Walking story

It is always "well if you have ever walked in my shoes" or "be in my shoes" but who really wants to walk or be in someone else shoes. I know I am particular about shoes but I guess when I had a grandfather who worked in a shoe factory in Norwich for 50 years and I managed two Stride Rite shoes stores for a handful of years you get to know them really well.

These were a gift from my father in 2008 before blazing through the mountains in Oklahoma. I truly do love these hiking shoes are they have another year in them. Hmm the outer tread is getting low but they have been great to me.

Knowing shoes I know that for exercise I needed good support. These are also aging and desperately need an upgrade but for now I will keep moving along with them. I also have an older version of these that are good for yard work and that is about it nowadays. But I live in an apartment and have no yard so they are good junk shoes for when I just need something that I don't mind trashing around in.

These are brand new. Just got them today. Let me tell you a story. When I was going through all my bills and working with my wife/brother/accountant (well he is my brother, can be like a wife cos he is my unpaid accountant - although in conversations at the beginning of the month he did mention the interest rate he is charging me is compounding in a unique way - well I am digressing) I discovered a gift card for Sears of all places. Why? I thought about it for a while.

As most of you know last year I had a girlfriend, who had a house, in another town, with three little girls. The house needed help and at one point the general course of my life would have had me down there at this point of this year. Alas she left (probably smart as I would have not moved with the promotion I received and would have ended the relationship then) but I had asked for gift cards to places for things for the house (windows, doors, appliances, etc) and I think this must have been one.

So I checked if anyone needed it. Nope. Saw a Sears flyer in the paper at work last week that showed all their shoes on sale so I went and got some sandals. I had been wanting another pair. The Birkenstocks I had in Hawaii finally died when I moved to Corpus Christi and so it has been about 8 years without any. I like these as I have narrow heels so the cinch strap around the back can help in that area.

I know this subject is completely off the wall but maybe not so much. We live and learn and live some more. I have been thinking about love recently. I loved someone last year as a lover - I needed that. I needed someone to defrost my heart and make me realize some things. Realize that there was/is more in me that is broken that needs to be repaired.

So as I walked through the past two years of my life I realize that what I found in love last year I have in love right now but of a kind that is not a lover but a friend. One of those intimate moments of realization that for a person who is not yourself you would do anything for. Love exists on so many levels ... if you believe in a higher power or purpose you know of that unconditional love.

If you are married you know of that love that spirals around the two of you and can be found on personal, companionship and intimate levels. If you are intimate with someone you know of that passion that may be rooted more in lust but is a level of love.

There is family love .. a bond that makes a mother and brother spend time in the hospital while another goes through surgery and the mother stops and listens at your door during the night to hear you breathing before returning to bed. That bond is strong ... can be stubborn, can bend and break sometimes but often heals as it is the love that connects a common thread of genes.

The walk of exploration in my mind this week and last has been a realization roller coaster and I discovered the love of close friendship that for me is something precious. It is a great realization as I have feared loneliness for many years but accepted it as a necessary partner and maybe I am learning that it is not necessary.

So even though the temperature may drop back into the 30s tonight (thank you) from the mid 80s (I got a freaking sunburn today) I will slip on my sandals and keep walking, exploring, learning, repairing, learning, living and loving some more.

Good night.

Hiding behind

I started to write a long essay yesterday that is still sitting there waiting for me to revisit about where I fit in in this world. I don't know and I am still pondering all that I saw yesterday and all that I felt but today someone I love made a comment to me that I seem well. I had to sit and think about that as the reality is far from that but I have managed to pull of that perception ... I have managed to put on that mask.

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes-
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

"Oh it is so far from the truth in that it becomes the truth. We are born naked and fully unaware into this world and learn from others reactions. We are constantly provided with a list of things that we are not to do or are 'bad'. Thus we conclude that we are bad. We therefore determine and learn to hold negative beliefs of ourselves. This is the first level of the mask that so many of us wear. We don't want others to see this of us and we put on our faces and outward appearance so that they, the outside world, will not know that we live in fear of being a bad person.

Then as we age we try on different masks for different reasons and determine what works for us ... the happy one, the studious one, the know it all, the jock, the geek, the punk ... and we cover ourselves up with so many layers of masks that we live in a new fear of being exposed. In the business world we find a whole different world of masks to layer over the top of each other as we create a persona that fits us in.

It beats us down over time and sometimes we just let it all go. We may meet someone who does not know us and we decide to let them see the real person under all those heavy robes and mantles we are carrying." (me)

This was the crux of the one part of many a church retreat in high school and college that I would host. I would talk about the masks that we lived behind. I had this one down pat. I could wheel and deal you out of your masks and give you a moment to just be you. The real you. I knew that once you left you would bottle it all up and become the you behind the mask but for a moment, for just one moment that awareness of you being you was real.

I was good at this but I am also great at covering up the underlying me. The scared, lonely, confused, heartbroken, lost and totally sad me. Obviously I have done this well in the world of social media. I know that those close to me, who can see and touch me, are aware of more. They can see through the cracks in my masks. Those on the phone can tell something is amiss by my voice but cannot put a finger on it.

But how much of that mask that I am putting on is a portrayal of the hope I have that there can be more for me in this world. That somewhere I do fit into this puzzle called life. That I can have hope that I do not have to be lonely for the rest of my life. Or can we create so many masks in life that we don't really know where the real us is under so many layers of a reality we create.

Here in the words I can be more me than I can in person, that I do know. I am such an empathic person and have too many emotions when I try to break down the reality to others in person. Thus here I let people get peeks into who I am. Right now I am wounded and that wound runs deep into my psyche. I could not spend enough time on that trying to figure out where it ends and where to begin the healing so I close it up. That does not heal me and overall it hampers me. But right now that is the existence that I must live in. I have to find a way to try and make it through the day to day grind. I have to find the energy to get out of the house and not hide away with loneliness as my constant companion.

So I try each and every day.

I get up and find a smile to put on my face. I go through some tasks that are routine and others that change. I give thanks for the breath I have and then look for the strength to move through the motions of eating, cleaning, washing clothes and such before heading to work do deal with the world outside. It is a challenging task some days but most days I make it without incident.

I have to find ways to change that. I have to find ways to heal myself. So tomorrow, Monday the 25th of October I begin the Induction phase of a lifestyle change. I cannot go on like this and this is the repair part of me. Through the haze of this week I have worked hard on reading a large textbook about change and repair even though apathy often wanted me to curl up and ignore the world. The change hearkens back to what my nutritionist had me on after the stroke and what I have drifted away from.

With this change I begin to truly move to the next level of healing the physical me. I am hopeful that as I heal the physical me I will in turn begin to heal the broken man, the broken child inside of me.

I thank my family and friends for being a constant reminder through the past couple of weeks and I know that I will continue to need you more as I move into the new phase of me.

I am not fine. I am not even close to being there now. I do not mean to deceive but I need to see the me that I hope to become and thus the masks will be part of me as I heal. Don't be afraid to ask as you know that I have always said it like it is when people have truly meant that they want to know, rather than the superficial.

Thank you.

Events (reminder)

I don't always look at what is plastered on the sides of my facebook home/news feed page. Thus I miss some birthdays (never was my ability to keep those once a year dates in mind ... I have even forgotten mine in the past, but never my mother's and they are the same day. Figure that out?)

But how can I miss a huge red heart and my gals name right there. Oh I know it is our anniversary but it is nice to be reminded of that every time I look there. (There is no way I could forget that day ... the beginning of this relationship ... my heart in my throat ... my mind going oh my ... the talking until just before the sun came up ... nope not forgetting that day) But I find that I might be opening that page up a little bit more right now just to look at this. Wow, I am a lucky man!

Red Wine, Mistakes, Apologies

So this was a couple of nights after Mat Kearney - not as close to the stage but pretty damn cool. Actually it poured on us while we were getting there, we got soaked walking the waterways and forest trails to the amphitheater, steamed as the rain stopped and the heat set in (it is open air), paid outrageous prices for a couple of non-alcoholic beverages and then had a freaking GREAT time when Jack Johnson came on stage.

All with my love. That is all you need ... love and life ... live it, love someone and the world is a great place to enjoy a little bit of music.

Did you have fun this summer?