Choosing a Different Path

The life we create for ourselves comes complete with certain slack times when reflection is possible.  My experience with this is after some outside force challenges the illusion of your basic assumptions.  The reality we act out on the stage of our own construction can have a fault trap door or two. The Cosmic Chaos generator has a very low sense of humor.  It’s what happens afterward that is the lesson.  A ladder or a step in a different direction. Welcome to free will.  True freedom sets the conditions for going hungry and becoming homeless. In a word failure.

The essence of Chaos Theory is no experiment can be repeated due to the infinite number of variables acting on that point of time.  On a human scale, we can see, hear and feel the train going.  The first choice is pay attention.  How many of us have watched the slow car crash of someone elses life?  How much that person is liked determines if it’s popcorn or an intervention that is sought. It’s a guilty pleasure.  But for the grace of god exposing a certain callousness. Intimate personal relationships carry special weight. Failed couples with children have lost the cushion deeply felt positive emotions provide.  in some ways naked conflict is easier because of the barriers those negative feelings build. The passion of my marriage died a slow death.  Being truthful, it was my lack of effort.  I may have been a crappy husband but a good Dad. That’s why we both put our kids first in all things.

My ex drops them off every morning so I can take them to school.  We talk about many things and know which to avoid. Those are sharp edges that cut deepest.  The person you live with changes with time. A failed marriage is second only to the death of a spouse in emotional turmoil.  Only now those two people must negotiate with someone they think they know.  The conflict between an old life and a new.  I’ve been guardedly honest about my Bi-polar struggles.  Imagine if you will that chaos is the norm. After the first two implosions, you start questioning every thought on the down swings.  And never question them while gliding with style. That was my life until four years ago.  30 years of flawed decisions.  Stuck in the middle of high functioning until.  The until kills.  

Now the medication has allowed clear choices.  One such is upon me.  The newness of the sidestep instead of the climbing the ladder are still touching.  The stress of unemployment is lessened by hope of a plan.  The soul killing thought of walking once more into a job repeated from my past is much worse.  That is what this past weekend held.  The pro and cons viewed through the now led to a decision.  To those on the outside it will appear short sighted.  Could end up that way.  Exercising freedom of choice has a cost.  It could be high.  It’s not how many times you fall but how many times you get up.  Cliche? Sure.  Doesn’t make any less true.  

So decision made.  Now it’s time to ride the tiger.  

Thank You for taking time to read this.  Actively practicing my skill to make this a less painful experience for the reader.   

Quantum cave Paintings.

Heard an interesting science news story this morning.  What we know about the structure and function of the human brain not only is for solving current health issues but explaining the why in the past.  Why is it in every world culture that the earliest art has the same geometric pattern?  Our brain does work in spatial relationships. Pattern recognition is a survival tool. The eye has evolved to notice movement.  Another survival trait.  Knowing that it does really solve the problem our earliest ancestors left.  The hieroglyph were just strange highly developed art until the Rosetta stone was found by a soldier in Napoleon’s Egyptian adventure.  Now the strange wonderful culture of the first civilization is a must see tourist industry.

So cave paintings.  Alan Turing’s Reaction-diffusion system described how stable chemical processes became unstable that represented that new state in geometric patterns.  Why do zebras have stripes and leopard spots.  Successful mutation or better explained by natural selection.  The rest got eaten or died or disappeared.  Pick one.  Since Man is the highest order animal, the chemical process is basically the same.  introduce early peyote and let the art flow. See patterns. Draw patterns. Stump the intellectuals millenniums later.  All it took was the crazy brilliant mind of a homosexual WWII codebreaker who died because he was gay to write the paper.  Years later Chaos Theory and the fields of chemistry, biology, physics and ecology benefited from his groundbreaking work.  

Personal soapbox warning.  

The attack on science by christians has nothing to do the surface issues.  It has everything to do with laziness.  What’s easier in the grind of low wage capitalism, belief or the hard work of science.  It also is built on the conflict of the safety of unthinking certainty from the outside and repeated admitting you may be wrong in a basic assumption.  Water will find the path of lest resistance.  Faith is a deep channel of acceptable groupthink.  Not ask hard questions.  The true wow factor of science gets removed by the Texas Text book Commission.  Texas is the largest market for text books other than California and they aren’t buying any.  So the most uneducated social repressive people with an agenda get to determine the basis for rest of the country.  Since they hate evolution and all thing questioning their form of religion, creationism in the clothing of intelligent design gets slipped in.  

When these folks get serious ill, don’t use modern medicine to get better.  It’s all based on Evolution.  You try to hedge your bets an intelligent super being guiding us humans.  Hey archeologist move the human bones from the dinosaur finds then take the pictures.  I call Bull Shit.  

Science is hard.  It takes time and challenges false beliefs or facts.  Makes you think some.  Now school teach the test to get the money in order to keep their jobs. People operate on the three basic needs.  Food, shelter and clothes.  

Steps down from soapbox.

Again thank you for some of your valuable time to read one man’s search for understanding.  Later.      

Permanent Reminders

8 a.m.  There are those moments in the course of a day when I stopping listening to the internal voice and open my ears to listen.  That happened yesterday.  A friend was talking about the noise at Chucky Cheese’s during the day when all the parties happen.  The noise, lack of personal space along with the loss of patience for pity BS creates the perfect storm for social anxiety. Trigger Fight or Flight add a sizable handful of lack of self control and worry over the cost of the princ/ess’s party, welcome to the jungle.  That an incident doesn’t happen every Saturday and Sunday says more to society’s health than the failings.  Maybe it just doesn’t reach the tipping point.  

That stray thought oddly spun off this train of thought.  Waking up with this stuff bouncing around your head is a blessing and a curse.  For a writer it source material when they can put in a form to quiet the noise.  The reason so many of that species drink to fill the time in between.  Having this affliction comes with certain grab bag of personality traits.  The work is demanding.  Requires discipline most won’t see due to the solitary nature of the grunt work.  

Warrior’s working on their skills is great TV.  Every guy remembers when he wanted to be that guy.  Life and human nature got in the way.  The single minded pursuit of a goal has a price most are unwilling to pay.  That’s what the drama of it. Yes the conflict and the fact all women secretly dig scars creates an vicarious framework of what if.  The spike on bicycle sales after Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France each time proves the point.  There is a hard lesson we don’t want to face,

Human are lazy undisciplined sorts unless it’s in that small part of our lives that we like doing.  Whether it’s what you do for a living is unimportant.  Work pays for a life outside of work. In the 21st, work or career has required more time to afford the other. Since my unemployment, all that talk at work about what if I didn’t work at ( ), I would have time for [  ].  The utter lack of any framework for my time outside of work and family obligations has me rationalizing the waste of time.  The difference is where my life is right now. Having the choice of being out in the sun or simply looking out of a window is the sweetest freedom.  If you work somewhere expanses of glass let the light in, this could sound strange.  Now imagine working in a metal building with noisy machinery in a mind numbing job with the only hope outside is when you’re on break.  

Office buildings are just a nice cage. Understanding what being Bi-polar means to tour life allows for a more flexible acceptance of  certain limitations.  There is a simple decision we face daily.  Do you swim against the current or go with it. The exception is I swim across the current.  Doesn’t always work.  One aspect this is what your reading now.  I consider a blog more of a public journal of the journey filled with the mundane repeating lessons or flawed insights that might help someone else.  The road to dealing with my separation and being away from the daily joys with my children was marked by those we went before.  They listened to my rambling covering a real fear. This is my way of paying it forward.  Too many years of fighting the current.  Too many times of being battered on the rocks when complete exhaustion happened.  The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

That kind of pain creates many layers over time.  Personally there is only so much strength to face the pain, waiting in ambush, that a person willing seeks out.  Thanks for reading.  Has always you dear reader spending a small fraction of your valuable time here appreciated.  Have a good one. 

 

Getting in the Right Mental State.

Tomorrow I will get a full back piece from a gifted and skilled tattoo artist.  In the short period of three years this will be my fourth.  Each has grown in color, size and meaning that has paralleled my own evolution into someone who would be my friend. A fascination with tattoos started with my overseas adventure in the Navy. The only reason there was no ink from that time was a purely financial one.  One final insult from my long time self employed father left my Mom in a bad way.  So you make good money or the illusion of good money for a 15 years or longer without paying social security on that money.  WTF. My parents were older.  So Mom stayed home while the Husband provided. Depression Era survivors who never talked about money or insurance or what happens after in a stew of abuse and craziness ended in a bitter empty meal.  What I have come to understand about the man who was my Father started with today’s headlines.  

My father played football in the early helmet era of the early 40s.  He got a series of concussions from it.  Medicine of the time was one step above that of a Medieval Latin Doctor in regards to the subject.  Time will make it go away.  Oh and move to a dry climate.  The family had just moved to Houston from West Texas.  There’s a reason old football players aren’t shown on TV when talking about the effects of concussions, the physical change is frightening.  The man was unknown to the boy in pictures.  His altered personality meant that half of a small paycheck went home.  The only saving grace about the situation was that I was on a Forward deployed supply ship out of Guam.  It never stayed in port and visited countries where the dollar had very good exchange rates.  

Tattoos fell into the category of a luxury. In a way that was a blessing in disguise. My head was never in the right place to get a tattoo.  What I’ve come to understand is the deep symbolic meaning of permanency ink represents.  They are marking of Life.  These aren’t the drunk Spring break dare tats or popular it looks cool now.  Artist are making money on fixing bad tattoos. When the question of why comes up in conversation, the answer is always a variation on a theme.  They are celebratory signpost of living an open life.  Life is to experience the full range of being human.  

Younger people are braver than myself. They also live in a different time. Change is the one constant. The one piece of advice that guides all my artwork location was from a heavily Tattooed snipe.  BT2 Parrot had a beautifully detailed parrot in a lush jungle scene on his forearm.  It was surrounded by small unrelated flash.  In the mid 80s that was what happened.  His words are etched in my memory.

“If you get one, you’ll want two.  Make sure they’re hidden when you wear a short sleeve shirt.”  At that point he held out his arms. “Don’t do what I did.  No self respecting woman in the states will want me.  I do my 20 and retire overseas. Being retired Navy will mean more than being tattooed.”  

Technology has made living with visible ink easier but the stigma of tattoos is still a barrier in professional settings.  Mine are covered for other reasons. They are helping to confront body issues. Tattoos mark you has different.  A deeply personal event is permanent visible. There’s no way it can be hidden by the shadows again. Pink ribbons with the names of mothers, sisters or aunts are becoming a common tattoo.  Will Breast cancer ever become a whispered subject again?  

My tattoos are deeply personal.  They represent core values.  Passions. In order.  A symbol of non belief by using the earliest symbol every religious belief system has adopted has uniquely theirs.  The Shield of the US National soccer team over my heart.  A family tree with my children’s names that is a tree stretching back for the ones before and fading into the future. Tomorrow I will join a diverse worldwide group of soccer ultras that wear the colors and symbols of their tribe.  Soccer and the hardcore of their supporters are intensely tribal.  It’s a level beyond fan. To Americans living outside of those pockets of professional soccer clubs or only watching, this sounds extreme.  Maybe it is.  

The most powerful human need is to belong. It represents safety. A place to relax. Human contact. Modern life isolates us into smaller groups that don’t meet in public outside of like groups.  Youth soccer. Church. Political parties. Business contacts are very superficial by their nature.  Standing shoulder to shoulder in the terraces singing with one voice for your club is transforming.  More so for a loner by personality.  There can be no separation when you’re the crowd.  Not one of many but one.  That is want this tattoo represents is the pure joy of Belonging. How many people can say that?  

To my brothers and sister in ink, Keep living loud.  For the tribe of soccer Ultras, everyone sees it when it done.  CTID.

Managing Expectations.

Parents are supportive of the changeable nature of child’s dreams.  Those emotionally charged statements of life are the basis for funny stories and fond memories to be passed on.  If we admit it, it’s rote form of agreement made to fragile bubbles. Dreams are made of such stuff.  At a certain age it shift from wanting to be just like you to what’s cool.  Many times parents want to relive memories or failed dreams through smaller versions of themselves.

Being an older parent of a teenage daughter, the words of Master Will are ringing true. My 13 year old is not only the star of the stage but a household name.  That dream is what I’m ruthlessly using has a lever to shape a more productive and successful adult. The child so was absorbed the rules and habits of her parents.  Both good and bad.  A confused contradictory mess.  She wants something that looks easy. It’s an illusion. Her dream is to be part of the Dream industry. That the carrot ton the stick.

Show business is a distilled version of life.  They like me.  Why don’t you like him anymore. How did i end up here again.  Her Mom researched the company behind the talent call.  The first of many expectation to manage.  It was the her first taste that life is a contact sport. The sharp points so easy to grow in youth are smoothed out or broken in time.  When a man thinks of marriage, all he has to do is look at the woman’s mother to see the future.  It’s the same for children.  The exposed personality of the parents was on display for the talent scout to see. My first role in this journey is to remind a teenager that her dream of fame doesn’t mean her shit don’t stink.  Brutally honest I can do. My second role is that of protector of my Little Miss Magic. (Thanks Jimmy B)

Why go through all this?  What she is going to learn will be valuable later.  College Graduates are getting this advice in order to be hired.  My daughter will get a master level course at 13.  This same confidence can be developed through sports.  The problem with that is all the joy found in being part of a team is smothered by well meaning but clueless coaches.  The other end is the criminally incompetent and well connected so they are entrenched.  Children and their parents are pawns in the lottery of sport.  Worse of all is the middle. Too many of us live life there.

There is one aspect of this journey I feel comfortable talking to my daughter about.  What happens when the public mask slips? When the true self that we lie to ourselves about is staring back it us?  There are only three options.  Go back to living a lie.  Embrace the comfort of the familiar.  The constant pain from failed dreams. We determine the walls of our life.

You can accept who you’ve become.  The good, bad and ugly.  This for the truly brave or desperate. Addicts hit rock bottom when the fall shatters the illusion they created about their life. Is there a 12 step program for those of us addicted to Chaos? Wisdom comes complete with scars.  The worse revelation is your life is directed by the expectation and whims of others. Suddenly you are alone with only your beliefs to get through it all.  The Path less travelled. My choice was to pick up the fork and machette next to it. Then start destroying all the vines and roots holding me in place.  All construction starts with demolishing the past.  Not all of the past is bad.  That is gently set aside for further thought.  The absolute joy of freedom is in itself a trap.  The Buddha was right when he taught about living moment to moment.  Neither joy or water can be held in a closed fist.  The middle way is best.

The one path that is a living death is accepting only part of yourself.  Whether it’s the good or bad. Many aren’t aware that what they’re doing it.  At some part we have to work with the cards in our hand.  Chasing the illusion of a complete personality transplant just leads to chaos on a grand scale. Now you’re living two lies.  I was exposed to those thoughts has a child.  Circumstances brought me a place where I went through all these stages.  The person that emerged from the jungle is one still under construction.  The frame is solid.  The foundation of five core beliefs will ensure it.  The decor is starting to come in focus.

How does this help me with my daughter?  She needs to be true to herself.  Agents, talent scouts and other kids there will be judging her against a template she has no control over. Trying to fit into someone else opinion of her is a losing propostion. That will make her a stronger person who will have a better chance of being successful.  She’ll have to decide what that means.  Things I’ve learned in thinking about my daughter’s expectations have opened other avenues for me to explore.  Life is a journey.

Thanks for reading this far.  Your time is valuable.  Having you spend some of it on my rambling gives me strength to live out loud.

That Thing called Home

Heard Elton John talk about his new album on the radio.  The song he did on the Grammy show was better on the album. Sparse. It let the emotion unfold. The concept of place and home is something I’ve struggled with all my life.  Making a generic structure into a home goes beyond changing wall color or furniture.  People you surround yourself with transform a defined space into an undefinable personal reality.  The majority of us will never have the opportunity to be the first to create a physical structure from vision to reality. We inhibit a place infused with others hopes and dreams told in the intimacy of moment.  Paint and carpet start our nostalgia carried through a journey of ever more complicated lives.  The past contains an allure of better times.

Those of us who grew up with Kung Fu got our first exposure to Oriental wisdom.  The  Old Master’s lessons to Grasshopper burst out my subconscious when they are needed.  One time he was told to hold water in his hand. Has an open handed cup it slowly flowed away. A closed fist holds nothing.  The more we grasp for the illusion of the past offers, the more any of real discover of home disappears.  Home is changeable.  Some have no way to express a place call yours.  Trust and stability are the emotional framework everything hangs on.  A barrel full of monkeys.  

When those god like people in a child’s life violate one or both, Chaos becomes the broken framework of life.  We are all driven by the three basic needs of life.  Food, shelter and warmth.  That is a cave or box with walls.  Those of us with the lest defend those in a way others can’t or won’t understand.  With resources, the three needs are met.  Expectations are different.  Home is not has defined by strong emotions.  Those ties haven’t been challenged.  The strongest steel comes from the hottest fire.  

Those Gypsies find that fire in its absence.  When one spends any long periods of time away from what is considered home it causes a break in our personal time.  In pursuing fields of work that involve travel, shared time is split.  Each will have its own velocity.  We adjust to those important to us.  Extended time away involves an element of nostalgia that helps us forget time flows like water. Our imagined reality is amber. Where is the conflict between the two reconciled?  In the comfortable embrace of a favorite chair or old shirt.  

Many now understand the brutality of not having that comfort.  All the news contains a conflicted society.  Asking why will have many different answers.  The answers hide the underlying concept of Home.  Not having a place to rest.  Someplace to feel safe in is emotionally crippling.  There was a reason I enjoyed school.  My home, like many, was a battle field.  At 49 my attachment to a concept of place and home are the same.  

This was an attempt to put into words many emotions others have told me.  Mine is a clumsy path to express concepts of thoughts with imprecise language.  Thank you for reading this far.  

Why Soccer has become good; Depth at the lower leagues.

In watching the NASL match between Tampa Bay and Carolina, the commentators brought up some important points.  First the quality of the second division is enjoyable to watch.  The match flows with quality play on both ends.  Here are players that grew up with a dream of apply their skills at the highest level possible.  The clubs have chosen regional college players to form the core of the team.  Add the carefully chosen internationals to teach those intangible elements learned from inside the culture where soccer is the sport.  The Railhawks have players on loan from A USLPro team.  The USLPro season is a third division league who has an agreement with MLS to help develop young players.  There were also past MLS players for both teams.

Colleges are reaping the benefits of the Fourth division summer leagues already.  The PDL, also under the USLPro umbrella, and the NPSL, an independent league, have teammates from the summer playing for Div 1 and II programs. That familiarity of play is providing early success for teams across the country.  The rules are such that players are exposed to different coaches both on and off the field.  The NCAA rules keep players from playing has much has Europeans of the same age.  That is something I would like to see tweaked.  Will most of these play professionally at the top levels?  The odds are against them.  Most will keep playing and/or coach at many levels.  Not all of them can be Jay Demerit.  Has with most college graduates that play sports, they will go professional in some other field.  

Has a soccer fan who has waited decades to see soccer get to this point,  I couldn’t be happy that an NASL player got a call up to the USMNT.  All this means that high quality soccer is being played somewhere I can actually go to.  Being in the stands is a addiction.  There was a time having an addiction was something of a mystery to me.  DCFC withdrawal has destroyed that ignorance.  The supporter culture still has shallow roots but that’s changing too.  

Now if the MLS and USLPro will stop claim jumping the ground work the NASL has done in under served cities, soccer will really grow.  Look I understand a perfect storm is happening.  Huge egos are driving investment in a sport that is unprofitable in the cold light of reality.  Sports owners had never been accused of being rationale.  MLS is the big bully with deep pockets.  The NASL imploded once.  Version 2 is where the MLS was ten years ago.  USLPro is the latest manifestation of an organization founded in 1982.  The NPSL is a work in progress.  

Atlanta has a successful NASL club with a supporter culture that is becoming known for their passion.  So the MLS starts making it announcement of adding 4 more teams starting with Author Blank in Atlanta.  Orlando City SC and Miami with Beckham.  Funny thing the Southeast is where the NASL and USLPro are strongest.  The talent pool is the joker in the equation.  The depth is not uniform in quality. There are places where the bottom is exposed in a good wind.  My fear is a rapid expansion will lead to a repeat of history.  Perception is funny.  Very successful businessman and women can become kid millionaires where sports ownership is involved. 

The lack of depth is most critical in the off field organization.  The Patriots are successful for the strength of the organization behind the scenes.  The product on the field is the end result not the starting point.  All these new organizations will need soccer people who understand the tea leaves of the world game. Many have said the American game is a different animal.  So why is it so important to have viable and healthy lower leagues?  Players only get better by playing against quality opponents.  Intriguing competitive sides create buzz.  Casual fans are interested in that buzz.  Casual fans, families and supporters pay the bills.  Supporters and Ultras are the colorful spice that expand the atmosphere for a one of a kind event every match.  Passion brings sponsors.  Sponsors pay the club money to get in front of passionate fans.  

Break any link of this chain and the club fails. The Beautiful Game grows best with deep roots.  Those roots are the matches that aren’t covered by major media.  Dr. J played his best games before TV found the NBA/ABA.  Every league below the MLS level is critical to the success of the spreading of the sport in America. My club is Detroit City FC.  City Till I Die.  

The Agony of a Soccer fan in an Uncaring Region.

The US beat Mexico on Sept 10th to book a trip to Brazil and the World Cup.  207 countries compete for 32 spots every 4 years.  Most of those countries these countries are crazy happy just to make the cut.  Some just won there first qualifying game in decades.  Before 1994, America missed qualifying for 40 years.  After, every World Cup.  That says something about the changing face of soccer.  The headlines about one generation carrying the flag of American soccer is just that.  Success of a culture is multigenerational mix of those that played at some level and the new Americans in urban centers.  Michigan doesn’t have a professional team.  Two and half 4th tier summer league clubs for college players.  College soccer is alive and well but not accessible outside of campus.  

My Facebook feed explodes with watch parties for US National Team matches.  Watching the Women play at Ford field was great.  Last night we captured a spot in Brazil in front of 24,600 crazed supporters who created a European derby atmosphere.  Where was I?  Watching the second half in a bar where they had trouble finding ESPN and the music was more important than sound from the match. I was the only one who cared.  Not the first time.  Detroit City FC supporters section has set the bar very high.  Anything less is a crushing disappointment.  An orphan in a sport mad state.  What makes it worse is Detroit has pockets of my type of craziness but circumstances restrict travel to those oasis of the Beautiful game.  A small handful of bars have craved a niche for all those who wish to one day stand with their clubs supporters in the stands after the weekly gathering of faithful.  Rounds of drinks and songs at the pub. On any given Saturday this ritual is repeated 8000 times across the world.  Top flight to bar leagues.  London has 13 professional clubs.  

The world sinks to the precise passing to a possibility of a goal.  The abject pain of a goal against.  My private celebration of winning a match.  Or even a quality tie.  Soccer is more than wins and losses.  It mirrors life. There was an article about how one hardcore supporter of The Minnesota team who shared my experience.  His state was a soccer wasteland with no team to love.  That what it is.  Obsessive love. A longing for something that you discover makes you whole just to have it ripped away.  He found like minded obsessives in the stands.  The Dark Clouds were born.  The NASL owned a team that were League Champions.  The Soccer business was finally getting the idea that stupid owners hurt any team.  A successful organization was going to be broken up for lack of money.  The players were furious.  Their dreams were dying.  One man vowed never again.  The leader became the The Leader.  Shamelessly working connections uncovered a new owner with the resources to become the white knight for the Twin Cities.  My goal is to attend a Minnesota United FC match to buy the man a beer and march with the Dark Clouds.  A brother in obsessive passion for the Beautiful Game.

Combining the two obsessions I’m blessed and cursed with having has me applying to become an unpaid blogger for a media group.  Elite club soccer. The local Div 2 national power college team.  Everything DCFC,  It’s the only thing that can replace the agony of Joy and deep sadness that I experienced last night. Standing in my quiet Old Town neighborhood, the dull emptiness became a deep anger on so many levels.  In the little of day, There was a realization that at 49, I represent an older generation of soccer fan. We aren’t the first ones.  No ours is a worse fate.  Substituting American sports for one out of reach except on premium cable packages.  It’s not the game we yearn for.  It’s the atmosphere of match day.  College players and those who played at any competitive level want the same thing.  To be part of something bigger than themselves.  I lose all of my passiveness in the stands.  I am the crowd.  The crowd is my home for a short slice of time that makes the mundane world livable.  Buddha was a soccer fan.  Live in the moment. A Universal connection at the most basic profound level.  One voice.  One heart.  

The height of Joyous flight that is replaced with the depth of endless indifference. My tattoos represent the true depth of my obsession.  One club.  DCFC. One team.  USMNT.  One over arching feeling.  YNWA.  That is about belonging to something.  If you never have, search that on YouTube. If 60000 voices sing their passion with one voice doesn’t effect you,  you’ll never understand.  When it does, your journey in to a culture has begun.  On that thought I will stop.  To my friends out there, You’ll Never Walk Alone.  CTID.  

Lessons learned

The Chinese have a saying, may you live in interesting times.  Also be careful what you wish for.  On 7/28 I was fired from a job I held for almost 8 years.  Up until that job the longest I had worked anywhere was 3 years.  The right medication for a Bi-polar condition does work.  I’m 49.  Since age 15 thoughts of suicide were a daily thing.  Mine was not the dramatic portrayed the movies.  it was the 3 to 5 cycling during every day dictated by stress.  Some days leaving my apartment was too hard.  It was the main reason for my current separated status after 18 years of marriage.  She got tired of putting up with my mood swings and picking up the mess when I had a major maniac period.  I can’t blame her. Three years ago was when sanity entered my life.  Suddenly the darkness was gone.  I was able to focus for the first time.  My passion for writing started to march front and center.  It became a compulsion.  

Unfortunately it brought the dead end mindless job into direct conflict with the new me.  I wondered if the new workers from the temp service had a lack of work ethic or were smarter than me to leave after a week or two.  My history of stubborn determination of continuing to the bitter end was learned from a workaholic father.  It has taken me many years to understand his behavior was caused by his uncontrollable spending habits and own mental imbalance.  The last connection to a past was severed when I was fired.  What are the lessons learned?  That the state of Michigan is denying all unemployment claims.  So it saves money by most people being to lazy or uninformed to challenge it.  That would have applied to me simply because sustained effort was beyond my ability to carry out.  Now I can.  For 16 days there was no money.  Yes I had a place to stay and food to eat but.  My one trip to the local food pantry at a christian outreach church gave me a true picture of being poor.

A series of bad decisions on a small scale snowballed into some people standing in line every week.  So allow me to set the scene.  They start lining up at 6 on a Saturday morning.  Tickets will be handed out at 9.  Lawn chairs and small coolers are the badge of experience.  Come back at 11 to find your place in line by the number on your ticket. Boxes.  Rolling luggage.  kids backpacks. Waiting. Think of the weather.  It all takes place outside.  At noon the preacher does a sermon.  10000 pounds of food.  Sounds like a lot.   Not for the number of people.  All of it high carb and corn syrup for sweeter.  The Republicans can beat on them has dead beat non working leaches.  Sorry some have jobs.  Others can’t get one for various reasons.  No welfare queens driving Caddies here.

Walk through getting your rationed allotment of obesity diet. What got me was the one ear of corn,  a pepper that was going bad and a bruised peach.  You could get a pineapple.  Hey it  Saginaw Michigan.  Exotic fruit is just that.  If anything makes you want to not be in this situation, that will.  My neighborhood is a historical district.  What that means is everything is within walking distance.  No car except when absolutely necessary.  Think about where you live and the same situation.  Missing a meal or three suddenly stops being a big deal.  There is a not so obvious question here.  Why was I so calm about this?

I was working 40+ hours.  And barely making it on $12 an hour.  Start subtracting out benefits, additional short term disability, taxes and a 401(k) contribution then gas at $3.60 a gallon in a F150 truck, it leaves some hard decisions.  It also means for the past 4 years I’ve been short for one to three  days.  Paycheck to almost paycheck.  Can’t have a car repair without lots of overtime or another job or another income in the equation.  Without my 401(K) and understanding the tax code, any job would have been necessary.  There were hops to jump through to get a partial disbursement.  The amount sounded really good until the subtraction started.  All the stuff being put off for lack of money.  Good used tires for the truck.  Brake repairs.  Money for kids tuition.  Shoes supplies.  The late rent.  You get the idea.

The hardest was the mental adjustment.  Five years on third shift had become hard wired into certain behaviors.  It took three weeks to get back on a normal human sleep pattern.  The real problem was my writing all starts has a dream.  The first week felt like vacation.  The second felt like the yearly lay off.  Then I woke up to no longer having a job.  That was the stat of my no money period.  Finding another position or job requires skills that working full time impossible to get.  Now I have the time.  Being a veteran gives me an avenue the majority have no access to.  So where does this new knowledge get me.

Food is better in moderation.  It also helps in losing weight when you forced to walk everywhere.  Walking is an enjoyable way to get places.  Friends are all around.  Others who have been through hard times have a capacity for generosity without judging that humbles you.  Even without cable or satellite there still is nothing good on TV except PBS.  Music can rise your mood like nothing else.  All that changes the lens life is viewed through.  Priorities get shifted.  And finally judging others becomes an easy thing to discard.  Walking a mile in my shoes and theirs brings home some hard truths about how similar we all are.

Thanks for your  time in reading this far.  Later.