FINDING A DESTINY THROUGH MAKING NEW HABITS

This … is going to be a little different.  Some of what I am going to journal is going to be personal, i.e., diary-type stuff that I am struggling with.  Not that my personal life is anywhere near where it was when I started my journey from living with the Mookie’s, but my current relationship is in a state where, “things have changed”.  Those changes involved lines that have been crossed, therefore the “No Country for Old Men”-inspired reference to, “If the rule you used brought you to this…”.  The echo reverberates strongly, and it has really shaken up my new pattern of thinking, making it difficult for me to remain on track, all the while with some lingering old thought patterns slinking around and leaving contrary residue in my brain as well as my mind.

Another reason that this is more like a real diary kind of journal entry… I must be an “evolved person”.  I mean, when did anyone know when they “grew up”, become a mature, or just a changed person?  While for most people who have evolved accordingly, the moments of growth often only reveal themselves upon reflection.  But it has not been that way for me, primarily because the acceptance of my nature and contradictions to social function has been a hallmark of my character.  I have never enjoyed celebrations of any kind, because I never understood the motivation of a bunch of people coming by for my birthday or because my sister had a ballet recital.  If there were ever a time for the wider world beyond family to show its interest in me, when I was an amateur boxer, that was the moment.  But as I reflect upon those days and times, my path had then crossed with enough people to have dispelled what was an acceptable belief, but in hindsight looks to be a pattern of self-sabotage, to have gotten over that mess.  Yet, even as I think about the thinking that drove me to accept and internalize those thoughts to where they would become a part of my personal dogma, I still smile and am grateful for my path.  Like Don Henley says about life “All She Wants To Do Is Dance”, by replying to his characterization of an ‘80s political creature being thrown out of Central America:

Don’t come ‘round here Yankee

But if I ever do…

I’ll bring more money, ‘cause

All she wants to do is dance..! (...and make romance..!)

Back to my becoming aware of my own personal evolution.  Prior to fairly recently, the past few years, I never gave credit to being a part of what others consider a part of what makes their lives “good” or “worthwhile”.  For me, this is a welcome, albeit somewhat disturbing, result.  For many, many years, ever since my Father made me take ownership of a cell phone for my safety, I barely paid notice to when it rang because of the infrequent calls from “people of meaning” and not robo-calls or a bill collector.  Whenever I would get to wherever I was going and was off my bike, I would look to see some unfamiliar number and area code, usually indicating that it was some sort of telemarketer or debt collection agency, harassing me about a bill.  Now, it can be a potential boxer, or someone whom I need to speak with returning a call… or anyone, an actual person, who needs to speak with ME.  While I still am not able to define what it is that I am doing, whatever it is that I AM doing, I must be doing it and doin’ it well!

I am going to have to make changes to my personal narrative.  I am going to have to change not only what I project, but what I THINK I am projecting.  Additionally, what plays on the screens of the theater of my mind has to change.  It is coming at me in such a rush that I think that my brain would rather deal with my relationship issues because it is more familiar to me than being a respected and well-considered person in the community.  

In fact, I believe that is EXACTLY what is happening.  Even as I set out to talk and discuss about a subject that is familiar and easy to think about, I can’t actually focus and take the topic under any serious consideration.  When I do, thoughts about building a Rock Steady program and getting it to grow and not only be fruitful for me and my partners, but giving back to the people and community around me… it kind of makes it difficult to recognize who I am!  How about that for a “journal entry”... not being able to recognize oneself, not because of some “life fail” but because of a life coming to fruition, a truth, its truth?  When I consider things, no matter how “intently” that I may believe I am thinking about something, it comes back to where I am NOW.  Right now, I am a business owner, director and head trainer of a potentially growing franchise and head coach and partner of a growing franchise, whose reward of being able to “wake up and answer the telephone” often is a sign of the growth that I have experienced as a person.  That I am doing so with a “malfunction in the circuitry”, only adds to how profound my experience has been in Omaha.  

Uh… as to the “diary part” of this entry..?  Well, I am still “the man we all know and love”.  I had two rules, two situations that would only ever resolve in me leaving Kitty, without reservation.  One, was that if I was not responding to something that demanded my immediate action, she was to get that attention, “shake my brain into action”, by any means necessary. Around two years ago, we were late on a mortgage payment.  She felt that the settlement from her bankruptcy (prior to our meeting) protected her from foreclosure.  Whether it does or not, missing the house payment does reflect poorly on her refinancing chances.  So, the cost of getting the refinance started, some $500, was lost. 

No matter the consequence of the refinance, that she did not follow one of the the edicts that I tied my participation in the relationship to, was nearly unforgivable.  The slight break in the darkness of that break-up, was that I still need to be held accountable, whether on my own or in a relationship.  But being one of the two things that I have as a deal-breaker made it the source of much reflection.  Then, came THIS.

From the very beginning, something about Ralston, a little town between La Vista and Omaha, seemed a little “off”.  Not only off in the sense that it would give me the “creeps” when I would come home from work at night, but it gave me a feeling that was similar to riding my bike through Hazel Park and Roseville as a child, and why it was such a dare for me to do so when I would go out to Sterling Heights to the Lakeside Mall.  But unlike those reference points, I had no real confirmation that would led me to feel that way, especially (not going to unwrap all the thoughts around the subject) why it was Ralston and not some other part of the Omaha Metro area.  Then, I finally asked about what was giving me the creeps about the place, and it was independently confirmed.  So I spoke with Kitty as far as what she knew about the town… and the answer she gave the wrong one.  With that, I became a haunted person.

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You get it, right?

“If the rule you followed brought you brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

Succinct and clear.  If anything, that it comes from a stoic of a psychopath only gives more depth to its ideal.  Though I was not creative enough to put words to it, it was something that I had espoused from the beginning of my journaling.

From the unhappiness of women with men, the inability of men to woo women, a lot of my observations were steeped in the sageness of Anton Chigurh.  Or Flavor Flav.  After all, he too, speaks of accepting responsibility for who you are, as well as the consequence of your actions,  without looking to anyone other than yourself for the solutions (who woulda thunk it… Flavor Flav… modern stoic..!) to what bothers you… and as hard as it is to believe, thoughts are the problems and not what is perceived as the problem.