Here we are again, summer sunlight slowly fading into cooler fall days and taking with it that positive summer energy. Summer is not yet over, but it is clearly fading fast as the days get shorter and the nights cooler. The calendar flips to September tomorrow and those who have not yet will return to school early next week. Not far off are the familiar sights and sounds of fall, changing colors of the trees, apples and cider, pumpkins, and football games. I hate the fall!
“Why?” you ask. It is a valid question many before you have pondered, and it probably does deserve an answer. That will come later.
I don’t know what it is about the changing of seasons from summer to fall that triggers it, but every year without fail I find myself here. My mind drifts off to days gone by, remembering school days, friends, and social events of my youth. Some of the memories are pleasant, not all of my childhood is a bad memory, but in general I am reminded of how happy I am that those days are now behind me! There isn’t much coincidence that it was September when I began to write a novel that has many parallels to my past experiences and that of many friends when they were in high school. And there isn’t much coincidence that it was September when I finally got my courage up to face the demons I left locked in the closet when I walked out of LC and never looked back. There probably isn’t much coincidence that it was in the fall two years ago now that I finally faced the remaining demons head on and laid to rest all of that unfinished business. All of it was triggered by memories from my youth, and of time spent with friends whom I still miss today. These events have become some of the more positive outcomes of fall for me, but it is still one of my least favorite seasons!
For me, fall signals the end of many things. It is of course the end of sunshine and warm days, of bike rides and days at the beach. It is the end of freedom as children return to classrooms and staff to their jobs. The end of camping trips, vacations, and lazy walks under the star lit sky. But it’s more than that for me. It seems to be true in my family that with the fall weather, arrives another kind of end. From as far back as I can recall there are incidents, many of them life ending, that happened or at least began in the fall. From the death of a friend in a house fire decades ago to the news or progression of a terminal diagnosis far too recent to write about here, there is a definite pattern of things ending along with the summer season. Maybe they have all been unlucky coincidences occurring in the days between the end of August and the beginning of January. Maybe it is nature’s way of reminding us what fall really is, the beginning of the end for many things. Let’s face it, things die in the fall. The trees lose their leaves and look dead for months on end. The grass turns first yellow and eventually brown as it dies off. The flowers that once thrived in the summer sun wilt away, many never to return. Fall is death. So maybe it is not the time of year I dislike but rather the constant reminder that to everything, including our own human lives, there is a season. One day each of us will face the fall season of our loved ones lives, and of our own. Maybe that is the only reason why I HATE FALL!
And so … I vote we skip fall this year and move directly to Winter! Anyone else with me?
In reality, it will be a few more months yet before the snow arrives for me to play in and while I wait for it I will have to suffer with the wet cool days and nights known as fall. Spring is my least favorite season because of allergies and the inevitable slow melting of snow resulting in a muddy wet world. Fall isn’t much better. Rather than the melting of snow to create the mud, we now just get rain, and more rain, and quite often, even more rain. Dark grey clouds replace the sunny summer skies, the sun begins to hide itself from us, and it is not uncommon to have days where you never really see it at all. I will spend the next few weeks riding the motorcycle as much as is possible before it has to be parked for the winter, and we’ll try to get all those outdoor projects completed that we talked about doing back in May and June. We won’t succeed, we never do!
Meanwhile, I wait for the arrival of truly cold temperatures, those cold enough to turn the rain into snow and dump feet rather than inches to coat my world white. The snowboards are at the ready, the rack takes only minutes to attach to the car top, and our gear can easily be found and loaded for that first winter adventure. I am not yet ready for the snow, but give me two more weeks of these grey skies and chilly nights and I will soon be there!
The heck with it, skip Fall and just BRING ON WINTER! … I’m over all the reminders of death already!
Showing posts with label The Big 'C'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Big 'C'. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Why I stopped Writing ...
I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing with them something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return.
Well I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you!
Some time back in 2009 I lost my drive to write, or more accurately my passion for writing. It happened gradually over time, first with the slowing of written posts on this blog, then eventually with the abrupt lack of any posting of any kind here. I used the excuse that I was working on a new writing project at first. Then that I was posting things on Facebook instead of keeping in contact via this blog. In reality, though I was working on a new writing project and I was posting on Facebook more and more, they were just excuses both to you and to me. So what really happened?
I finished Unconditional during the winter of 2009, all but the final formatting revisions and minor tweaks had been completed and turned over to the one person who I needed to “approve” of the changes. I was biding my time by beginning a new project, still unfinished to date, and searching for a new direction to take that project in. I’m not certain when exactly, but shortly after getting the approval to publish my changes to Unconditional my writing began to taper off significantly. First this blog suffered, then the project I was working on, and eventually even those posts on Facebook became fewer and farther between. My drive was fading fast and by the fall of 2010, it was gone all together.
As most of you know, in September of 2009 my family got word of a late stage cancer diagnosis. In light of that news, and because the project I was working on involves “The Big C”, I stopped working on it completely. With that, I stopped writing. I haven’t written much of anything since then, not even those lengthy e-mails I have become famous for among my friends and family. Sure there have been a few of them over the last year or so, but very few. It would seem that when I needed an outlet for my emotions the most, I stopped writing completely, something I have always used for that much needed release.
I’ll be honest, I never really understood why I stopped writing, just figured I wasn’t interested and would eventually find the time and pick it up again. I was wrong. Something else happened that fall, something far more significant to my mental state and previous need to use writing as a means of emotional release. Part of my writing Unconditional and the conversations it sparked between me and my friends and family were based solely on my need to work through some baggage I have carried with me since high school. Who knew that writing could become the best form of therapy for me?
The rekindling of a friendship with Jack, the common ground that was found with my own family and that of my spouses, the loss of my maternal grandfather, and the news that my mother-in-law has terminal breast cancer all slammed into my world in just two short years. It created a world wind of emotions to deal with and, for the first time in as long as I can remember, those emotions were dealt with in a positive way that did not result in me retreating from my long held beliefs and simply hiding from the world. Instead, I faced them head on, with some help of course, and worked through what needed to be worked through. The stuff that didn’t matter as much was forgotten and moved past and I learned more about myself and my friendships in a few short months than I did in the previous 20 some years combined. And I did it all without writing! No blogs, no long winded e-mails venting to a friend, not even a significant journal entry. Yes I do still keep a hand written journal. I know, how archaic of me.
Instead, I took a new outlook on life, the freedom from baggage that I didn’t even know had been weighing me down for more than a decade, and used it to help form the support system my family needed. I stood strong to anchor them during the loss of my grandfather, and in the wake of the cancer diagnosis. I held tight to my firm belief that everything in life, the good, the bad, and the seemingly insignificant all happens for a distinct reason. I am not one who believes that every little detail of life has been pre-planned by some almighty deity, but there are some elements to that theory I believe hold water. It is far too coincidental that certain people seem to come into my life at just the right moments or that I cross paths with someone for only a moment and feel like I have known them my entire life. My faith in what many call a “higher power” does not follow the rules of any single organized religion, in fact I am in general opposed to most if not all organized religions because of their great propensity to promote nothing but hypocrisy. However, I have learned over time that certain events and people I have met along my path thus far have in fact been for a reason far greater than my immediate understanding at the time. It is my job to discover what their reasons may be so that I can learn from each what I need to know and integrate it into the remainder of my journey.
This outlook has made it easier to deal with the ups and downs of life, especially over the last three years in my immediate and extended families. It has allowed me to see that much can be learned and good can come from tragedies. Had I not lost people in my life previously, or gone through the pain of separation from close friends and family I would not be where I am physically today, nor would I be there mentally. Even through the pain of watching a loved one slowly fade away to a disease that cannot be cured and barely controlled most days, there are lessons to be learned for all. The strength it takes me to rise from bed each day is miniscule compared to that of a person who takes great effort simply in lifting their tired bones from the bed each morning. To them, seeing another day, no matter how filled with discomfort or lack of energy is a gift not a burden. They willingly rise each morning eager to take in every experience that life has left to offer them, and crawl back into bed each night wanting to repeat the process again the next day. We can all learn a bit from those who view each day, no matter what may happen to them along the way, as a gift. And I, having now witnessed this first hand through my mother-in-law’s struggle with cancer have been given a gift that no money could buy. She inspires me to wake each day and learn something new. To experience life until there is nothing left to experience. To roll with the punches and all that will be thrown my way. And to always remember that in life, everything both good and bad happens to us for a reason!
So how does this relate to my passion for writing and why I have not done much of it in the last three years? I lost my passion when I rid myself of the baggage I was carrying in my relationship with Jack. My drive to write in the past was tied to those emotions left raw and hidden from view. When I finally managed to stand up and face them, to admit that I was wrong about some things and clear up some misunderstandings between us, I no longer felt the need to express myself with written words, verbal was suddenly an option for me. It is fair to say that Unconditional was the first and last book I wrote because I needed to. I needed to write back in 2007 and what became of it was Unconditional. After finishing it I began a new project, the one dealing with “The Big C” that still remains unfinished and very much untouched since mid-year 2010. I will one day resume work on that project, but for now it has been shelved in favor of a new story, one that is being written not because I NEED to write it, but more because I WANT to.
I have once again found my passion for writing, my inspiration if you will, and it is still very much linked to my relationship with Jack. However, I now realize it is because he inspires me to do many things in life and his encouragement of my writing is just one of those.
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing with them something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return.
Well I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you!
Some time back in 2009 I lost my drive to write, or more accurately my passion for writing. It happened gradually over time, first with the slowing of written posts on this blog, then eventually with the abrupt lack of any posting of any kind here. I used the excuse that I was working on a new writing project at first. Then that I was posting things on Facebook instead of keeping in contact via this blog. In reality, though I was working on a new writing project and I was posting on Facebook more and more, they were just excuses both to you and to me. So what really happened?
I finished Unconditional during the winter of 2009, all but the final formatting revisions and minor tweaks had been completed and turned over to the one person who I needed to “approve” of the changes. I was biding my time by beginning a new project, still unfinished to date, and searching for a new direction to take that project in. I’m not certain when exactly, but shortly after getting the approval to publish my changes to Unconditional my writing began to taper off significantly. First this blog suffered, then the project I was working on, and eventually even those posts on Facebook became fewer and farther between. My drive was fading fast and by the fall of 2010, it was gone all together.
As most of you know, in September of 2009 my family got word of a late stage cancer diagnosis. In light of that news, and because the project I was working on involves “The Big C”, I stopped working on it completely. With that, I stopped writing. I haven’t written much of anything since then, not even those lengthy e-mails I have become famous for among my friends and family. Sure there have been a few of them over the last year or so, but very few. It would seem that when I needed an outlet for my emotions the most, I stopped writing completely, something I have always used for that much needed release.
I’ll be honest, I never really understood why I stopped writing, just figured I wasn’t interested and would eventually find the time and pick it up again. I was wrong. Something else happened that fall, something far more significant to my mental state and previous need to use writing as a means of emotional release. Part of my writing Unconditional and the conversations it sparked between me and my friends and family were based solely on my need to work through some baggage I have carried with me since high school. Who knew that writing could become the best form of therapy for me?
The rekindling of a friendship with Jack, the common ground that was found with my own family and that of my spouses, the loss of my maternal grandfather, and the news that my mother-in-law has terminal breast cancer all slammed into my world in just two short years. It created a world wind of emotions to deal with and, for the first time in as long as I can remember, those emotions were dealt with in a positive way that did not result in me retreating from my long held beliefs and simply hiding from the world. Instead, I faced them head on, with some help of course, and worked through what needed to be worked through. The stuff that didn’t matter as much was forgotten and moved past and I learned more about myself and my friendships in a few short months than I did in the previous 20 some years combined. And I did it all without writing! No blogs, no long winded e-mails venting to a friend, not even a significant journal entry. Yes I do still keep a hand written journal. I know, how archaic of me.
Instead, I took a new outlook on life, the freedom from baggage that I didn’t even know had been weighing me down for more than a decade, and used it to help form the support system my family needed. I stood strong to anchor them during the loss of my grandfather, and in the wake of the cancer diagnosis. I held tight to my firm belief that everything in life, the good, the bad, and the seemingly insignificant all happens for a distinct reason. I am not one who believes that every little detail of life has been pre-planned by some almighty deity, but there are some elements to that theory I believe hold water. It is far too coincidental that certain people seem to come into my life at just the right moments or that I cross paths with someone for only a moment and feel like I have known them my entire life. My faith in what many call a “higher power” does not follow the rules of any single organized religion, in fact I am in general opposed to most if not all organized religions because of their great propensity to promote nothing but hypocrisy. However, I have learned over time that certain events and people I have met along my path thus far have in fact been for a reason far greater than my immediate understanding at the time. It is my job to discover what their reasons may be so that I can learn from each what I need to know and integrate it into the remainder of my journey.
This outlook has made it easier to deal with the ups and downs of life, especially over the last three years in my immediate and extended families. It has allowed me to see that much can be learned and good can come from tragedies. Had I not lost people in my life previously, or gone through the pain of separation from close friends and family I would not be where I am physically today, nor would I be there mentally. Even through the pain of watching a loved one slowly fade away to a disease that cannot be cured and barely controlled most days, there are lessons to be learned for all. The strength it takes me to rise from bed each day is miniscule compared to that of a person who takes great effort simply in lifting their tired bones from the bed each morning. To them, seeing another day, no matter how filled with discomfort or lack of energy is a gift not a burden. They willingly rise each morning eager to take in every experience that life has left to offer them, and crawl back into bed each night wanting to repeat the process again the next day. We can all learn a bit from those who view each day, no matter what may happen to them along the way, as a gift. And I, having now witnessed this first hand through my mother-in-law’s struggle with cancer have been given a gift that no money could buy. She inspires me to wake each day and learn something new. To experience life until there is nothing left to experience. To roll with the punches and all that will be thrown my way. And to always remember that in life, everything both good and bad happens to us for a reason!
So how does this relate to my passion for writing and why I have not done much of it in the last three years? I lost my passion when I rid myself of the baggage I was carrying in my relationship with Jack. My drive to write in the past was tied to those emotions left raw and hidden from view. When I finally managed to stand up and face them, to admit that I was wrong about some things and clear up some misunderstandings between us, I no longer felt the need to express myself with written words, verbal was suddenly an option for me. It is fair to say that Unconditional was the first and last book I wrote because I needed to. I needed to write back in 2007 and what became of it was Unconditional. After finishing it I began a new project, the one dealing with “The Big C” that still remains unfinished and very much untouched since mid-year 2010. I will one day resume work on that project, but for now it has been shelved in favor of a new story, one that is being written not because I NEED to write it, but more because I WANT to.
I have once again found my passion for writing, my inspiration if you will, and it is still very much linked to my relationship with Jack. However, I now realize it is because he inspires me to do many things in life and his encouragement of my writing is just one of those.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The Race
It was inevitable
This test, this result
Another battle has begun
In a race that won't be won
Another reminder of how little they really know
Of how fragile life has grown
And how far we have yet to go
In this race against time
This is the point where some give in
Let time win
And simply wait for it to end
But lucky for us, that's just not your style
Instead, you'll get up again
Brush the dust from your smile
And head down the path laid out before you
Ready to fight your way to the end
Though we can’t win this race for you
Or even join in on the fight
We’ll never be far from your side
Ready to catch you when you fall
To help you get up again
With friends and family near
Your support system all in place
This is a battle you just might win
Another chance to prolong the race
This test, this result
Another battle has begun
In a race that won't be won
Another reminder of how little they really know
Of how fragile life has grown
And how far we have yet to go
In this race against time
This is the point where some give in
Let time win
And simply wait for it to end
But lucky for us, that's just not your style
Instead, you'll get up again
Brush the dust from your smile
And head down the path laid out before you
Ready to fight your way to the end
Though we can’t win this race for you
Or even join in on the fight
We’ll never be far from your side
Ready to catch you when you fall
To help you get up again
With friends and family near
Your support system all in place
This is a battle you just might win
Another chance to prolong the race
Monday, May 24, 2010
Every once in a while we all need a wakeup call …
I know we all get busy, wrapped up in our own issues and daily lives and before long we are so entrenched in what we have going on that we forget about some of the more important things in life. We worry about having a nice house or car, maybe a new wardrobe or at least a pair of shoes, and keeping up with the latest in technology. We spend all our time making money so we can spend it, or so our spouses can spend it for us, and hoping to one day have enough saved up to retire and begin to enjoy life for a change. But what if we never get to retire? What if by the time we make it to retirement age and status all we have left is that nice house, car, and wardrobe with no one left to enjoy life with?
That’s the type of wakeup call all of us needs right here, right now. I got mine in a few stages, spread out over about a two year span. The beginning of it was back in the fall of 1997 when a face I hadn’t seen in over a decade popped up in a web search for something I thought was completely unrelated. It set off a chain of events that made me stop and think about a lot of unresolved issues from my past, things I thought were buried so deep they would never surface again, and people I had walked away from a long time ago. It also began a process of finally dealing with things I had refused to previously, aligning my memory of my history with what really happened, and writing a book I never thought I was capable of.
That process, facing my fear, reconnecting with an old friend, resolving some issues in my past, and writing that book helped me to take a closer look at what was really important in my life. I had forgotten about Jack and our friendship years before and he wasn’t the only one from my past I had walked away from, he was just the one that was most important for me to reconnect with. Rebuilding that bridge allowed me to reconnect with others, to reach out to some, and to accept others who had reached out to me. It gave me a chance to begin to put my priorities in the right order beginning with family and friends rather than the very tight circle I had been spinning in for far too long.
I also came out of this more comfortable with myself, my past, and my future than I ever thought I could be. I managed to find a place I am comfortable with in the universe, and discover ways to let go of all those things I know are out of my control in much the same way that those who are Christian claim to “turn it all over to God”. I’m not certain how much of that came from reconciling those issues, from the process of writing the book, or from simply spending time with Jack again, but it was something I would need about a year later.
The final stage of my wake up call came in the fall of 2009 when we learned that my mother-in-law has breast cancer. She is a relatively young 56 year old woman who takes care of herself and follows the recommendations of semi-annual mammograms. Sadly, you get what you pay for and in her case, a free screening meant nobody cared enough to read the films. She had been complaining of symptoms after the screening in February and eventually could no longer ignore them. In September she sought a second opinion and learned that she has stage IV invasive ductal carcinoma (breast cancer spread to the lymphatic system with lesions on the skeleton). While the entire family is angry that she was not diagnosed sooner, she simply moved forward with treatment and an attitude that she will beat it. It’s impossible for us to know how far the cancer advanced between February and September, and that is for the lawyers to argue in court one day, but we do know the diagnosis wouldn’t have changed though we could have possibly caught it while still a stage III.
As I wrapped my head around the news that someone close to me had been given a potentially terminal diagnosis, I retreated into my own world asking one question over and over. What if it were me? Hearing someone you know given a diagnosis of cancer in any form tends to do that to most of us. Luckily, I had already begun to prioritize things in my life and remove some of the non-essential things, be those material items, excess drama, or surrounding myself with negative attitudes. The cancer diagnosis was simply the catalyst to complete that phase of my life.
I shelved a writing project I was working on, hopefully I will come back to it one day but for now it sits about 1/3 of the way completed, I made a decision to eliminate the negativity and drama from my life, and I did just that. I severed all ties with the Dykes on Bikes (DOBD) Drama Queen group I had been riding with because I was tired of the high school drama that came with it and the way the group as a whole made both myself and my wife feel. I chose to walk away from their narrow view of the world and allow them to wallow in their own self pity for being single, poor, uneducated, unemployed, and lesbian. Each member of that group feels sorry for themselves for at least one of those reasons and I think it’s safe to say their attitude is that the “straight world” owes them something. I completely disagree and think they all need to grow up, shut up, and take responsibility for their own lives and the poor decisions that have landed them where they are now. But I digress!
My purging of negativity and drama extended to family encounters as well, from both my family and Jen’s. I respectfully decline invitations to go places where certain members of Jen’s family will be in attendance, as does Jen, because it simply isn’t worth dealing with their crap. Jen and I still attend family functions on both sides when possible, but I do not feel bad for missing out on things because we choose not to deal with a situation that will most definitely turn ugly. Family is not perfect, it never was nor can it ever be for either of us, but family is family. Often it’s better for all of us to not speak for a while rather than speak words that will irritate or offend the other. That’s my new approach to family on both sides and it will continue in force with the new arrival in a few weeks. The news of a 4th niece (nephew is still possible last I heard) was the last straw, the third was hard enough to stomach, and while I am certain I will love them no less than their three older sisters, they will see me just as little as the first three have. I refuse to bite my tongue any more than is absolutely required and the mandatory family gatherings are about all I can take these days.
My priorities are now in order, I go out of my way to help those I can when ever I can, and I approach every situation with a little more laid back approach. I know that every event in my life, great or small, has a purpose and I accept the challenge of figuring out what that purpose may be daily. I also except the challenge of ensuring that if my next tomorrow never comes, I have lived each moment in a way that I am content with, said all I need to say to those around me and that I care about, and never left a situation unresolved whenever possible. While I never claim to be perfect, if I can at least do my best to make sure that I leave this world with all those I care for and about knowing how important to me they are, and never parting ways angry, I can accept that as my legacy.
That’s the type of wakeup call all of us needs right here, right now. I got mine in a few stages, spread out over about a two year span. The beginning of it was back in the fall of 1997 when a face I hadn’t seen in over a decade popped up in a web search for something I thought was completely unrelated. It set off a chain of events that made me stop and think about a lot of unresolved issues from my past, things I thought were buried so deep they would never surface again, and people I had walked away from a long time ago. It also began a process of finally dealing with things I had refused to previously, aligning my memory of my history with what really happened, and writing a book I never thought I was capable of.
That process, facing my fear, reconnecting with an old friend, resolving some issues in my past, and writing that book helped me to take a closer look at what was really important in my life. I had forgotten about Jack and our friendship years before and he wasn’t the only one from my past I had walked away from, he was just the one that was most important for me to reconnect with. Rebuilding that bridge allowed me to reconnect with others, to reach out to some, and to accept others who had reached out to me. It gave me a chance to begin to put my priorities in the right order beginning with family and friends rather than the very tight circle I had been spinning in for far too long.
I also came out of this more comfortable with myself, my past, and my future than I ever thought I could be. I managed to find a place I am comfortable with in the universe, and discover ways to let go of all those things I know are out of my control in much the same way that those who are Christian claim to “turn it all over to God”. I’m not certain how much of that came from reconciling those issues, from the process of writing the book, or from simply spending time with Jack again, but it was something I would need about a year later.
The final stage of my wake up call came in the fall of 2009 when we learned that my mother-in-law has breast cancer. She is a relatively young 56 year old woman who takes care of herself and follows the recommendations of semi-annual mammograms. Sadly, you get what you pay for and in her case, a free screening meant nobody cared enough to read the films. She had been complaining of symptoms after the screening in February and eventually could no longer ignore them. In September she sought a second opinion and learned that she has stage IV invasive ductal carcinoma (breast cancer spread to the lymphatic system with lesions on the skeleton). While the entire family is angry that she was not diagnosed sooner, she simply moved forward with treatment and an attitude that she will beat it. It’s impossible for us to know how far the cancer advanced between February and September, and that is for the lawyers to argue in court one day, but we do know the diagnosis wouldn’t have changed though we could have possibly caught it while still a stage III.
As I wrapped my head around the news that someone close to me had been given a potentially terminal diagnosis, I retreated into my own world asking one question over and over. What if it were me? Hearing someone you know given a diagnosis of cancer in any form tends to do that to most of us. Luckily, I had already begun to prioritize things in my life and remove some of the non-essential things, be those material items, excess drama, or surrounding myself with negative attitudes. The cancer diagnosis was simply the catalyst to complete that phase of my life.
I shelved a writing project I was working on, hopefully I will come back to it one day but for now it sits about 1/3 of the way completed, I made a decision to eliminate the negativity and drama from my life, and I did just that. I severed all ties with the Dykes on Bikes (DOBD) Drama Queen group I had been riding with because I was tired of the high school drama that came with it and the way the group as a whole made both myself and my wife feel. I chose to walk away from their narrow view of the world and allow them to wallow in their own self pity for being single, poor, uneducated, unemployed, and lesbian. Each member of that group feels sorry for themselves for at least one of those reasons and I think it’s safe to say their attitude is that the “straight world” owes them something. I completely disagree and think they all need to grow up, shut up, and take responsibility for their own lives and the poor decisions that have landed them where they are now. But I digress!
My purging of negativity and drama extended to family encounters as well, from both my family and Jen’s. I respectfully decline invitations to go places where certain members of Jen’s family will be in attendance, as does Jen, because it simply isn’t worth dealing with their crap. Jen and I still attend family functions on both sides when possible, but I do not feel bad for missing out on things because we choose not to deal with a situation that will most definitely turn ugly. Family is not perfect, it never was nor can it ever be for either of us, but family is family. Often it’s better for all of us to not speak for a while rather than speak words that will irritate or offend the other. That’s my new approach to family on both sides and it will continue in force with the new arrival in a few weeks. The news of a 4th niece (nephew is still possible last I heard) was the last straw, the third was hard enough to stomach, and while I am certain I will love them no less than their three older sisters, they will see me just as little as the first three have. I refuse to bite my tongue any more than is absolutely required and the mandatory family gatherings are about all I can take these days.
My priorities are now in order, I go out of my way to help those I can when ever I can, and I approach every situation with a little more laid back approach. I know that every event in my life, great or small, has a purpose and I accept the challenge of figuring out what that purpose may be daily. I also except the challenge of ensuring that if my next tomorrow never comes, I have lived each moment in a way that I am content with, said all I need to say to those around me and that I care about, and never left a situation unresolved whenever possible. While I never claim to be perfect, if I can at least do my best to make sure that I leave this world with all those I care for and about knowing how important to me they are, and never parting ways angry, I can accept that as my legacy.
To quote a friend of mine "Live for the here and now, tomorrow will take care of itself!"
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
So about that blog post I promised to write …
Dear loyal readers,
I have not forgotten about you, or your interest in this blog, my life, and my writing. However, I have been far too busy for far too long to keep up with this thing. I have been writing all this time, but most of it has either been for my eyes only, not even shared with my wife if you can believe that, or has been in the form of a FaceBook (FB) status update or comment. Many of you are on FB and my FB friends list so you have not been kept too far out of the loop, though certainly not exactly included in all the goings on of my life since last fall. Let this post serve as the catch up for all those important things I have not yet shared, and I promise to update this thing a little more regularly going forward. Notice I said a little more regularly.
First off for those of you who do not yet know, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage IV ductal breast cancer last fall, round about the time I stopped posting my writing. See the coincidence here? Thee were other factors in my silence, like the completely unhealthy group I was in the process of terminating my membership with, a few work related issues, and the occasional life event I still choose to remain silent on. In any case, she is doing well, responding well to treatments, and having very few side effects of her treatments outside of the standard loss of hair. And for those who have not been through this, or watched someone go through this, let me just state that when I say loss of hair, it includes hair in places where you didn’t know hair grew.
Dealing with the diagnosis, the tests, the staging process, and the new schedule that would be applied to my life as my wife stepped up to be by her mother’s side as much as possible through this whole process has taken some major and minor adjustments. One of the first things to get pushed aside was my writing. It was in part because I didn’t feel much like finishing a story about a boy who leaves home right after high school with the intent to never see his father again, spends 20 years building a life for himself with no contact between the two of them, and then stumbles upon a relationship with him again through a twist of fate only to learn that his father is terminally ill. This story was conceived and the first 20 chapters or so written long before last fall’s news hit and it is in no way related to my mother-in-law’s diagnosis. Yet writing it just didn’t sit well with me any longer and I lost interest in writing all together as the weeks dragged on.
I did not stop writing all together though, but digging through the archives of the blog you’ll certainly notice a HUGE gap in entries beginning toward the end of last summer and lasting for what has become nearly a year. I can’t say that many things were written in that time period, but I can say that what was written was almost always merely me venting frustrations about one thing or another and eventually found its way into the recycle bin. On occasion I came up with a piece of something I hung onto, something that I managed to make general enough to post. But, as the archives make blatantly obvious, those were very few and quite far in between.
So, what else have I been up to over the last 9 months … sadly the answer is not really all that much. I have completed more classes and currently have just four left to obtain my latest degree, a Bachelor of Web Development. So long as they don’t cancel any classes on me I will be done with it next March! Then what I’m not certain, but there has been some consideration about going for a Masters Degree … time will have to tell that tale because for now I am focusing on SUMMER VACATION and those four remaining classes next year.
Life has really been all about family, friends, school, and work … in that order for probably the first time in decades. Having a potentially terminal diagnosis of someone you know, no matter how well you know them, is certainly a wake up call to get your life and priorities in line. It has been the catalyst for me purging all the drama and “fluff” from my life, hence exiting the DOB fiasco and no longer surrounding myself with their drama, negativity, and poor choices. I can’t even say the departure was amicable, I’m not certain they are capable of that from a local or national standpoint, but it was not a total waste of time. That group, the drama all last summer, and the eventually process of exiting their gang (and I mean that in every sense of the word) was something I needed to do. It served as a reminder of why I have not been active in the LGBT only culture since my early college days at Oakland, and why I will refrain from getting involved again in the future. It was a definite wake up call that there are two distinct versions of LGBT Equality and the activism that is required to achieve it, I am not interested in their tunnel vision of the world or what true equality is! I am also thankful that organizations like Triangle foundation, Michigan Equality, and Affermations exist and understand both how the world works and what needs to be done to achieve true equality for all, including LGBT people.
So there is the recap of my last 9 months. Reality check, Cancer, Exiting the Drama Queens (DOBD), eliminating as much drama from my life as possible, family, friends, work, school, and writing. Now that the purging of drama process is complete, or nearly, and school is out for the next 4 months, I’ll try to write more!
I have not forgotten about you, or your interest in this blog, my life, and my writing. However, I have been far too busy for far too long to keep up with this thing. I have been writing all this time, but most of it has either been for my eyes only, not even shared with my wife if you can believe that, or has been in the form of a FaceBook (FB) status update or comment. Many of you are on FB and my FB friends list so you have not been kept too far out of the loop, though certainly not exactly included in all the goings on of my life since last fall. Let this post serve as the catch up for all those important things I have not yet shared, and I promise to update this thing a little more regularly going forward. Notice I said a little more regularly.
First off for those of you who do not yet know, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage IV ductal breast cancer last fall, round about the time I stopped posting my writing. See the coincidence here? Thee were other factors in my silence, like the completely unhealthy group I was in the process of terminating my membership with, a few work related issues, and the occasional life event I still choose to remain silent on. In any case, she is doing well, responding well to treatments, and having very few side effects of her treatments outside of the standard loss of hair. And for those who have not been through this, or watched someone go through this, let me just state that when I say loss of hair, it includes hair in places where you didn’t know hair grew.
Dealing with the diagnosis, the tests, the staging process, and the new schedule that would be applied to my life as my wife stepped up to be by her mother’s side as much as possible through this whole process has taken some major and minor adjustments. One of the first things to get pushed aside was my writing. It was in part because I didn’t feel much like finishing a story about a boy who leaves home right after high school with the intent to never see his father again, spends 20 years building a life for himself with no contact between the two of them, and then stumbles upon a relationship with him again through a twist of fate only to learn that his father is terminally ill. This story was conceived and the first 20 chapters or so written long before last fall’s news hit and it is in no way related to my mother-in-law’s diagnosis. Yet writing it just didn’t sit well with me any longer and I lost interest in writing all together as the weeks dragged on.
I did not stop writing all together though, but digging through the archives of the blog you’ll certainly notice a HUGE gap in entries beginning toward the end of last summer and lasting for what has become nearly a year. I can’t say that many things were written in that time period, but I can say that what was written was almost always merely me venting frustrations about one thing or another and eventually found its way into the recycle bin. On occasion I came up with a piece of something I hung onto, something that I managed to make general enough to post. But, as the archives make blatantly obvious, those were very few and quite far in between.
So, what else have I been up to over the last 9 months … sadly the answer is not really all that much. I have completed more classes and currently have just four left to obtain my latest degree, a Bachelor of Web Development. So long as they don’t cancel any classes on me I will be done with it next March! Then what I’m not certain, but there has been some consideration about going for a Masters Degree … time will have to tell that tale because for now I am focusing on SUMMER VACATION and those four remaining classes next year.
Life has really been all about family, friends, school, and work … in that order for probably the first time in decades. Having a potentially terminal diagnosis of someone you know, no matter how well you know them, is certainly a wake up call to get your life and priorities in line. It has been the catalyst for me purging all the drama and “fluff” from my life, hence exiting the DOB fiasco and no longer surrounding myself with their drama, negativity, and poor choices. I can’t even say the departure was amicable, I’m not certain they are capable of that from a local or national standpoint, but it was not a total waste of time. That group, the drama all last summer, and the eventually process of exiting their gang (and I mean that in every sense of the word) was something I needed to do. It served as a reminder of why I have not been active in the LGBT only culture since my early college days at Oakland, and why I will refrain from getting involved again in the future. It was a definite wake up call that there are two distinct versions of LGBT Equality and the activism that is required to achieve it, I am not interested in their tunnel vision of the world or what true equality is! I am also thankful that organizations like Triangle foundation, Michigan Equality, and Affermations exist and understand both how the world works and what needs to be done to achieve true equality for all, including LGBT people.
So there is the recap of my last 9 months. Reality check, Cancer, Exiting the Drama Queens (DOBD), eliminating as much drama from my life as possible, family, friends, work, school, and writing. Now that the purging of drama process is complete, or nearly, and school is out for the next 4 months, I’ll try to write more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)