We need to talk. I needed you tonight and you were there. Thank you. With more words that I know, thank you. But something’s wrong. A coldness. Distance. Confusion on my end. Facing a lot of adversity (by my spoiled standards) has led me to have an undercurrent of frustration. Other factors chime in and instant sleep problems. And from there on, there goes the neighborhood.

I’m by your side. But on autopilot. That needs to be fixed. Foundation is solid, but the aim is Vibrance. And for me that means containing a few fires…

It’s my hope that navigating through the first hurdle in Classes will be a shot in the arm. Celt came back just in time to help me learn the basics of the system. Just getting one solid hit in the form of an accomplishment will do wonders.

The mold situation is what it is. I have a plan and am going to have to do lots of slow, frustrating work. And it’s hitting me in my insecurities royally because no man needs to rely on the folks at this age. And the more they do the more awkward I feel. This stuff does have to be done or it will spread. Otherwise I’d be fine with living with it until I could slowly get rid of it, Or whatever homeowners do who don’t have thousands of spare dollars around.

Watched rioters and mobs terrorize people just trying to live their lives and wishing someone would hit a packed crowd with molotovs. Thinking the kid that defended himself by shooting the two rioters trying to kill him would have just shrugged and got his money’s worth and painted the street red with his AR if he’s going to be jailed for self defense.

That’s not me, Lord. And it needs fixing.

The lack of confidence, proper sleep, disorganization, anger and insecurity are causing problems. Making me dwell on them and not You.

I don’t like this feeling. The universe is off, but there’s no way I can explain how. And it’s my responsibility to fix it. And there’s no reason why I can’t do it considering the 99% you’ve already done.

This stuff sneaks up on me. Has seemed to explode around Crow, but still we need you to help us fight it off.  We are all vulnerable and if I didn’t know better I’d bet those little bastards are using teamwork because we are. Always hitting us where we’re weak.

I need you, Lord. There are a million things I just don’t understand. And I probably never will. But I trust you. I don’t want to be cold anymore. I don’t like this. Thank you for being there tonight. Please keep holding her in your arms. Please help me shred my negativity. Just like mold I didn’t realize how bad it was until I had to fight it off. And frankly I need to give You credit for that too because my head was spinning thanks to sleep issues all week.

”I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

Stuff piled up. Please strengthen me. And please give her inspiration to ask you do the same for her. Her burdens are heavier than mine.

In Jesus’s Name,

Amen

…you really want to take her… and anywhere else. 😔



Sad tonight. Don’t know why. Waiting yet again. Having to ration adderall doesn’t help. Feel sick. Like smoked too much, which means you napped maskless again. F. Now is the time vivos could really help, but you can’t ask the folks for any more money when I need to just not zonk on the fing couch. Not running AC at night. Half your stuff is probably ruined. You have so much shit you’re gonna have to do. Sitting here waiting on whether or not you’re going to get into tech in time. So much unknown.

Ceiling fan is on high. Mixed with the sound of bathroom fans, air purifiers and a dehumidifier. Lonely. A dream you’re trying to forget apparently still on your mind. At least the details are gone. 

Considering the humidity level of the house it’s not like much else is to be expected. Feel so lethargic. You could stay at the folks place but you really don’t want to. Have a lot to do here. Sofa king tired.

All the music is old. All the movies are old. All the games are old. Even the future is old. Don’t hit these moods very often. Guess you need to every once in a while to remind you just how good you usually have it. 

And just now she just called. You wanted to beg her to talk longer. She was sad too, but any chance to try to cheer her up sidelines most of your own problems.  She’s upset because she just found out a friend died. Some parallels. Enough to make you dig into yourself. Well, someone needs to. God’s doing a thing with birds right now. Working in her life. Reaching to her in his way; the way best for her, not you – which is why you don’t understand… but trust.

You’re worried about so many things. Know this feeling well. Tick. Tock.  The marching of time. You are literally terrified about taking courses. Wondering if you can even learn.  it’s amazing how much confidence you have when it comes to the distant future and how little confidence you have in the immediate future. It’s not like there’s a tremendous amount of difference anymore between the two.

 And every day there will be less. You’ve never really seen yourself living too long of a lifespan, and since you don’t have kids and you probably won’t, that’s fine. As far as less time spent with whoever she is… whatever.

CS Lewis didn’t get married until he was 56. And the woman he married died of cancer four years later. If only he could have met her sooner.

You are so tired. 

The good news is tomorrow you will be fine. These moods don’t really last too long, even if they reflect “behind the scenes” weights on your heart you know you’re fighting right now.

Just get rid of the dream. Or have another one. One where you matter to someone. Those are so much more fun.

Mold experts arrive in the morning at 10am.

Yay.

Whatevs.

Don’t worry, it’ll get better. 🙂









Out of absolutely nowhere this almost unstoppable urge to have chocolate ice cream….

How the heck does that happen??? 😂

There’s phases in life it seems. When either your world was open, closed, or shifted for some reason. Moments when everything was anew; a new world began as an old one ended, and as time progressed usually that ending was long in coming it seems.

Often times these phases or eras go outside with other moments, sometimes overlapping or underlapping slightly, but still in the grand scheme could probably be defined as the same.

You bought your house in 2011, and Bill showed up in 2012. Looking back at things you can remember that year, but still bill is synonymous with the house. Each part of this era of your life.

That overlapped with the Xerox period of…well… professional laziness from 2009-2018 and TOP from 2018-2020. The job angle is just one aspect of growth that a new phase or era will bring. You’re not really sure if that comforts you or not.

1995 was probably the biggest of these changes, leaving an insulated a Christian home in Lexington to pile in the dorms at CofC. Only child finally gets a roommate. And instantly two. You handled that part actually pretty well. A lot of hangups, but you got past them.  that was the one year at the Lodge, then two years as an RA in a campus house. They feel like two such a distinct different time periods. Amazing how much just your surroundings can determine that.

Eventually you got your own apartment downtown and began that period of what would end up being decadence (by your standards). Two more years of college, but you got a computer with infamous AOL and that truly opened up the world for you. Just the idea of instantly striking up a conversation with someone on the other side of the continent. Text and pic only (via email or something?  can’t remember) but still you met interesting people and kind of forgot most of them from those days.

That was what, 98? Sounds about right. Gateway computer. The above Phoenix image was the background you put on it. LOL customized the sounds for each action. Two years at that studio apartment on King Street and three more in the one bedroom across the hall. After college it was working for mom and dad’s galleries during the week. Good old FFP on the weekends. 

Different periods seem to run together… similar apartments and friends and life. Though there was definitely that game changing moment when you graduated, really you were still that “person” / “in that life” from ’98 till what, 2003?

Then there was a lot of chaos that didn’t really end until you got the gig at Xerox six years later. Chances are in a few years you were lump TOP in with that period of time since it’s still the same house. Same cats. But wow things have changed since 2011.

Well… really? Events have happened. But really how different are you than you were when you moved in here? You still really needed to re-discover that confidence that served you well until it turned into arrogance in the mid ’00’s like you do now.

2019 was abject chaos. Amazing highs and amazing lows. Never has a year like it. 2020 so far has been the exact opposite. Entire months have passed with literally nothing happening in your life, waiting endlessly for things to happen that you said in motion as other people seemed to dawdle.

2020 has definitely been a bitch so far, But you have to remind yourself that the world doesn’t exactly see too much of a distinction because of how many times the earth has revolved around the sun and 2021 isn’t magically guaranteed to be any better or worse.

And yet you feel the vibrations of some thing within you. Almost like an engine starting to hum. You’ve already gone through a lot of changes in your social life; 2019 saw to that. A new era is on the horizon and you feel it. Rebirth.

It can be annoying. Often you wait until you are backed into a corner to face change coming down the pipe. You usually do fine when you have to though. Now it’s interesting because you’re trying to just take a shot in some random direction by taking classes again. Finding some job to just tide you over until you get a certificate and use the time in between to let God guide you back into where you want to be in a career.

“Getting a job”. That hasn’t been your mindset in 20 years. You’ve focused on having a career. And to be honest you still are… But part of that is going to have to involve just finding something to do to bring money in. Scares you. Feels like a step back. And frankly it is. But you trust that it’s just a step back that will involve two more steps forward soon enough.

Rebirth. You’re never going to have the confidence you did when you were 18 or 23, the two times you keep looking at in your life when you really had your head on straight and the sky was the limit. But the reason is because you are wiser now. The confidence that you are building you hope will equal those days, but it will have to be different. 

 No… it’s not a step back. It’s a step forward on your journey through life. And you’ve already been through many situations where you gained so much by getting so torched, lolz…

Damn, you just wish you could have that confidence again. That idealist, young stupid confidence of a 23 year old kid  that had just conquered his world. Only if you years later you would realize how small that world was compared to the one you were going into. Naïve bliss.

But that… was the beauty of it. You didn’t know what awaited you. But you were ready to encounter it. Just like Picard told Q before his arrogance was smashed by the Borg. Not long after, life was miserable by your standards.

Rebirth. You’ve gotten to the point you can feel it coming. Let’s face it… just the idea of going back to school… lol… a tiny part of you is going to be a kid again. 😂

You don’t know where it’s going to lead, and maybe the sky is going to be the limit again. Only this time you will know what to expect coming down the pipe afterwards – and be able to adapt to it instead of getting hit by a freight train when you are confronted with the reality of a ho hum job.

Adapt – or adaptation will be forced upon you. You’re not the only one that has the problem of waiting until you’re forced to act… but you’re getting better at it. Wiser. Maybe it’s just the beard. But for whatever reason you realize… Rebirth is coming. And soon.

You have a lot of fear of it. But that fear is slightly outweighed by your hope for it. There is no shame in taking a step back to take two steps forward. What’s important? What matters?

God is seeking to preparing you for the next phase of your life. There is a reason why. Even in this dark year… you know tomorrow is going to be better. 🙂

No wonder you are letting many of your hopes run wild. 😂





In no particular order.

www.youtube.com/watch

So loved.

Don’t ever forget.

That’s all. 🌷



Business Applications Solutions Specialist. Requirements: accounting applications, Microcomputer spreadsheets, Microcomputer database, Microcomputer word processing, Advanced microcomputer applications, microcomputer multi media concepts and applications. each course with its own prerequisites. 15 credit hours.

Significant need for career shift; greater need for individual job satisfaction and income. Return to actual career. Need to give more. Be more to give more. Provide more. How you’re wired; a need to matter. Why not?

It pissed you off so much the year you graduated to learn that more black men went to prison then to college the year before, 1999. Started you off with a desire to work in financial aid at a college. Your college. Help folks be able to afford a future in such a way that they’re not screwed afterwards. You tried so hard to get into that field; Used networking connections; Played the game, and then finally discovered how much contempt you had for it. Who you knew. Not what you know. Goodness though… the kind of people that you could know. But the game sickened you, so you turned your back on it. Chose to fight and scratch and claw. Even then you took the easy route. Not that it wasn’t a good thing to help the folks out in the business for a while. You were the bosses kid, so there was no reason to expect anyone to like you. You came in late, but you also stayed late when you needed to. Not a lot of people have spent all night at the office before. Contributed to the arrogant phase. Ironic. If you weren’t so hell-bent on trying to be humble, you might not have gone through that.

It’s not like they’re worth millions; they aren’t. They have enough to live comfortably And they’re going to make sure you’re okay. You’re set. Well, set enough since you never had kids and you have no one else to provide for.

But there’s…what burns in you. What you really can’t stand. The idea of being set… Oh, don’t kid yourself, it’s reassuring… But sitting around and not making anything of yourself just isn’t possible. You desperately want to provide for someone. At the very least, yourself. You just feel some calling to do more or be more. That’s not a credit to you; it’s a credit to the folks.

And you know what you want the most. Build a company from the ground up? Eh. Not for your sake. Help others in waltzed their dreams? Now we’re talking.

You’re not the fighter from D&D. Not the priest. Not the paladin or the Ranger. God help you… you’re the Bard. Can’t do shit on your own. Big bonuses to the group, though. It’s even the way you played Halo with the guys. Mason amazing on defense if he has the rocket launcher. Matt devastating if he has the sniper rifle. You let the other guys worry about the kill counts, you took it upon yourself to be the guy that got the weapons to those that could use them. Never lost one of those LAN matches.

Sucks for you out here in the real world, doesn’t it? You can’t do shit without other people. And you want to do so much. And if you can’t figure out how you can fit in… maybe you could just do so much for just one person.

Though true you form even then though, you can’t do shit without them. You don’t want to talk about it. But the idea of people not wanting to be more… Fine. But why the hell are they proud of it? Because far too many are, and you cannot comprehend that. You’re 43. You can’t respect that anymore. You see absolutely no reason to sink down when you have everything you need to rise up and try your best to carry people with you. It wounds you so deeply. Whatever. You could tell her everything and she still wouldn’t know. You know because you already have. On three substances and she still couldn’t find what she found when she came to church. And then a desire to go back down that path of emptiness? What, rolling the dice on cocaine three or four times wasn’t enough? Thank God she didn’t hear what actually came out of your mouth. But she didn’t get anything, so take comfort in that. 

Enough. Just shut up and let it be enough. Let the pain and anger dissolve away. You want so much more for her. But that doesn’t matter if she has no interest in more for herself. Still up to her. You just know the kind of person you are striving to be… and understand the world for the way it is. Sets your stomach in knots and you don’t need that. Even now… just breathe.

Just breathe. He has a plan. For her, you, and everyone else. And there’s not a damn thing you can do for her or anyone else until you are true to the only thing you can control… your role in His plan for you.

Okay. Alright. So how would a business applications solutions specialist Address the problem of not knowing the right career?

Pfft… you don’t have a clue. You’re just played the game the way you ought to have from the beginning and met a friend of your dads who was in a position to toss out some advice. And that advise lead to a course outline. And you don’t have a clue. You really don’t and it’s kind of funny. 😂

But you’ve prayed. And tried to learn from your mistakes. And you feel like this is the path. You really have no idea what to expect. And honestly at this point you finally are confronted with actual consequences for your actions in the one area that you can’t be “set” in… Time.

You just have to do something… and this seems like the path you asked to be led to. And you’re sick of waiting. You know this is going to lead to something. Because you have good faith in your heart, and eternal optimism even if it’s foolhardy. 

Don’t waste one minute when you have found a trail to follow. Doesn’t even have to be a path yet, much less a plan.

Be patient. Nothing worth it happens on our schedule. 🙂

You don’t understand. You just don’t understand. It’s okay you guess, you don’t have to. First instinct is to go grab a couple of shots yourself and vent, but He already knows how you feel. Second thought mixes with a developing headache and the fact you didn’t get any sleep last night and suggests otherwise…

You are used to the thorns on the rose when it comes to her, you just really wish you could separate your feelings so you don’t get hit by plunging fire out of nowhere. No longer crushing but still hurts like a son of a bitch.

The good news is you’re not here because you’re some lame “nice guy pining for girl with loser”. You did have a question about that, but answered it. That’s just lame; and you have some self-respect at least. Last thing any decent woman wants is a pushover. As much as you don’t like getting into arguments with her, you think she understands that.

Doesn’t mean those feelings went away… but you know the certainty in your heart despite what you don’t understand… but on a night like this that doesn’t matter.

Do what you’ve always done… get what you’ve always got. 

Understanding the reality of the situation means you can forgive yourself for being cut by the thorns. But it can’t be about that. Just collateral damage now… still hurts though; No shame in admitting it.

Maybe you’re literally wrong about everything about her and she’s just winding things down to destruction. That would devastate you in ways you couldn’t even imagine. You really don’t know what purpose you would have or have any faith in yourself to matter regarding it. Light that shines brightly within you, and failed when it mattered.

Do what you’ve always done… get what you’ve always got.

She wants God to reach out with “extra effort” to her. Creator of the heavens and the earth. Alpha and Omega. Endured horrific torture Physically, emotionally, and spiritually tormented before dying for our sins.

But she deserves “extra”. So here you are, feeling like her happiness and Home are your greatest desire in life, Only to have that definite chopped liver feeling…🤔

Either you’re sincere and it is your mission in life to see her happy and make her way Home – even if not with you – or you really are just a lame idiot who still just put his love for her ahead of God’s will.

It’s not like your cognitive processes have ever been where they needed to be since you’ve known her. Whatever; you’re fixing that. Soon you’ll be back in that rare form that’s eluded you the past few years and back to fighting off arrogance…

Maybe then you’ll be wiser and have what it takes to challenge her to find more in life. Take a shot on better. Even if your heartfelt wish for her is that “extra”… Even if she asked for 80/20… She has eventually got to do her part and take that shot. Whatever it ends up looking like. Wherever it ends up being.

Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got.

So be thankful. Wear the mask and heal. Be more than you are.  But never forget… as with literally all of God’s children, she is in charge of her choices.

And one day, you just hope she chooses… Happiness. And Home.

Whatevs. Mask. Sleep. Pray. Grow. Whatever role you are playing, you need to be better at it.

And Lord… thanks for the cat. 🙂