To first weeks...

It's been quite a while since I've had a "first week on the job".  I honestly thought that the company I just left was going to be the one that I rode out into the sunset with.  It was the first time in a long time that I could say that with any real confidence.  Companies change though and so do people...specifically me. 

For the past 13+ years I've given the majority of my life and then some to whatever company I was working for because quite frankly they demanded it...and I had a family to take care of.  Because of this, I missed a fair number of "firsts" with our kiddos and just a lot of time with them.  More so with Marlee than Sam.  For a while when Marlee was little, life got really complicated and regardless of what was going on...all that matters is that it became a distraction and her baby life slipped right on by me.

Fast forward 10 years later and through various conduits (I couldn't resist that one) I found myself interviewing with a new company.  One that I can say seems to really value their employees and their families.  Even more...one that understands what work / life balance really means.

For a moment here...I'm going to show my cards a little.  I never thought I would ever get the chance to interview with a company like this much less work for them.  I never had the chance to finish up getting the higher education that some of my peers have.  All I have is my work ethic and the experience I've gained over the years.  It can be seriously intimidating to be around all those degrees on the wall and it can feel like a hurdle that is almost impossible to traverse at times.

The one thing that I've had though is being able to overcome that fear and intimidation and when given the chance to go after something, I don't hesitate.  When I saw this opportunity, I knew this could be a real game changer for me and my family.  Yes, I'm starting over in a new industry.  Yes, it will be difficult and overwhelming at times...but...what I will gain above any monetary benefit is something that you can never get back...time.

I can't make up for the time I gave up when our family was small and struggling.  I will just have to accept that and live with it.  What I can do is make more time for my family now and in the future.

That makes this "first week" worth it all.

The tale of two Zebras

Zebra - a striped, 4 legged animal that lives in the wild...also...sports slang for a referee...

It's been a while since I've seen Marlee this upset.  This wasn't your normal, 11 year old, my brother is annoying me upset...this was much deeper.  I knew we were in for some tears and hugs.

She had just finished playing a really tough basketball game in which her team came up just two points short.  Her team has both won and lost this season but this loss hurt.  Their team had a number of rather questionable calls go against them and it made the game feel very much out of balance.  It created a tense situation for both teams along with the audience that was watching it all go down.  The zebras were showing their stripes tonight in full force.

After the game, you could see it in our players faces.  I think for some of them it was maybe the first time they felt that the world could be unfair...the calls sometimes don't go your way...the best effort can be undone by the perceived unbalance of others.  That's a hard lesson to learn and even more difficult to sit from a distance and watch it happen to your 11 year old daughter. 

I tend to try and give all refs the benefit of the doubt and as much grace as I can.  I umpired little league some years ago and I've had a taste of what it's like to be judge and jury.  To get it right and to get it wrong.  It can be a rather thankless job especially when you have someone come across the fence on you when you called their little Johnny out on a close call at home.  Even with my prior experience, it was hard to keep my own comments and emotions in check...and I'm not even the one out on the court... 

We all have some zebras in our lives.  I'm sure you can think of a few.  Some call the game as fairly as they can, others...not so much.  The unbalance of some can very much undo your best efforts.  In that though, we have to somehow learn to adapt, adjust, and persevere.  It is not easy to rise above the hurt, the pain, and the injustice we feel but in order to grow, it's not a suggestion, it's a requirement.

Tonight, Marlee's team had practice.  To my surprise, not a single girl was down and out about the game they had lost just the night before.  They were back, playing like it had never happened.  It was amazing to see and quite humbling.  It took some of my own feelings and put them right in front of my face.

Sometimes the world will drop some zebras in your life...when the calls don't seem go your way...regardless if you're 11 years old or 43...it's up to us to learn ways to adapt, adjust, and persevere.  

1, 2, 3...dream!!!

10 years, difficult decisions, hard choices

It was just after lunch. I came back to my desk and I saw the note sitting there.  It was a directive to report to the conference room.  There, in that cramped little room, rock turned into sand, light turned to darkness, and the world as I knew it came crashing down.  "You have 30 minutes to pack your things and exit the property".  Lay-offs know no friends and spare no feelings.

This is how 2008 ended for me.  With our marriage already in dire straits and two young babies lives in the balance, I honestly thought "This is it.  This is how it all falls apart".  I lost my job, we lost our house, we lost our vehicle, we we're losing our very existence. 

It was in this moment though, in the chaos, the wreckage, we had to make the most critical decision we have ever made.  Do we succumb to the ever crashing waves or do we grab each other's hand and fight with everything in us?  I wish I could say that we met each other in the middle but that wouldn't be true.  The strongest person I've ever known grabbed me by the hand and said, I'm not ready to give up.  It was in that moment that Cindy bravely stood in the gap for our family and for that I'm forever grateful.

Since that time we've had to make some difficult decisions and hard choices.  When other families were moving into bigger and nicer homes, we were downsizing to a single wide trailer.  When our friends we're buying new vehicles, I was working on junkers in our driveway.  When people around us went on big vacations, we would take our kids to the swingsets near our little trailer.

When opportunities eventually arose to go after employment, we left our family, our friends, our home,...everything we knew...and forged a new existence...one box and one mile at a time.  This is what we chose.  The road less traveled.  For us, failure was no longer an option.  If we went down, we went down together, hand in hand.

Fast forward to tonight.  We're all sleeping in the now second house that we just bought, I have a pretty nice driveway to work on our cars now, and we can take a few days off from time to time to head to the beach if we want to.  All of this because a decade ago, Cindy reached for my hand, not ready to give up.

Tomorrow Cindy starts a new journey.  She re-enters the workforce with the career she had before Sam and Marlee came along.  The one she selflessly gave up to be the best mom she could be for our little ones.  I know she's nervous, excited, and kinda scared.  This will be a big adjustment for our family, especially for her.  It's the realization that we are starting a new phase in our lives.  To start this next step is to aknowledge that our babies aren't babies anymore.  Sam is taller than Cindy now and Marlee isn't far away.  I know in part the feeling of having to leave your children when you have a career but that's through the eyes of someone who merely saw the birth of their children, not through the eyes of the one who gave birth to them.

I sat down this past week and attempted to explain this to Sam and Marlee as best as I could.  I think they understand in the only way an 11 and soon to be 13 year old can.  I've also talked to Cindy countless times about schedules, plans, back up plans, you name it.  All of this in attempt to calm nerves and ease minds.  I know Cindy is still staring into the unknown though.  I know she's still nervous, excited, and scared.

It will be an adjustment but she's strong... stronger than most people realize...stronger than anyone I know.  We've faced difficult times and had to make the hard choices.  She was strong then, she's strong now.

I can never repay her for standing in the gap for our family a decade ago but it's my heart's desire to spend the rest of this life trying to just the same.  Tonight, when I go to bed, I'll reach for Cindy's hand and let her know that I love her like crazy and to not give up. 

"You and me against the world...I don't mind."

Here's to your "Thoughts and Prayers"...

It's been a difficult week to be a husband,  father, and for that matter, just a human being.  The self-inflicted war zone that this generation has had to endure in our country over the past several years hit way too close to home this week.  We have willing become the United States of the Armed and Dangerous.

Something I take especially personal is the "thoughts and prayers" segment that always seems to follow these events.  This verbage has finally been called into question.  It's about time and way overdue.

I've done the religious thing for a long time and while this particular commentary isn't specifically about my own struggles with faith, I can tell you that the phrase "thoughts and prayers" is usually code for "I feel bad about the situation but not bad enough to do anything about it, so here's some lip service to make myself feel better about not actually doing anything about said situation.".  I stopped saying this phrase a long time ago and if you've been around me long enough, maybe you've picked up on this.  This term has become completely and utterly useless.  It ranks right up there with other terms like "there's a time and place" and "let's not make this political".  All of these phrases are spoken from a place of complacency and inaction.

I want to personally address the different parts of this now overused and abhorrent phrase.  Let's start with the "thoughts" part.  I think about a lot of things.  I think about stress, anxiety, depression, what I didn't eat for breakfast, if my dog Chico needs dog food, you name it.  100% of the time, all those thoughts do is remind me of what I need to do, not do, fix, not fix, etc.  Beyond that, thoughts do amazingly nothing.  I can think about feeding my dog all the time but if I don't actually feed my dog, he will starve and die.  I can think about all that's going on around me but until I take action, nothing will ever change.

Oh, and about taking action.  Doing nothing always produces nothing.  Really, you can check me on this one.  If I never put money in the bank, guess what, there will never be money in there.  Interesting thing though, if someone gives you money, especially a lot of money, they can also make you do nothing...but I digress.

Now finally to the "prayers" section.  This one can be a touchy subject because it involves questioning a person's own faith and religion.  I have to ask the hard question of what have your prayers honestly accomplished?   I'm not asking this as some hidden attack on your faith, I seriously want to know?  Have you sincerely, earnestly prayed for someone or some situation when you've used this term?  Have you seen some cosmically positive outcome to the words that you've hurled into the abyss of the universe?  If not, then maybe that's the answer you've actually been given.  Maybe your creator gave you the ability to enact change yourself and has left this in your hands to initiate. 

No, I don't use this phrase anymore and refuse to do so in the future.  I'm not going to say these empty words to try and make myself feel better about things that maybe I can do something about.  I'm not going to say this knowing that the generation that follows me, sees right through these baseless and lazy words and absorbs them as insults...salt to their ever growing wounds.

I do say though, I take action in the capacities in which I can and everyday I look for ways to expand that capacity.  It's not been a perfect path by no means but at least I'm walking a path, however imperfect it may be at times.

For years, I had thoughts and prayers about the path I wanted to be on and the person I wanted to be.  I've never heard a cosmic voice giving me some divine piece of advice that has changed the course of my life forever.  Maybe I just wasn't listening hard enough, or maybe the silence was my answer.  It wasn't until I took action and starting walking for myself that I ever began to move forward.

As long as this country keeps hiding behind their "thoughts and prayers" we, as a nation, will go nowhere and the generation that follows us will surely die because of it.

40 Years in the Making

I've enjoyed writing for most of my life (Especially when I discovered the wonders of a laptop and ditched long hand pen and paper.).  Whether it be poetry, prose, or some rant about a car breaking down, I really do enjoy it.  The process of taking my thoughts and hammering them into something hopefully interesting and at the very least, cohesive, does something for my inner person.

 With that being stated, I've always just thrown everything in one spot without any real rhyme or reason.  No guidance from me, the writer, to you, the reader.  After much thought and procrastination, I've decided to split my writings into two different genres if you will.

The Ramblings in My Head blog will now house just my poetry and prose.  That was actually my intention all long but over time it became the catch all for what was on my mind. I've now started this new super cool blog called A Nomad in America in order to have a place for basically everything else.  I'm also going to try and label the posts here to provide a little order to all the chaos this blog will encompass.

On a more serious note and somewhat of a disclaimer, I moved all the posts I felt needed to be relocated here in their entirety and unedited from the original posts that were on The Ramblings.  Some of the posts moved here may contain subject matter and statements that I may or may not believe in or agree with anymore.  We all evolve over time (and after reading some of my earlier works, I'm so glad that's true) and I felt it would be important to leave the content as is in order to illustrate that evolution.  

It's my hope that creating this new blog will spur me to get back in the ole writing saddle and move into a new area of writing that I have yet to explore.  I've never been satisfied in staying in one place and now you know why this is called...

...A Nomad in America.