Pedestrian accomplishment. But you’re only a month in, so focus on the accomplishment part lolz
Will read some more John tonight too. Looks like Lady is probably not going to happen, but she gave you a good direction to go in for the next part of the Bible to read. Just hope it’s Better than Ezra. You’re not going to not make that joke. 😂
Be grateful for each small victory. He is guiding you if you let Him. So let Him. He knows the way better anyway. 🤔
Wind me up Put me down Start me off and watch me go I’ll be runnin’ circles around you sooner than you know
For just a moment. Athletic again. Progress. Potential Breakthroughs on many fronts. 😊
Physical and diet paying off. Frustrating Plateau at first 10 lbs finally hit 11, but performance improvement means it’s paying off on muscle. Only time and shoes that don’t blister your feet are keeping you from 1000 calories an hour. Jefferson Curls really hurt, but deadlifts are okay and you could go up on weight on arm day Thursday.
There is a plan at work. Lol you even have a grasp of what it is. Sure isn’t easy given the vast golf between regular and generic Adderall but thank God – you may have finally found a way to make that difference up too.
Weekend was disappointing. You are not doing YouTube church anymore so be there at 9:15. That wisdom is more important than literally anything else.
The folks are getting weaker each day and that means you need to Focus on becoming sound. It’s gonna be time to take care of them soon. Spinal surgery for dad or he’s done walking within two years.
Keep pushing yourself – but you have also got to put God first. Every. Single. Day. He’s always been the source of your joy. Returning to that source is how you’ll find more in the areas of life you want to see improvement.🕊
The mountains, the sea, and everything in between. Wide open planes in the east, trees almost everywhere else.
Passionate, kind, and hardworking people with an independent spirit.
Economically outgoing; thriving as a gregarious prosperity brings new faces from the world over everyday.
Vibrant urban atmospheres; charming, calm towns; and quiet out of the way homes with miles of trees in between.
Here there is so much life. So much excitement. So much possibility.
A truly complex past, and a truly vibrant future.
So much warmth. Sometimes too much. But the sea breeze brings the cool in the Lowcountry as more crisp mountain air from the Appalachians cools the upstate.
Other milestone dates for South Carolina are many. Her birthday was January 24, 1712. Her first day of independence was March 26, 1776. And air conditioning was invented in 1902. 😂
Happy Statehood day, South Carolina.
Best state ever. Best place ever. So blessed to call it home.
Entrepreneur meetings are stressful. It’s a whole different world listening to people programmed to be this independent, but you’re learning slowly as you expose yourself to different ideas and ways of thinking. Food’s great too.
His thyroid is alright. Vet says he’s probably stressed. Will change up some things in the house. Not feeding the neighbors. They’ll be fine. Never want to lose BroCat.
Last loop now feeling it. Will need a new belt soon. Will soon be dressing in early 2000’s clothes for a while, but that’s fine.
Finally felt progress late last night. Flicker of warmth in a sea of cold. Might have someone to study with, maybe more down the road, but right now Seeking Wisdom is what’s most important. Let Him lead. Starting with the Book of John.
Being grateful for good problems help one steer clear of the other kind.🤔 It means so much when the payoff for sacrifices begins; and it always does with a trickle…
Times are tough right now but they won’t be forever. Thanks to perusing YouTube long enough this might have to compete with sailing for your next hobby. 😃
Can’t help but smile looking back on old times when you find heartfelt words from days gone by. At one’s own views that seemed so different back then. Even if they weren’t tremendously long ago.
There were a few times when your words met screen before WordPress. Chance led you to one of them that in retrospect… God heard. That ‘chance’ led you across it again tonight. Nostalgia of Nostalgia. Long-winded and pitiful, with Alcohol fueling your emotions and typos as you poured out your soul. Only thing changed are names.
Nine years ago. Such a different time. Such a different… you. You sure weren’t a kid, but you had felt left behind by so much. You had no idea what was in store for you. So naïve. God answers prayer. Sometimes the way we want. Others, the way we need. His plan unfolds in strange ways sometimes… but it always unfolds… for weal or woe. Sometimes both.
* * *
(Sunday, March 31, 2013, 3:52:25 AM)
I remember 1984. Not the Orwellian 1984, mind you, but the actual year 1984. I was a child, and I had such late night thoughts. Just like now. Back then, I would smuggle a radio walkman (or whatever it was called then) into my bed and listen to 104.7 WNOK as I just let my mind wander.
I heard The Cars so often. Seriously, I heard many, many songs during those nights when midnight seemed so amazingly late, but it was The Cars that stood out. It was “Drive”, a romantic song that reminded me of the girl that I’d eventually be lucky enough to wind up with. Pretty amazing for a seven year old kid, but it was what it was. It was “You Might Think”, right out of the crazy music video, which ADHD-riddled me sang at Nursery Road Elementary School occasionally and the kids all agreed with my interpretation of the lyrics. It was cool, though.
It was so many songs, but for some reason I always remember listening to the Cars; as if that radio station had an infatuation for them.
To this day, there is something about listening to that band late at night, just as I am to this day beholden to the night when it comes to my time. I feel the night, and don’t want to waste it. I am the only child who feels so in touch with myself at night. And back then, the Cars were invited.
That was almost thirty years ago. Thirty. Years. I cannot believe what is happening. But here I sit, on my 36th Birthday listening to a new album done by The Cars, and I feel like a seven year old kid again as I listen to “Take Another Look”. Same band, new music. Romantic, possibly even sappy one could say. But it just fits the night like a glove, along with my eagerness to embrace it at the expense of the sleep that everyone else in the world (it seems like) treasures.
I love sleep. I hate sleep. It’s relaxing and I need it. It has absorbed approximitely 12 years of my lifetime.
I’m 36 years old. No wife. No kids. Nowhere close in my personal or professional life near where I wanted to be even at my least ambitious dreams. As I sat in the abyss of depression with no home of my own with my tail between my legs at age 30, I contemplated having a more imposing professional life by 33.
I’m 36 years old. Past halfway to 70, and she’s STILL not here. And neither is the RG that needs to greet her.
I’m still that seven year old child listening to The Cars instead of going to sleep. And the strangest thing about it is that…I’m fine with it. I’m fine with the loneliness; the “missing her” (whoever she is). I pray for “her” occasionally – ‘Lord, please see to it she had a good day today”.
But there’s something wrong with me. It’s almost as if prefer the pain. No, not almost. I… I do enjoy it. I enjoy being romantic with the idea of a girl that isn’t here. It’s so much easier for me to see her in such an intangible form a la Blanche Fleur that I don’t even try to find the girl that might actually be available.
The funny thing is that this is combined with a level of self-confidence, or even arrogance in myself and “who I am” that I cannot – or will not – accept any woman that doesn’t meet my “standards”. Am I a self-obsessed beyond-shallow man who won’t give a woman a chance, or am I a decent man who realizes how shallow he is and doesn’t want to hurt anyone by opening doors I don’t see myself walking through?
I had so much fun tonight being someone I used to be – a man with no pressure just having a good time meeting people and being 1995 one more time.
It’s bizarre. When I was a young kid I was so hyperactive and extroverted. Then that all changed in that car accident that changed my life; I became more quiet and introverted.
Who on earth am I? Am I the grown up version of the kid who enjoyed kids thinking he was crazy, or am I the grown up version of the kid who was so quiet and scared of rejection he could barely stomach the notion of asking SOS to be his “girlfriend” in the 6th Grade?
Who on earth am I?
Am I the man who lost his home due to bad decisions? The man who had to leave that first 10 year job involuntarily and screwed up his whole financial situation as he ignored reality?
Why can’t I do things? Why can’t I FIND HER? Or even someone to fill in for a while?
Who am I worried about hurting? Me or Her?
Oh, yeah, that’s right. NO PARKING SPACES. All of them have rings or boyfriends. And yet, I don’t care when it comes to having a good time with no ill intentions (as I try to be). I had so much fun tonight, and yet there is no real chance of any development of anything with the women I met. No chance of a relationship with Lisa of Channel 5 News either, but THAT was refreshing.
Where is KJ from high school? Either 1994’s or 2013’s will do. Why can’t I thank her for kicking my ass out of rampant introversion?
The amount of time between my car accident and my going off to college was NINE YEARS. Nine. That’s the blink of an eye, and is frankly terrifying to contemplate. It’s March 30, 2013. Right now, nine years ago, I was managing at first gig in that last summer (2004).
Why do I insist on punishing myself? Because I have decided to , of course. I am a pathetic horndog. I play, I do everything I feel like, and I hurt – and have hurt – women by doing this.
Am I abstinent because I believe it’s best for me, or because it’s what I need to do, or because I don’t want a reason to give a “normal” girl a chance?
I have no idea. I have no idea why I’m in such a good mood tonight, and yet I’m listening to a sad song on repeat and wondering why I’m NOT WHERE I NEED TO BE.
God, please help me. I’m not ready for her. I’m not ready to be 36. I’m a child still fighting sleep to listen to The Cars, and I LOVE IT.
Lord, please help me. Please give me the drive and direction to find what I need to move forward in life. If I am ever destined to taste the lips of a woman I am so lucky to call a wife, please help me. If I am meant to die alone, I think I have insulated myself in enough self-obsession over my (for lack of a better term) “martyrdom” that it would be alright.
But part of me sees her. As in the woman that could make AQ look like just another girl. A woman that would be the missing piece of me. I have no idea who she is, or how on earth I would become a part of her life. I have no idea if she’s even real – if I end up alone, she obviously wasn’t.
Everyone has someone, God. Everyone (at least to me) that matters regarding my status. DP – Married and a Doctor. CF – Married and a Doctor.
Me? A Letdown, in every way that matters.
God, I accept the person that I am – the man you have created. I know I am a failure in so many ways, but I also feel myself and that late night feeling of listening to The Cars and I wonder – Who Am I?
Whoever she is, I love her so much. So much.
I’m so scared. So alone. Why can’t I find her? Why can’t I even really start?
And yet, I’m so content with my life. So comfortable.
I want an AQ. Not her, but an AQ. I want that partner. And I don’t know what on earth I’m doing to make that happen.
God, give me strength. Please. Give me wisdom, and patience. God, please just…..
…find a way just to be “RG”.
Help me. Please. Help me be happy. Help me become the man I should have been years ago – but with a decade and a half of wisdom, or whatever.
Dont you want take another look away?
Dont you want to play the whole thing down?
Dont you want take another look away?
Dont you want take a look around?
I love The Cars. And late nights. Wherever she is, I hope she finds me soon. If she’s a girl that can honestly make my jaded heart start beating again, she’ll be worth giving up whatever I need to give up to be her man. If there is a girl out there that actually can foil my immature aspects of physicality, please God let me see her.
Please, God.
I can walk through life without her, but I can’t truly “live”, at least not the way you would have me live.
Please, God. help me.
I can’t live without you. Help me find someone I won’t hurt, and I beg that she be someone could hurt me if need be.
Please God, help my friends open up to you as you have seen me open up to you.
Please God, help me. If MP and KP have become divorced, I don’t even know if marriage is what I search for.
I don’t know. All I know is that for the first time in my life, I’m 36, and I haven’t done jack squat.
Dont you want to take another look away?
Dont you want to play the whole thing down?
Dont you want to take another look away?
Baby have another go around….
God, please help me. Please.
I love her so much, the woman I don’t even know yet. I pray for her to have a “good day”, and I just don’t know what you have in that big dorm room?
God, I would trade every year I’ve had since my freshman year for one more freshman year.
And when I was a kid, I swore I wanted to make my own rules so much it never occured to me that people would or could respond visially. I’m so selfish, so lazy, so corrupted.
Please help me to be less selfish. Please help me. Please jsut help me.
Please God. Please. Please. Just one girl I could date that doesn’t have a ring on it.
Somewhere out there a soul that is as decent as Flame, someone who liked me so much like CS. Someone that isn’t the Lime in the Coconut.
Please God. Just…Please…
I love you.
Thank you for everything.
* * *
Wow, lolz… so self-absorbed… but alcohol and loneliness can do that. Poor fool had waited so long to find one he’d fall in love with. You can’t be this RG anymore. And you’d never want to. You read these old words and marvel at how pathetic they sound. In fairness, you didn’t write stuff out often and rarely did when you weren’t hurting, but… we’ll just say you’ve gained a lot of wisdom since then.
But there is still something so… lost about it all, especially now. She has literally no earthly idea how happy she made you when you finally found the ‘her’ that was. How many nights you chose to be alone rather than settle, feeling in your veins that one day you would find ‘her’.
And now, she’s gone, and you still feel so… many things. Fortunately not as naively and difficult to read as how you cried out in 2013, but… it is what it is. Anger, regret, loss, hope. They cycle daily. Your thoughts fill with her. What you could have done differently. What you wish you’d said. And now once more you reach out to God. You still pray for her, but she’s literally chosen to go back to the hell she tried to escape from.
You just wish so many things. Anger leads to you wanting to send the pics she’d sent you of her bloodied and crying to the police. To her family. To his ex wife for whatever use she had for hurting him. Just to damage the parasite that had the gall to contact you like you were even capable of respecting him.
No. He’s thrown her under the bus many times and would again. Probably saved his own pictures just to hurt her. That and Romans 12:19 were what stayed your hand. Every second you think about him is one you’ll never get back, though, and hate has no place in the heart of the kind of man you try so hard to be.
In 2013, she was in your future. Now, she is in your past. She awakened something within you that makes you incapable to go back to the pitiful state you were in that night. Thank God.
Where that takes you is up to God, who you’re trying to put in charge. That has (so far) led you to Lady… but it’s just far too soon. Heal. There’s a chance you haven’t learned a lesson you needed to.
God’s purpose in pushing you over and over to read The Book of Ezra is now beyond clear. It was about Crow. How everything came together after you had waited so long, suffered so much, and finally all fell into place exactly as destiny would have set the pieces up for. And… Discord. Disunity. Minor issues arising to become major ones and before you know it… life-changing levels of failure and disappointment.
If you can make it, Thursday will be a week without dreaming of her, and you’ll silently open the channel again in case she needs prayer. Otherwise, you gave her everything you were. Gave her everything for a new start. To Grow and become More together with you, leaving those old demons to the past.
She chose to side with those demons and rejected every single ounce of your love, future, happiness, home, family… everything – save wanting you to go back to watching helplessly as she plunged back into the abyss you suffered so long and hard to pull her from.
No. Stop. Being positive…will steer your dreams away. Thoughts of your future. Of how far you’ve come since that 36th birthday.
And no matter what, thanking God for answering your prayers and choosing to put Crow in your life regardless of her choices. She helped save you from that miserable time. She gave you battle scars of maturity and wisdom you would need to be ready for the one yet to come.
Now go to sleep… dream of the future once more… and Grow to Be More…
It began 21 years ago. Being grateful to God for fulfilling His promise made to you on the night you hit what for you was rock bottom. At your worst point, you knew you would make it if you did the work. And even after doing the work, you had to make a promise that you would give up the anger in your heart.
For the first time you get it. It wasn’t about winning and walking across that stage. It wasn’t about “overcoming being done wrong”; Crossing paths with Flame again, you now know she was never your enemy.It was about choosing to Grow – and Be More.
And May 14 sure came at a good time in your life this time, lolz. But you actually forgot something… 😂
This year it fell on the good old alma mater’s annual alumni event.
Thousands here, dressed beautifully and elegantly to the nine. Recent graduates too young to remember 9/11, mixed in with older Alumni reconnecting with old friends. The whole of the campus decked out in prom-like levels of regalia.
You actually had forgotten it was tonight. It was one of so many things that you had wanted to share. You finally had someone truly special you had been waiting for to share them with. And now that you’re here looking around at all these happy people on this beautiful evening, it’s not that much of a disappointment.
There’s no way on earth she would’ve wanted to come to this with you. If you had a date you would’ve just loved to come to something like this even though you didn’t know anyone. Her most of all. But crowds, fun, positive energy? Considering how indignant she got at you in that place so sacred to you that you said something dumb getting caught up in the moment about being stronger than her here, she proved it. She’d have no part of a fashionable night like this.
All the time you’ve been single and you’ve never gone stag to a thing like this, despite endless experiences as the third wheel. Good thing you dressed up. Trimmed up the beard, got the haircut yesterday, down about 10 lbs… you look good. Not amazing yet, but you’re good.
No one even checked for your invitation. You’re an alum. Didn’t even need to flash the ring that finally now fits consistently again. You belong here. Somehow they know. You watch and smile, raise the Strawberry Banana juice cup you were going to hide the cigar ashes in. 😂 Enjoy the night. The celebration. Positivity. Laughter.
Great music. Just wonderful times other people are having. People with so many memories of this place just like you have yours. But you don’t know a single person here. And there was just a guy in a kilt. Because Charleston. 😂
So much pent up inside about her, but tonight’s not the night. At some point soon you will unblock her to keep the one channel open if she asks for prayer, but otherwise that’s that. Over 350 pictures deleted. Everything. You must try to forget what she looks like. That otherworldly beautiful smile will destroy itself and it’s devastating. Mourning more than missing. You still want so much for her to be truly happy.
But… Enough. The drama and negativity serve no purpose. Mourn the loss, clean the wound, and heal. Good news is you now have so much more of an appreciation for the kind of woman you need, rather than who needs you. You’re 45. You need More. So be More.
And the first step in Being More is realizing how much your life has now changed.
You now truly appreciate what it is like being with a woman you love. Happiness like you had never imagined. Your other half. Every day. Becoming one of your family. And that seed got planted deep.
The day you saw the dolphins at Waterfront Park was the day you have been waiting for for 22 years.
May 14 is finally the second happiest day of your life. Crow broke down that wall… and despite everything else, you owe her so deeply.
No, it didn’t work out – but that doesn’t change what December 6 felt like. This doesn’t feel like last 22 years of May 14 anymore. Good party. 😂
You are slowly filling with purpose. It’s almost reflexive. Diet. Exercise. Becoming more professional. Going to church for fellowship and wisdom rather than just seeing friends.
You feel His purpose in your life; it won’t be long to find a woman who is right for you now. Someone seeking you as you seek her. You may already have, but let’s keep that optimism in check.
For now… enjoy the night. You finally don’t need this tradition anymore. Sure didn’t end the way you thought it would, but that’s God for you. 😂
The fact that Crow is gone means Dec. 6 won’t be able to replace it. But it has finally become a feeling, not a memory.
Which is why you’re not going to have to wait much longer. And you won’t. You feel energized. You’ve tried it your way. You’ve learned you need to Be More, and choose God’s way.
The truth of the matter is that you’re starting to realize… Once your anger is done evaporating, that Crow changed you – for the better.
Lol… let’s see if you’re right.
You might come out another 5/14 one year hiding a cigar; it’s always a nice night each year.
2015? De Ruyter’s story put on screen and you missed it?
Another Friday Night worth having. Take a little pride in your progress. 2 weeks. 10 pounds. Today was 600 cal burned.
Burn 100 more before you leave. You’re going to have a minor celebration, But you have to pay for it in advance on the treadmill.
Six weeks. Only one social drink out when a friend pushed the emergency button needing to vent about something.
Wanted to play it safe when you reflexively went for the Admiral Nelson after a week of it.
Minimum one month sober. If you had a problem, you would be the last to know. Made it and was looking forward to getting back to Rum… How much? “Let’s find out, two more weeks.”
You’re good. Final test was last night picking it up and waiting until tonight to open it. Dad was always terrified you had his dad’s demons. No reason to take chances especially when it comes to empty calories lolz
104 calories per shot – if you go with regular spiced and not the Admiral Nelson 101 you prefer. Fun.
Logging every calorie in meals and exercise is difficult but it will be worth it.
Earned a shot lolz
Yeah it’s only a cooldown but still… you better enjoy that shot🙄
The admiral movie looks fun. Heard the score on the treadmill. Got pumped. And earned another shot.
Why is it that you very very rarely dream of the sea (even when you rarely do dream) but very few things exhilarate you more then seeing it and once in a blue moon getting on it?
Just another one of life‘s little mysteries. 🤔
The weird thing is that action movies get the adrenaline pumping as those parts of The human psyche that love going into battle get massaged. It’s natural to us. primal. No wonder everybody’s at each other‘s throat politically, people aren’t getting this stuff out of their system in this hyper regulated world.
Which is so bizarre because of all the action going around us and within us that we can’t see. But that’s for a later day.
Food Lion is a lot easier these days. Mostly just Waters, powerades and cat food. Money is very tight, but you remember something you heard a long time ago and picked up some really cheap cat food to donate. If you are generous when it’s it’s hardest to be, blessings seem to follow. Animal Society loves making sure people don’t stop feeding their pets when a recession hits.
You’re not saving anyone’s day it’s only five dollars on sale. But it’s a tiny little bit of difference. Just like every calorie not eaten at Chick-fil-A. Every blister from old shoes on the treadmill. Every Bible verse you read and don’t understand.
Wherever you’re going? you’ll get there. 🙂
Now it’s time for feet and muscles to ache sitting back and see what the Dutchmen pulled off at sea… 🌊 😁
It’s Not a Frame of Mind 