Christmas time 2024

Remembering the reason for the season isn't just a saying for me. It's a reminder. A reminder that there is good reason for me to suffer from a melancholy that lives inside of me. I'm 50% happy 50% sad at any given moment and I wouldn't want it to be any other way as it reminds me of the weight of losses I've had in my life. The family dynamic that went away some time ago when the matriarchs of our family passed away, the loss of a father that I will now never know, and a Mom who was my everything good that remained. While gone, the sadness and grief I feel today is a direct link to those people and I don't want to ever feel differently. 

I wrote about walking alone in this world years ago, and little did I know the depth of alone I would one day feel. Today, it's God who promises to never leave my side, and I am comforted by the belief that I will never walk completely alone in this life. 

The sounds of Christmas, the lights, the music, the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," all these things bring emotion that is equal parts sadness and light and that is the best I can do, the best I can hope for. 

Soon God willing, there will be a new year and a new beginning and an opportunity to do something for someone else which my Mom always told me was the key to coming out of a feeling of depression. She practiced all those bits of wisdom herself and we were all the better for it. I will try my best to stay strong enough to follow her lead and I will always look to heaven for his, and her approval. 

Until my time is over I will say prayers for those who also suffer from the loss of those who made such meaningful memories and who have now become memories themselves. May God bless all of us. 

 

the anti social, social club and the joys of divorce

 I recently became aware of someone else's story about divorce that had me reliving my own some 40-plus years ago. My divorce isn't a bash-the-ex story although some of what this guy is going through is very familiar to my own experience. 

The decision to divorce in my case was not mine. In fact, I had no say whatsoever because the decision was made by the time I was advised by a knock at the front door from a stranger (process server) that I had 10 days to move out of our house leaving my son and my wife, and everything other than some clothes behind. 

My divorce from Hindsight was the best thing in the world, for both of us. Probably for my son too but we'll never know that. Having zero experience with what a family acted like, getting married wasn't a well-thought-out thing in the first place. We were very young, and her parents did not want us to even see each other AND, we were pregnant and just hadn't had that confirmed just yet. In those days, the only option when pregnant was to marry and we did. 

My home life growing up consisted of arguments and fighting and then divorce several times. That's all I knew. Thank God I had a mother who loved me to pieces but the damage of seeing all that turmoil was being done without me realizing it. My wife, on the other hand, experienced a big loving family with a mom and dad who didn't fight and were together many decades. 

So I really don't think we had much of a chance for success to start with and we failed. My feelings about my divorce all those years ago is about the fact that I didn't have any say in it. I had a family, a great job to support us all, and a life albeit not the best in the world and it was decided without my input that all of it was to be taken away from me. I'm fairly sure I remember feeling I didn't really want to be married, but I wasn't at the point where divorce was on my mind. The depth of the pain I felt losing everything in my life at that time was indescribable and only known to me and my late mom at the time.   

The impact of divorce was so deep and severe that I vowed I would never again test my luck or risk failure on that level again and in 45 years or so I haven't been able to even consider it while my ex-wife has been married a half dozen times since then trying to find the right mix. I admire her unwillingness to give up as I did and ALL of my relationships since those days so long ago have been affected negatively by the experience.  

I'm told my son and his little family are doing well and my ex-wife seems to have found the right one (again) and I'm very grateful to God for all of that. But for me, I'm just not able to think about life at this stage as being anything other than alone. I've been able to focus on work and investing so I'm financially secure and have retired. I'm OK except for some health issues and I remain grateful for all the experiences I've gone through even the ones that didn't work out as planned.      

  

  

alone yet grateful

 Thanksgiving and Christmas time while joyous and happy for most is especially hard for some. I am among those who no longer have family available to be with throughout any part of any year. I deal with it by being thankful for the memories I have when things were different, people were different and family was there. 

All of those who held my family together have passed away now and those who are left I'm hoping are having their own get-togethers and making their own memories. This is how life goes it sort of trails off at and near the end. I've managed to sort it out and be alright with it but I know there are some suffering during this stage and I feel for them. 

At some point in this life, I began to realize that no communication from friends, family, and people in general actually is communication, and that is when I started being less affected emotionally by the silence. Thanksgiving for me now that I'm older with health issues, is every day and not just one day. I am grateful for getting another day to listen to the wind in the trees, hear the birds sing, and enjoy the sunshine. And Christmas has a meaning that exceeds what we used to see it as when we were kids so I look forward to it for a different reason now. 

I know that my way of dealing with these things isn't as easy for some as it is for me but I still recommend looking at it all differently and understanding that every day we wake up we are gifted and get another chance to enjoy life as our loved ones who have passed would want us to be doing. So look up and not down if you are alone while others are living the way you once did. They are making memories that you once made that will carry them through times like this and that is a very good thing to see. 

We are never completely alone in this world no matter what we are going through. There is God who is waiting for you to acknowledge him and he will carry the weight you find too much to bear.  

 

 

        

this is not the time to relax

 As the news cycle churns we face a choice of options some of us haven't had since we were little kids but with much more severe consequences today. Good or evil. Good of course Mom would always say, there is no other option. But those simple solutions and days we lived back then are gone now. Radical types have forced changes our world was never ready for and the consequences of those changes have wrecked our lives. There is much blame to go around for individuals and political "correctness," advocates but none more worthy of blame than ourselves for not stopping it by whatever means necessary like people did back when our country was young.  

The election 2 weeks ago shocked me to the bone. I have said many times our system is clearly so corrupt and fraudulent that there is no way on earth the far left in America would allow Donald Trump to come out of this election as the President of The United States. But it was too big to rig and now we have another and possibly our last opportunity to save the country from radical far-left lunacy. 

There isn't much time, but Trump is on the move and not wasting a single minute putting together the team that can actually save not just America but the entire world. Iran is taking 3 steps back, and Israel now has the unyielding backing of a badass in the White House. Ukraine is saying just today they can see their war finding and ending. Russia's Vladimir Putin (although a congenital 2-faced liar and menace to the world) is vowing to want to work with the Trump administration to set a new calm in what may have been another world war with the weakness of the Biden/Harris era. 

The feel in the air is positive. World tensions are cooling, if not just a bit after boiling without a strong leader in charge of America. Trump has four years, and that's it. Actually, maybe only two to three years to get major things done and put our country back on track. My fears went from worrying about the weeks and months ahead to now taking a breather for a couple of years, but then what???

One thing is for certain, I've had this positive feeling before when democrat insanity was pushed back on only to watch Republicans in name only shoot themselves in both feet. Did any of them learn their lessons, or God forbid will this happen again? We will know soon enough.. The far-left democrat lunatics are no doubt betting weak republican fools will once again show their ignorance and defy the mandate Donald Trump was given by the people who hired these same Senators and House members. If this defiance happens again, I predict America will not survive. 

      

so there's that. 2024

 I wanted to use this forum to remind myself of the important things that happened in 2024. I decided to break ties with American Airlines because of the irritation I felt over the stupid contract they forced me to sign and sign again and again over and over. So I doubled my day-rate knowing that would probably end our relationship and apparently it did. I say apparently because I received a note/email from Steve saying they would not pay my new rate. That's all it said just that they wouldn't pay the new rate and then I never heard from my "friend," Steve again.  In one fell swoop, my last job into retirement, and another "so-called friend," was gone.  

I should be used to this type of thing by now as friends come and go in these modern times but to realize how few real friends there ever are, is disappointing still. So there's that.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024, one of the most loving and best friends I have ever had, passed away. My neighbor's cat Ruben. Maybe he was just a cat to some but to me, he was much more than that. Ruben stuck by my side every minute of every day throughout my journey to find a way to live after Mom passed away. Might sound weird to some but he knew I was having a rough time and would insist on laying on my lap and just looking up at me as if to say with his eyes, you're going to get through this and I'm here to help. I did, so far, get through it, and Ruben kept me from drowning in grief. 

Ruben would sleep on my lap or lay in the chair beside me, watching me and looking directly into my eyes making sure I was OK. That cat unlike humans ever have, connected to my soul and I am forever grateful and will miss him for the rest of my life.   

August 22, 2024, I was shocked to learn my blood sugar says I have type 1 diabetes. Wow. Not what you want to hear when you already have kidney disease but both of those usually end up together as a one/two punch and here they are. This day I went into attack mode and went from not walking much to 11,000 steps. I threw away the bread I had and the potatoes and went from eating whatever I wanted to eating once a day vegetables and chicken breasts I cook in the air fryer. I walk every day now and try my best to get in 3 to 4 miles but it's still 100º and tough to keep it up when it's hot but I'm doing better than I expected. I brought Mom's treadmill over and have dropped 15 pounds so far. We'll see how this all goes but knowing I'm alone in this world I realize that I can either give up or take charge and that is what Mom would want me to do. So there's that.

September 17, 2024, Bobby and Linda. I got a text from David saying he needed to update me on things with them. Turned out that the boys decided to place Bob and Linda in an Alzheimer's care facility for a 3-month tryout taking them from their home and telling them they were going to a place where they could get more care. This had to be one of the hardest things the guys have ever had to do. My overall feeling is that assuming it's a nice place with nice caring people, this is probably best for them. David says the visit they had there was good and they liked the people so with prayers for God's hand in this, Bob and Linda will hopefully accept it and feel good about it. T

I put a call into Judy who is Linda's sister in Oklahoma to let her know and it took 3 calls and 2 texts to get her. Told her what I knew and the location of the place etc and then as per usual we got into it over the dumbest of things unrelated to Bob & Linda and she ended up hanging up on me which sent me over the edge.

2024 has a little over 3 months left in it and the upcoming election if I were to gauge it by what has happened so far, has the makings to cap off a miserable year with yet one final misery for America. 

I have removed another thing from my life this year and that is the saying, "Well, it can't get any worse."        

a look back, at the future..

I've heard it said that it isn't the dates on our headstone that matter, but the dash in between. The life we live between the beginning and the end. Odd thoughts like, of the people who I miss the most who are already gone, would those people agree with our perceptions of them? Should it even matter to me at all once they're gone and why do I spend time even thinking of such things- My spiritual beliefs include that all who are still here now, know exactly where they stand with God including myself even though I struggle at times with feeling less than worthy and coming up short of God's expectations..

The past several years have worn me out. A life lived completely alone is harder than I expected even while still wanting to be left alone. As I sit here today I lack hope that the future here in America is going to be anything but dark, and darker than this day. My lone companion, depression, has met someone new to hang out with, grief. Welcome to the family.. My overwhelming sense is that while I struggle personally, evil has engulfed my country and the entire world in fact, and that there is no escape.

     

Red flags appear with each new day that the person I once was is now hard to recognize. The weight of depression and grief is bone-crushing even on a good day and furthers my health decline. But others have it much worse I tell myself to lessen the load.. But I no longer buy the tricks I try to play on my mind and then it is what it is, plays on a loop inside my head. 

I have written often to myself, about not being able to call my mom and hear her voice or go back further and meet my father and learn who he really was. I often look at his face in a photo and wonder how he might have affected my life had we known each other. But no answer comes and no perception fits and I know that no matter the struggle I face I must fulfill the promise I made to my Mom that I would be OK and keep going while getting closer to God so that we will see each other again when it's time.         

I have experienced good fortune and extreme heartaches, life has at times kicked me around and I had to learn that getting back up and working to make things better wasn't an option on a list, it was the list. 

Rough new normals are that Linda and Bobby are now being cared for in their own home by complete strangers while they struggle with memory issues. Our country is being intentionally ripped apart because of an insatiable desire for power and control by those in control at the moment while our enemies eagerly await our final attack on ourselves. My attempts at communication with my son go unanswered and the work I once enjoyed I no longer do while the deafening silence surrounds my days and takes its predictable toll.    

Wars are breaking out all over the world and in our own streets where it's no longer even safe to walk. The internet with its faceless names is now our living room where we once sat and talked about things and how we were doing with people we loved. Those times and people have been replaced with a screen looking out over a vast and ever-increasing ugly and vile world.  

With all the darkness described herein, there is much that I am grateful for in this life. The mother I had was my undeniable proof that God exists and that God is good. I have experienced what love feels like and I have loved in return in my own awkward and failed ways. Actual friends, I have had a few of those. That shiny new Schwinn Stingray bicycle Mom couldn't afford but bought for me anyway when I was a weird kid, I was so proud of that bike and you Mom for knowing how much it would mean to me. Family, I got to experience times with some of the most resilient, giving, wise, and loving people God ever created. Rarely speaking of their hardships, they went to great lengths to make sure ours, all of us kids, were easier hardships than theirs. Thank you Gran and thank you to Papa who I never met and who had to be the best in the world or Gran wouldn't have chosen him to make the family I was a part of. From the two of you came so many wonderfully giving and loving people any has ever known. 

Having done well in some areas I do absolutely regret not being better at the important things like being a better husband, a better son for my Mom, and a father to my son. I regret becoming a recluse hermit and hiding from a world I would have to live in alone at the end. 

My memories I will try to use as fuel to restore some of my energy and lessen my worries. May God help me to find ways to honor those who came before me as they did for those who came before them.  

the square peg

being just a couple of years in front of 70 has me conserving what energy I have left to get on with the days God has given me to still be here. But I still devote for whatever reason, swaths of time throughout these days to looking back over this life and trying to figure out the why and how I got to this place of isolation and living this hermit lifestyle.. 

I have managed to avoid the woe-is-me that usually comes with this kind of story by doing well financially and traveling around the world with a fun job, but none of those things seems to ease my troubled mind. 

I assume thoughts of one's own mortality especially at my age are a common thing but it seems to be a daily cluster of thoughts for me. Like if I were to suffer a heart attack and die at this very moment while writing this it would be months before I was found. All my bills are on auto-pay and it's often several months between a text or a phone call from anyone I once knew. Soon after those thoughts comes the uncomfortable realization that after nearly 7 decades of life on this earth, no one cares enough to check to see if I am still alive or dead! I don't dwell on this I just wanted to write it down and see if it feels any different reading it as opposed to just knowing it. 

In our family, once the matriarch passed away my Gran, what was left of the family generally broke apart and went their own way never getting together again until one of those still left passes away. How sad and real that is.  

The Bible says we are to leave our mother and father and go make our own family and I believe that covers most people but strangely enough not me. I did make my own family but soon after was unceremoniously pushed out of it and never attempted it again. As a kid I generally wasn't allowed to play with the other kids in the neighborhood for whatever reason I can't recall.  They were often older than me but not by a lot so I have no idea why I had to play by myself. I carried that isolation into and through my school years and it didn't sit well with others as it was looked at to mean I may have thought I was better than them when in fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. So no real friends in school either. "The square peg," and I were becoming a thing. 

All these years later nothing much has changed but being young and alone is one thing, and getting much older and alone I'm finding, is quite another. I don't kid myself it can't be any other way at this point, the die was cast so long ago. I miss the days back when I had a chance to maybe turn all this around and have a different life.

In Memorium to times better and those including me, who never fit in.  

note to self..

Everyone has probably been where I feel I am many times before me. 4 plus years since mom passed away and I am still a mess. It's taken more of a toll on me than I saw coming both physically and mentally and the void her passing leaves in my life will never fill and I will likely be for the rest of my life, a broken man.

It doesn't help that the world is upside down and on fire and that my country is unrecognizable and the one I grew up in has died before my eyes. It would be depressing even without great personal loss health issues and so on. But watching the younger generations be the catalyst for a future they will regret is steadily weakening my care and concern.    

The things I once looked forward to just a few years ago making photos and videos, and looking for new work, are all a long-lost memory. My well is dry, and devoid of life.  

Always the loner never feeling comfortable around people persists and has increased a thousandfold since mom has gone. A reclusive solitude while it fights with my sense of well-being is my only comfortable place. There are people I feel love for, family even, that I would like to feel comfortable with, and yet it just isn't there.

My mental and physical health has suffered and a lack of peace in my soul is outpacing my will to address it. Things and people have changed since mom passed away I keep telling myself, only to realize the change is in me and it just hurts more.  

Maybe I'll pick up and move someplace my mind as it wanders, change my name create a new life make some new memories, those thoughts have crossed my mind then the newest lab results remind me there probably isn't enough time. I reluctantly asked a friend to help me put a house up for rent or sale and while she graciously agreed she baled and that was that.     

I know I have to do something here before the clock runs out even if it's wrong or doesn't make a whole lot of sense. God will surely lead me in some direction that is better than treading water in this place. 

I've upped my purging of things from Mom's house and mine for the past year or so and more lately in the hopes of spurring me on to make some type of progress as  I'm feeling a need to pick up the pace. 

It's 4am and I am sitting here writing instead of resting up to make use of another new day. Some random reading of Suzanne Summers' husband of 55 years who said some time ago of her passing and how peaceful and calming it had been. She had battled more health demons than any 100 of the rest of us and yet she managed to make use of every minute she had and stayed in a loving relationship till the very end. 

Suzanne's huge house and 100 million dollar fortune couldn't save her and isn't going to comfort those who are left behind when they need a hug or to hear her voice. The emptiness that is left behind when a matriarch passes away is something no one can relate to until it happens to them. How you deal with it defines the legacy that a loved one leaves behind and right now I don't feel I'm honoring my Mom's legacy by not being well myself and getting on with whatever life is left for me. I have a lot of work to do..

Link: Note to self..

       

a life lived

I felt compelled to write. 

There are no souls of importance left in my life to make what I see ahead anything but uncertain and unfamiliar. A successful life by any measure other than relationships with people will produce a flawed and inaccurate result. I learned this by measuring happiness by the number of jobs in a week, month, year, and bank balances. But those measures had cruel ironies attached and ones I had to go through and experience to realize. 

The older and wiser adage is a real thing where I've gained greater focus on all the mistakes I made over the years like valuing the wrong things while just being and experiencing life with others took a back seat or had no seat at all. I thought it would be much easier to eventually shift from that accumulating lifestyle to one more related to inner peace but I'm finding that not to be the case. Being one of the crowd was never a fit for me and I actually did suffer because of it, but the suffering then pales in comparison to the anguish now since reaching my fourth quarter of life.  

As a kid, all I ever wanted was to have money to buy stuff and now that I can afford whatever I want, I just want what I used to have, that dream.. I was already rich long before I had a dime in that I was experiencing love without condition from a mother who could have fallen from the weight of husbands and fathers of her kids who didn't support her or us. Not knowing how well off you are until later in life is one of the cruelest of all ironies. I've often wondered if those who graced my younger life and have now left this world, did they know at the time the value of their impact on our lives and did they die knowing how rich they made everyone around them just by living a good and decent life throughout all the hardships they had to endure?  

Whether real or imagined my soul today is heavily burdened with things you want less of like regret and sadness. Regret that I pushed aside some of those who are gone now and sadness that I wasted so much time focused on the less important things. Often in prayer, I ask God to forgive me for those things which I regret and although I know that he does, I am suffering unimaginable grief that while my loved ones were here, I didn't show them often enough how meaningful they were to me. 

I woke at about 9 this morning, did the morning routine, and sat down to watch the markets. For hours I watched and did nothing else till I fell asleep in the chair and woke up about 6:30 having never set foot outside. I doubt my grandmother, Gran, ever had a single day or minute in her life to waste like that.  That lady had too much to do, too many kids to care for, feed, sew clothes for, and work because her husband, my grandfather whom I never got to meet, died at an early age leaving them and her to fend for themselves.

The memories so long ago of the family getting together at Gran's and the telephone party line we kids played with and the spearmint lifesavers she would give us just one because the roll was another nickel she didn't have. Kenneth's odd laugh and Peggy's beautiful smile and big hair. The cousins are all playing outside and how uncomplicated and uneventful those times were before we all grew up and time stepped in and took it all away from us. Nothing could have prepared me for the loss of those times and nothing now can replace it (for me) or ease the sadness of not being able to talk about those times with some of those who were there and now passed away.. 

Faith is all that I have now to help get me through this final chapter. While it should be enough, all too often I worry it may not. I am using prayer to touch base with all those whom I miss who have passed before me and for all who remain and are in need. Often I have to remind myself to add my name to that list.

Guidance and a path well lit is what I seek these days and it seems so elusive. What will I do with what little time I have left I ask myself daily with no definitive answer. The days and nights are too quiet and my mind keeps moving back to that place in my life when I had everything I ever needed and didn't realize it-       

twenty twenty four

 I'm very close to making it through another year. There isn't a way to describe how I feel about having made it this far except to say the old music still fills my eyes with the same emotion that the memories of those times and the people in my life back then bring. How beautiful those days were and how oblivious I was to how quickly they would disappear. 

There is a very small portion of my current life that couldn't be more perfect while larger parts remain in shambles and a mystery never to be unraveled. One marriage failed would determine a path of solitude that would consume the rest of my days and many hours spent thinking if only I could exchange the successes I've had with the failures, how would that change my view of the world today..

There is no replay, no substituting directions taken that took me to a destination I am closing in on. The new year feels daunting and I anything but optimistic. My country is on the verge of slipping into a place we fought wars to prevent and turning it around gets more dire and unlikely every day. The will to stop those taking America to a hell we never thought possible would have already shown itself and a 150 million people or more would have engaged in the actions it is going to take to root out this evil from our midst in a final way. But I don't see it. 

I'm apprehensive about the upcoming year to say the least and I think there will be challenges and actions taken that will continue to shock the senses. The future is in the hands of the enemy within and we are losing ground and the time to stop it. Not a good way to start a new year dancing past the graveyard but what are we to do without the will to engage and stop it. 

I pray about it and I pray for those hurting and in need already before we go over the edge. I listen to the old music and remember the old times and those people who fought in wars at home and abroad so that the generations to come, the ones taking us to this hell, would not have to endure the future I see coming. My hope is that those who can least afford to suffer, find ways to endure without collapsing under the weight. 

Good luck in 2024. Stay close to God and speak to him often. Here's to those 150 million plus patriots who must be out there but so far unwilling to engage before it's too late. May you find the will to save us. Godspeed everyone.