...AND WHY HAVE I BEEN LITERARY CONSTIPATED..?

MOVING DAY

In fact, it is the 13th!!  I have a nice spot in between here and there.  Kitty has found herself a nice place as well.  You are correct if you have noticed that we are headed for non-coordinated destinations.  It is what it is.  Will I ever journal it?  I hope not!  

The reason that I don't want to journal about my personal comings and goings is that I want to concentrate more on positive, goal-oriented things and that is the conversation I want to have "with myself".  Does it mean that I won't EVER gripe in here..?  I am not sure... because the point of my returning to my journal is to build from where I am at, and August 13th will be a new start in my life.  I have conversed with my twin sisters' and I would like to report that we are at least squared away with one another.

The last 4 weeks or so have been EXTREMELY challenging.  From breaking my face, to moving, and to having another exhausting Social Security examination, this has been a hairy time in my life.  But I am more than up to the task!  First of all, the deep and involved look into my intimate situation has already been downgraded, so I won't be putting anything off unto my domestic situation.  I still have my job and my growing Rock Steady franchise, and I am STILL as pretty as a girl!  To quote a childhood hero of mine... What, me worry?

Listening to my youngest sister was are real treat.  She has remarried, moved to Texas, and is doing well with her profession and her life.  Though listening to her when I was 15 was more of listening to babble (I am at least 10 years older than she is... so she was likely a babbling toddler then..!), listening to her as a peer was a unique experience.  The last time I felt as I did when talking to her was like I had felt when KT and Skye chose to speak through their emotions to me.  When your child confides in you as an adult... that is a special kind of feeling.  What I felt when talking to my sister was kind of the same emotion.

Hopefully the next few weeks goes smoothly for me and I make my transition cleanly.  It is will take a lot of focus and determination to make it through.  I will again strive to set a journaling schedule and adhere to it.

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.

____________________________________________________________________________

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.

MOVING DAY!!

Trying to keep a regular journal about life change/successful living is harder than I thought!  I have often wondered about people who write and journal about their lives being able to find the time to life as they journal… while they are journaling!  Looking back in retrospect, while simpler and easier, is more risky.  Journaling is a process that works through several levels of the mind, the brain, and neuroplasticity.  In fact, the effort that goes into maintaining a journal of sorts, is part of the magic of success.  That you have things prioritized so that there is a space in the midst of everything to journal is a key factor in the path to success.  So here I am, again going to promise a twice-weekly entry, that may become a bi-weekly journal (more on that later!).

The last few weeks have been a busy one for me and my Rock Steady franchises (yes, I ante up for TWO franchises!).  I have had to appear before a local Parkinson’s group and explain the benefits of Rock Steady.  This past Saturday, along with two of my boxers (one from each franchise), took part of Moving Day.  “Moving Day” is a day that has been designated for Parkinson’s awareness and action.  We had a walk in Omaha and I did have a few nerves over the event.  First, I did not hear back from my fighters and on the day of the event, one of the vet’s opined that last year everyone left after the walk and no one came to the post-event.  Here I was, scheduled for TWO different times for a demo, at 9a.m. and again at 11am.  I was already a little worried because I felt as I was a last-minute fill-in and my boxers had not RSVP’d me on Friday night.  But it was a minor worry, kind of lake how Blake reacted to Williamson when he told him that Roma wasn’t there for the meeting… “Well,” he growled, “I’m goin’ anyway!”, and then he tore the salesmen that WERE there a new one!

Not knowing what the event would be like, I had prepared remarks in case I had to give a talk.  Both of my boxers showed up, were very agreeable and we had a full workout, one that impressed those in attendance.  In fact, a couple of boxers from other franchises, one in Lincoln and the other in Elkhorn, a nearby town, wanted to “get some of that work”.  Passersby were impressed, so much so that a young girl went home sad because she did not get a second chance to hit the pads with me!  Still, after showing the other local attendees in the Parkinson’s community how well I run my program, I will have to get on the ball and stop “hoping” I have done enough and start actually DOING enough to be successful with my business.

Business.  Yes, this is an actual business, small and narrow, but with a fertile field to build in.  There is growth to be made (which feels ghoulish, but still, it’s true) and it won’t happen for me if I don’t take the necessary steps to make this endeavor a success.  Reflecting on my old friend that I creeped on Facebook… and using him and the holographic image of him that I took from his posts, the kind of thinking that brought me to where I am now, not as happy with myself as I should be, has to change.  He had the burning desire that I lacked… you don’t have to be at the top of the socio-economic food chain to take things for granted.  KT is being pushed and directed not only from her Mom but from the software that has been installed in her… and that software runs on my brain computer as well.  

One of the reasons that I had not clicked “run” when I saw the alert on my screen for the needed updates was fear.  The fear of what I could have been, fear of the added responsibility that came from having an OS that was patched and free of bugs.  I simply let myself down and the solution, like so much in my life, has fell into my lap.  See, I have never been materially rich, but of all the things that I am full of (and Kitty will soon be adding to that list!), potential, is chief among them.  Thing about potential is that as long as it is just that, something hoped for, it is essentially worthless.  I enlisted in the “Be All That You Can Be” Army.  When I think of the key people who were in my life from that era, they went on and did just that, my ex-wife included, go on to be all that they could be.  Here where I define the difference between “hating the player instead of hating the game”.  I have evidence that the thought programs that I had installed as a young man function… now, all I have to do is be fearless and run them!!

THE CODEFIED LIFE V

TACTICAL

Like the Affordable Care Act, my 2014 roll-out has lurched about in going forward.  Still, things h ave been progressing accordingly and I fully expect to meet all my marks for the year.  

KT, who is on pace to graduate in the top 5% of Carolina high school students this year, has been offered  a scholarship to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University.  Do you know who  else went to Carolina A&T?  I did!!  So I am very happy for her, but it isn’t her top choice.  There  has been no word on what her school of choice is going to offer but Nixxie said that unless the same kind of deal is being proffered, she’ll be an Aggie!  

One of the interesting things that occured when I posted the news on my Facebook page is how   classy Pecan Sandie was when she happened upon my post.  She congratulated KT, we both  exchanged messages with the hopes of getting Lexxie out west this summer.  She, like her older  sister, is a very busy teenager and fitting in two weeks of visiting me is not an easy thing.  We  will keep our fingers crossed!

I have a Bloggie camera and as soon as I figure it out I plan to put a “max lift” workout up here and on my Facebook page.  The last time I did a max lift, I was able to get 265lbs on the bench,  405lbs on the squat and 425lbs on the deadlift.  Along with my conceptual roll-out, my weight  training has lurched about, mainly because I have not taken the time to put together a training   log.  We are incorporating yoga and mindfulness into the fitness equation, which I believe will fit and enhance my life approach.

DO NOTHING WITHOUT A REGARD TO THE CONSEQUENCES - Aesop

I have decided that going through my “Rules To Live By” at this time was appropriate.  After three  full years of living here on my own, I feel acclimated enough with my surroundings to insure my  continued progress.  My ups have been greater than my downs, and I have every reason to think  that I will continue trending as appreciably as I have been since my arrival.  My Algebra is going  swimmingly and I expect to pick up the pace for spring term, testing out how well I do with the added stress of taking on more classes.  If feasible, I would like the next school year to be my last in junior college.

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH1h7biqvWo&list=PL2CFndANM_t19WKRGW1wOWLCZS6uEc  UzH

Like many underachievers (please try harder!!) I have had occasion to wonder “what if…” with   certain moments in my life.  They all tend to center around my starter marriage and how it left the   stain of regret in my soul.  In fact, I made the case (to myself of course..!) that the hesitancy to    pull the trigger with the Delta Girl and Tee Jay was due to the stench of the residue from the fail  experience with my starter wife.  As my marriage confirmed that someone who reminded me   Mother would not be a good fit for me, my marriage validated the qualities that were strongest in  my starter wife were not compatible with who I was, or who I wanted to be.

The quotes that I find and use in my journal, my “Rules”and the expectations they create, I first expect of myself.  Having gone  like Leonidas and his soldiers to the outskirts of their mortality and beyond for those that they were sworn to protect, I know that I have done likewise for those that I care about, and also why being willing to make the same kind of sacrifices for another person, I decided to formalize the character traits I was looking for in a partner.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

  Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning.  It’s

  about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being

  perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn’t

  let them down because you told them the truth… And that truth is that you did every-

  thing you could, that there wasn’t one more thing you could have done… Can you

  live in that moment as best you can with clear eyes and love in your heart… with

  joy in your heart?  If you can do that gentlemen, you’re perfect.

This speech from "Friday Night Lights" embodies both what I am looking for and what I have to offer in return.  Existence, living, is all about relationships… relationships that you have with loved ones (family and friends included) with your co-workers and those whose service is engaged in working for you, people who you will encounter repeatedly and those who you will see only once and then never again.  In keeping this on the micro level, for someone that decides that they would like the opportunity to develop a relationship with me, the depth of that relationship can be measured by those above words.

I don’t trust people who can rattle of their limits in a relationship with the ease of a newsreader.   Because, it goes to follow, when you ask them how far they are willing to go for “that someone who  is SUPPOSED (because if they really WERE that someone, they should be able to go as far as needed) to be that someone”, knowing that usually the mark that we aim for we often fall short of, their efforts in a relationship are often going to be less-than-noteworthy.

I can’t be in relationship with someone like that.  I won’t do it.  I can’t do it.  Thanks to the indomitable wisdom of Anton Chigurh, “If the rule you used brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”

THE RULES BREAK LIKE A THERMOMETER

TACTICAL

Why do I have a candle lit still for Tee Jay?  Well, I am holding an official copy of my high school transcript, and in no small part because of her!!  When it has come down to someone that I have to rely upon, she has always been “that person”, and I don’t have to explain how my fractious relations with my family to convince her that I need HER help.  Contrast that with the Jay Pharoah and Kerry Washington spoof video, “What Does My Girl Say?”, where near the end of the song, a busted Jay pleads with his girl… “But you pay for my phone!!” For me, this was a very revealing statement about the fictional relationship and for real life relationships.  

Yeah, I have been a big time panty thief, and I have gone on many a successful panty raid.  But I have NEVER had a female provide me with any materiel of any kind, and I would never ask for some ostentatious item or for the money to use for any similarly puerile and selfish reason.  Thus, it while it has been a painful decision to cut people out of my life, it has not been difficult, because the validity of the thinking that brought me to that particular position has always been confirmed, and unfortunately, it often involved those who were closest to me.

But this is not that entry.  All, or nearly all, that can be discounted and made obsolete in my life has been made just that.  Getting set for the next year and things that are relevant to making it a successful one has mostly been taken care of and is ready to go.  The countdown is on and lift off is imminent!!

“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get-- and everything with what you are expecting to give.” -Leo Buscaglia

I have found it so very surprising that for such an isolationist of a person that I understood the quote above as a key component in a loveship, with an implicit awareness of what the choice to be in love with another person meant.  Additionally, it is always easy to spot someone who does not have a full understanding of what it means to be in love, to be committed to a shared ideal with another person, equally yoked.  That is what I heard when Kerry Washington left her video boyfriend wondering who was going to pay for his phone.  Because I inferred the dynamic between them was one where the female was the one who had a better-paying job/credit worthiness, and felt that by purchasing the phone she was also staking claim to his affections/respect.  While it seems obvious that would not be the case, the thinking is often mistaken for sound reasoning, when it is nothing more than flawed logic.  See, if the relationship was one where the value was placed on the things that had MEANING, or that the meaning of what love represented was appraised for its true worth to both parties, then I posit that a decision on what was valued could have been made.  Then Jay would not have gotten dissed at his family’s gathering!

THE EMOTIONAL RESIDUE OF LOVE

                 "I began the process of unloving you that day… unloving you for the sly

                  and uncaring way you were betraying us. More than this, I began to un-love

                  you for being a stranger to everything my mind and heart had erected you

                  to be.” ~from Like Litter in the Wind by L.M. Ross

My own personal approach to life draws on so many different sources that even a young man I found it quite difficult to explain and source much of what I was speaking on.  So in the blogging universe, I am comfortable nabbing thoughts like the quote above from another blog, the expression of the feeling and emotion is one that perhaps I share with another, both drawing from the same words but for different reasons in the same way.

At the launch of this journal “thing”, I had hoped to get the clutter, the flecks of paper and floating grains of dust, that were wedged between my thoughts, stuck from years of want of use and direction, cleared away so that I could again make my own way into the world.  For all my talk of introversion and inhibitions around the idea of closeness to others, at the time I was confused and wounded by the way things were between Mookie Dee and myself.  Our relationship was built on fault lines that were obvious and could have been engineered around.  The problem we had, the problem that is all too common in relationships like the one in the video parody, is that you have people doing what they always done yet expecting a different result.

In the meantime, I have continued on my paradigm-changing ways regarding intimate relationships.  One, is the idea that you can find someone to complete you, to make all your desires a reality.  From daily provisions to healing of your wounds, loving you and all of your scars, the myth of a woman’s notions of romance is no longer about Prince Charming and the fairytale dynamic, but about how they can be restored as a being.  And I don’t know if it is because of having been taking advantage of for their nurturing traits or having accepted as fact the tropes about men, I have encountered specifically the type of relationships that I had always hope to have avoided.

My life has never been one that has been lived in any great precision.  That has not been due to a lack of wanting to be more focused on my path, but like my ability to “win friends and influence people”, a sign that if I am to be more than whatever I am, to cultivate and blossom in my destiny, that I would, just maybe, require a partner with which to reach it with.

Part of the methodology that I use in my life relies upon looking at  things in the abstract, to look through lenses that were shaped to look at the world for a different set of eyes, and just maybe finding a deeper purpose or understanding of what it is I am facing.  Which is why even as the definitions seem bend into an unrecognizable shape in this new universe that I am in, the thing that I must remember is that I will need a new vision, a new understanding to negotiate the worlds and lives that await.

AND ALL WE HAVE IS WHAT WE ARE

I have always had blurred visions of my future… even before my injury began to manifest in my life.  That, ladies and gentleman, is where the entrance of another person may have been in the cards for me.  When I am seized by a sense of purpose, a call to duty, that is when I have felt most engaged with reality.  But for myself… the song, “Making Plans For Nigel” aptly describes the desires that I have for myself.

“Every man alone is sincere, at the entrance of another person the hypocrisy begins.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Part of a larger selection, I have always interpreted Emerson’s advice as warning of all the masks and veils that are worn by others, who conceal their intents and desires sometimes so well that they betray their own interest at the expense of making sure that you do not achieve your own.  For some, the lack of ignorance of their own failings would also cause them in their clumsiness, to dearrange the events in my life by nothing more than the chance occurrence that brought them into my life.  How much more important, then, is it to prevent those who may not mean any harm, but who is followed by the very confusion that I have been striving to avoid?

Among some of the oft-repeated pet phrases of mine, “We knew the environment”, is one that has been one that I have used to illustrate that I possess an understanding of “this and that”, as in this dimension of my life, they are now both related in certain circumstance.  I don’t worry that I will not have fulfilled my potential, as each passing moment my future is still yet to have been written.  But armed with the rules of what made up a previous life, I will boldly advance into the shadows of uncertainty.

SATURDAY NIGHT WRIST

TACTICAL

Had to drop my Algebra class... I only got a 75 on my most recent test and I would need an even more unlikely 1500 in order to pass the class with the grade I need.  When I announced my decision in front of the class, the sadness was palpable among the group that I belonged to in class, a few others and in the instructor.  She even re-crunched the numbers to see if there was a reasonable chance of my passing the class and there wasn’t.  I thanked the instructor and assured her that I will be back in the fall!

I got my first haircut of the year and I learned that my “barbette” had thought I moved back to the Motor, and that SHE is moving to Mississippi over the summer!!  And while I will miss her (if you saw some of the nappy-heads on these brothers here in Omaha...), I was really very excited and happy that she was up to taking control of her life by taking a risk and moving to Mississippi.  And that is that with me, and nicely leads into the body of this entry.

PROLOGUE

Just an observation...but it seemed like things changed with Princess when her son asked about you being his stepdad and you asking her how her sons would react to having sisters. Without knowing what happened...wondered if the idea of marriage or living together made her put on the brakes and walk away.

As for Nebraska...well, I can't comment really because I've never understood. Never a couple yet your posts seem like you were so if you were never together, where would the faith and devotion have come in to play??? (shrugs shoulders).

I got a comment that in its summarized observation of recent journal entries noted that Princess began to change once her younger son’s began to think of a future as my stepsons.  The comment also mentioned that though I spoke of Nebraska as a special person in my life, we were never a couple, and that our relationship was more confusing for them to follow, so where would “faith and devotion” have come into play?

Because I like words a little bit and occasionally with get fanciful with my writing and may sound like hyperbole on the surface.  Where would “faith and devotion” indeed come into play with such a relationship as the one Nebraska and I were muddling through.  What would either of us have to be faithful to, or have devotion for?

In team sports and sports in general, there is an appeal to deep emotions to inspire the athlete to perform at their highest level.  The movie “Friday Night Lights” contains a scene where the metaphor of “being perfect” resembles the appeal to “faith and devotion” I would make to a potential partner.  That is what a metaphor does, gives you access to a deeper understanding, a way to connect to the innerspace of the soul.  By using high conceptual (to me) abstract metaphors, I aspire to give you, the reader, a carrot of sorts to push and idea that gives a distinct flavor or understanding to what it is that I am speaking about.  So, when it comes to relationship, there are places where the lines of delineation are drawn in the sand, and others where the lines are to my being as the mountain ranges are to Earth.  By using such strong words to convey what I expect from a person in a relationship, I would hope to get that person to realize that there is certainly more than a “good f*ck” expected of them if, that is, they want to hang about with me.

Long ago, Indigo left a comment that is among those that have stayed with me throughout the years.  She said that whoever I am with will have to be “intelligent”, and in agreeing with her, I am interpreting “intelligence” more liberally than literally.  Life experience is a form of intelligence that counts with me, as well as being aware that there are more than one way to see the world.  Life isn’t binary, and the walls of stereotypes are falling by the wayside.  The future is happening each and every moment, it is here with us now.  Should adaptation to the moment fail to happen, I think that one would risk being left behind, wondering what is going on and lost.  Maybe,  they will even be alone as well.

AND WHOSOEVER LIFTS THE HAMMER...

Again in dealing with the metaphor of “Acolytes and Infidels” and comparison with the one of being perfect used in the video, I don’t believe that a person would have any problem understand how it is that I value relationships.  The point of the “tactical” section, the description of “things being thing “the things that I think that I am thinking about” is to let people know that I am on the path of Me, and that there are no serious worries or concerns.  I am well.  And this is what I could never get Nebraska to grasp.

See, the valuation of a relationship in my life is different from my PARTICIPATION in a relationship.  Having a partner does not mean an increase to my self-worth, my pleasure in  things.  The ONLY thing that a relationship can actually “do” is take the joy out of being, to make me feel other than how I would feel without this person in my life.  A lot of people talk that talk, but it is something that I have lived since the earliest days of my self-awareness.  I guess that is why I do  take and approach relationships the way that I do... because I see the world framed  by contentment, I owe it to that person to be a positive and not a negative in their lives. After all, I am happy by myself... perhaps they were happy by themselves as well?  Value-added” are the words that I use to describe what I am looking for out of a person.  Would sitting round and hoping that Nebraska deign to call me or even grace my humble existence with her physical presence got to be tiring.  Going through that kind of uncertainty is not part of my character.

My Saturday nite was reminiscent of my SNICK Saturdays in the middle of a true NPR Weekend, spent watching as much college football as I could.  I got off work at 1500, went to my apartment and sat in my rocker-lounge chair and napped.  When I woke up, it was almost 2100, Saturday was a “must work” day, I went downhill to my gym and got a good night’s worth of work in.  I posted a picture to Facebook (and yes, I DO wear the same workout clothes each time.. wanna make something of it..?  Didn’t THINK so..!) and that was that with that.  Now, what can anyone offer me that would have brought me more pleasure than that?  This is what many people fail to realize... there are sacrifices being made in relationships, some great and some small, but ALL are important.  Maybe to the outsider the importance is diminished, but to the person making the sacrifice, whether it is their role-playing figures or someone’s prized garden, who is to say that something should be or not be important to another person?  And, just as important, who would dare say to another that their priorities are misplaced?  That is what I confirmed about Nebraska... that what and how we valued things were not compatible.  It isn’t that we don’t care about or for each other, but I feared that because of this misunderstanding, that I would fall further down on her “list” as time moved on, and that I would never be what I wanted to be what I had hoped I would be to her and in her life.

THE PRINCESS DIARIES

Discounting the ethnicity and the genders of their three children, the biggest difference between them was that with Princess, I knew how she felt about me because she showed me straight away and clearly.  That is something that I never had to question, and she was there for me, at least as much as our relationship required her to be.  And in our “exit interview” she confirmed for me that I was able to return the favor.  That is why her account remains “open” because of what she put into it.

BUT... but whenever someone says we are done, that is good enough for me.  Very early, in 2011 (we met late ‘11, after the epic 1st conference game between Wisconsin and Nebraska) we had a “hiccup” that I partially wrote off to jitters brought upon by her past relationships.  And besides, she had already accrued emotional “interest” from our relationship.  And to be honest, things seemed like they were tracking along, until, as Change Is Awesome said in her comment, her youngest son’s began to really see me as a parental figure.

Now this is a murky area that many people wade through in relationships and get lost in the bog.  Whatever it was, whatever it is, that she felt, do not know.  I do not speculate on what is wrong with a person once they want to dissolve a relationship with me... I  can only control how I behave and project how I feel.  Trying to figure out the what, when and why to this kind of thing only leads to folly.  So it is not that there has been less to be upset about with what happen, and there is little contrast to how I feel towards both Princess and Nebraska.  I still care for them deeply and could easily see where we again to another shot at a loveship.

BUT... the overcoming of the “... the difference in between the things we need and the things we receive” is that the root of nearly all breakups and is certainly at the root of any cause.  That is a delicate operation and if new relationship is the gulf, then overcoming the damage done from one that ran aground...