The date, and some thinking.......

Hello and good morning folks, how's your day going?


Yesterday was a busy day for me. The date went well, at least I think it did. We walked around the mall a little, talked, and then went to this store she liked that I can only describe as the craftiest craft store on the planet. This place had everything you can possibly imagine for any type of craft you might want to do. She had been there before, so she knew exactly what she was looking for, and found it. Soap making kits. I have only seen those in one other craft store I have been to, so I'd say that means that this store had everything. Wood working stuff, felt, fabric, I mean everything. So that was fun, to just wander around looking at what they had. Then, we went to see "The Thing", at the movie theater across the street from the craft store. It was a good movie, and the special effects were very good. I always love a movie with good special effects, no matter what the movie is about. 


Anyway, after the movie she had to go home, so I took her home and met her family. I met her parents, her brother, and not only her children, but her sister and her brother's kids too. She lives close to an hour away from where I do, so the drive home was pretty long, and I had time to do some thinking.


For the first time in my life, I really feel like I am alone. Not in a bad way, I mean being on my own. I have the freedom to do whatever I wish, and for someone who has not had that, ever, it's a pretty sobering thought. I knew when I got down here that it would be a new life, but I didn't envision it like THIS. No one tells me I HAVE to do certain things at certain times, no one argues with me, no one is constantly in my face telling me I have to think a certain way, or do things a certain way. But there's more to it than that, and this is the part that I did not foresee. 


I myself have changed. In Tennessee, I was living with friends, just as I am now. But up there, it just seemed like I didn't have the freedom to do what I wanted when I wanted, and I realize now it was because of the way I approached it. I could have gone out and done lots of things, but I didn't. I still had the shrew in mind, what she would think of whatever it was I was doing, and I was afraid of her coming and doing something to me. She only lived an hour down the road, making it seem like she was next door or something, at least in my mind. Now however, I feel like I have broken away, and even though I am still living with friends, I realize now what it means to be on my own. You can be living with someone and still be on your own. They have their own things to do, their own daily schedule, which has nothing to do with me, nor is it affected by anything I do. I truly have the freedom to do whatever I wish, as long as it does NOT impinge on something that they want to do. Which is pretty easy to accomplish. 


Bella has made me feel more at home here than I have felt most anywhere else I have ever lived. But at the same time, she has shown me what it means to have total control over my own life, and it's nice. A little strange for someone who has not had it in ANY of the 40 years I've been alive. I am really looking forward to having my own place now, for as sad as it sounds, most of my life I was deathly afraid of being "alone", and it stopped me from doing everything required to become independent. 


Being alone is not what I thought. I thought it meant not having anyone that cared about me, not having anyone to come home to. But it's not. It means having your own agenda, your own desires and feelings, and being your own person, separate from everyone else. It's a mental thought process like anything else. You can get wrapped up in emotions, and think things are about who cares about you and who doesn't, but in reality, none of that matters if you are your own person. There's nothing wrong with not having anyone to call "your own", that one person who cares about YOU more than anyone else in their lives. It's ok to be alone, because in truth, every single one of us IS alone, we are all unique individuals, and no one else perceives things like we do.


If you've read any of my earlier posts, you can see that even though I left her close to 2 years ago, and I was not dealing with her directly, I still had the same thought process, the one that says I HAVE to have someone else's approval, I HAVE to have that person who cares about me, or I am "alone". I thought more with her "brain" than I thought with mine. What I didn't see was that it was much more than just thinking with her brain. It was an emotional thing, wanting to have someone that cared about me and only me, and I was willing to put up with all kinds of torture just to have that feeling. The emotional thinking makes being alone feel like you're on an island by yourself, with no one that cares, and the fear of that happening takes away all of your individuality. But being alone is a natural thing, not emotional, everyone IS their own island, and it's not a bad thing at all.


A lifetime of emotional thinking takes a while to retrain. It's happening slowly, but I think yesterday I took a big step in the right direction.

Another date tomorrow.....and lessons learned

Hello folks, how's it going today?


I've got another date tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to seeing her again, we're going to walk around in the local mall, just be together, and talk. It never occurred to me before how long it takes to really get to know someone. But then again, I've never really dated before, so it's all pretty new lol.


One thing I know for sure. We are both taking things very slowly. I think it's the best way to go about it, especially since what both of us have been through in our lives. Relationships, romantic ones in particular, are all unique, because every person is unique. No one relationship is like any other, and when the right person comes along, even if you "know" right away that they are the "One", it still takes time to learn who that person really is, and whether or not you match up well. I've had a few relationships that on the surface seemed wonderful, we had a lot of the same likes and dislikes, we had a great rapport, but, in the end, there was always something missing. That something was the love of who the person really was on the inside, past all the superficial things, and none of those relationships lasted more than a few months. So, I changed my strategy, and now I strive to get to know the person for who they are, before I go nuts over them because of things that in reality don't make for a relationship.


First that means starting out as friends. That's what she and I are now, mainly just friends, but there is a real sense that we can and will be something more as our relationship progresses, we have a goal of sorts, but we are not forcing anything, we're taking it nice and slow, and seeing if we "gel". I like that.


We'll talk a lot tomorrow, find out more about each other, and who knows? Maybe we'll find out we like each other all the more.


In other news, I learned a lesson of sorts in the last few days. A lesson in timing, and dealing with new challenges. I had this idea that coming down here would make my life so easy, and that I would not have any more challenges to overcome. Not everyday life challenges mind you, with things that involve making a living, and how things happen when you start a new life in a new state. No, what I'm talking about are challenges of a more personal nature. 


I thought that being here, and having the freedom to be myself, that I would no longer have any challenges to overcome in my growth as a human being. I again foolishly believed I had "arrived" at the destination, I believed life would no longer have anything to teach me about myself, and what improvements I could make to make me a better person. I was wrong.


While I would rather not share the details of the lesson I am currently learning, suffice it to say that I know this is a challenge I was meant to experience at this time in my life. The particular circumstances could not have been arranged at an earlier point, nor could they have taught me this lesson at a later point in my life. Now is the time. It is an intensely personal thing for me, and no one can help me to overcome it but myself. No one else in my position would see it the same as I, so therefore it would not be the same challenge. 


Even talking to someone else about it would not provide any real insight, as their perceptions of the situation would be their own, and not mine, and while I may be able to glean something from any advice they may give, ultimately I still have only myself to answer to for how I choose to deal with it. So I have chosen to keep it to myself, and deal with it in my own way. I only mention it here because it is what is currently going on in my life.


Having said that, life in general is better than I could have imagined. I'm settling in well here with Bella and Jack, and I am very happy. I got a library card today, and I'm looking forward to getting back to reading more often. It's been years since I read on a regular basis. 


So that's what's going on today, I'm about to head to bed, I'm getting tired, and I want to be up early to get ready for my date! Have a great night folks, talk to you soon!

Here's what's happening.........and what's going on tomorrow.....

Hey folks, how's it going?


Today was a pretty good day. Not a lot going on really, just helped Bella with some house cleaning, watched some TV, and then had a delicious dinner of cube steak, vegetables, and teryaki noodles. Bella's the greatest cook, even when it comes to simple stuff. She made bagels this morning that were out of this world, with ham, cream cheese, and swiss cheese. Very nomilicious lol.

While I'm on the subject of Bella, I have yet to publicly mention how grateful I am to her and Jack for allowing me to come stay with them. They gave me the opportunity that I needed to come back home, and I have yet to find the words to tell them how much it means to me. They have really made me feel at home, and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.


Tomorrow Bella and I are going on an outing, doing some shopping, getting some errands taken care of, and she's going to get her nails done. She deserves some pampering after what she's been through these last few months. We're also going to pick up some more hair color for me, as I'm a few months overdue now, the last time I did it was back in May lol, and it's supposed to be done every 3 months or so. I'm going with a different color this time, but I'm not saying what color yet, you'll just have to stayed tuned and see the pics when it's all done! :)


There's something else. I haven't mentioned it yet, because I wasn't sure how to say it. The broken record of "I'm happy, I feel at home" I'm sure has gotten to be a bore, but this is something different.


I posted some time ago about my feelings on sharing. The sharing I do of my personal feelings in fact. As everyone who reads my blog a lot knows, I have always been very open with my feelings. I put a lot of myself out there for the world to read, or at least the 38 of you who are interested in my life lol.


Things changed however, when I arrived here in Florida.


There is no longer a desire to bare my soul to the world, or to 38 interested parties. That desire was nothing more than a cry for attention, a desire to feel special. To be remembered by someone after they got done reading.


But you don't need to remember me. You have your own life. You read blogs to glean information you can use in your own life, that's what people read ANYTHING for. You read because you want to get something out of it for yourself. That's how we ALL are, it's how we learn. We see that we aren't the only one, we see how someone else did something, but ultimately, we choose for ourselves how we are going to run our own lives. Each of us has our own unique thoughts.


My thoughts right now tell me that sharing all those feelings is not necessary.


Tomorrow is another new day. I have errands to run, and things to accomplish. So now I'm going to bed.


Talk to you soon!

Had an interesting day.......

Today was an interesting day.


I went on a date for the first time since..........well, EVER. I don't believe I've ever actually been on a date before, not a true "date" anyway. With the shrew, I was already going out with her by the time we went on a proper date, and at the time, we were already living in the same house. The date I went on today was with someone I have been speaking to online for a few months now, but had never met in person. So it was a little different experience.


We met at a lake park in Tallahassee, had ice cream, and just talked. It was fun, and I had a good time. I think we hit it off pretty well. We're going to go on another date sometime next week, haven't made plans as to where or what we'll do yet, but I look forward to it.


On my way home, I got another in an increasingly long line of phone calls from the shrew that I have not answered, and she left a very nasty voicemail. Right in the middle of town, while I was stuck in traffic, I listened to the message. Not the smartest idea. I was steaming all the way home. 


You see, since I moved from Tennessee, I have not answered a single phone call from her. I have nothing to say to her. I texted her to let her know I was still alive, and safe, since she DOES deserve that much, but of course then she begins to demand I tell her where I am and basically goes into a bitch session about what I "should" be doing, and how it's all unfair, all in cryptic texts in between phone calls which she should know by now I will not answer. There's just no point. 


Why should I have to listen to her scream and holler, acting as though I answer to her, especially when all she's doing is going over the same stuff over and over again?


Which brings me to my next point. I left the shrew, for, among other things, because I was tired of having to answer to her all the time because she acted like she was in charge of me somehow. So I have been mulling over it in my mind for a while now, long before I went on my date today. Why should I want to get into another relationship, that could inevitably turn into the same thing, having someone to answer to?


The truth is, I am not happy being alone, and by alone I mean not having someone I can call my own. But that feeling is clashing with the feeling of wanting and liking to BE alone. I've never known anything like it before, it's the oddest feeling. One that my date reiterated while we were talking today, much to my surprise, and even delight. She is going through the same thing *I* am. 


I am at a place in my life where it seems patience is the best option to go with. I like the freedom of not being "attached", being able to do whatever I please. I don't really want a serious relationship right now. Many times before I have been very impatient when it came to relationships, solely because I didn't have enough self esteem or a sense of self worth. I wanted to dive right in to ANY relationship I could get myself in, and not look back, never really getting to know the person and finding out if they were the person I really wanted. I just was so not happy being alone, I'd attach myself to the first person who offered herself to me. I never really saw my ability to make my own choice, to choose the person that *I* wanted. I didn't feel good enough about myself to think I had that choice, I know that now. 


It's different now though, and I find myself being a lot more logical about things. Thinking about the consequences. Thinking about what I will have to invest. Thinking that I am ok being alone, at the same time I crave companionship. Interesting conundrum. I think that there is much I can do, and much that I want to do, that means that for right now, I don't NEED a "mate". Even so, there's a lot to be said for having someone to come home to, and having someone to go to sleep with at night.


One day, someday, I will have that relationship that gives me the best of both worlds. One in which I can have my companionship, but that I can also say I can be myself, and not feel like I am answering to anyone. 


There's something else. I have to say, being at home, I feel more comfortable than I have felt in a long time, and it's different. I go to sleep much earlier than I used to, I don't stay up till all hours feeling stressed out and looking for a way to relieve it. That, in and of itself, is something you can't put a price on. You don't know it can be this good till you have it. It's also giving me time to get my thoughts more organized, and gives me a sense of who I really am, and where I want to be in my life. Not a location "where", I've already got that, but where I want to be spiritually and mentally. I am not the man I was, and the man I am now is not driven by anyone else's ideas or thoughts.


I am a man alone. Alone, comfortable with myself, confident in myself, and aware of my own self worth. When someone comes along that measures up to the standards I've set, and I enjoy their company, then I may choose them to be my companion. I am a unique individual, and that person must be unique as well. I think everyone's ultimate goal is and should be what mine is. To be who I am, be myself, and be with someone who appreciates me for BEING who I am, no matter what that may be. 


All it takes is patience to find them.

Home, happiness, and changes

It's hard to believe it's been almost a month since I posted anything. I guess you could say that I had so much to say that I couldn't say anything at all. Or maybe I didn't know where to start.


Many of you know my "backstory".  I was in what you might call a "situation". I was not happy, I didn't feel like I had a life of my own. But then I did something about it, I made a change. However, moving out, leaving my wife, and trying to make my own life was harder than I imagined. 


The 20 years of living inside a monster that I myself had created could not be changed overnight, and as I found out, could not even be changed in the better part of the 2 years it had been since I left. 


You see, while I did leave, and move in with friends, I never did get the proverbial "monkey" off my back. First of all, I moved only an hour down the road, still close enough for me to feel the influence of the monster. I still didn't feel free, I didn't feel I was "home". I was still so far from everything I loved, and didn't feel I was indeed living my own life. 


All the talk about how I could make my own decisions, all the posts about how I had started my new life, and yet somehow I was just going on doing things with the same thought process, the same way I had done everything for almost 20 years. "What would SHE think? Can I do this without making her angry? I can't tell her what I'm doing, she's going to go ballistic!" These and many more are the thoughts that dominated everything I did when we were together, and also when I left, even being an hour down the road, where she was not "in my face" every day. 


So what did I end up doing? I went to work every day, and came home. Nothing else. Well, if you could call it home. It was merely the house I lived in, it wasn't home at all. My true home, the place I knew I was supposed to be, was somewhere much further away, and I was miserable still. I was still not making decisions with my own mind, there was always fear, the fear of what "she" might do. She has a "spy" network you know, people checking things on the internet, always keeping tabs on me, she can't stand not knowing what I'm doing or who I'm talking to. So I basically did....nothing......just went to work, played around on the computer a bit, and slept, that was my "life".


And then, it happened. 


Fate intervened.


The opportunity presented itself. Yes folks, the opportunity to FINALLY go HOME. It came totally out of the blue, out of nowhere, the message came to me one day that said, "How would you like to come home?" 


You can imagine my surprise and utter elation when I read that message! Really? I can go HOME?


So I did something totally out of character for me. I didn't think, I didn't over analyze the situation. I took action.


I packed up my stuff, and hightailed it out of there. Well, after taking the time to ditch everything I could not take with me in the car. There were many things I got rid of, material things, huge chunks of my past that were doing nothing but weighing me down, keeping me tied to that place. My only focus, my only goal, was to get myself to where I belonged, to where I could be myself, where I was safe.


I did it. I moved, again, but this time, I went HOME.


I can't tell you why I did it like I did, and I can't even say what it felt like. I wasn't "feeling" anything. I certainly didn't let that lifetime of fear that had driven my thought process for so very long get in the way of what I wanted to accomplish. I didn't think ahead to what "she" might think, I didn't make my decision based on what I thought she might want me to do, I just DID it. That, in and of itself, was an intriguing sensation. My mind was quiet.


So now, here I am, writing to you from home. For those of you who have not yet connected the dots, and who might not follow my best friend Bella's blog, I am staying with her now, in Florida, and I could not be happier. She and her husband are two of the most wonderful people in the world, and for them to give me the chance to come home means more to me than I think either of them know. 


I am truly free now, free to be who I really am. I am still adjusting to that particular feeling, after all, as I said earlier, what has been trained into me for 19 years cannot be completely forgotten in just a few days, but it's quickly becoming my reality. 


What do you do when you have no fear? I'll tell you what you do. 


You do what you want. You remove any filters in your mind. You wake up in the morning and you live in the moment, taking on each situation with new eyes. You really are your own person, and you don't have to answer to anyone but yourself. You remove the blinders from your eyes, and you see the world as it truly is, a world to be experienced in any way you see fit.


I've made a huge change this time folks. The biggest change I've made so far in this life.


I am HOME.


I am happy.........No, I am ecstatic, overjoyed, and for once in this lifetime, satisfied.


I am not the man I was.

Death and tragedy.....perception is the difference

Today is the 10 year anniversary of one of the most observed tragedies in American history.


Every single one of you reading this knows exactly what tragedy I'm talking about.


Everyone remembers where they were, everyone knows what happened.


There are numerous memorial services being held today to remember those who died, and to honor those who are serving our country.


People say "We will never forget."


And then comes tomorrow.


Sure, we don't forget, we still remember what day the event happened, but we go back to our regularly scheduled lives and "forget" all about it.


Except for those that lost someone that day. Life is never again going to be "normal". They live that tragedy every single day of their lives, without their loved ones, their colleagues, their friends.


But then isn't that the way it is for all of us? At some point in everyone's life, we lose people. They leave our lives, they die. 


It's when they are taken from us "prematurely" that it leaves an even bigger mark on our psyche.


It's how we perceive the death or tragedy that makes all the difference.


There are many ways to leave this life, one of which is to grow old and die of "natural" causes. When someone dies this way, generally, the statement is made that they "lived a full life, it was time". 


Take someone away much earlier in their years, and it's a completely different story. And why?


We perceive different kinds of deaths in different kinds of ways.


A baby is born, and then dies unexpectedly two months later. There is uncontrollable grief. This was a child that did not get a chance at life.


A seven year old girl dies when she chases her ball into the street and gets hit by a car. Same reaction, she did not have the chance at a full life. 


What about a 30 year old that suddenly drops dead of a heart attack? The grief is different for adult "victims", but still, almost as strong as for children. 


What if that same 30 year old dies in an unforeseen tragedy such as the one we remember today? An attack, seemingly unprovoked, and one that is seen as preventable as well. Here's where our perceptions change.


How we feel about death is largely decided by how much it affects us personally. If we lose a loved one to a disease, slowly, we have time to prepare for the end. When they are snatched away from us when we least expect it, it creates a much deeper impact on our minds. Especially when we see it as a death that should not have happened. 


I'm thinking today about how I see the tragedy, my perceptions of it. I saw it on the news, just like millions of other Americans. But I was not directly involved. I could perhaps talk to someone that was, and ask them what it was like. But can I really perceive it like they did? That's like asking someone who recently broke their ankle what it feels like, when you yourself have never broken a bone. There's just no frame of reference.


Anyone who lost someone that day had a unique perception of the event. Those who did not die, and were able to escape in time, have a completely different perception, even if they also lost someone. Every single person present, whether they were filming it, working in the buildings, or were a member of the firefighting crews and rescue personnel, has their own perception of the event. 


The processing of the emotions and thoughts of a day like that sometimes take years to work through, and sometimes are never fully processed. How we perceive a particular event, especially when it involves loss of life, is unique to every person individually. We can say that when multiple lives are at stake at any given moment, that there can be many similar perceptions, but each person still has their own unique view of the situation as a whole, according to what is happening in their own life at that moment, and it changes how we see things.


How can we say we know how someone else feels when something as traumatic as that happens, if we ourselves did not see it as they did? We can't. We have our own perceptions. How can we say that the mother of that two month old baby who died did not feel the same as the wife who lost her husband on that fateful day 10 years ago? How can we even begin to imagine what the mother of the 30 year old heart attack victim felt when her son died, as opposed to a mother who lost her son in the attack on the World Trade Center? Are they any different? 


I say it's all about perception. 


I lost a friend once. I was 16 years old, and he and I transferred from one school to another in the same year, and for a time, he and I were the only ones each of us knew in that school. He committed suicide late in that school year, and I felt a tremendous sense of guilt, because I perceived it differently than did the other kids. I felt I should have seen it coming, because I felt I knew him better than they did. Did I in fact? I don't know, but from my point of view, I did. 


My point in all of this is that our perceptions have a tendency to cloud our judgement. I feel we need to be more compassionate with others, and remember that just because we may have knowledge of an event, and feel grief and pain, our perceptions are different, and we can't really know how someone else is affected by the same event.


Today is day when we look back on a tragic event, and honor those who left this life that day. There are 364 other days in a year, and on each one of those days there is someone that looks back on a day when someone close to them left this life as well. To me, those days are no less important than today. 2996 families were directly affected by the tragedy that befell the nation on that day, but all around the world, many other families lost loved ones as well. Every day, tragedies happen, every day, many people leave this life. 


I think it is important to remember that even though this was a highly publicized and televised event, and the whole world saw it happen, we were not there, and we have no idea the affect it had on those involved. Tragedy takes many forms, and you alone perceive it in your own way. So have compassion with others who are still reeling after 10 years, 20 years, or a lifetime. You can't walk in their shoes, just as they cannot walk in yours.


All I can say is, my heart goes out to you all, in your time of grief, for whoever you lost, and however it happened. May you find peace and feel the love and compassion of those around you as you remember those who are no longer with you.

Bad days......and good days

Something must have been stirred up in the rain we had in the last 3 days or so. 


Life was going along just great, nothing unusual was happening, things were pretty calm. 


And then, it happened.


First. last night, I got in the car to go to work, and while it would crank, it would not start. From what it looks like I am just overdo on a lot of maintenance, and I also found that the battery will need to be changed. Not looking forward to spending the $200 dollars it is going to take to get it going again.

Then, after my roommate gave me a ride to work, I had to work with a kid who does nothing but talk smack all night, further exacerbating my already annoyed condition. He makes fun of anyone and everyone he can, I'm assuming to stroke his own ego. Normally I let his jibes and insults roll off of me and ignore them, but last night he was especially bad and I just about lost it. 


To top it all off, I got home from work, and got on the phone with the "ex", and she tells me that social services is about to come after me for child support. So yeah, now I'm going to be bent over and screwed with no lube. She had no idea when or how it was going to happen, and at this point, I'm not sure I even care. I knew it was going to happen, but now is just the worst timing for it.


Anyway, sorry for the rant, just has not been the best of days for me. I'm doing ok otherwise. 


I did have one good thing happen recently. I was asked to become a columnist for Paganpages.org, and my first article was published in their September edition. If you'd like to see what I wrote, just click on that link there, and then when you get to their page, just check the column on the right side for the name of my column, which is, just as my blog, Perthro's Pronouncements. I'm excited about writing for them, and hope to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. 


That's about it for now, some good things, some bad things happening, but all in all life is good.


Have a great day everyone!