Monday, November 11, 2013

This past year

As I reflect back on the past 12 months, there has been a lot of change in my life. For the first time in a long time, I had a great year. I did have some downs, but the ups FAR out weigh the downs. To compare my ups, if there were a BCS poll for my year, I would rank it in the top five of all time. A year ago, I celebrated my 40th birthday. My best friends took me to a great restaurant followed by my first trip to a casino. 4 pitchers of mojitos, down 100 dollars at the casino, the night ended with a bang and a damn good celebration.



I reflected on the first 40 years of my life and although it seems as if it has flown by, I still thought to myself that I have accomplished, experienced and enjoyed the first 40 years of my life. I sure hope that I have 40 more in me, and that the next 40 years are filled with fun, joy, pleasure, pain, heart ache, triumph, victory, laughter, tears, etc as much , if not more than the first 40. I am still young, and still have many things left that I want to experience.



They say the way you spend your new years eve is what your year will be like. Well, I spent time with friends partying it up on new years, so what have I been doing this whole year? Yep, you guessed it, having a good ole time, hanging with friends, taking trips, exploring and having a grand ole time. There really hasn’t been much of a dull moment this past year. To say I have had fun is an under statement since I have had a great time.



I took a trip to California this past May to visit some new friends. The first cross country trip by myself since high school. Although, when I went cross country in high school, I was still visiting family. This time though, it was to meet some new friends, new in a sense that I had never met them before. In the coming weeks I will blog about that trip. Even though that trip was 6 months ago, I still remember it like it was last week. That is how much fun I did have.



In June I started dating a beautiful lady (yes, she knows about my alternative lifestyle, reads my blog AND follows me on twitter) and to say the least, she does make me smile, feel good and has put some pep in my step, not to mention inflate my already over inflated ego. Damn, did you feel that? I think the earth just shifted from everyone rolling their eyes at the same time at me and my ego. HA, get over it. It is MY ego and NOT yours. I do love her and everything she is, not to mention she calls me Daddy. SCHWING!!!!!!!



This past year has started a new chapter in my life. Last year, at midnight of my 40th birthday, I took 8 shots of bourbon. One for my birthday, 6 for the past 6 years of a marriage that ended up failing and one final one for my future. I drank to the present, the past and my future. A future that is uncertain, but looks good so far.



In closing, life is what YOU make of it. Do you want to sit around, sulk, feel sorry for yourself? Then by all means, you go ahead and do that. Or do you want to get up, do what YOU want and enjoy what life has to offer? Then lets go, I am driving and we are going to enjoy ourselves and experience what ever is out there for us. I know that’s what I am going to do.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Suicide

Back in December my life took a sever downward spiral. So sever that I did make an attempt to end it by my own hands. I've always said I've never been afraid of death. And that day I was not afraid to go through with what I felt I needed, no, wanted to do.  (Wow this is hard). There are something's that... I can't even put it into words. I just can't. 

A year ago this last January I lost a friend to suicide. He just went through a nasty divorce and I thought he was on a better path in life. His kids still loved him. His company was thriving. Even met a wonderful woman who I thought was worlds better than his previous wife. I saw him before Christmas and the world was his to conquer. I know because he told me so. He and I made plans to play golf that coming spring and even started talking about taking a week and playing golf in Alabama on the Bobby Jones trail. 

Christmas comes and I see his oldest posting pictures in Facebook of his new mustang that dad bought him for Xmas. His 3 daughters received matching charm bracelets. For New Years he took his kids and new girlfriend to Hawaii and rang in the new year on the beach. 

I was driving back to my office from lunch a couple of weeks later when I was sitting at a red light and thought I'd jump on twitter. I saw a hash tag that said prayfor....  When I clicked on it to check it out I started seeing all of these "thinking of you" and "praying for you" comments. I immediately started texting a couple of people and the immediate response I got was my friend who was just recently happy and doing good had decided to end his own life.  I really don't remember much more of that day and even reliving this, I feel that same numb and light headed feeling coming over me. 

I went to the funeral and it was difficult to say the least. Seeing his kids I did my best to keep it together. Looking at his son who I had coached when he was younger in baseball and football I had all these emotions come flooding back into me and my soul that for so long I had done my best to keep locked and hidden away. I could see these same emotions in him. I went straight to him, fuck standing in a line for my turn. I went straight to him and hugged him as hard as I could. He hugged me back just as hard and began to flood my shirt with his tears. His oldest sister came to me and hugged me at the waist while I was doing my best to keep from losing it. When I opened my eyes most of the people had their eyes on us with enough tears to float a navy. 

I spent that following weekend with his son. He and I tossing a baseball and chatting about his dad. The question that was asked the most was "Why?"  I had no answers. All I had was don't think about the why. Remember the good times you had. The fishing trips. The golf outings. The vacations and burning the clutch up in the car learning how to drive.  I remember taking my buddy to pick his car up at the dealership after it was repaired and laughing at how much the repair bill was. I even commented, I wish I could laugh at spending that kind of money at fixing something.  That weekend was one of healing for us both. And I know his son came away a stronger and more compassionate young man. 

Come December, he was one of the memories that flashed through my mind when I was staring at what I thought was going to be the end of my life.  I wonder if he stepped in and helped out a stop to it.  When I think back to that day he ended his life I wonder if he had the same thoughts as me. Not thoughts of am I sure I want to go through with this or who will find me etc. but the thoughts of why has my life come to this?  

I spent several weeks in rehab. And daily visits from a shrink.  One thing that he kept asking me is will I try to harm myself again?  I finally came to the conclusion that my answer didn't really matter to him. He wanted me to think back to what I tried to do and promise myself to no relive that pain and hurt and come away with a sense that my life does matter and that life does in fact move on. At some point you have to shit or get off the pot sort of speak. 

So I stopped wallowing on self pity. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and playing the whoa is me bullshit. And I decided that I am going to live life for me. I'm not really a mean or a bad person, but mark my words. Any fucker that tries to come between me and the life ahead of me in an attempt to hold me down and prevent me from doing what I want to do is going to get chewed up. I won't spit them back out because there will not be anything left of them when I'm done.  Don't believe me?  Try me. I will NOT be held responsible for what happens. 

Bottom line is this. Life will move on. With or with out you is your choice. Then, I didn't care. Now, I'm going to own my life and make life MY BITCH!!!

Me

I will inflict the pain, but I will kiss away the tears. 

New post




I haven’t blogged in sometime, and recently I have wanted to, but I have either been a little busy with work, or when the time comes, I just stare at a blank page with no thoughts in my mind.  So much has transpired since I last wrote on my blog that I wouldn’t know where to begin to tell you about any of it.  Hopefully this will be the first of many posts to come in the future, and at various times and through other posts, I can let you know what is going on and what has happened in my life. 

Probably the most significant change in my life is the divorce I went through.  My divorce was final at the end of October in 2012.  I closed out that chapter in my life by celebrating my 40th birthday with 4 of my closest (only) friends.  That weekend was filled with laughter, tears, good times and some heart ache.  That weekend I took sometime to reflect back on all that I have done in my first 40 years.  While life seems to move at a fast pace leaving us to wonder many times “where has time gone?”, I also realized that I have done, fulfilled and lived quite a bit.  But I also know that I have so much more in life that I want to see, do and accomplish.  So, I hope I have at least another 30 years in me, because I plan on using every moment I have to the fullest extent to complete my life.

So here I am now in my life and I have come to realize that most everything in life is trivial and really doesn't matter a week from now. Don't get me wrong, I still believe in what you do today affects your tomorrow and your yesterday influenced today.  So I plan on doing more for me and less for others. I will still do for others and be there for my friends when they need me. Hell even when they don't need me I will be there. What I mean is I'm going to start on the things that I want to accomplish in my next 30 years. I've always thought that I had to be with someone to be able to do anything and being alone meant I wasn't allowed to do anything. Well I've come to realize that's bull shit. No more. Next time you see someone eating alone in a restaurant or sitting alone in a theater, stop and think before you feel sorry for them.  Just maybe that person is happy being alone. I know I am. Now I'm still searching for the one. And she could just be around the corner. But until I meet her I'm still going to do for me. I just hope she is willing to ride along with me. 

With that said I am going to end my first post in sometime. I have a thought on the next one and I'm going to start gathering my thoughts. It's going to be hard writing that one. Maybe the hardest I've written. 

Me

I will inflict the pain, but I will kiss away the tears.