This is the first Monster Movie made on the I Pad.
Paying Attention To Your Senses
If you were told that you only had a short period of time to live how would you handle it? If you were living with that family member or in their life daily what would you do? How would you act? It would be completely understandable to fall apart and lash out at the world. I saw this scenario this weekend. This weekend I drove to Roanoke with my daughter and dad to visit a young family member who has been given a limited number of days to live. I did not know what to expect when I got to the Star City and I was very anxious. I am a person of many words. I do not always say the right thing and I sometimes speak out of turn but I am rarely without thought. Two weeks before going to Roanoke this family member called me while I was at work to talk. It was the first time I had spoken to him since I was privy to his cruel sentence. I was without words. I had no clue what to tell him but quite frankly I don’t think he called me to get sage advice. He just wanted to talk. This was one of my first lessons. I cannot tell you what is in his mind but I can tell you that in the conversations I have had with loved cousin that in his last days he is not concerned with himself. He is concerned with everyone else. He is looking down the barrel of it and he wants to know how I am doing?
The trip to Roanoke seemed doomed from the beginning. After a five-hour trip to Roanoke I want to honor my daughters wish to see the star that over looks the city before visiting my beloved cousin. My wife and I had taken her there last year and she remembered it. I could appreciate that because that star is a big part of my childhood memories. I loved that star as a kid and still do. It is a cheesy hunk of neon and light on top of a big ass mountain but it represents memories and family to me. We stopped at McDonald’s to catch a break from the drive before driving up Mill Mountain. My daughter began to get sick and vomited. Five hours from home with a baby with a stomach bug. I told my cousin’s family about my daughters illness and they still opened up their home with wide arms. When I walked in his living room their was part of me that wanted to turn around and walk back out the door. It was hard to see him in the state I saw him. I had my excuse in my pocket, a sick daughter. I could have left. I chose to sit down and help him take his medicine. My daughter laid behind me watching cartoons and my dad sat across the room, clearly uncomfortable, but supportive of my cousin and I. He was in and out but so very kind. He seemed to feel bad he could not be the host he wanted to be. He was in and out of his drug induced haze and I spoke mostly to his in-laws and daughter. She was amazing. She was strong beyond her years. She was inspiring. She only wanted to support her father. She was blunt, honest, and funny. She was obviously hurting but she knew something that some people twice her age never learn. She paid attention to her senses and was playing the supportive role. There is time to cry later but today she has a role to play. I was honored to spend time with her. My daughter got ill again at my cousins so we left after a couple of hours. We still had plans to eat with my cousin’s family on my side, his mother and sister.
My aunt and cousin are amazing and they are dealing with this with such dignity. I can only imagine the conversation my dad and his sister, my aunt had. My cousin is one of the strongest women I may ever know. This event has brought out the strength in these people, my family. No one has a bad or distressed word. I’m sure they are in their heads but they know now is not the time. I listen my sick cousins sister and I want to take her pain away but to be honest I could not handle the situation better than her so in a sick way she has the right job at this time. I love them all so much.
Life makes little sense sometimes but life gives you what you need. When you are having dark days there often is someone in your corner even if you don’t know it. If you pay attention to your senses you can feel the energy and support of love in your life. It is easy to give in to life’s trials. I often want to give in when I am challenged in life but then I witness the amazing show of strength I saw this weekend and I am reminded that you better enjoy every breath and every person. I asked my dad about why the family fought so much and he had a great response. He said they fight but they love each other. That was their way to get along. It made me realize that everybody finds their way when they have too.
I am so very blessed. I have the most amazing wife and incredible daughter. I hope they never have this challenge but I know if it happened they would figure it out. Another, less clean way to express my thoughts I paraphrase from Adam Ferrera…”Fight if you must, screw when you can, but always love each other”.
Bubba, Michelle, Missy, Gail, and David I love you guys to pieces.
A Valentines Card
I must say Happy Valentine’s Day to me. I do not want a gift. I do not want a tie or shirt or anything else. I do not need a card. I get a Valentines gift everyday because I wake up under the same roof as the most amazing woman I could ever know. The world can be raining down fire and brimstone but I know she is in my corner. We are the greatest cliché because we complete each other. I have said before that she is a hurricane and I am a tornado. When she gets mad you can see the storm coming, it hangs around for a long time, leaves a little damage and is gone. When I get mad I explode out of thin air sometimes damaging a lot at once but as quickly as the anger appears it is gone. Almost everything we handle in life we handle differently. Where she is calculated I am freewheeling and where she is freewheeling I am calculated. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and we put the right player in the game to best handle the situation. I am not above telling someone when I have been sent in by her that they don’t want to deal with my wife. My wife supports me. Some of you will laugh because you know that can be literal and figurative but I am referring to the figurative. It is easier to deal with most any difficult time when you know your spouse has your back.
I did not marry my daughter’s mommy. I married a women that is hot, makes me laugh, and is incredibly intelligent (even if she choose me). After a few years of marriage we decided to try and be parents. It did not work. We struggled, we struggled hard. We cried and loss but we found our way. We never doubted each other and now we have a little girl. Our daughter is the best and worst of both of us. She farts like me if that tells you anything. The women I married was sexy as hell to me but when she became a mommy that made her even sexier to me. She risked her health both physically and mentally to have a kid with me. She took the abuse to her body that a having a baby does to a women in great stride. She took 8 months of bed rest to boot. She choose me to have that adventure with. That is as sexy as it gets when someone will sacrifice all that with you. I have said it before and I will say it again. She is my hero. Hurricane Shan is my hero.
I am a lucky, lucky man. I am a happy, happy man. She may not always see it because she chooses to not believe it but if she saw everything I see when I gaze upon her she would understand. I have a Valentines gift everyday….my wife. What happened to the man that got everything he could want? He lived happily ever after. I am that man. I love you Shannon.
Work and Life and What Counts
The last unemployment rate came in a little over 8%. It is estimated that the number of people on long-term unemployment is around 5.5 million. These are internet stats and I cannot promise how precise they are but they are the common numbers shared when the news talking heads speak. It is very scary. PepsiCo recently announced it was cutting 8500 jobs, Cigna Medical 100, Food Lion 5000, and recently the company I am lucky enough to be employed by is releasing 800 nationwide. I am one of the lucky ones because at least for now I seem to be safe. I watched helplessly as people I know were affected this week by the cut backs. I put myself in their shoes. I thought of the fact that for me it could also just be a matter of time. I looked at my daughter so closely this week and asked myself what would I do? I said to myself I would go bananas if they brought me into one of the conference rooms and told me my number was up. I would snap and give them a piece of my very well spoken and sharp mind. I am also full of crap. I do have a sharp mind though 
!!!
I was so impressed by what I saw this week. I will be honest. When they announced the rough number of people who would be affected in our office I immediately added up the names rumored to be involved in my head and until I was told I was safe (for now) I wondered if I was one of the remaining unaccounted for to get the bad news. It is like when you read the obituaries and you see the age of a recently deceased and you count the number of years difference between your age and the age they were when they passed and you suddenly realize you are getting older and time is oh so very borrowed. When you read the statistics above, read the news of all these huge businesses letting people go, and your own employer has the same thing occurring in your halls it shakes you to the core. Bad enough to lose a job but it is worse when there are so few out their to apply for.
I mentioned I was impressed and I truly was. Each of the folks affected are so strong. They are not running through the halls screaming. They are just moving forward. Playing the hand dealt to them. That to me is amazing and I hope it does not go unnoticed. It says a great deal about a person’s character when they act in such a positive, professional way. When and if my professional time comes I hope I can live up to that standard. The building gets quieter and I lower my head down and prepare to do more and try my best to not think about possibilities of more change. I don’t blame my employer. I don’t blame our president or our government. It just is and all I can do is wake up, kiss my wife, rub my Aussies head, and walk into the room of the my daughter and remember that work and money will never make her love me any more than she already does. She and her mother are my gift. They are my life. I have never let a job define me. I respect my job and I give my all to it. No one will ever say I don’t work hard but it is only a small part of me. I have a job now because of a very fortunate change in the Fall of 2008 in my job title. Small changes have big impact. My job found me, I did not find it. Would I rather be doing something else, probably yes (at heart I am only happy when I help others so public service is in my blood), but that is not my employers fault. My job has always looked after me. It supported me through hard times. What if it rejects me next fiscal year or tomorrow? It will hurt but I will move on and I can only hope I do it as well as the people I have saw this week.
I watched all this drama unfold this week. I have contacts in our mother company and heard how much worse it was there. I thought to myself how horrible and it can’t get worse than that. Friday I am reminded my wife is about to have a surgery. It is not life threatening but it is still surgery. Today a good friend of my wife suffered un unimaginable loss close on the heals of another similar and equally painful loss. It centers you and reminds you that everything that happened earlier in the week means exactly nothing. All that matters you already have. Your family, your friends, and your life.
I have managed a record store, worked at two other record stores, worked concert security, worked at two book stores, I spent a summer laying brick, I spent a summer painting, but for near ten years I worked for the city and for another 14 at my present job. That type of time imprints on you and makes you comfortable so change hurts.
What I learned this week is that I am so very blessed. I have a beautiful wife and daughter I would kill for. I have parents and in-laws that love me. I have a job but if it were gone…….we would figure it out. I watched some fellow employees act in a way that is inspiring this week and at the end of the week a dramatic event reminded me that work is just work. I love you all. Best of luck to my friends and my heart breaks for Shan’s friend. To my job….I will fight for you until you tell me to stop.
And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
- Abraham Lincoln
The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
- Allan K. Chalmers
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed-door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell
I don’t have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a fear of falling from heights. – George Carlin
“You don’t get to be old bein’ no fool…..”
Chapters and Verse
We have all heard the phrase, “My life passed before my eyes”. How many of us take an inventory on our life before fate forces the action? If life is a series of moments then that series of moments creates chapters of our life and it’s experiences. I am 42 and I can can remember entire chapters of my life that are totally foreign to me today. It starts with childhood and it’s innocence. I can remember going to the Moose Lodge with my dad and getting so excited watching him shoot pool for his lodge. Those pool tournaments were as big as football weekends to an adult football fan. I would cry sometimes when he lost (which was not often) because I was so invested in watching him in competition. I did not care, nor did many others at the time, that we were driven around town without a seatbelt and sometimes my Dad would be drinking behind the wheel. It was important by the fact that we know better now but as a child you did not think of it. I don’t drink and will likely never do so in front of my daughter. Childhood is the part of life where we are carefree and live with very little consequence to our actions. Friends are plenty and time means little. As teenagers we begin to get some responsibility. We are preparing the starship of our minds and hearts for the big blast off into adulthood. We know it all and no one can convince us otherwise. The truth is that our teen selves know only slightly more than shit. For me it was a huge transition. The way my parents treated each other took a huge turn when I was a teenager. My mother left my father (with good reason) when I was a late teen. My father changed somewhat for the better when he realized she would leave. I had my first girlfriend and job and would not go with her. How different would my life had been had I left? My early childhood and teen years seem so far away.
In college I did it all. I drank, I had sex, I went to concerts, I worked three jobs, had an apartment, and went to school all at the same time. I never remember being tired. I was invincible. I was preparing to be a police officer. I took trips at the drop of a hat and was obligated to no one. I was not a very good boyfriend to the girls I dated. I treated them well but I would leave the relationship on a whim. I did not want to hurt anyone but I wanted to be free when I wanted to be free. Some of my greatest loves were then. I broke a couple of hearts but for every heart I broke mine was broken three times as often. I deserved it all too. I never, ever cheated. When I loved I loved all in, too hard. That pushed some people away. Sometimes I loved so hard and fast that I would suddenly realize I did not understand the true meaning of the emotion. They were good years and yet another chapter that seems like a millenia ago.
I became a cop. I had a gun. I had authority. I was the baddest son of a bitch to wear a badge (in my mind). I saw great things, horrible things, and unimaginable things. There is no relationship as strong or amazing as the relationship between officers and their families (other than marriage). You always know your back is covered as a cop. A fellow officers child passed away and it was weeks before he and his family had their house to themself. To this day I would help out my fellow officers from that time. It is instinctual and undeniable that bond. In my work today (like most places) your fellow employees could give a fat babies toe about you when you leave the office. I had my first marriage during this time. It was a nightmare of a time. I would wake up with my gun to my head and in the hands of my 120 pound wife. I left that job and that marriage. Those chapters seem like another life all together. I don’t remember that person. I don’t remember my mindset. It is very alien.
I began a new career and it was supposed to be temporary. 13 years later and I am still there. I hated the job. Tried to leave a handful of times. I hated the job but the job always took care of me. I slowly learned a lot in a short period of time. I held positions some would wait a whole career for and not get. The job I hated became my joy, it took care of me. It delivered me the love of my life, my wife. My wife delivered me the miracle I affectionately call the Monster. Were it not for all the earlier chapters, good and bad, I would not have the amazing life I have. I would change my life for nothing.
Someone asked me today why I always try to find the silver lining in a shit storms clouds and the answer is simple. Life is a gift and no matter how off the rails life can be it will be what you make of it. I get frustrated, I get sad too but I always find myself thinking of the earlier chapters of my life. I remember how low I have been and I remember how incredibly rich I am with my family and friends. I will suffer no fools no matter who you are for long. You can bruise me but you cannot destroy me because I will not allow it.
There are simple truths in life. If you have to tell people how hard you work you probably don’t work too hard. If you dwell on the bad and always dwell on the bad you will not enjoy the wind in your hair and life may pass you by. If your life flashes before your eyes what will you see? You will see good, bad, and ultimately what makes you who you are. You may be surprised at the things you have lived through. You may be surprised to remember how strong you are. You are likely far more amazing than you know. Enjoy the good moments and use your experiences to deal with the bad. It is your life and people can get on the ride or get off the ride but never forget you are doing the driving. You control more than you realize in your life. Live, love, and enjoy. It’s your story so make it a blockbuster. I already love you and I may not even know you.
