As I enter the fourth week of 2007, I reflect on my past year. Normally, in times past, this would be written in a journal in the first week, but as things have been rather busy, I am writing it late. Oh well.
I have commented repetitively that 2006 was my year on Sabbatical. That is, after my accident, and consequently, my 5 months of hospitalization, it was a time of rebuilding. My dear friend Todd, commented to me once that it is not a rebuilding, but rather a restructuring. Todd, you’re a good man, but no, it is a rebuilding. Restructuring entails keeping the frame and redecorating. surface and glitter, paint-overs and fill-ins. No, it is a rebuilding. I’ve torn down the walls, the plumbing, the counters holding my secrets, cleaned out the mess; the skeletons if you will. And there were a lot of them. I think I found Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earheart.
Foundation only.
And even then, I resurfaced, leveled and strengthened that.
A Rebuilding.
After being laid off from EDS, and deciding to do contract work in Information Technology, a shift started to happen. Leaning. Whatever you wish to call it when the ship takes on too much on the Port side and too little on Starboard side and starts to lean. An imbalance. I started to lose sight of what was important to me and to lose focus on the things that SHOULD have mattered. I let if affect my family, my values and my eye on what I wanted to achieve in the future. In 2005, when I and Gina split up, and the ensuing muck of back and forth emotions which eventually led to us completely separating, I was devastated. Was I partly to blame? Yes. Could I have done something about it? Of course. Did I really want to?…No.
In December 2005, when I had my losing argument with the tree in Plano, that put me in the Fancy Hotel VA Hospital for 5 months, I really learned just what Hell was. The place in and of itself was not bad, it was just that at that time, and who I was, I did not need to be kept up. In a wheelchair. Needing help to bath. Bathroom. You get the idea. My pride was sucked into tht black hole called desperation. When one needs to piss, one hits the nurse call button, can only hold it in so long. In the process, no job. No money. My truck went bye-bye. So did the house. Every thing gone.
Stripped to the bone. Starting over.
I learned who my real friends were. I learned to appreciate them for what they were doing for me, and better, I learned how to emulate them; to incorporate it into my own being. Todd one time brought me a chess set, and it was missing a queen, but had an extra bishop, so he sat there and carved it into a bishop.”You work with what you got”.
You work with what you got. What words. As time moved on, I started to examine who I really was. I was a selfish and egotistical man. If I did anything, I did it to further serve my purposes. Was I good at what I did? You bet.
I was ashamed of myself.
2006, after the hospital, I decided to take a easy laid back job, with no stress as I started to learn to walk again and to use my left arm. I took my time in everything I did, and tried to connect with people. Slowly. It is hard for me to describe, but I learned that how we are with people truly affects us, and them. We are so intertwined, and is as clear as the nose on a llama’s face, but like the lost trees in a forest, we tend to go blind.
I started to lay out what I wanted to do. Where I wanted to go in life. Being single and without the whole family was an odd feeling, ghostly even. I decided to go back to school. I decided that I wanted out of the whole IT industry. I decided that I was going to be a father again.
This New Year has brought on some of the changes I wanted, and some unexpected surprises. I met and am dating an incredible woman that has so filled me with Joy and that Completes me, I cannot see myself without her. Happily, I do the same for her. She has put faith back in my life, and even though I want to be a better man for myself, I want to be one for her as well; me energizes me to strive to be better than what I am. She is my Best Friend.
I’ve returned back to school. I’m going back into the medical field after leaving Emergency Medicine years ago from all the tragedy I saw. Radiology. Something I wanted to do since the Navy. I am excited what avenues this type of field will open for me.
My daughter Tara. She and I have reconnected. This has really been an issue for me. She is coming into her own, and as time goes by, I will actually get to be a part of it for her. As much as she will deny it at times; she is made in my image in her essence; she just looks like her mother.
I am still struggling financially. I still have a lot to catch up with, but as one of my friends remarked that I am like a rubber ball; I always bounce back.
Everyone better duck; I’m coming your way soon and at high velocity.
