My Addiction

When contemplating what to write, to break my long dry spell, I first figured Trust, Love, Yearly update. Nothing seemed to really set the tone. I want to set the tone going forward. It isn’t like I have a lot to say, but I do want to be more forthright about myself and what I might be contemplating. Perhaps my first post this year is a good place to start.

I’ve acquired an addiction. I know I have it. I feel the loss of it when I slip out of routine. What exactly is that addiction? Caffeine. Let me elaborate. I’ve had a lot on my mind the past several years. I needed to think and rethink my life. I went down to my core values, my loves and hatreds. I wanted to start over, if you will. I needed to be more forthcoming to my wife about some of the things that I’d been suppressing much of my life, or rather, my time with her. I needed to take the things off the shelf in my mind and re-evaluate what they mean to me. What did I want to pass on to my children? I’m not talking about stuff, but things like beliefs, values, memories. This was a gut-wrenching process. I looked at everything that was “me”.

Some of the changes that I instituted? Well, most aren’t noticeable. It isn’t that I planned it that way, as what I changed was mostly internal, mental, if you will.

I found friends on Facebook. That reconnecting was key as many of these people I had known from some of the happiest times of my life. Some, from the most challenging. Being able to talk with them again, express what I felt for them was, in itself, very liberating. I have kept a lot inside. I am quite an emotional person. I feel very strongly for some people. Some have changed and continue to change my life. Sharing those parts of me brought out other changes, other thoughts.

I did what is very stereotypical of men my age. I acted out and bought what I have denied myself for all these decades. I bought a motorcycle. For some that might not be an issue, but for me it was huge. I love riding bikes. This was just an extension of that.  I found a bike in short order, a bike to made for back roads and highways. It isn’t fast, but it has enough power for me. It brought me a lot of contentment.

I looked again at my beliefs. I’ve been a dedicated religious man most of my life. I started on that road for a reason. Still, it brought a lot of conflict in my life in terms of mental  stress. I wanted it all to make sense, and it didn’t. I decided to test the waters of “unbelief”.  I did what I asked others to do on my mission, but in reverse. Live my life without the burden of belief and see if life became better for ME. It did. Remarkably so. That doesn’t mean I preach this form of life. I won’t and don’t. My life outwardly has changed so very little that most wouldn’t notice. I don’t know if God sits yonder on his throne, and I don’t really care anymore. Whatever works for you.

That change wasn’t without a price. It was hard on the family as I worked out the coiled spring that I had become from releasing all that pent up frustration. I wrote my thoughts among those friends that could handle the more intimate parts of my life. I can never repay them for all the time I took from them trying to come to terms with my past and my thoughts about the present and future.

A year later, things are ok. I’ve shed a lot of stress in my life. I no longer listen to political discussion. I decided that it was unproductive for me. I no longer try to figure things out. I let people be who they are and let myself be what I am. The family life has improved as we’ve resolved some of our directions and goals. It is amazing how hard and how useful honesty and communication has been. I’m still working things out, but I am much more at peace with the Universe than I have been in a very, very long time.

My children have entered public school. We did it for a host of reasons, not anything that I care to post about. For the most part, it has been a success. We struggled with a few things homeschooling that has been of issue in the classroom, and the teachers and staff are aware and helpful in working with our kids. All of them have had improvement in the areas we felt needed improving.

That’s about as much about life that I want to share right now. We’re doing ok, or as Garrison Keillor would say, “We are still married.”

Ah, how does this fit in with my caffeine addiction? Well, much of my writing and thinking about Life, the Universe, and Everything, including this post has been done in a McDonalds. I sit, sip on my Coke Zero, and blather away. I don’t know how many oil fields I have used up in making the cups I have used, but I’m sure it is substantial. All this thinking has produced an acute fondness for the nasty brown liquid.

Don’t have a midlife crisis if you can’t take the addictions that rise from the activity. I’m pretty fortunate that the only real negative in the past years has been a trip to McDonalds, almost daily, to sit, type and make my cells feel a rush from the cola nut. Almost painless.