The Asylum

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.  –John Ed Pearce

I remember the day I walked out of my home to move away for college. My mom and I had a fight that day (about what I can’t remember anymore), and I remember watching them get into their car to go to church while I was loading the last of my things into the bed of my pickup truck. Not a word was spoken before they drove off, and I remember standing there on the porch with my girlfriend (who eventually I married and then divorced) crying about how this was the last moment that I would be living with them as a child and that they didn’t even say goodbye.

We had a lot of fights that summer. A lot of harsh words were exchanged. A lot of tension. Perhaps it was the empty nest realization that their youngest son was going to be leaving them home alone…together. Perhaps it was the stark realization that the reason they even stayed together in the first place (my brother and I) had now come to pass. All those years of saying and believing that when we grew up and moved away, my mom was out the door, had suddenly became very real that day by the last load of my things sitting in the bed of that pickup.

I took it very personally that day. And it cut me pretty deep, feeling like they didn’t even care that I was leaving. But now, looking back on it from the vantage point of ten years, I can see how perhaps the tension of that summer and that time had little to do with who I was and more to do with what my leaving represented to them. It meant that excuses were dissolved and all they had was each other. Later, my mom told me, my dad cried about it. It must be hard to watch your kids grow up and become their own persons. I know it’s hard to watch mine go back to their mother’s house every Sunday. I get a little dose of that empty nest syndrome on a weekly basis.

Since that day, I’ve found myself back home three times. I’m currently working on my third time. This time has been different, however. Amid all the chaos that brought me here, for the first time it wasn’t tragedy or finances. It was just mere circumstance. Being unprepared for something that shook me out of my current place to live, leaving me in limbo while I look for another.

And in these moments, I am learning more about who I am and who I choose to be a little more each day. I see that even in the two years since I left the last time, my parents have aged a little more. They are a little slower. They are a little older. They don’t function quite as crisp as they used to. I see, especially with my dad, that my time with them is getting shorter each day. And that makes me a little sad.

I’ve also realized, and have come to realize, what really matters. I’ve spent all this time focusing on how I can make my dent in this world without thinking about the people who matter most to me and what might be going on in their lives. My parents. My brother. My kids. My family. These are the things that I cherish most, and I’ve allowed myself to create distance between them all.

Last night, while watching the Wizard of Oz for the umpteenth time, I was struck by the last scenes. For the first time ever, in watching that movie a million times, those last lines brought a tear to my eyes. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

A lot of things swirled around in my mind in those moments, and a new possibility was generated. I decided that the safety nets weren’t really safety nets after all. I wasn’t running home for safety and security. I was running home because I MISSED home. And I hadn’t even left! That’s the most ironic thing. I went away for two years in college, and I just now realized that I never really came back. My heart is still out there somewhere, and that I am just going through the motions here. Always looking away. Always looking for some great white whale in the distance, while missing out on the most important things that are sitting right under my nose. How is it that I could have been so lost? How is it that I could be here, be gone, but not have left?

Everything that is happening in my life in this past year has been SCREAMING to me to take a look at HOME and what it means to me and what is most important to me. And I’ve been so distracted and absorbed in other things that I wasn’t getting the message. I got it loud and clear last night, and it’s been ringing inside of me all day.

I’m coming home. I’m BEING home. And with that carries the possibilities that I chose not to see before. With that carries a new challenge, coupled with old connections. I surrender! I give up! There is no war to fight anymore. There never was. All of life, to me, was about homecoming. Cherishing the people and things that matter most. That’s what is most important. That’s what means the most to me.

And, so help me God, I will build a home again. Not just of brick and mortar, but in the halls of my heart and my spirit. And in that home will contain laughter, tears, good times, bad times, all of the intricacies of life woven together, and coaxed through the nautilus of my soul.

I’m coming home. I’m being home. And that, my friends, means more than anything else in the world to me right now.

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be. –Bruce Lee

I had the pleasure of watching the remake of The Karate Kid recently. I’m always a sucker for these types of movies. Master/Apprentice style relationships that are born out of hardship in which the student comes to learn something from the teacher, and the teacher learns from the student. I loved the Karate Kid movies when I was young, and this one was a straight up nod to the original. They didn’t copy it exactly, but it was pretty damn close.

A couple of things stood out for me in the movie. First of all, the most powerful scene in the movie was the one where Jackie Chan says, “Everything is Kung Fu!” If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll understand the impact behind that statement (I won’t spoil the movie to my readers).

The other powerful scene involved using the rods. A connection between student and teacher where, when in sync, their motions become one. The cinematography behind that is pretty impressive, as is the emotional response that is created when watching it.

Not that the movie isn’t full of cheese and rice. There’s several cheesy moments in the movie, but you can expect that because this movie isn’t for adults. It’s for kids. If you remember what you liked as a kid, you probably re-watch that stuff thinking how cheesy it is. It’s all good, though. A little cheese never hurt anybody.

I wanted to talk about this movie because of a concept in my own life that I’m dealing with can be aptly described by the art of Kung Fu. If you remember, Kung Fu/Karate/whatever self-defense fighting method, has some pretty fundamental stuff behind it. Things that seem basic, but are at the heart of every decision you make.

The idea behind these fighting styles is not to build brute strength or resistance. You don’t learn to fight people so that you can beat them up. You learn these techniques for self defense (even if people use them for other purposes). In self defense you don’t attack your opponent, resist your opponent, or try to overtake him. You use his strength and his momentum to neutralize him.  (Or, as Mr. Han says in the movie, “Kung Fu used to make peace with our enemies.”)

Now, imagine what might happen if you were to take that concept from the physical world and apply it to the emotional aspects of your life. So much personal development is built around resisting your urges, banging out goals, and using intense focus and willpower to forcibly change your life. Hell, it’s exhausting just writing about it. There are so many “shoulds” or “need to’s” in personal development that it can be a workout just reading some of it.

But what if instead of forcibly altering your life through brute strength, you took the emotional fuel (and the impacts surrounding that) and used its power to inspire new possibilities? What if you could change your life and the lives of those around you simply by being who you are and using your own forces of emotion as fuel for inspiring those new possibilities?

“The dance of battle is always played to the same impatient rhythm. What begins in a surge of violent motion is always reduced to the perfectly still.” –Sun Tzu

This is the practice that I’m choosing for myself right now. And it’s a simple process. It’s so fundamental in nature that you’d think it would be a little more widespread and apparent. And there are many variations of this out there, but I don’t think a lot of us truly *get* the idea behind it. For me, I had a great mentor who helped make everything click. Actually, I had several great mentors, all of whom were extensions of things that were cooking under the surface within me. Those that I’ve attracted into my life have all come along to show me different aspects of who I am and who I can be.

And I was so resistant to that in the past. I was resistant to the learnings that these people have provided because I was too busy assigning blame to them. They “wronged” me in some way, so I needed to do certain things to gain my power back–constantly living at effect to the people I was with. Avoiding resistance. Avoiding connection. Resisting.

But now I see how to be effective by using the fuel of my own emotions in ways that allow me to be who I am and who I can be. When I chose to take my focus off the situations themselves and how those situations are keeping me down, I discover that those situations are actually bright, shiny beacons that are trying to show me what is running under the surface.

Look around at all the advice out there that is teaching us the things we “need” to do to be happy. All the while we have the power to just instantly CHOOSE happiness, and, through that choice, we transform ourselves in that moment into something that will inspire happiness in others. Instead of needing something to be happy, we realize we already have what we need to be happy.

So, at it’s most basic level, I encourage you to take personal responsibility for the things you’ve created in your life. It’s not your parents’ fault. It’s not your ex’s fault. It’s not your child’s fault. It’s not the fault of something that happened to you. Those are all just people and things that have happened. They don’t mean anything about who you are. YOU are the one that chooses to make it mean something about you. In turn, then, that decision runs you.

You are choosing this. All of it. Everything you think, say, and do is a choice that you are making or have made or will make. And it’s all boldy declaring who you are and who you want to be.

It stems from decisions we make about ourselves. Identity level statements that generate emotions within us. And if you take the time to identify them, you become more aware of who you are and the choices that truly are available to you. Awareness allows you to expand your possibilities and to choose. In everything you do, you choose–and it’s that choice that brings you power.

When you identify what it is that you are allowing to run you, then you can choose to disconnect from it. You can disconnect from it by analyzing it’s impacts on you and your life. Look at what you are generating by believing this stuff. Look at what you have become and what you’ve chosen by making these things mean something about you. It’s impacts are powerful and pervade everything you do.

Out of the ashes of those impacts, however, you can generate new possibilities. New ways of being. Once you recognize the choice and its impacts on you, you can then recognize what creating new choices might do for you. You can move yourself toward what you want instead of away from what you don’t want–making yourself a cause instead of an effect.

Those decisions hold powerful impacts. If you choose to stop resisting them, you can use their power to create more effective results. It’s Emotional Kung Fu. You are either resisting your “enemy,” or you are using his own power to neutralize him, make peace, and turn him into a powerful ally.

You get to choose.

Today, I have been focusing on just reading and listening to things around me. I’m sort of a “go in with guns blazing and then clean up the mess” kind of person. So I have a propensity to talk more than I listen. I also have a tendency to be looking right at someone and not hear a damn thing they are saying.

Today, however, I choose to really listen. And that’s where you come in. I’m opening up a post for the responses of my readers. For anybody who frequents my blog or anybody who is just dropping by, please take some time to leave a message here in this post.

Say anything you want, but if you want something to go off of, then trust your intuition. Tell me what you think I need to hear, tell me what’s going on in your life, or just post some random shit that you think I might enjoy.

This post is for you.

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?

–The Eagles, Take it to the Limit

I love me some superheroes. One of my favorite superhero scenes took place in one of my least favorite superhero movies (aside from the trash that was Superman 3 that is ). It’s a bleak moment for New York City. Venom has Spiderman pinned to a beam, and the Sandman is beating the ever-loving piss out of him. With each whack the city cringes. It’s a dark moment. Maybe the darkest moment.

Then a little ball flies out of nowhere and lands in the Sandman’s ear. Where the hell did that come from? Suddenly an explosion causes the sandman to crumble…or at least a part of him. Harry’s back and he’s forgiven Peter for all the crap they put each other through.

That’s just the lead in to my favorite part, though. My favorite scene is when they look up and realize that MJ is about to come crashing to the ground from Venom’s web. From the moment they are on the ground until the moment Spiderman catches MJ is one of the most mesmerizing scenes to me. And the reason for that is the way that they build momentum. Starting from rock bottom, Harry carries Spiderman, who eventually leaps from Harry’s glider. As he climbs higher into the night, Harry grabs his hand and throws him up further. Saved in the knick of time and all that shit. An upward spiral. From zero to hero in less than a minute.

Something amazing is happening in my life. I’m feeling the power of synergy in my life. Synergy being the process through which two or more people bring their separate ideas together and sync up in a way that takes those ideas and makes something completely new and better than what they each brought to the table individually. (Or, as Stephen Covey puts it, 1+1 = 10, 20, or 100.) An upward spiral.

I’ve spent so much of my life tumbling on a downward spiral, that it feels really great to see myself choosing to pull myself up. To create inspiring new possibilities. To feel those possibilities make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. To sit and smile like freak at the fact that the hair is standing up on the back of my neck. To crumple up into a little heap of goosebumps riding the goosebump truck into goosetown.

I’m starting to see massive results in the way I communicate lately. And it’s because I’ve suspended the obsessive thoughts of the conscious mind and started speaking in terms of the subconscious. I’m learning that identity level changes create an upward spiral. And when put together with someone with equal values and an equally empowering upward spiral, the synergetic forces at work create massive breakthroughs.

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing. –Samuel Smiles

A little over a month ago I discovered some pretty limiting beliefs about myself. I won’t rehash the story because it’s all pretty much in my previous posts. But what I didn’t talk much about was how, in the moment of discovering my worst thoughts, a dear friend helped me to generate possibilities of other states of Being. Who I am is the possibility…

At the time I thought it was a one and done thing. Yay, I came up with two inspiring possibilities for myself and I began attaching myself to them. Whoopty doo. That’s kinda how it felt after the first few days. Sure, I broke out in goosebumps every time I’d think about it, but nothing about me was really *changing* the way I wanted. My life didn’t transform instantly in the moment I generated these possibilities, and I grew a bit impatient.

But then something magical happened. Something shifted in me. A little ball came out of nowhere and brought the Sandman down off of me. And now I find myself on an upward spiral. The rocket fuel that had been bubbling under the surface has suddenly blasted me off the launching pad into space. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest and all that shit.

I notice that as I generate these good feelings (something I’m not used to doing on any consistent basis), I spend a good 90% of my time feeling good…if not in a totally inspired state. And that inspiration is spiraling out of me and touching the people I surround myself with. I see it in the people I interact with online. I see it in the way that I relate to my kids. And I’m slowly starting to see it seep into my relationship with my parents and with my coworkers. For the first time in my life, I FEEL GOOD. And I feel good on a consistent basis.

And those feelings are like a fertilizer in my subconscious. I’m learning that the way to communicate with the subconscious is through feelings. In the past I communicated bad feelings and those bad feelings generated some pretty negative stuff in my life. Controlling behavior. Disconnection. Insecurity. Failure. Feeling stuck. Feeling like a prisoner. Feeling low. Weak. Stupid. The power of my identity created a lack of choice in my life. And that lack of choice permeated everything I did.

But now I’m speaking a new language. Now I’m generating new things. New possibilities. And they are springing out of me almost daily. It’s not a one and done thing. Who I am is the possibility of being charisma, inspiration, creativity, synergy, reflection, courage, confidence, and sensuality. These are the things springing out of me. I see that, at any moment, I now have a choice as to which states of being that I can attach myself to. Which states of being that I can allow myself to generate and fuel my thoughts and actions. The impacts of such choices are myriad. Whereas the impacts of my old limitations were gunky shit, the impacts of the power of the choice I’ve invited into my life are much greater. As choice becomes present more and more, I feel more bold, more confident, more at peace. I don’t need anything to feel this way. Not money. Not a new house. Not a different job. In fact, I’m generating these feelings, with a giant grin on my face the whole time, sitting right at the job that I view as uninspiring. The job I labeled as a prison. I’m smiling from within the prison walls because who I am is independent of what I do or get. Who I am is something that is chosen wherever I find myself. I still have the power to choose those old ways if I want (and I still do from time to time). But I also have the choice to be these new possibilities. And I have the choice to generate new possibilities. The options are limitless.

So, I ask you, my readers, if you’d like to join me in my upward spiral. All it takes is a willingness to peer behind the layers of the darkest recesses of your soul. Peel them back one by one like an onion. Chase your feelings to the root. And then come join me in loopy-do-dah-ville for an upward spiral of intentionally generating good feelings. Grab my hand and we’ll go save MJ.

The feeling is often the deeper truth, the opinion the more superficial one.  –Augustus William Hare

I’m writing this post because I want you to cry. I’m not going to make you cry; I want you to make yourself cry. Go ahead, give it a shot. Take a moment right now and just concentrate on crying. Be aware of what you are thinking. Don’t analyze or rationalize your thoughts, just be present to the process that you are using to make yourself cry.

Don’t worry–there’s reason to the madness. I’m not sadistically sitting here rubbing my hands together, reveling in my devious attempts at making my readers sob like schoolgirls. I’m just challenging you to cry. Do what it takes. Think what you need to think. And be aware of the thoughts that swirl around in your head while you are doing it.

I’ll wait.

And while I’m waiting (are you doing it yet? why the hell not, dammit? ) I will make sure to denote that I’m waiting (and that I want you to do this before you read any further) by posting little dots on the screen to create space between these words and what I’m about to say. So, now is your moment to shine. Don’t stop until you are blubbering like a baby seal.

Catch you in a few minutes. Starting…NOW. Get to crying, bitches.

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So, how did it go? Did you cry? If you couldn’t cry, did you feel sad? What DID you feel when you were trying to do this? What were you thinking? (Feel free to leave a comment here if you want to answer these questions, but these are mostly rhetorical.)

Now, wipe away your tears so that you can read what I’m typing.

Last night I watched Everybody Loves Raymond. It’s not a show that I typically watch, but my new housemates love this show. The subject of this particular episode was that Ray’s wife wanted some time alone in the house to do “girl things.” So, Ray went over to his parents’ house and, while he was there, they started making him wonder why she would want alone time. He, of course, became insecure about it and went over to spy on her.

He peeked in the window and saw that she was crying. The rest of the episode was about him thinking that she was crying because of something HE was doing. Long story short, it all came out and he told her that he spied on her and wanted to know what he did to make her cry. She told him that she just likes to cry and that she will sit down and put on a certain song and think about certain things because it makes her feel good.

Ironically, this show made me realize that crying, like any emotion, is a choice we make. Some of us feel like others make us cry. We blame our circumstances, our spouses, our friends, or whoever else for the emotions we feel.

But after doing this exercise (you DID do the exercise, right?) can you now see how much power you truly have over your own emotions? It may not feel like your emotions are a choice, but you just actively chose to make yourself feel an emotion that most of the time we blame others for.

Can you now see how the emotions you feel are mostly just an interpretation of the world you perceive? Sometimes we feel like the world makes us feel certain things. But the reality is that what you think, feel, and do are a product of your own choices. Sometimes the choice is put there by some belief that we have running on autopilot. A subconscious choice that we chose sometime in our past and forgot about. So, in that vein, that may be why you feel you have little control over your emotions.

But, if you did this exercise, you now know that your emotions are very much at your control. Sure, it may be hard (at first) to consciously feel an emotion. Hell, you may even think it’s kind of dumb to try and control your emotions like that. But that’s not what I’m suggesting here.

What I am suggesting is that you start taking conscious notice of your thoughts and see how they are running you. What I am suggesting is that if you want to be something, have something, or do something, then it all ultimately starts with choosing something…accessing a belief about yourself or the world and allowing the thought to do its work on your emotions. If you want to feel more in control of your life, then recognize the power that you have to choose. That’s been the most important (and most basic) discovery that I’ve made in my own life. I’m not a helpless little man, aimlessly drifting through life. I’m someone who has the power to choose, even if the choice seems hard. You, my friends, have that same power and you just proved it to yourself by doing this exercise.

Now, buck up you crybabies.

I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past. –Clara Barton

It’s funny how a song can breach through the barriers and reach you at your core. I’ve always thought of music as a “magic bullet” of sorts that has the power and the ability to reach deep inside of us and mold us–if even for the briefest of moments–in new and inspiring ways. Even the most daunting of fortresses can be penetrated in a moment, even if the defense inside manages to send it packing once it’s through.

A few weeks ago I had a life-changing realization. It seemed like, at the time, that all the forces in my life were leading me right up to that instant. And now, in the aftermath of that discovery, I find the turmoil and chaos that that discovery had on my life slowly starting to settle around me. I find myself slowly coming to grips with the person that I lost in that discovery. I find myself slowly coming to the grips with the person that I found in that discovery. But most of all, I am slowly coming to realize that there is always a choice. A choice that I did not feel was present before, is now dancing right before my eyes.

But facing your demons doesn’t come without consequences. The physical upset that’s taken place since then has found me with the loss of someone that I loved…a friendship that keeps becoming a more and more distant memory to me as each day passes. I also see other areas of my life where I’m starting to disconnect. I’m seeing that the chaos that’s settled is now creating a shift underneath that’s causing me to re-evaluate who I am and who I might be.

And I cling to those words: “Who I am is the possibility…”

What happened for me was unsettling in a lot of ways, but now I am seeing the world through a new lense. I’m not seeing much in the way of physical changes in my life at this time, but I am starting to see the furniture that exists under the surface of who I am being drastically altered. A light is shining forth through the blackness and it’s touching the seed that I planted.

Who I am is the possibility. The possibility is now rooted in a choice. Whereas before I ran almost completely on autopilot, doing things because I felt a complete loss of control in my life. Doing things to try and micromanage and manipulate the things I thought I could control in my life. Each little area, before, was run by a need to get a grip on the situation. To get a handle on why my life was operating the way it was. Why, at the time, I felt sort of like I had no choice in the matter.

Then, I found the gremlin. The one that spoke through me and was behind the controls. The more I dug, the more he tried to hide. The closer I got, the more confusion he tried to muster. Until the moment that I found him and threw him out. What was once a complete lack of choice, a gremlin that spoke to and through me, suddenly became something that was right in front of my face–whispering to me and trying to convince me that who I am is who I’ve always been.

What I realized, though, that now that he’s out in the open, the switch of CHOICE has been flipped on in my life. Now, finally, I can see that I can choose to listen to that voice, or I can choose something else. Something greater. A new possibility for who I am. No longer do I have to generate the things that are wielded by that darkside. I know who I am now, and I know that the possibility has always existed–I just chose not to see it.

So each day I wake up and make a choice. Who I am is a choice. Where I am is a choice. The things I do are a choice. I choose this…all of it. Do I always like? More often than not, no I don’t. Do I feel stuck still? Sure. Sometimes the choices of the past can create some pretty daunting obstacles. But now I know, more than anything, that the choice still exists. And it’s waiting with all its possibilities.

I am not ashamed to be the person that I am today. Who I am, today, is the possibility…

In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare.  Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced.  –Robert Sexton

I’m in love. I’ve been in love for three years. And tonight, I want to seal that love with a proposal. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, tonight I pop the question…THE question.

I’ve been courting her secretly for three years now. Before that she was an acquaintance. A friend. All in all I’ve known her for a little over ten years.

But three years ago she stole my heart and the rest is history. She’s my secret love. My whirlwind romance. We’ve been together and apart a few times over the past three years, but tonight I make it official.

When I first saw her, she changed me. She spoke softly to me in her feminine way. She cooed and wooed me silently from the sidelines. She encouraged me in my darkest times. She taught me who I was and who I wasn’t. I pushed her away and I pulled her back.

But tonight I dress up in my Sunday best and I cook her a nice homecooked meal. I sit across from her and listen and talk to her all night while I hold my “secret” until the right moment. Perhaps we’ll dance. Perhaps we’ll make love. Perhaps we’ll talk into the wee hours of the night.

I suspect she knows it’s coming, but what proposal ever truly catches someone by surprise?

I vowed never to do it again (marriage that is), but the timing is ripe and the moment is now. I can continue to push away this feeling or I can silently and firmly embrace it. This is who I am now. This is where I’m going. The rest of my life hinges on this decision and this moment. And I’ve kept this love affair a secret for too long.

I open myself to the possibility of a new committment. I open myself to a world where I choose her. I open myself to the possibility of a life lived freely through and with her. In the moment of this grand union, I forsee a life-altering possibility of new choices, new desires, and new paths to pursue.

Tonight, I propose. Tonight, I make a committment.

We are the only beings on the planet who lead such rich internal lives that it’s not the events that matter most to us, but rather, it’s how we interpret those events that will determine how we think about ourselves and how we will act in the future. –Tony Robbins

Life is so funny. In one instant things are a certain way, and, in the next, it flip-flops diddly-wop turns you upside down. The path you think you are on turns ninety degrees and, suddenly, you see a new destination. Or no destination. Sometimes you sit in limbo and wonder what the hell happened.

Today was my daughter’s birthday. Four  years ago today, I was sitting in a hospital holding her in my arms for the first time. In a flash, it seems, we went from pregnancy to parenthood–part two. And then, in a flash, we were separated and the path that led me to this point opened up before me. It all happened so fast, it seemed, that I think back and wonder if perhaps a decade passed in those few months.

I remember the night my ex told me that she was pregnant. We’d just had a huge fight. She was crying. We had just had a rather tense intimate moment together. As I’m laying there in the bed, in the house that we bought together, watching tv, she comes in and lays beside me. We weren’t on particularly good terms at this time. We were discussing, for the umpteenth time, separating. We knew the inevitable was coming but neither of us had mustered the courage to walk away.

As she laid in the bed beside me, she told me to go into the bathroom and look. I was confused as I rolled out of bed and walked down the hallway. I turned left into the bathroom and there, on the sink, was a pregnancy test. I remember staring at it. I remember the rush of excitement flash over me and then, immediately, a small rush of disappointment. We were just talking about divorce! Just moments before I saw that stick, we were talking about ending things. And now, suddenly, we have ANOTHER kid in the mix? Now suddenly not just one little life would be affected by that decision, but now a second. It was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life.

When I came back into the bedroom she was crying. I crawled in bed beside her and told her how excited I was (and I really WAS excited). I knew almost immediately that it was a girl. Felt it in my bones. Could sense it from the very beginning. She talked about how confused she was and what we were doing. I rolled over and went to sleep.

I remember the day we brought her home from the hospital. It was a rainy day (much like today was). My son was being a complete BRAT in the car. Hooooly crap, I expected a little jealousy in the beginning, but I was not prepared for the way he was going to react. He was throwing a fit in the backseat. My ex was weak and tired and I was trying to concentrate. In the heat of my anger I pulled the car over, turned around, and smacked him right in the mouth. It was the only time in my life that I’ve ever smacked one of my kids somewhere besides the hand or the bottom. But as soon as I did it, I felt a wave of guilt flood over me. And in the instant before he started crying and I started yelling, I saw a genuine look of confusion on his face. A look that spoke volumes of what was happening during that time. A look that was a precursor to what was to come for them. A look that said that I had genuinely hurt his feelings. A look that said that I was about to get a real life lesson on change and adapting to that change and learning what I had truly allowed myself to become. It was coming, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.

That first week that my daughter was home was the sweetest week of my marriage. I’ve always said that I was married for four years, but for one week we were truly husband and wife. I took that week off of work to help around the house and to get acclamated to our new arrival.

The winds of change swept over us a few months later on another rainy night. A rainy night that swept the last currents of my family away and pushed me full force into the throws of separation and desperation.

I think back to that time. I think back to my daughter’s tumultous entrance into our lives. I think of how far we’ve come together. How much we all have grown. I think of my son throwing a fit again this morning and how my reaction, this time, wasn’t to smack him in the mouth, but to just listen to him. I crawled up on the bed beside him where he was crying and put my arms around him and just…listened. I listened all day to him. I listened as he told me about the bullies at school and how his heart was broken that nobody at daycare likes him. I listened and just let it all sink in. My kids are growing up before my eyes. I haven’t always been the best father, but now I look at life through a new lense. I feel their pain. I hear their cries, desperate beneath the panic of life. I reach a crooked hand outstretched to them and let them both know that I am here. That’s what I am to them…HERE. And that’s good enough for me.

That’s good enough for me.

This one goes out to the freaky stranger you meet at a highway rest area. You know the type. The man who slaps his own head and talks to himself, tobacco juice dripping down his chin and a backpack full of useless garbage. Everybody has met that guy.

You hobble into the rest area to take a piss and there he is. A row of stalls is laid out before you and he chooses the one right next to you. He looks over at you and smiles a toothless grin and you’re eeked out midstream. You zip up and scurry to the sink and he’s still smiling at you. In your head you hear the banjo from Deliverance stringing up for a tune. In the distance a dog barks, a cat farts, and someone drops a skittle. You look frantically for a paper towel but there are none. All that can be found is the hair dryer through which the magic portal of bacon has been opened.

You stand and you hold your hands under the dryer and the toothless guy comes over and puts his hands on your shoulders. He tells you some story about how he once saw Michael Jordan at a rest stop like this. Then he holds up a baseball and along the spine is a signature that you can’t make out, but he claims is Jordan’s John Hancock.

You chuckle a bit and you scurry out of the bathroom and wipe your wet hands on your jeans. He’s following you but he’s not nearly as fast. You hop in your car and you bolt out of there like a bat out of hell.

Yeah, this one is for that guy. The dude abides.

It’s a “Jump to Conclusions” mat! You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO! –Tom Smykowski, Office Space

I was sitting on my ass this afternoon, watching Land of the Lost and pondering the deeper meanings of life. While I’m watching Chaka cop a feel on the hot chick that’s with them, I wonder about the rain falling. I hear it humming through the space between the buildings next door. I listen and see if I can hear my kids and realize that they went inside the neighbors to play.

So, I’m laying there on my couch, and I’m realizing that I’m really enjoying this movie. Specifically, I’m enjoying Will Ferrel’s performance. Some of the stupidest stuff can come rolling out of his mouth and I will crack up. I still see him doing the Grublets on Ice thing in Blades of Glory, throwing up in that mask and that makes me laugh until my sides hurt.

But I realized while watching this movie, that Will Ferrel is probably that guy. You know, the rest stop weird wanker guy who wants to rub his pee on your shoulders while you are waiting for your bacon. I wonder how many people get all excited to see him out, run up for his autograph, only to see the tobacco juice on his chin and smell the faint smell of body odor and taco meat that eminates from him. I imagine people saying, “Get away from me you curly headed fuck!” and then running like banshees.

Yeah, this post is for Will Ferrel. The dude abides.

I’m standing outside a KFC. We’ve been on the road for like five hours with no end in sight. The kids are all inside eating their meals and I step outside to catch a cig before we took off. As I’m standing there enjoying my cigarette, a car rolls up to the curb and this old black man rolls down his window and waves me over. I look around to be sure he’s talking to me. I’ve never seen this guy before in my life.

So, I hesitantly walk over to his car door and he looks up at me. With the most serious face I’ve ever seen, he says, “God told me to come here and tell you that if you don’t quit smoking, you will become impotent. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen. I know what it’s like to not be able to please your wife in a sexless marriage.”

My jaw drops. I mumble something and he drives off. I look down at my cigarette and up at the sky. I don’t realize it in that moment, but now, looking back, I can see it clear as a bell. The dude abides.

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He watches as you take that last donut. He’s there when you’re pouring your tasty beverage. He’s whispering in your ear as you buy that slice of pizza from the little spinny plate at 7-11. He watches you late at night when you’re taking the browns to the superbowl. He eyes up your rug as you secretly admire it and see that it ties the room together.

He’s with you when you trip UP the stairs. He’s there with the foam on a beer pops out the neck and onto the table. He’s there when you’re driving your car through a stop light at 3 AM, drunk off your ass. He watches as you take a swig from the milk jug and then put it back on the shelf.

The dude abides. The dude…fucking abides.

But the thing is, that was all we did. Maybe it was happening too fast. Maybe we wanted to hold on to what we had. Or maybe we both knew there were other things we had to find before we found each other. All we really knew for sure was, as we sat there, looking out over the lights of the town where we had grown up together, it all felt right. It all felt…perfect. –The Wonder Years

There’s a fine line between a breakthrough and a breakdown. On the one hand, a breakthrough can be shiny and inspirational and life-altering. On the other hand, it can discard the most important connections you have and cause you to do funny things. Sometimes it can be scary what simple thoughts can cause us to do. Sometimes it draws us closer. Sometimes it causes us to push the people away that we care about most.

I took some time this weekend to reflect about her. To shed some more tears for a memory that seems to fade a little more everyday. A memory that’s slowly turning to a sense of nostalgia. A moment frozen in time. A time I’ll never forget. A time I’ve been so desperately trying to forget in the name of “moving on.”

But I learned something this weekend. In my vast struggle to micromanage and “control” the situation, I discovered a love that I had tainted with selfishness. I don’t say that to beat myself up. I say that to openly recognize the truth. Sure, there’s some merit to the things I said to her. Sure, it takes two to tango. Takes two to tear a relationship apart. I’m not the only one with faults here, but I have discovered that it’s way more constructive to take note of my own faults–examine and change them–than it is to criticize another. Criticism cuts deep sometimes. And sometimes it can do irrepairable damage. Sometimes I can say something in the heat of the moment that just can’t be unsaid. Or undone.

But sandwiched inside a crazy busy weekend, I took some time to reflect. A little today…a little yesterday. I laid on my bed and remembered. I remembered me. I remembered her. I remembered us. And the more I remembered, the more the tears began to flow. I’m not hiding from my grief anymore. I knew that when I laid on that bed that I was going to cry. And I did. I cried because I missed her. I cried because I hurt her. I cried that as perfect as everything was, it snowballed outta control, and I wonder if things will ever be the same with us. I kicked open a door that I don’t think can be “unkicked.” We went down a path that I don’t thing can be just forgotten and tee-hee like we used to before we chose this path. Or maybe it can. At this point, I don’t know.

All I know is that yesterday, while lying on my bed crying, for the first time in my life I stopped focusing on my own pain and focused on how she might feel. I thought about the last email I had sent her and how we ended things on a less than happy note. I thought about how sad it was that at this point in our lives our roads have taken separate paths. I convinced myself that it was OVER. I did it because that’s what I needed to believe. I needed to believe that it simply won’t be the same again so that I could accept what happened and move on.

But in the process I discovered that closing the door like that was severing a connection. A connection that meant something to me. Perhaps one of my most important connections. A woman I love dearly and cherish the moments we spent together. I thought about her, about what she was doing, about what we might have been doing if things hadn’t ended this way. And then I let it go. I just let it go. I want her to be happy–that was my conclusion. And I pondered that thought–her happiness and how if her happiness meant what happened between us then I am glad for it.

Of course, I had the whole “it’s just not fair!” moments. I’d be lying if I also didn’t feel frustrated. Angry. Sad. I thought about how I cycled through the stages of grief…denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and then acceptance. Yeah, those were all there at some point. It’s hard to let go.

I find myself resuming the life I lived before she came into my life in this way. There were twinges of sadness invovled in the fleeting moments that I thought about her. How I wished I could share the moments I was experiencing with her. And how, the fact that I couldn’t was a choice of my own doing. I found myself wanting to call the whole thing off and go running back. Found myself wanting to say all manner of things to her about how I want her in my life. But I realized that after pushing her away, pulling her back, and then pushing her away again that I simply didn’t want to do that to her. Sometimes, even if you come to terms with a situation, the best thing to do is just sit and accept that the way I handled things created this outcome–something I didn’t want, but felt I needed (noticing the “gremlin” popping up there).

So, tonight, I trust the hands of time to do it’s work. I release control of the outcome and move on with my life. I relish the moments we share and silently pray that there’ll be future moments shared. I pray that she finds healing for the hurt she feels. I pray that she finds a connection in her life that brings happiness. I pray that she comes to terms with her own issues. But mostly I just wish for her to be happy.

And in the meantime, I take the first step forward into a world without her…and smile a sad smile. I remember. I chose not to forget.