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Friend…or not?
Back in January of 2008, I was in a bad place. I was deployed twice in 2007, but only for a couple of months each time. One was in the spring and one in the fall. On both deployments, something happened that caused me extensive pain and nightmares. Both were combat-related things that I was…
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Daily Prompt 2/9/23
Do you need a break? From what? I need a break from taking on too much responsibility for things I cannot control. It’s still something I struggle with regularly. I feel so responsible for so many things that go wrong; things that I absolutely have no control to change. Stupid things like feeling guilty because…
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Relief
We finally reached an off-ramp in my wife’s mammogram journey. Whew!! As I wrote about here, the same day that my wife learned that her grandmother passed away, she also got a call that they saw something on her mammogram and wanted to take another look. It was stressful, but ended up pushed to the…
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A little experiment
For years I wanted to write a blog but I was scared of my own voice. Sometimes I would post something remotely controversial on my FB page, like the time I said for everyone to understand that representation matters when our VP was sworn in. Immediately old military co-workers jumped on it, saying things like…
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Daily Prompt 2/6/23
How does death change your perspective? Wow, this here is a deep one. As usual, I have questions. Whose death? How old am I and what stage of life am I in? Because it honestly depends on all of these things. My grandfather died when I was five and it did not change anything for…
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Name Change
I’ve been ready to change my name since I was four years old. Once I was strong enough to move my furniture around my room, I used to hide behind my dresser and write my chosen name in crayon on the back of my dresser. I would write Timmy or Sylvester over and over. I…
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One Hell of a Saturday
The past week has been an insane, emotional blur. We left on Monday to be there for the funeral on Tuesday, then drove home on Wednesday, tried to restart the normal weekday activities on Thursday, and were back in the swing of things by Friday. Unfortunately all of the weeks’ changes interrupted my wife’s already…
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focus, Focus, FOCUS!!
My ADHD brain has lost its way. In the last few days I have left a huge trail of destruction through the house, been unable to finish tasks, and have been daydreaming more than ever. Today was no different. I made a mistake that was so cringeworthy that I am hesitant to repeat it here…
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R. Kelly
I’ve been watching the Surviving R. Kelly documentaries the last few weeks. At the time all of his abuses were coming to light, I was sort of out of touch with it. My life was always kind of nuts in the early 2000s. I do recall hearing some of it and that no one believed…
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Summing up a life
The funeral was today. As expected, it was difficult. As an empathetic person, I felt sadness all around me. There were pictures of her scrolling on the tv the entire time. And wouldn’t you know it, every single picture of her with a birthday cake in front of her was all smiles of pure joy.…