Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

A new day arrived. I shouldn't have taken that Flexeril last night.  I can't ever get going the next day and it feels sluggish and harsh.  I read today that LC Riouff, the Director of Greek Life when I was an undergraduate at Western Carolina, has come out of retirement and will serve again as Director of Greek Life.  I was nearly as flabbergasted as I was about 24 hours ago when the Picard trailer was released.

Christian asked me this morning in our customary text if I was better today.  I told him I was simply more introspective and a touch on the weepy side.   Picard told his clone at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis that "...it is never too late..."  I never thought that statement was true.  In fact, I thought it was very hackneyed and contrived. 

Now, as I turn again back to my own tomorrow, I can see that perhaps that phrase may be true after all.  My thirtieth class reunion is two months away.  Another voice from my past has begun to echo along with that of the StarFleet Captain from yesterday.   The voice of my senior English teacher, Ms. Carol Moss, quoting Robert Frost ever so gently has joined the chorus of things from the past which give me pause.  "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.  But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."

"...and miles to go before I sleep."  I don't want the game to end, either, my dear Picard.  Maybe now it doesn't have to end the way I thought it would.  Maybe the tomorrow I hope for will indeed emerge. 

I am not the person I was those many years ago.  I am not even the person I was three years ago.  "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace - from day to day 'til the last syllable of recorded time."  I better make the most of it.

"Have you ever been a stranger to yourself?", she asked. "Many, many times", he replied.

Been a long time since I posted.  I am 100% sure no one is in the least bit concerned with my innermost thoughts, so at least there's no chance of going viral. 

I read somewhere that you can never move ahead if all you do is look behind.    It is an excellent adage until you read the one that history is bound to repeat itself if you forget it.  Oh, the conflict.

I sit here listening to the Star Trek: Picard trailer and I am filled with a sense of what used to be.  Brandy told me once that she wondered what I might have been if life had been different. 

Without being overly dramatic, I look back across the gulf of my memories from 1994 until today and I see faces from the past whose absences are palpable.  My living room is a universe away from where I was several years ago.  Don't get it twisted, as Brandy says.  Now is a wonderful time for me.  I am about to take my PRP credentialing exam and I have the stability I used to think would never come.

A voice in the trailer said, "Sometimes I worry you have forgotten who you are."  There are things about me I have not forgotten.  There a labels I hope that the people who love me use when I am not around to describe who I am.   Chancellor.  Parliamentarian.  Best Friend.  Insightful.  Indefatigable.  Loyal without question.   Emotional. 

Throughout the years, I have lost people to the winds of time...sometimes things fall apart.  In 2002,  Dr. William K. Haggard, EdD told me "There are good people everywhere, don't be afraid to look."  He was right.  That statement is a truism for me and I have met so many wonderful souls in my travels. 

Watching the trailer was like walking headlong into a door frame when you are not paying attention to where you are going.  What have the last two decades brought to bear?  At least this evening, it has brought a quiet introspection and a clarity I feel I have been missing for a long time.

I know I could have been better - a better friend, a better employee, a better giver, a better teacher - nothing I can do about that now.  Yesterday is as over as the Peloponnesian War.  Tomorrow though is another day.  Sometimes it is okay to look over your shoulder and see what is no longer.  Just don't forget that what you will become could supercede all your regrets and anxieties.

I hope my tomorrow will be just that.  Something amazing.  I am going to do my best.

I wonder how I will feel when I read this in the future and if I will remember the clarity of today.  I hope so, but I'm not getting any fresher.

Another Season but a different outcome

Yes, its been a long time.  I should have done a better job of writing.  I didn't.  I'll try to do better.  That's all I can do is try.  Really try, though.  Not just some half-assed statement to say I will try and then just flounder and stop.

So much has happened since the last post.  THE trip of a lifetime, lots of therapy - some helpful, some totally worthless, government bureaucracy, and crocheting.  Yes, I took up crocheting.  I wanted to do it because someone I know does it and made it look so easy.  So many elderly ladies do it, so I thought I'd just jump right in and do it.  Turns out its not as easy as it looks.  It's doable - bearable - but takes years to master.  Just like life I suppose.  Some people just master it faster than others.

I think I just finally decided to stop hiding from myself.

No, that's not true either.  I think I just decided to stop hiding period.  I've been scared a really long time about a lot of things.  I really did want someone to save me from myself.  Some people tried.  Had it been what I really needed, I would have been fine.  Alas, it was not.

All the stuff in self-help books and religious studies that you may have come across about how to be a better person or improve your mood or have a deeper faith seem to all start with "You have to..."  I always knew my answer.  I always knew what I had to do.  I was just too scared.

I saw a movie trailer recently that had a line in it referring to the difference between danger and fear.  Fear is an illusion.  Fear isn't what hurts you.  Fear does; however, alert you to danger.  Danger can kill you.  I finally took my step.  Eight years after I should have and could have but didn't.  Because I just didn't want to believe that there was a difference between danger and fear.

Clarity seems so tangible when its just you in the room with a computer screen and the theme song from "House of Cards" playing on a loop in the background.  My danger was that I would never leave this house and do what I was meant (whatever that is) to do.  My fear was that I was too scared to keep it from coming true.

I hope that we will plant the garden in about six weeks or so.  It will be bigger and further from the fence this year.  We had terrible slugs last year; but, we changed our approach.

It's another season, but a different outcome.

Movies and more movies...

     Well, as I have been absolutely lax beyond belief at posting, I think I will try again except this time I am planning on delving into the realm of movies.  Something my dear old friend Charlie Kinslow and I used to chat about now and again.  That man is not only a complete saint but knows a total ton about cinema - old and new.

     Today, on the summer solstice of 2012, I find myself watching the ever amazing Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla - with the amazing line "Godzilla put a curse on Japan!".  Now, I have no idea why, of the tons of movies I am able to watch at this moment, why this one came to the forefront.  While moving through this Roku box, all I could do was smile when this title slid into view. 

     Earlier, I sat through two residents of the bottom of the movie barrel (depending on which barrel you are looking through) - Marked for Death (with the ever present Sho Kosuge as the Japanese ninja battling the mob) and American Ninja 4 (with martial artist(?) Michael Dudikoff).  'Sayonara' boredom; 'ohayou gozaimasu' fun midsummer night!

     I will make a sincere effort to make a post daily with some movie or thought that runs through my head.  After trying some new medicine, I will admit to having more energy and motivation to begin this endeavor again.   I know one of my flaws is being afraid to put myself out there lest the past creep up on me.  All I can say is that the past is behind and tomorrow is ahead.  The only thing anyone can do to make recompense for the past is to be the best one can be each new day.

     With that - I relax and allow this film to whisk me away to the year 1999 - and watch Godzilla wreck havoc once again.  Cheers until next time! 

104

I just noticed that I had 104 posts the year I started this blog and only 1 this year! (and only 1 last year)....Wow...talk about letting time get away from you.

Fringe is on at the moment, there is Steel Reserve in the fridge, and a really cute Jack Russell named Gwizdo is just laying here dreaming...

So, allow this snippet to be what it is --- I have a couple more thoughts in the ole noggin this evening.

Seven months

Yes, Ive been gone too long. I have, however, figured out a couple things. First of all, that two or three year period when people move away from everyone to "find themselves" --- well, I used to rain on that parade. Alas, I was mistaken. Time like that is sometimes critical to understanding yourself.

Tonight, its raining - for the first time in a couple weeks. I sit here thinking, reading back over some of the blogs Ive written, that I have said some crazy shit - focused some interesting ideas - blathered on and on about personal nonsense - but that is what blogs are for (at least for those of us not super-interesting).

That's not really the crux of things tho. I am a frightened person. I suppose I have been for a very long time...for as long as I can remember. Fear can drive many engines - including those which are destructive, paralyzing, upsetting, and horrifying. Fear is illogical - as Spock says - but still, I remain frightened.

At some point, soon - I will find a way to move away from this fear and find what I was meant to do.

I have many failings as a person - some blatant, some hidden. At the core - I remain the same person Ive been - a need to feel useful, a need to be indispensable to someone, forgiveness when I fuck up, support when its earned, and for the love of Mary - a little bit of slack. My friendships aren't business/professional arrangements.

Should you want me around, cut me some slack...you know I'd do the same (and most likely have done the same whether you realize it or not) for you.

All that being said -- Bruce and Christy and Philip and Amber - - - - - - Ill be indebted to you for a very long time. I am going to work on the things I need to fix and I know youll be there.

If you happen to be reading this because you follow this blog, Ill try to write more. Its about to be the rainy season again.

I should have been a meteorologist, shouldn't I? I am going to have to fix that...

Another day past

Yes, its been a lifetime since my last post. I suppose one of my many weak points is that I lack the ability to follow through on a great many things - especially ones that sometimes make me draw blanks. Dave Chapelle had the same problem when he left his show, didn't he?

Ill close this very short re-introduction into blogging by saying that there are three tropical systems out there, two rounds of storms here today, and the Autumn is coming soon.

Though I have said it before, remember what Laura Alexander used to say, my friends...

"Who knows what the future will bring?"

One thing is certain. Sometimes we lose people we dearly love through our own foolishness. Sometimes we lose them because things just weren't meant to be. Sometimes, though, the ones who stick around are the ones you should hold on to. They are truly rare.