Triggered

I was going to write about a particular incident of bad behavior I exhibited with a close friend of mine, but I decided to widen the scope. No, I'm not going to list out my sins as there probably aren't enough electrons in the universe to transmit that list. This is about actions in my life that bring out parts of me that I didn't realize that I suppressed or things that I knowingly hid. There is a theme here, and I apologize for having it, but it is about an aspect of my life and the effect it had on my personality. The reason that it was suppressed is because it is uncomfortable, for me and those around me.

I've written enough about my depression on my mission. I even knew at the time how I was being indoctrinated and how I internalized it. I went from someone who had a simple gratitude for friends and school to feeling incredible guilt about who I was, and feeling responsible for everyone's salvation in the eternities. My only goal in life was to learn, and how I love learning, and be able to love someone. I went from that to not able to communicate with those I felt closest to, being apart from my very reason of going. Perhaps I was immature. I can buy that. I have some other conclusions that are personal, and I've shared them with the people involved. In any case, something drastically went wrong. I was put in the most beautiful place on the entire globe, and I couldn't get past my own guilt and inadequacy. I won't own up to that. That was put on me by someone else. It was an institutional guilt, drummed into my head. Why it had a damaging effect on me and not my cohorts, I can't say. That was another issue I had. I resented my own emotions too.

When everything fell apart for me halfway through, when I insulted the person I cared for the most, is when I changed how I was coping. I stopped caring about what I was being told by those in authority over me. If I wanted to do X, I did X. I paid attention to what I believed and what I didn't. I wanted to read a newspaper so I read a newspaper. I wanted to read a book about comets, so I read a book about comets. It is so odd looking back at it, seeing such things as rebellious, but it was. I soon earned a reputation as being a rebel. Me. (That sounds so ridiculous to me.)

I kept from being triggered by not talking about it for over 20 years. I believed what I wanted to believe and did what I wanted to do, even though every week, I was told by the institution that I believed in how wrong some of those things were. I kept the cognitive dissonance at bay by just passing it by.

My own historical investigations wore on me though. I read a philosophy book about the atonement that made me question the logic of it all. I tried to make it all fit in, but it was becoming increasingly unsuccessful. The pain of keeping it all in was becoming too much. I had contacted a friend who had left the church and I was working it out in my own head. At one point the thought "How can someone raise their family outside of the church?" passed through my head. Whoa! That wasn't something that came out of me. I never felt that stongly about the church's youth program. I really didn't like it, to tell the truth. Why the heck did that thought go through my head? It triggered some more thought as to why I was having thoughts like that, thoughts that weren't my own. (See what I did there?)

As to my family, I remember a few incidents where they, my kids, panicked about something that we were doing, something that the church, evidently, taught them was a sin. Someone was teaching my kids that their parents are going to Hell for <insert common behavior>. So we had a parent meeting about how we were going to unteach our kids about certain things. In the back of my head, I'm already building up concern about my kids starting down the path that brought me such an uncomfortable existence.

My children were already experiencing some difficulty fitting into the mold that they were given, and one that I never fit into either. I didn't want to burden them with all that so eventually I had to talk to my wife about my concerns and troubles. BOOM!

Fast forward and I still find that some things set me off. This was the most emotional, disruptive time in my life and I can only find solace in talking to Tracy, internet boards or this stupid blog. It is something that I don't feel is welcome with people that I walked with most of my life. I don't want to disturb their lives or disparage something they feel is valuable. I still want to scream out sometimes at how it damaged me and how much better it is without all those trappings, but I don't. I respect them...mostly. That doesn't mean it won't, at times, leak out. It happened a few weeks ago. I had such a build-up of anger and frustration that it burst out in a note to a close friend. Not just once, but twice. Do I feel sorry for doing that? Yes, and I tried as best I could to apologize. I'm not so sure why or what triggered that outburst. It happened though.

I try to own up to my own feelings. I don't like the idea that I'm suffering some form of PTSD because it seems so trivial to what others have to live with. It isn't like anyone shot at me like our soldiers experience. I was never physically beaten. I feel that I was mentally abused, but that it was wrapped in a velvet glove, by people thinking they were doing their best. Why it affected me this way and they thrive in that environment, I don't quite understand. I know that at one point I truly believed. Now I don't. I am still trying to be a good parent, and that it can be done without an institution telling me how to be good. I have that internal to me.

I don't know what triggered this post. Another way to apologize, explain my actions to others? I don't know. Perhaps I never will. I seem to have traded one issue for another. I'll still take this one to the burden I was carrying.

Serenity

Nope. Sorry. Not about the ship. That's just my hook for this post.

I people watch. There are an infinite number of things to notice about someone and I use the few opportunities I have to just watch people living their lives. When I work downtown, I ride the subway for part of the journey and those times where I don't close my eyes to keep the world out of my mind, I watch people. There are a lot of different kinds of people out there. Most are just trying to get through the day without going too crazy with the pressures of life. Many are absorbed in videos or reading on their phones or devices. It has crossed my mind more than once that some of the people riding with me have committed or are capable of committing horrible crimes against their fellow man, but I need to slough that off as part of the human condition.

I want to focus on the good of people. We are all jammed into this train car and for the most part, really are behaving ourselves. A lot of "Excuse Me" and "Sorry" type phrases are used. I am reminded at those times that for the most part, we are decent people to each other. We are social critters and we know we all need each other to some degree so it is best to be kind to one another.

At times, a particular person catches my eye. It can be for a lot of reasons. Perhaps something unique about their face or actions draws me in. On a recent trip, I was at a far end of the car and looking down the length of the seating area. It was a full car, as usual for that time of day. Sitting facing me was a woman, probably in her late twenties. It wasn't just her beauty, or her youth that caught my attention, but I would have felt justified if those were the only reasons I noticed her. She was dark-skinned. Maybe Indian? Hispanic? I have a hard time discerning some of those details. Her face was devoid of those lines that age and worry produce in people that are long on this earth, She didn't do anything of any peculiar note. She was just sitting there, listening to some device like so many others. (And considering how noisy the subway can be, I wonder how anyone can listen to anything without blowing out their eardrums over time. I gave up that activity some time ago.) What I noticed with her was her calm. Her grace. Her face was serene. Occasionally a brief, small smile was shown on her lips. I was fascinated with her demeanor. I found it hard to avert my gaze, but I had to. I didn't think anyone wanted to be glared at by some 50-year-old creeper.

I watched her leave the car along with me on my stop. I wanted to step up to her and say "Hi", if for nothing but to hear what voice would come from someone so seemingly at peace, if only for the moments of a subway ride with 40 or so complete strangers. I didn't though. I don't want to cause anyone discomfort. I noticed her brown raincoat and black, stylish boots. She stepped on the escalator and I will most likely never see her again. I thought about why this was such a profound thing to me. My day wasn't particularly hectic. I really didn't have any feelings about things whatsoever but I realize from that moment the attraction that many in this world have with meditation. The calm smile of someone can produce such feelings that adoration might be the natural result.

To be fair, I'm drawn to people at times for very different reasons. I have listened to a couple speaking arabic and the inflection of their voices was transfixing. I have watched college students where the man was clearly crushing hard on the woman sitting next to him. I watched one woman of Italian heritage talking to her friends returning from a trip into the city and being fascinated with their retelling of their adventures. She was amazing with her descriptive language and gestures. It is also at these times where I find racism or ethnocentrism so hard to understand. I have had my life enriched by people of other cultures. No, sometimes they don't act too friendly, but my culture hasn't acted too friendly in the past or present either.

It is quite a world we live in. I hope you find some joy in it as I have.


P.S. I found a youtube video that shows my subway route. I ride from Rosemont to Clinton. That's about 5:30 to 45:00 marks in the video. You can really move a lot of people in a train and it is quite a bit faster than trying to drive it, especially at the times I ride. The highway is usually a slow-moving parking lot when I ride it.

War Paint - A Christmas Delayed

A year after Tracy and I were married, we attended a Rush concert. It was my first with my favorite band and it was one of the most memorable times in my life. Well, they retired last year and I'm still in denial. They came out with a documentary about their last tour and it was available in the theater originally. I didn't go, figuring I'd get the video later. Neil Peart, the drummer, came out with a book (as he does most every tour) and Tracy promised to get it for Chrismas. We completely forgot about it in all the hubbub of the season along with Tracy's new job.

So last week we were getting an Amazon order together. I needed a few cables for my headphones. Tracy needed some things for work. I poked around and I noticed that the Blu-Ray of the Rush documentary was available, so that went in the order too. When it arrived yesterday, it was with bittersweet emotions that I unwrapped it and put it in the player. I had noticed that a few of my favorite songs from the Presto Album were in the bonus tracks and I really couldn't quite go to the documentary at the time. I was surprised to find that the tracks were from the actual Presto tour. The band had started to regularly put out a concert DVD after every tour, being an "arena band" and they knew the fans enjoyed having a reminder of the experience. However, they didn't release one after Presto. I sat down to relive a few memories. I remembered that the stage wasn't cluttered like their latest concert tours, but I didn't remember it being that sparse.

I remember that album well, and it highlighted that first year of Tracy and I learning how to work with each other and live together without too many murderous thoughts. I don't think it was our first concert (I think that was another and it was a source of a marriage lesson that Tracy uses professionally to this day.) I remember, and I hope I have this right, that we bought and listened to "They Might Be Giants - Flood" album before we traveled to SLC and how much we laughed at the songs. That album has been the source of many road-trip sing-alongs since. The concert itself was great. It was my first real time seeing Peart play the drums live and it was almost a religious experience. After the concert and as we were leaving I heard a person exclaim, "It was worth coming just to hear The Professor!" My favorite memory is actually Tracy mentioning, "I didn't know three people could make so much noise." with "noise" being an affectionate term.

Peart has had an effect on me. I'm almost positive it was his influence that gave me a drive to write and my appreciation of poetry (and a tip of the hat to Jeff Lynne also). He even influenced my theology. I knew he was a skeptic, humanist, atheist but I did know that if he didn't make it to heaven, then I surely didn't belong there either.

So I listened to the tracks provided. I didn't realize they were available on YouTube but I'm glad I have them on a disk. My favorite track is below as well as the entirety of the concert video but not the entirety of the concert.

Downtown

So, I'm working downtown now. It still is part time as it isn't easy to disconnect from 20 or so years of work and coding. I have my corner set up, and most of this is just what I found here and on the last day of access to my old building. I "shopped the big store" and went from cube to cube looking for equipment I might need in the near future. Good thing too as I needed some of that stuff.

Most of the area here is pretty sterile, probably because you have sherpa all your stuff in, likely by public transportation. ¨Don't carry in what you need to carry out.¨ That is one of the reasons why I wanted to shed some of my old responsibilities. I've been 24x7 since the day I hired on with the company and have had to carry around my computer all the time. Never a break other than those times where I was simply out of reach of an internet connection. I really enjoyed those times. It felt good being able to put the computer into the drawer and go home without it. (I have plenty of computers at home, but none of them can connect to work.)

I was extremely anxious my first day there. I had my route planned out and I knew which subway stop was closest to the front door. I'd made the trip with Bennet earlier in the month to check out the timing. I know I was overly stressed about it, but this was one the few significant changes that I've had in my career, even though it was with the same company. Of course, the week previous I learned that the group in Schaumburg were moving the modems for one of the ancient programs I maintain on the first day I was expected downtown. OK. so that was to start at 6am. I have to be on the last bus at 9am....  I turns out my first day downtown was started by sitting at home waiting for modems to be reconnected to the network, and then later IM-ing with people in Schaumburg as my bus rode by the office on the tollway and  continuing on the subway. I guess that is the way it goes. I know that this might seem a little obsessive but I find the establishment of a routine important. It frees up my mind to start thinking about other things than the mundane tasks of life. 

I made my way past the guards and concierge of Motorola and stood in front of the banks of elevators that Motorola has to the upper floors. I entered them with a realization that some of the changes I wanted in my life, desperately wanted, for the past few years were just starting to happen. Aside from a few training sessions, I really didn't know all that this was going to entail. All I knew is that it was different and would use some of the newer tech in the industry. The company was moving aggressively in this direction and I might as well be a part of it. My manager just happened to be at the elevator when the doors opened on the 39th floor. He greeted me, rather surprised at the coincidence, and changed his plans to find me a place to sit. The area was white and looked very different than what I expected. I was put in an spot that wasn't my ideal, as the main walkway goes right by my station, but I also am the father of 4 children so I'm decent at blocking out distraction.

After I was somewhat settled and had cooled down a bit....ok, I need to explain that. It was a warm day and I was nervous and I sweat. It is one of my most disliked traits and I have a lot of self-loathing about it. I don't like to sweat and I do it so freely. So I'm sitting there, trying to cool down because I'm soggy. (Goll, I hate that aspect of my body.) I have to steal a look out the window. There are windows everywhere. I must say that during most of my career in Motorola, I've spent in artificially lit, windowless rooms that one could play soccer in if it wasn't for the cubes. The only exception was when I worked in the "Parts" building and there I could look out and see an earthen berm. These latest moves to the corporate tower (Schaumburg) and now downtown, where windows were everywhere, was a significant change to my established work environment.

My first week only consisted of a few meetings. I met another manager, the one I would work with during my 6-month stint downtown. I only had two days that I actually worked downtown that week. Much of it was a bit of exploration. A friend that worked on the 40th floor met me and showed me the "game room" that had some sort of game console there. When I asked her if she ever saw anyone play on it, she responded no, that we have work to do. No one has time to waste playing games. Another friend of mine in Schaumburg and I discussed this later as we decided it was a test by the corporation. As soon as anyone touched a controller, they were never seen again. They can't have people playing video games on their time. Like Schaumburg, they had a small kitchen area and at lunchtime a company came in with food and sold it there. I will be bringing my lunches in. They do have granola bars, fruit and hot chocolate there for the taking, so I know I won't starve. 

XBox. Only games are Minecraft and Madden Football. Meh.

My second week was like the first, but I customized my area a bit. I brought in the equipment I took from the old IL02 building and set up my monitors so I have the setup now, as you see in the first photo above. Overall, aside from the fact that I feel more isolated from home, it is just a place to work.

One of the glass rooms on the floor. You can write on the windows. In fact, most of the walls in the place can be written on with dry markers. It is kind of cool.

I want to write a little about the actual commute, a way to see into my completely broken brain. I have three options to get downtown. I could drive. That would take well over an hour on a day with no traffic, and about $18 to park. I could take the Metra train, at a cost of $18 when parking is taken into account, but it would only take an hour and 15 minutes on the train. (20 minutes to drive the car to the train station and back, not included.) Or, I could use the new Pace bus / CTA train. It takes about 2 hours total door to door. It costs $4.50 per day. I chose the cheap method, even though it costs me about 20 minutes more than the next most favorable option. Here´s the thing. I have wanted this new bus/train combination from Elgin and I´m very glad they finally have it. I want to support it. The buses are nice and the trains are passable. While I´ve been politically conservative most of my life, I´ve always supported public transit. I think it is a great way of getting from one place to another in some circumstances. As a side note, they also added a new bus from Schaumburg to Motorola/Zurich. I used to ride the bus to work in Schaumburg but it stopped a mile short of my work and that last mile to work, I had to walk. While my legs were strong, I often got caught in the rain and was stressed about not getting there in time to catch the bus home. I´ve also had issues with missing the bus and I think my wife had to come pick me up a few times. I can´t say it was all a wonderful experience, but I really don´t mind riding public transport.

One more downside that I´ll share. One morning I got onto the train and there were already two people in the car, clearly homeless. As I sat down, the smell hit me. I scrunched down in my seat and covered my nose with my jacket sleeve. Then I just sat and watched as others came on and realized what a joy an unwashed human smells like. At one point the train stopped and the doors were held open, giving us all a break. I would have moved to another car, but it was a very full train, and those that left for other cars eventually came back. The entire population of the car was jammed into one end trying to escape the sleeping ¨Bog of Eternal Stench¨ that greeted their noses. The woman sitting in front of me had her hat firmly placed over her face. Even though it wasn´t an ideal situation, I thoroughly enjoyed watching people.

I wanted to go to the floor above mine, the 40th floor and I thought it was wasteful to use the elevator for just one floor. Seems once you get on the stairs, you have a long walk down. All stairs are only for emergency exit. Bummer.

Watching people is fascinating to me. I´ve seen so many situations just riding the train. I´ve seen young men trying to get young women´s attention. I´ve seen couples that are so in sync, that conversations were held without words being spoken. I´ve seen so many people like myself just trying to get through their day. It doesn´t surprise me that we have different experiences and political views from rural to urban. Urban settings make you see people differently. You need to get along and it forces a type of empathy upon you. You can´t isolate yourself nearly as easily. You are in direct contact with people all the time. Their well-being directly affects yours.

And how many people, do you think, does it takes to wear down a metal grate? One of the escalators I take has seen so much foot traffic that the metal has worn down. That is just one of my musings that I have.

Kind of a blah post. Sorry.

The Willis (Sears) Tower from the eastern facing side of the building.

South Elgin High School March Concert

If for nothing else, I post this for posterity. My son, Hayden, played in both the Varsity Band and the oh, so exclusive Wind Ensemble for the March concert.

Let this be in the record until Google dies as a company or whenever the squids have enough of us and reconquer the Earth.

Varsity Band

Aces of the Air / King, Swearingen

Niobrara River Sketches / Larry McTaggart

Spontaneous Combustion / Robert Sheldon

Wind Ensemble

Fanfare for a Celebration / Gary D. Ziek

Chester / William Schuman

Parkour / Sam Hazo

Interlude

Stars and Stripes Forever / Sousa, Schissel

Encore

It's Never Gonna Be Equal

Pencils, Paper, and Depression. The Soul-Crushing Kind.

Do you see this pencil? This pencil is special to me. I don't use it much, but I need to know where it is at all times. If it ever breaks, I might have a hard time throwing it away. Anyway, on to the topic at hand.

I've written more than once about my compulsions. Generally, I know where I got them and now I find them more of a side interest to who I am. This is about my writing obsession, or rather, my need to have writing utensils and paper with me. I've always had a thing with paper and pencil. In high school, I once put a whole year's notes of one of my classes on one narrow-ruled piece of paper. I always used narrow rule because I thought wider rules were a waste, and I didn't want to waste anything. Because of the narrow rule, I had to write small. That led me to mechanical pencils because they had narrow lead. Mind you, at the time, mechanical pencils weren't cheap and weren't nearly as ubiquitous as they are now.

When I went to college, my office-supply obsession switched to high gear. I didn't have the funds to really let it fly, but I never realized there were so many ways to write things, so many different papers to write upon. My engineering classes used a type of green graph paper that was easy on the eyes yet the quad lines on the back bled through enough for me to write away on "blank" paper and have the lines guide the writing. It was also a fine paper, using a finer pulp. My writing could be nice and tight and I fell in love with the stuff. I had a dopamine rush every time I filled a page and tore it off the pad. It brought such a sense of satisfaction.

Because I was a mormon at BYU, I had felt the pressure to go on a mission. It wasn't exactly overt. My closest friends had all gone on missions. I was told that to be a good person, I needed to go on a mission. Mostly, I felt gratitude for being able to find such good friends and while college was difficult, I completely enjoyed it. I was learning so much. I also had a girlfriend, and my gratitude to God extended to meeting her and I wanted to be a good person because she deserved to have a good person for a boyfriend. That isn't to say I didn't have issues. I wasn't fond of LDS culture. While I had my reasons to believe in the Book of Mormon, I wasn't exactly proud of the writing style or even some of the narrative. I won't go into the difficulties I had in school and other personal matters. They factored in greatly to what the next year was to unleash on me.

To prepare for my mission, I bought a new engineering pad. I was going to write half a page a day to my girlfriend, send two pages per week to her and that would be my mission journal. I had it all planned out. I wanted to become good at writing about what I was experiencing and share that with her.

When I entered the Missionary Training Center, the depression hit. It hit hard. I didn't know that it was depression at the time, but I started to become someone I wasn't. The indoctrination at the MTC was strong. I didn't have any real knowledge of the culture or really participate in it at BYU and I grew up outside of the Mormon Corridor so I didn't know what people were talking about half the time. I lost weight. I hated the isolation I felt, as well as the forced companionship the job entailed. I guess I felt dishonest about everything. Don't get me wrong, I was a believer. I didn't understand what was happening to me though. I didn't understand why or how I could share my faith effectively with anyone when my defining relationships were being severed. The church was taking away from me some of the greatest things about my life. In those few moments when I shared what I was honestly feeling, I was sent to counseling. I was told that I should go home as I was clearly emotionally unstable. Then the panic that set in. My friends would reject me. My school would reject me. My girlfriend would reject me and I'd have to live my life as a failure amongst those that believed like I did. I knew damn well how accepting the culture was to missionaries that left (it has since improved, I'm told).

Did I tell my friends how I felt in my letters, in my writing? No. I lied. I lied because I thought that it was expected of me. This was supposed to be the best time of my life, and I was beginning to resent every waking moment. During my time in Switzerland, the depression never left. I didn't get money from the bank. I was still losing weight to the point that none of the clothes I had fit me. A member of the church there took in my pants about 6-7 inches. My belt had long since run out of notches and I had to have one hand in my pocket at all times to hold up my pants. It got to the point where I couldn't function and it was determined that I should be sent state-side if for nothing else but to eat. I don't know what I wrote at the time. When I spoke to my then girlfriend many years later about it, I found out how much I had lied about it then. I was becoming all that I didn't like. I wasn't honest with the people I cared the most about. Yeah, I made some excuses about why I was sent stateside, the big reality being that I was starving to death, but I never phrased it that way.

When I was stateside, the depression continued. I don't remember what I wrote about at the time, but I did write. I never gave up writing during that first year. Still, it was probably becoming more and more feverish as my mental state kept going bad. In my first summer there, I had transformed into a person I hated the most in my life. I lashed out in my writing. I let the missionary culture into me and I became an ass. Deep down, I hated myself to an extent that I can't fathom even now. My girlfriend, if that word could even qualify at that time, had enough and told me to get lost. So I did. It was the wake up that I needed. I stopped being the person I had become and I tried to find myself in all that rubble. I stopped writing for the most part. I'm not sure where along this path I equated writing with honesty, other than my sheer desire. At this point, I had betrayed any sense of honesty that I had. I had slipped into survival mode. I didn't write because I couldn't be honest. I didn't write because I didn't want to remember any of this. I didn't want to put any more brain cells to what I was and who I was.

As a side note, I never blamed or accused my then girlfriend of anything. Yeah, I hurt, but I was also a jerk. I never wished her ill or spoke poorly of her. At the time, I never wished her anything but the best and all the love this world or the next could give her and that goes for today as well. My wanting to forget never involved the time with her, but my reaction to my mission as a whole.

So I came back to BYU, having behaved myself to the point where they couldn't send me home. I had been accepted into my degree program and I also took a custodial job in the early mornings. The difficulties that I had before my mission with school persisted to a point, but getting into my program completely had turned all of that around. I was dating like crazy. When I became more involved with Tracy, she never pressed me about my mission and I wasn't volunteering any info. I simply wanted to forget all of the pain and anguish I felt during those years. They didn't define me and they weren't who I was.

One of my custodial jobs was cleaning out the auditoriums in the business school. In my first pass, I would pick up trash and junk before my next pass with the vacuum or sweeper. Business students use almost nothing but mechanical pencils and the lost a lot of them. The most common were those Bic things but every once in a while, the better ones. I kept all the incidental pencils and pens. The expensive ones I put in the lost and found if I felt the person could be attached to them. I soon had a collection that I couldn't manage, so realizing that the only real value to them was the lead, I collected the lead and threw away the rest, except for the good pencils and pens, that is. That is where I picked up the above pencil. It was a Pilot brand. I loved their pens. This pencil was special though. For whatever reason, mechanical pencils have a little nib at the end where the lead comes out. It is only about 2mm long, but with someone as obsessive as I was, that was 2mm of wasted lead. This pencil was different. That little nib was pushed back into the pencil. I could get more use out of the leads that I had. It had a nice click. It had a good feel. I went through the rest of my college career, even my masters, with that pencil.

I kept the leads and better pencils after I graduated. Every time I went to BYU to visit, I would buy another engineering pad, even though I didn't write to anyone. I would occasionally go to the office supply stores just to handle some of their goods, but I didn't buy anything. That is, until I became acutely aware of Back-To-School sales. I put a limit on what I could spend, but I did spend and now I have more paper / pads / pencils than a sane person could use. I think I have a handle on it though.

When it comes back to my frustrations with my honesty, 2011-12 loomed large in that respect. Just like a coiled spring, I couldn't keep it all in anymore. It started to all unravel and scatter all over the place. I tried to keep it to myself, but it soon spilled over into conversation. I found people on-line and I began to finally be honest in my writings. I began to be honest about the things in my life, my feelings, wants, and desires. One particular morning is quite memorable. I sat at my computer and started writing about all those things that I was afraid to write about before. It was truly the culmination of what I felt about writing and actually doing it. It transformed me, but first it kicked the s*** out of me. It led to discussions, arguments with Tracy and with myself. It tore down all the walls I had built up. It almost took away all that I had done, the relationships that I treasured, but I had to be honest. I couldn't put that genie back in the bottle. After a lot of soul-searching, Tracy and I came out of it okay. I'm still probably more deferential that I should be, but I'm honest about it at least.

I bought some books about writing, let my interest in poetry out, and even received a few books as gifts to help me along. Reading a book of love letters was a revelation, in that I found people could express such deep emotion on a page. I even bought a book on how to write them, as it affected me so deeply.

So here I sit, with a bunch of paper and pencils. My brain tickles me into wanting to write all the things down, but reality is such that if I do write, it will be on the computer. Just handling the pads will calm my mind from a lot of anxiety, because I found myself in them. In the end, it might be all that survives me, other than a landfill full of computer cables. I doubt it though. Who wants to read the rambling of a millennial survivor tilting at his own windmills?

I'm not sure I'll ever revisit that period of insanity again in my writing. I'm finally getting over it and have accepted what it did to me. (I'm now 50. I process things slowly, I guess.) Well, I've always accepted it to some degree, but in a person's early 20s, a person can change so much and so many things can get established. I acknowledge that I was dumber than a rock and immature in a great many things. I still have issues with those that should have known better, but what can ya do? My life has been uneventful for the most part, just one of gradual self-improvement. I'm in a pretty good place overall. My wife still loves me. My family is doing okay. I'm pleased with my uneventful career. My friends, for reasons unknown, still tolerate me. Yeah, I collect paper, soap and various cologne and candles but I'm mostly harmless. I'm trying to minimize and refocus and I hope my last few years on this planet will be worth my while. I hope yours are too.