past. I only mention it because in my work to fix the wrongs of the past, I found not everything was my fault. But I must say also, I can not use that as an excuse, not to better my self now or work past what was done then. Each day I move a few steps farther forward, and all though I still have bad days and make mistakes, I do not feel as though I am moving backwards or standing still anymore. I do know I would not wish the things my drug use did to me on my worst enemy.  

The Mind Of A Mad Man

   I have been asked many times if I was able to go back in time would I? and if so would I change anything. I thought about that question in depth and although I was not happy with things that happened in the past I also know if I change the slightest thing from the past I may not be the person I am today.  Time travel could be a wonderful thing and I used to think it would be great to go back and fix things in my life that did not go as planed. The thing is I would have to confront myself in the past and I am sure knowing myself back then I would have thought the me of the future was off his rocker. How could I the future me get through the thick head of the me from the past when no one else could. Some say because you know yourself now and your past self you could get the warning message to sink in. I wonder if that would be true because I know I was very bull headed at times in my life and nothing anyone said or did could penetrate my way of thinking.

   I watched an old Ray Bradbury Theater episode a few days ago that made me think differently about time travel. Ray Bradbury Theater for those that do not know was a TV show that ran from 1985 to 1992 and was based on stories written by Ray Bradbury it was on HBO a cable TV station. Anyway this episode I was watching was about a man who was a hunter and had hunted every animal known in that day and time. He was bored and wanted to hunt something different something he could not find in the time he was living. He went to a place that gave hunting tours to the past in a time machine. He wanted to hunt Dinosaurs so they get him all geared up to go back in the past but warn him not to kill anything not even a blade of grass because it may throw off the future. He could only kill an animal that was already going to die and had to kill it at a precise time that they had calculated before leaving for the hunt. He of course did not listen and thinking he was a big bad hunter almost shits himself when he sees a T-Rex and steps off the prepared path. The guide yells at him and seems very angry with him grabbing him and pushing him back into the time machine. Once back in the time machine they head back to the future. When they arrive back everything had changed and it was like a Nazi controlled world. The guide walks over to the man and pulls an insect off the mans boot that he had stepped on. Him stepping on that one insect changed the whole outcome of the future.

   So all though at times I wish  things could have been different I think going back in time could make them worse or change the life I have now. My life may not be perfect but I am pretty happy with the way things turned out. I have some great friends who have been there over the years and have great memories that I would not trade fro anything.

   A friend brought up something to me today that made me remember something I used to ponder in the mess that is my brain. I am not sure if I read a story or saw a movie that made me think about this next statement but I thought about it many years ago. I used to wonder if I was actually setting in some mental hospital locked in a padded room with my straight jacket tied tight and the world I know was just in my head. This life I think I am living is just playing like a movie in my brain as I set there drugged up so I could not be a danger to myself or my caregivers. I thought about that also in depth that's just how my mind works and thought NO WAY! If I was actually only make this all up in my head I would hope my imagination would be better and I would be having a much better time. Also I would hope my made up world would be free of pain etc. The trees in that world would be greener no pollution, no war, no evil people killing each other, no one bullying the less fortunate people.  And skin colors would be beautiful to everyone no bigotry no racism and most of all no HATE!  So I am pretty sure this life is real.

   I also used to think when I was younger that maybe I was the only human and everyone else was robots or that I was an alien from some other planet. I look back at how my imagination worked and in many ways still does. I live in the real world now but still imagine things in my head or work up scenarios while standing in a long line so as not to get bored. I can entertain myself no matter where I am just by going in my head and making up things (Sound strange?) maybe but I am never bored. I think I started doing that when I was younger to block out bad things. If I did not like what was going on or what was being said I would go off into my own world that I constructed in my head. Sometimes I could fly away or swim away to escape anything negative. I also think this may have been a bad thing in someways and possibly why I turned to drugs latter in life. I think I conditioned myself to escape and not deal with the bad things and as I got older I found it harder and harder to do this with just my imagination. I say Maybe that is why but I do not know for sure why I turned to drugs and why others did not.

   Thinking about or trying to figure out why I turned to drugs when I was getting off of them made me feel like a failure damaged goods in the fact others around me never fell into the same trap I did when It came to the drugs. Why was a weak? Why couldn't I be strong like they were? Many unanswered questions that I learned did not all need to be answered but should be looked at so as not to repeat the mistakes. Knowing why I did something for good or bad reasons helped me to sort them out and hopefully not make those same mistakes again.

   I think also that is why I started painting and writing because my mind is always on overload and thoughts swim around in my head like a huge school of fish and when there are to many swimming at once they start to collide. When they collide i feel overwhelmed and try as I might can not stop them from swimming. Not being able to shut it down I have lost a lot of sleep setting there saying Please! Please! shut off. I have sat alone in a doctors office and wrote whole books from start to end out in my head only to forget them when I tried latter to write them down. I wonder if other people have this problem or am I just wired differently.

   I used to be very bad about things being just right. ADHD or ADD maybe? I liked things color coordinated stacked in straight lines facing the same way and the list goes on. I went through after becoming clean and free of drugs a clean freak. I would scrub and clean and everything had to be in its place no dust no dirt and that got very tiring and I was wore out most of the time tiring to keep up with CLEAN!  I still go though times when I get into my clean freak trip but I am less disturbed by clutter than I used to be. I remember growing up many people had a setting room. This room had all new furniture in it and often covered in plastic, it was a room no one used unless there was company but any other time it was roped off like a shrine that no one could enter. Those rooms always intrigued me and I would often sneak in there when no one was looking just because it was off limits. I do not want to live that way afraid to spill afraid to make a mistake but for some reason I slip back to a mental attitude like that sitting room trying to remain perfect all dressed in bleached white no dirt no cobwebs etc. Well that bleached white scenario was never and is still not my life so I try to live in the real world as much as possible but I am here to tell you some times that is a hard thing to do.

A Roller Coaster.Ride Helped Me Live Again.

   Many times I have hit emotional low points in my life and many times felt as though I could not go on. I have been lucky enough to have had people who seemed to show up just at the point I felt I had no more to give and saved me from myself showing me that life has so much more to give. I have stated many times in my Blog that most of the rough times in my life I brought on myself causing myself much pain trying not to face up to life and the fact it is not always sunshine and good times.

   One such point in my life came around 1998 I was feeling defeated and like I was going no place fast and had no clue as how to change the sinking feeling I felt. I had given up drugs and was living a sober life in that I was not using drugs but my mind set had slipped back to my old way of thinking that I was worthless and did not deserve to have a happy life. I was working a job that when I started working there I loved and was happy to get up and go in everyday and felt good about myself. Many changes in the company few for the better turned my dream job into a nightmare and soon I felt trapped working just to pay bills and basically had no enjoyment in my life. I had based my self worth on my job and had not noticed it had become like a drug and I was putting all my effort into the job and not living my life. The changes at my job forced me to see I had become dead inside and was just existing from day to day and had let the job become my life. The company was folding around me and they were letting people go right and left and that meant more work for me with the same pay. They were not just letting people go the were firing people for anything they could and often on trumped up charges so they would not have to pay them for unemployment.

   Before I knew it it was my turn on the chopping block and when it happened I was stunned and felt very lost. It happened at a time jobs were not plentiful and what jobs were out there paid next to nothing. After being let go I was putting in applications like crazy and getting no response and it did not take long for me to feel defeated.  I had health problems and no insurance and as I felt worse and worse physically and with no work the emotional down fall was just around the corner.  Not feeling well and just freaking depressed I started to pack on pounds and it seemed to happen over night. I would look in the mirror and get even more depressed looking at myself and that would make me eat more until I just did not care how I looked. I at last got a job at a grocery store stocking shelves it was not a great job or did it pay well but it was a job and I could pay the bills. I felt I was going backwards in life and not forward depressed and feeling defeated I would come home from work eat and spend my time in front of the TV or computer I just did not care. 

   Like I say many people have made appearances in my life at the right time and this is a story of one of those people. I love my family deeply but have gone through times when I distanced myself from them mostly for reasons that had nothing to do with them or their actions. I would just often go though stages in life I just wanted to deal with on my own mostly stubbornness on my part thinking I needed no ones help and could deal with my problems on my own. I think also not wanting my family or friends to view me as a failure or see how I had let myself go I would avoid contact with them other than on the phone.   

   I do not remember exactly how or when but my Niece Julie and I started talking on the phone now and then. I was a teenager when she was born and had not spent much time with her since she was very young. She was in High School when we first started talking again after years of little contact and it was strange to picture her as the young woman she was becoming when I had that mental image of her as the little girl I took to a Daddy Daughter dance. Her father was not in the picture and I was proud that she had asked me to be the one who took her to something so important. I sadly was unable to take her the next year because of my job and I felt bad but I could not get the time off from work. Time goes by and things change so fast when you are not paying attention and it can be shocking to see someone after many years and how much they have changed.

   In talking with her I would find out we shared many of the same passions and liked the same kind of music also our mutual love for Roller Coasters and travel. I had not been on a Roller Coaster in years and had forgotten the rush I used to get from riding them. We talked about life and her plans and the fact she wanted to travel to Europe as I had. I told her to do it while she was young and free of ties like family,home, and possibly children. She did take her chance and was able to travel to places I had always wanted to go but never had the chance Australia was always a dream of mine and she was able to go I was so excited for her and happy she had the chance to experience it.

   We kept in touch over the years and she went off to college and graduated. We had not spoken in some time and she called and asked if I would like to make a trip to Ohio and an Amusement Park called Cedar Point. This call came at I feel the lowest point for me emotionally and my physical health was not good but we made plans for a trip. I was excited and fearful about the trip but something inside me knew I needed this at the time.

  Looking back I remembered the first time I had been to Cedar Point was way back in the 70's  with my family and had returned many times over the years. Cedar Point was the destination for many school trips the church youth group and baseball team members so over the years I had seen many changes to the park. The first time I was there it was more like a fair grounds not many permanent rides mostly Tilt A Whirl and other fair type rides. Over the years the park grew and added many Roller Coasters and had some record breaking Coasters as in the highest fastest etc. As I say Julie and I made plans to go and I felt a rush of excitement I had not felt in years.

    I was still working for the job I would be let go from the one I spoke of that in my mind devastated me. This trip came at a time things at my job were becoming strained and I could feel changes in the air after 5 years of good working conditions things just felt off and I thought maybe it was just the fact I had been there for a long time with no vacation maybe I was just burnt out.

    We made a date to go and I put in a request for that day off. The closer it came to the day we would go the anticipation built like a kid waiting for Christmas day and wanting to rip into the gifts under the tree.  We met and drove down early in the morning and arrived at the park before they opened so we stood in line waiting for the ticket booths to open. When the ticket takers opened up the ticket lines we gave the ticket taker our tickets and entered into the park. As you enter into the park there is a huge open area that had barriers set up blocking off the Midway just inside the front gate to hold the crowd back until it was time to let people into the park. I had not been out in public much and the crowd that was building behind us waiting for the barriers to be taken away was causing me to feel boxed in. I could see the huge Coasters in the park and felt a chill run up my spine part anticipation and to be truthful part down right freaking fear. As more and more people were let in the front gate and the crowd grew my anticipation grew as did my fear of what I was about to do.

   It seemed like forever we stood waiting and then the barriers started coming down and a mad rush of people like the running of the bulls started. The mad dash was people trying to get to their favorite coaster or ride before the lines grew into an hour or more wait to get on them. Julie and I had planed out in advance what ride we wanted to get on first and we bolted to get to it as fast as possible. I had informed her that I was sketchy about the highest newest ride Millennium Force at the time the highest coaster in the world and wanted to start smaller and build myself up to riding that one. We had picked a good day and we were very lucky that lines were not long and the most we waited that day was about an hour.

   After riding many of the rides and some twice we made our way to the new coaster and as we stood in line and moved closer to getting on the ride I could feel my heart beating faster and faster. Before I knew it there we were about to get on and be strapped in. I watched the cars pass as the riders in front of us left the station and watched them ascend up a hill that looked as if it was straight up. Before I knew it we were next on the ride and soon I was being strapped in and we were on our way to the top of the first hill. I looked down and the people looked like ants below and just then we reached the top and the front car went over the top and soon we were following them. All I could get out was OOOOOOOMYYYYYYGOD. The first hill plunged us downward into what felt like a straight down drop I could feel myself get light headed and before I could regain myself we were being whipped around then up then down and at last we came to the end of the ride. As the coaster came to a stop all I could do was laugh uncontrolled deep belly laughs as I realized what we had just done. It had been a long time since I had faced a fear like that and it felt good I felt alive like I had not in a long time. I know it sounds strange but that trip and riding that ride I feel freed me and in someways saved my life. My niece came along at the right time and unbeknownst to her changed my life that day for the better.

  

How Did We Get Here???????????

   There is a story in the news of a woman found dead in her garage and possibly she has been there for 6 years. She was found in her car mummified. The story has not been told yet if she died of natural causes or committed suicide. When I heard this story I thought to my self how the hell can someone be dead for so long and no one notice or care. It made me wonder what kind of world do we live in that this could happen to another human being. I grew up in a farming area and we knew all our neighbors even the grouchy old people who did not want to know anyone. If a neighbor did not show their face for a few days someone checked on them. The woman was in her 40's and lived alone and had all her bills paid electronically and often worked away from home for long periods of time so no one thought anything of her not being seen.

   Maybe its my upbringing but I have always made an effort to know who lives in and around me. I remember when I moved into an apartment building when I lived in Pittsburgh. I was moving my things in on the first day and said hello to a lady in the entryway getting her mail she looked at me like I had just called her a name or was going to rob her. She said hello in a guarded manner and then rushed up the stairs and hurried into her apartment. As I was moving in I could see people peeking out the windows and a few opened their doors a crack only to slam them shut if they noticed me looking in their direction.  This behavior was strange to me after living for years in an Army barracks which is much like a college dorm everyone knows each other and walks freely from room to room. Also like I said when I was young we knew our neighbors and their families like an extension of our own family.   

   I being somewhat of a country boy small town kid or what ever you want to call it was just not used to the city ways and being so guarded and afraid of people. It took me a while and a lot of hellos and coaxing but I got to know the people in my apartment complex and even became friends with a few. I helped them carry groceries held the door open as they came and went. It took some time to build trust but I was never one to just let people pass without saying hello. I found an older man alone and had no one he was a heavy drinker and had probably with his drinking alienated himself from family and that's why he was alone. I looked passed his drinking and got to know him and liked him as a person so I did what I could to help him when he needed it. There was a younger girl just moved out of her parents house into her first apartment I helped her move in and kept an eye out for her as she worked late hours and came home after dark. I would not sleep well until I heard her on the steps and safely into her apartment. I now wonder if I am the only person like this. I am not nosy but I do care about people and especially those that live around me. I would hope if one of my neighbors passed and I did not see them for days that I would check on them to see if they were OK. 

   When I grew up if someone moved into the neighborhood the neighbors would bring a dish of food or stop to offer a hand moving items. Yes some of that was curiosity or busybody behavior but it was also knowing your surroundings and feeling safe with who lived next door. You can never completely know people or trust them but at least know who lives next door. I have talked to people who do not even know the name of the person living right next to them. When did we become like this hiding in our homes after work ignoring each other pretending no one exists? Rushing back to the safety of our locked doors.    

I know we can never return to the days of leaving our doors unlocked and letting our children play unsupervised but I would hope we can at least keep an eye out for each other and help each other in times of need.

Small Town Boy in The Big City

   I grew up in a small farming town called Howell in Michigan and for most of my younger years felt the time for me to get away from that town could not come fast enough. The pace of life was slow to me and it seemed nothing in the town changed. I at the time did not know just how lucky I was to have been brought up were I had and that I would miss the slow paced life once it was gone. Funny that the town was growing before my eyes but I did not notice the changes. I did not notice the changes until I had gotten away for a few years and when I returned that is when I realized just how much it had changed. Much like people who we see each day we never notice the changes or that they are aging before our eyes. Most parents will think to them selves when attending their child's graduation from High School how did they grow up so fast?

   I had been away from my small town for about seven years being in the Army and stationed in Germany. Although I had visited my parents now and then on leave from the Army in those seven years I did not notice the changes until I moved back and drove through the town. Many buildings had been torn down and new buildings had been built. Familiar stores were closed and new ones had taken their place. In some ways it saddened me like I had lost something of myself.  While in Town I would see people I had grown up knowing and think to myself boy they have aged not realizing so had I. For some reason when I looked in the mirror I still could see the same person and did not notice that I also had aged.  

   I remember while growing up I thought I wanted to live in some big city were there is always something going on and the constant bustling of people coming and going were the night life was lit up and many places never closed. Stores that stayed open past 6:oo or 8:00 as was not the norm in my small town we used to joke about them rolling the sidewalks up at 6:00 in the evening so if you needed anything you better get it before then or you would be out of luck.  Funny my perception of things I did not know of and how I had built the image in my mind to be something better than what I had been used to.

   I did move to a big city in the late 1980's Pittsburgh Pa and for a while I liked it and was in awe of how different it was from living in a small town. I was no stranger to being in the big city by this time living in Germany and spending a lot of time in Mannheim or some of the other big cities there. The difference is this would be my first time living and working in a large city.  I in no way would want to put down Pittsburgh because it could have been any big city that I lived in I would never feel as if I fit in or felt at home. My preconceived notions of what it was to live and work in a big city was not what I found it to actually be. I remember after a long time in the city going to school to work and then home everyday I noticed I had not felt grass on my bare feet for a long time. My Mom had told me a story of when she had moved from West Virginia to Toledo and she would often take off her shoes and walk in the yards that had grass. I guess I did not understand her story truly until I myself had not been able to walk barefooted through the grass. I found myself walking the long way home each day just so I could pass through a park and kick my shoes off and feel the grass under my feet. Funny how small things like that mean so much when you are not able to do them.

   I moved around a lot over the years and had a chance to see different places and meet people from all over the world. I enjoyed that time but never landed in any other place that I felt as at home as I did when I would come home to the town I grew up in. I heard it said someplace that things should grow where they are planted I took that as Dorthy returning from OZ saying if I ever go looking for my hearts desire I will not look farther than my own backyard.  Sound hokey? I am sure it does but all  I know is I never felt more at home than I did the day I returned to the area I grew up in and drove down a few old familiar back roads and could see open fields or forests that seemed to stretch on forever.  Our Town is not backwoods by any means and has changed a lot over the years but it has never grown so big as to lose its small town charm. I am sure I build the town up to be more than it is but it is my town and it is in my blood and try as I might I can never shake it. 

JUST LET IT GO!!!!!!!

  Let me start by saying the phrase JUST LET IT GO! makes my blood boil. Not anger towards the person saying it but anger toward the phrase itself. It angers me because it sounds so easy to do but I have failed miserably at many attempts to do so.

     I have never been good with remembering dates of happenings such as birthdays etc and even worse when it comes to historical dates. For some reason my brain kicks such things out and will not let them sink in. I do think though my brain stores those dates someplace and seems to know when some sad or bad event happened because I get depressed or sad for no reason. I guess I should say for no reason I can think of at the time only to find out latter that someone passed on that date or some life changing event happened. Not so long ago I was in a depressed mood and could see no reason for it because my life seemed to be going well and all my T's were crossed so to speak. A few days later I realized it was an anniversary of the passing of my sister. Strange how I can not place the exact date if you asked me or remember her Birthday but my body and my mind seem to know and react accordingly. 

   I think in some ways I mentally blocked so much out or thought I did but like a computer once there it never truly leaves the system. They call it our subconscious mind and I picture it like a storage room filled with cardboard boxes stuffed to the rim and bulging at the sides with lids that will not stay on bursting at the seems.  Through the cobwebs and dust in the air I see that room filled with rows and rows of shelves piled to the ceiling with tons of those dusty boxes. Boxes filled with all of my blocked emotions and feelings that I never dealt with just waiting on those shelves looking as though they will collapse under the weight and often do. When those shelves give way and those dusty boxes come crashing down the emotions etc stored in them spew forth like a flood .

  I used to love Christmas time and all the wonder of it like a kid waiting for Santa to arrive. I loved the tree the shiny lights and gifts spending time with family and friends I just loved everything about the Holiday. For some reason over the years I had started to dread that time of year I thought maybe it was because I had lost that child like feeling or because I had stopped believing in Santa. I thought maybe it was because the Christmas Holiday had become more of a chore with trying to get the right gift for people only to feel disappointed when the look on their face showed I had truly missed the mark in my gift giving because I could see in their face they did not like what I had given them. Was it the blasting Christmas music that started a month before the Holiday? or maybe the bell ringers asking for donations in front of every store? was it that I could not afford to have the type Christmas the commercials on TV told me I should? I mulled over and over trying to figure out what had soured me on the Christmas Holiday. I would realize it was none of those things mentioned. I would come to know the answer one day while digging through some old photos.

   Back a few years ago and more than I care to admit I was in a great relationship and it seemed to be perfect in every way.  I felt I had met my soul mate and at last I could end my search for that person I could spend my life with. Well once again I had no clue and that relationship ended not long after Christmas of that year. I must have stored all that pain that I felt of loosing that person and attached it to the last good time I remembered with that person, and that was Christmas.  I may be wrong in my thinking but seeing that picture in my album brought back so many memories and also the knowledge I had not had a good Christmas since then.

   I am often told not to look back at the past and to just let it go. I have found that for me I must revisit the past and try to sort it out before I can so called LET IT GO!. Saying let it go and doing so are two different things. Saying it is easy but truly doing it, for me takes a lot of work mentally. I am and always have been a sensitive person, like a sponge I absorb not only my own pain I also have the habit of trying to absorb others pain and make it my own as if I did not have enough of my own to deal with. At one time in my life I thought it easier to deal with other peoples pain and ignore my own thus focusing my energy on them and not myself.  This made me feel good to help others but I neglected me and all those painful moments. I just brushed the pain aside HA! more like stored it away so it could come back to bight me in the ass at some future date.  

   I would come to learn this is called anniversary pain and can pop up for seemingly no reason at all. Set off by a date on the calendar in my mind that was hidden in that subconscious storage room tumbling off the shelf and springing forth to mess up my emotions. All that pain spewing forth all that pain I had hidden in my brain and blacked out with a mental Sharpie pen or so I thought. I try to be a happy person and even with all that I have been through in my life have succeeded in doing so but as I say now and then I get down and some times it is for an obvious reason. Obvious like I bounced a check or my car tire is flat all those everyday things that at times can just feel emotionally draining when they start to compile or I feel like they are. Those everyday problems I can understand and can pretty much deal with it is those deeper mental feelings or as they call it anniversary pain I have a problem with. The problem comes from the fact I did not deal with what ever it was at the time it happened, so it pops up biting me in the ass at some latter date. It is often very hard to track back through the mess that was my life and pinpoint just what thing place or person that I at the time did not deal with and filed away in my brain is come back to haunt me. 

   As I say I am often told to just let it go! but I have found for myself anyway I have to do a constant sort of mental battle with the past and work it out before I am able to JUST LET IT GO! I have come to the conclusion that those people that can just let it go must have had better skills than I in dealing with grief and pain and thus did not carry it with them mentally over the years.  Or maybe? they just say that, hoping it actually will work for them and in private they are doing battle with their own demons.  I have heard it said and have found it true that those who seem to have their shit together by all outward appearances are actually wearing a mask so as not to let anyone know just how messed up they are. I no longer hide the mess that is my life and admit to myself and others that I am not perfect and I am working on feeling OK with that fact. 

   Each day I am doing a sort of spring cleaning of that subconscious storage room taking down boxes to unburden the poor sagging shelves of some of the weight they try to hold. Dusting and clearing the cobwebs as I work taking each box down and sifting through its contents. It is a slow process but if I stop adding to the mess and keep working to clean away what already exists I may one day be able to see that room empty. I know I hear you laughing about that comment and believe me I laughed when I wrote it. But (Hope springs eternal)!

   So next time you catch yourself saying JUST LET IT GO! think about how much work that really takes for some of us. 

Conversational Respect.

   So many people want their opinion to be heard but it seems no one wants to hear the other persons side. I have had many conversations as of late with people about religion,politics and many other subjects that we are told early on that you should never discuss among friends. I feel you should be able to discuss anything that is important to you but the one major thing I see that most people do wrong in doing so is that they enter the conversation on the defense and ready for a fight or an argument before the other person even speaks one sentence. To argue is fine and to want your point to be heard is also fine but knowing how to give and take and be respectful of the other person seems to be lacking in most conversation I witness. To know when to walk away or agree to disagree when to back away is a conversational art that seems to be lacking. I have been in conversations were my point of view is different from the person I am speaking with and find the first thing they want to do is to hurl insults and start calling me names. I do not know about you but if I am insulted or verbally attacked my mind shuts the door on the possibility of any of the other persons words to penetrate the anger that rises within me so much so that I do not hear anything they have to say. I have also had those conversations when the other person and even I have done this, is to say those _________ insert group in the blank think this way or are this way or that thing. I hate that I do this myself because I know I hate when people assume things about me or try to group me into a cut and dried cookie cutter world because I agree with someone on one thing or the other. They assume because I agree with one statement someone makes that I follow their whole philosophy on life.

Realist,pragmatic,philosophical,religious,scientific etc each person must find his or her own path and I feel there is room for each but also know when the choices made based on any of those type mind sets I try to do in a way I do not exclude the thoughts and feelings of others. I have my lines in the sand that no matter how much debate is given I will never change my mind but if I stay open enough I may be able to see why the other persons have the outlook on a subject they do.

      

A Letter To The Past

Dear Past.

    Where did you go? I turned around and you were gone like a flash of lightning. I ponder about things now at this time in life and look back often and wish I had paid better attention and that I had been able to appreciate you more. Maybe it was youthful ignorance and the fact I was afraid what the future held, afraid of being left behind alone, so I in my rush to live life grabbed at it like a man drowning. What I did not understand was there were many life lines but I refused to see them and swam past them losing my strength and going farther and farther into the deep leaving myself no solid ground to stand on forcing myself to either float or swim.  Very seldom did I choose to float that's just not how I did things. I swam and swam until I lost my energy and would sink to the bottom. Once at the bottom it would take me a long time to regain my strength to resurface and start swimming again. You would think I would learn from that but NO I would come back and start the race all over again.

    Always looking forward and never living in the moment, I missed out on so much and if not for faded photos, I would not have recollections or memories of the people places and things. I was to busy swimming in a race that I would only learn latter I was competing in against myself. You were always there but I did not see you in the shadows watching me rushing off in every direction without any plan without any destination. I thought I was living life but the fact was I had let life live me. You sent some wonderful beings to share the journey with me but in my inability to feel safe or comfortable, I would not ever let them fully be part of my journey. Stubbornness in my thinking that I could, or even that I was doing my journey on my own. How young and stupid I was how frightened. Some may call it selfishness on my part and to that I say you may be right but I feel it was the fact I thought I was, and would be the only one truly ever there for me. I do not know were this thinking came from but I know I thought I was in the journey alone.

    I did let some share in a bit of the journey but after a short period I would feel afraid and need to create space and often that meant leaving that person in my wake as I swam as fast away from them as I could. Closeness scared the hell out of me and I did not want to let anyone in for fear of loosing myself in the process.  Ha! loosing myself seems so funny now because at the time I did not even know who the hell I was. To be truthful I still to this day do not really know who I am. I change and morph each day they call it growth and now I can agree but then it always felt like shedding my skin or loosing a part of myself. As I have aged I do not fear change as much which is the opposite of what most say as they age. I still wonder what if, and why not ,when I think back some of the what if's hurt to revisit but I see now it is best to make peace with them it makes the swimming easier without that excess weight pushing down. The Why not's also can be difficult to look at but also need to be dealt with to lighten the load.  

    I still swim but I have learned to float when I need a rest, and I have also learned to take hold of life lines when I need them. I am no longer in a race I am now just enjoying the swim and the fact some may be farther along than I and that some may be behind me.I am learning to live in the moment and let the future be a mystery and the past be a sweet memory of bad and good times. I still wish at times I would have paid better attention to you and taken advantage of the things you had to offer but that is as they say water under the bridge. I do thank you for all you have taught me, you have made me the person I am today. I hope you do not mind that I do not visit as much as I used to but I think it is for the best.

                              Thanks ........................