To catch up on all that The IC has offered in the past, read an entertaining story about some whitewater shenanigans, or follow the adventures that will now be completed, click here on The Table of Contents.
“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
~Mary Anne Radmacher~
The automobile was invented in 1886, and people began to drive routinely in the early 1900's. Until that time in human history almost everyone traveled no more than 20 miles from their homes in an entire lifetime. The ones who did usually did so against their own will. Soldiers traveled for war, outlaws traveled to remain free, and refugees traveled because they were forced off their land by the government or by hostile forces...........just look at The Trail of Tears for that last example. But as a whole, most people never knew what the world was like outside of a 20 mile radius of their homes................and people have existed on this earth for 200,000 years. Take a moment to think about that and let it sink in.
I break back into The IC after a six month hiatus with these facts in order to make an important point. We have walked this earth for 200,000 years, but humanity only just began to freely experience all that the world has to offer no more then 150 years ago. This means that only .00075 percent of the population of humanity has understood the world the way every single person reading this post understands it today. We are part of a tiny population in the history of evolution to experience 1000 times the culture and diversity of the world as opposed to the other 99.999 percent that came before us........awesome, right? Well maybe it isn't awesome. Maybe it's what's wrong with the world and why it seems that everyone is losing their damn mind. Maybe we weren't meant to see everything we are being exposed to. Maybe humanity isn't ready to handle it.........................because based on what I have witnessed, we are proving everyday that we are nothing but a bunch of spoiled children trying to convince ourselves we are important. Maybe we simply need to stop taking everything so seriously. Maybe we need to find our roots again. Maybe we simply need to find love, community, slow down and enjoy an afternoon walk, a float on the rivah, or look into someone else's eyes and try to understand them. Maybe, just maybe, we need to be human again.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
~Henry David Thoreau~
2015 has been a rather unconventional year for me. There were five distinct occurrences in the past year that led me to the point that I find myself at today.
1. I fell in love
2. I received a letter
3. I stopped taking that little numbing pill.
4. I accepted the fact that my parents were not the people that I had always perceived them to be.
5. I lost a dear friend.
Obviously there is more to each of these occurrences than the simple list just presented. I vowed that 2015 was the year of recovery; personally, emotionally, and financially. For the most part, I didn't do to bad, and it was these events that actuated the recovery. Each event had a profound impact on the way I think, the decisions I make, and the direction of my life as I move forward and continue to grow into 2016. And each occurrence will continue to impact me from this day forward.
Without a doubt the most elated occurrence was falling in love. I went my whole life thinking I understood love because I was under the impression that I had experienced it before...................I hadn't. I just thought what I experienced was love..................It wasn't. Not until I fell in love with Marcie did I realize I hadn't a clue what love was. I don't think many people do understand love until the day they realize they never have to search for it again. Marcie loves me unconditionally, and the warmth and comfort that brings to my soul cannot be adequately described in the context of this post. She accepts me for who I am, no matter what. She has no intentions of changing me. She loves me for me. It's that simple. She is a truly remarkable woman, and I wake up every day knowing that I am lucky to have stumbled upon her.
But with that love comes great responsibility. I have an obligation to be the best man I am capable of being, and for most of 2015 I falsely thought that meant making as much money as possible in order to take care of her while trying to find a way back to my children................I was wrong. I don't take care of Marcie. She takes care of herself, and in all honesty she takes care of me too, much better than I could ever take care of myself. (Every true Dirt Bag reading this knows exactly what I mean) I am well aware I wouldn't stand a chance in rebuilding if it were not for her. So when it came time for me to take a look at the career decisions I made this year, I found myself stuck between a rock and a Class V hole.
In August I accepted a management position that allowed me a salary far greater than anything I had ever made before. In my mind I thought it would help me return to my boys, take care of my financial obligation to Marcie, and rebuild my life as expeditiously and bedraggled as possible................I couldn't have been any more mistaken. Money solves nothing. I found myself working 70 hours a week in an industry that represented every evil that capitalism surfaces in the human soul. Our company took advantage of people, ripped customers off, made empty promises to employees, and cut corners at every turn. I found myself questioning my own ethics on a daily basis despite the fact that I was doing a pretty good job, and I found myself looking in the mirror and not respecting the decisions I had made for the day..........and I did it all for one reason. Money.
But I couldn't let Marcie down. I needed to be a "respected" member of society. I needed to buy into the system that I had been fighting for over four years..................or so I thought. Marcie and I spent less and less time together and we found that this new job that supposedly would open up opportunities was instead closing the doors of freedom. We found the weekend adventures we had freely experienced had now vanished, and each day was quickly becoming just like the last. Many reading this will respond with, "well, that's life."..............no it isn't. You've simply told yourself that for so long that you've accepted it to be true. Life is the adventure and journey you take to find yourself. It is NOT your bank account or material shit that you possess.
I finally mustered up the courage to look her in the eyes and admit that I was miserable due to the job. When I did, something amazing happened.................blunt and honest TRUTH. She looked at me and calmly said, "then quit." I of course fought this notion, explaining that I would be lost because I did not have a "career focus". After all, these are the things our parents taught us from their never ending wisdom of baby boomer bull shit.
That is when Marcie invoked her wisdom upon me, and in doing so opened up a ray of light that I had never understood. She explained simply that people in this world usually pursue two things................love and a career. Most will sacrifice the love in order to gain the career. They think that if they chase the money then once they have it love will find a way into their lives. However, many times they wake up one day and realize that with their successful career and financial security they are now incredibly lonely and the task of solving that loneliness is an immense hurdle to overcome. They then turn around and spend the remainder of their lives attempting to fill the void left in the wake of their financial sacrifices..............either that or they settle for something less than true love.
She went on to explain that I had chosen the other path, the one less traveled. I threw away a career in order to search for something. Although I had no clue what that was when the journey began, it ended up being true love that ended my adventure and started a new one. Now that I did have love in my heart, the search for what I was meant to do in life could be completed without ever again having to feel the loneliness that so many feel everyday of their lives..............especially the ones who settled. I then asked her what her dream was when she was younger. She explained that all she ever wanted was for someone to love her the way I did. Because of that, she was living her dream and that was why she appreciated me so much..................I told you she was an amazing woman.
I concluded that this was my chance, my opportunity, to seek out a career that I truly respected, and follow my heart in doing what I truly believed in. And understanding that I had her love and support made all of it so much less scary. The next day I walked into the office, looked at my boss, and told him I quit.......................and man was he pissed. He simply couldn't understand how money was not my primary motivating factor in life. For this, I truly feel sorry for him.
“I have not always chosen the safest path. I've made my mistakes, plenty of them. I sometimes jump too soon and fail to appreciate the consequences. But I've learned something important along the way: I've learned to heed the call of my heart. I've learned that the safest path is not always the best path and I've learned that the voice of fear is not always to be trusted.”
~Steve Goodier~
The second occurrence of 2015 was that I received a letter. It came to me by email in the spring and it was from a man named Fran Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence was the defense attorney who successfully saved the life of the UVA lacrosse killer, manipulating the courts into believing he "accidentally" smashed the head of Yeardley Love into a wall and then left her for dead...........accidentally. George Huguely, the killer, received 24 years for the murder, but could be out of prison within 19 years. Mr. Lawrence proudly defended this man. But I did not know Mr. Lawrence because of this highly publicized case. I knew him because his family was very close friends with Marcelle's family. I spent Christmas' with him and played in family soccer games with him. He attended our wedding party, and he and I had engaged in many intriguing conversations over the years.
The letter that he sent me was very simple. In it, he explained that Marcelle was willing to negate the astronomically high child support debt that had developed while I was homeless, broke, and searching for my way back. I simply needed to do one thing......................sign away my rights as Marlow and Quint's father. Yes, you are reading that correctly. Marcelle and her family were attempting to buy away my ability to be the father to my boys with a child support debt that they had purposely run up as high as possible while I was unable to support my family. Please keep in mind that my ex wife pays no mortgage or rent, living in a house owned by her parents one block away from where they reside. Her car is in her mother's name so that it will not show up on court records. Everything in Marcelle's life has always been simply handed to her. I know this because I watched it happen over the course of our marriage, and it was a primary factor in my subconscious decision to distance myself from her and her family at the end of our marriage................the wealthy of this country truly do lack a soul. Money corrupts us in so many ways.
I need to be clear here...........I made a mistake. I cheated on my wife. It was wrong and I will regret it for the remainder of my life. I also cheated on her with a truly horrible human being that my ex wife hated on a level that most can't comprehend. I deserved to lose my marriage and I understand why she and I were divorced...................but I never hurt my children. I was always there for them, even during my affair. I was a good father. One day I will have to explain to them about the mistakes that I made and why I couldn't be there for them. I am ok with that. I want to be the one who explains it to them and I want to take accountability. But no matter what, I never deserved to have them taken from me. That is the FACT of the matter, and what Marcelle and many other scorned and bitter women in this country do through the court system is wrong...................her behaviors in our divorce demonstrate EXACTLY why I was so unhappy being married to her.
I need to be clear here...........I made a mistake. I cheated on my wife. It was wrong and I will regret it for the remainder of my life. I also cheated on her with a truly horrible human being that my ex wife hated on a level that most can't comprehend. I deserved to lose my marriage and I understand why she and I were divorced...................but I never hurt my children. I was always there for them, even during my affair. I was a good father. One day I will have to explain to them about the mistakes that I made and why I couldn't be there for them. I am ok with that. I want to be the one who explains it to them and I want to take accountability. But no matter what, I never deserved to have them taken from me. That is the FACT of the matter, and what Marcelle and many other scorned and bitter women in this country do through the court system is wrong...................her behaviors in our divorce demonstrate EXACTLY why I was so unhappy being married to her.
The letter opened my eyes. First off, Marcelle knew that it allowed me to have physical evidence that would one day prove to the boys that it was she who was purposely keeping the boys from me by using her families wealth, as opposed to the lie she was concocting that I don't want to be their father. But more importantly, it showed me that she didn't care. She was willing to generate evidence that proved the disreputable and unethical approach she had taken in our divorce...........she was simply that arrogant.
Secondly, it demonstrated to me that Marcelle had no intentions of working with me to be a father, and that she would do anything in her power to keep me from my boys. I know that it was not Marcelle who had made this decision..............it was her mother, a woman who's true colors have been demonstrated in The Island Chronicles long ago. (Censorship Is a Bitch) Marcelle lacked the ability to think or function without her mother, and unfortunately it has led her to making decisions like this one. The letter truly broke my heart wide open in many, many ways.
Of course I denied it, refusing to sign my soul away. Fran reminded me that I would be responsible for the entire debt owed, attempting to convince me to simply give up.........................I told him to go fuck himself. But more importantly the letter forced me to accept the harshest reality that I have ever had to face.......................it would be a very long time before I would ever see my children again. I have two choices. I can allow this reality to destroy me, or I can accept it and move forward with my life, focusing on the hope that one day I will see them again...............it is what it is, and that is about all that I have to say about that. Sleep well M and Q. I have always loved you, and I always will. I will NEVER give up hope.
~Tom Bodett~
The third occurrence of 2015 is a continued struggle that I first wrote about while on The Island, titled "The Great Mental Health Med Debate". The story of The Island and the following fall in West By God abruptly ends at Week 26. It does this because at that time shit became REAL and an intense story took place that has yet to be written. Most who know of what happened have advised me to never write that story, but my mind is still not made up about the situation. Perhaps you will hear it one day. Following the fallout of the autumn of 2013 I returned to my parents home in an attempt to recover. My parents made it very clear that I would only be given a place to reside if I followed their strict orders................which meant nothing more than being sent to a doctor and doped up on medication. After all, why would they ever use love and understanding to deal with the situation when paying a doctor to put me on pills was available. In their eyes, it was just easier that way...............the Baby Boomer way. I don't really blame my parents. They are very broken by the system and have an inability to think for themselves. It is rather heartbreaking to watch, but they will take their beliefs to their graves. THAT I am positive of.
The doctors, in all of their wisdom, claimed that I needed to be immediately medicated and I was given a heavy dose of Lexipro. After months of so called "adjustments" in which I became violently ill, passed out on two occasions, suffered numerous panic attacks, and felt as though I was going to die, the drugs finally "balanced out" in my system. It became very apparent to me that I was now helplessly hooked on anti anxiety medication with no way out. Congrats Mom and Dad!!!! You healed me!
I will be honest..................after they finally adjusted in my system I was more numb than a heroin junkie on a three day bender. Seriously, I couldn't feel anything. Emotionally I was rock. I was no longer bothered by the loss of my children, the loss of my family, or my highly public fall from grace. I was simply numb. I didn't care about a damn thing.................that is all the medication accomplished. It allowed me the ability to not give a fuck.
I spent all of 2014 this way. I made no progress in life. I just didn't care..............about anything. Of course the medication was my parents entire plan for "recovery". They never intended on helping me in any other way. While I stayed at the house they never really spoke to me, spent time with me, or did anything else to make a human connection with me.............which was pretty much the same as my childhood, so I wasn't really bothered by it. Eventually I hit the road after they so gracefully forced my exit in an extremely cold and detached way. They filed a trespass order one month in advance against me and left it on my bed. It came with a cute little note that said I had one month to find somewhere to go and that they were doing this because they loved me. If I didn't leave, then the police would arrive at their house and force me to leave................they are such loving people. Can't possibly figure out why I would have any problems.
So I hit the road, lived on my cousins horse farm, wandered for the second half of the year, then went Dirt Baggin' and eventually found Marcie. Once I did leave "home" I quickly realized that not only was I no longer in a position where I needed to be numbed up, but I was also in a position where a doctor would no longer supply me with medication because I lacked a physical address......................so let me just review. My parents solution to my complete emotional and mental breakdown was to stick me in a doctors office and have me numbed up on highly addictive medication, kick me out because they had no other plan of action, and then leave me in the cold without any means to find the medication that I was now hooked on................like I stated before, they are very loving people.
So I made a choice. I would cold turkey 20 mg of Lexipro...................what other options did I have? I started the withdrawal process in December of 2014, and shortly after I moved to Marcie's family farm to spend the winter while she finished up school at John Hopkins and settled into her new job. It wasn't until the end of January that the withdrawal symptoms began....................I can honestly say that it has been the worst experience that I have ever had in my life, and unfortunately the withdrawals have continued to this day.
I am so grateful for Marcie. She has stood by me through all of it, and at times it has been very bad. I have sat on the bathroom floor uncontrollably shaking for hours. I have seen colors and shapes that are not really there, as if I was stuck in a bad acid trip. I have violently thrown up all night and broken out into cold sweats. My heart palpitates and pounds out of my chest at times with no warning or reason, scaring the shit out of me and sending me into uncontrollable anxiety attacks . My motivation, focus, and drive have simply vanished for weeks at a time................which hopefully helps you to understand why I have failed to write for six months. The worst waves came during my time spent at ALF this past spring. Once I returned from ALF I began to research my condition and spoke with a doctor out of fear that I may die from the withdrawals. The fact of the matter was a person just can't simply cold turkey an SSRI..................but what choice did I have? The system would no longer provide me with medication that was affordable, so I did what I had to do. I bit down, and suffered through the pain. I truly cannot even begin to describe how bad it eventually became. After speaking with a doctor I learned that I had developed Lexipro Withdrawal Syndrome, a condition that the drug company providing the medication refuses to acknowledge even exists. According to Big Drug America, Lexipro does not cause any side effects or withdrawals.........................at the moment I am simply shaking my head. Do you now understand why I have zero trust in any system within this country?
The fact that I have made the progress I have made throughout the course of this year is one step short of a miracle, because I have accomplished it while being very sick on a daily basis. I will NEVER again put an anxiety or depression medication into my body. I want to feel, and no matter how painful that feeling can be, it is still a better alternative than feeling numb to the world. Pain has purpose................it reminds us that we are alive. For now, I will continue to put one foot in front of the other and make progress in my life, without the need to numb myself up, because the love that fills my heart today makes all the pain simply disappear.
The fact that I have made the progress I have made throughout the course of this year is one step short of a miracle, because I have accomplished it while being very sick on a daily basis. I will NEVER again put an anxiety or depression medication into my body. I want to feel, and no matter how painful that feeling can be, it is still a better alternative than feeling numb to the world. Pain has purpose................it reminds us that we are alive. For now, I will continue to put one foot in front of the other and make progress in my life, without the need to numb myself up, because the love that fills my heart today makes all the pain simply disappear.
~Chuck Palahniuk~
So I assume that everyone can understand why the fourth occurrence that happened this year exists in the first place.................accepting that my parents are not the people I had always perceived them to be. Nothing that happened is really their fault. They are simple victims of the system. The Baby Boomer generation understood one way to live, and they were willing to sacrifice everything in order to gain that way of life. They sacrificed our economy, our political system, our nutrition, our environment, and our ethics in order to force feed their own insatiable hunger for greed and materialism. Their generation prides their successes on the things that they own, as opposed to the experiences that they possess. When it came to their kids, many had children simply because that is what they were supposed to do........................which is where my parents come in. They never wanted children......at least not me. They only had children because that's what they were supposed to do in order to represent success. Buy a house, have a career, create children. I know this for a fact because of a conversation that I overheard my parents having when I was just twelve years old.
My childhood home had a balcony from the upstairs to the downstairs that we called "the hole in the wall." For me, it was the perfect place to hide out after I was suppose to be in bed. I would sit up there and watch the TV shows that my parents watched late at night. I spent many nights viewing the crap that my father watched on TV, ignorant to the fact that it was exactly that, crap......................I still contemplate what kind of an impact that had on my brain.
One night while I was spying on the television from the hole in the wall, I overheard my parents talking. Our family had just returned from a recent vacation, and my sister and I had spent a large amount of time fighting on the trip, because that is what brothers and sisters did.................they fought. The conversation that I overheard was one in which my parents discussed how little they enjoyed the time they spent with us, and how they wished they could simply vacation without us, and that they were counting the days until my sister and I were both out of the house and in college.........................remember that I was twelve years old at the time. They went on to discuss how sometimes they regretted having a second child and wished that they had stopped at one..........................well, that second child was me.
It's a hard pill to swallow at twelve years old to realize that you were never really meant to exist. It's hard to accept the fact that you were never really meant to walk this earth to begin with, and that the people that created you considered you a mistake...................I became very angry inside after overhearing that conversation. I had always been an A and B student, but my grades started to fall after that night, and the trend continued through college. My mother of course sent me to counselors and doctors once this happened, teaching me how the "developing" Mental Health System could help me. Eventually as an adult I started taking Adderall by choice, convinced that I was ADHD. I now sit here at 37 years old and understand that I don't think I was ever ADHD...............I was simply confused at how I could have existed when I was never meant to exist in the first place.
No matter what though, I never told anyone what I had heard that night. I never mentioned it to my parents, my friends, my teachers, or to anyone else. The way I saw it, if I had been doing what I was suppose to that night I would have never heard the conversation in the first place. It was my own fault that I had unintentionally discovered my existence on this earth was in fact a regret. This piece of writing is the first time I have ever spoken of the incident, but I have thought about it almost everyday for the past 25 years of my life. I have thought about how I am nothing more than a regret.....................funny how life works.
No matter what though, I never told anyone what I had heard that night. I never mentioned it to my parents, my friends, my teachers, or to anyone else. The way I saw it, if I had been doing what I was suppose to that night I would have never heard the conversation in the first place. It was my own fault that I had unintentionally discovered my existence on this earth was in fact a regret. This piece of writing is the first time I have ever spoken of the incident, but I have thought about it almost everyday for the past 25 years of my life. I have thought about how I am nothing more than a regret.....................funny how life works.
I spent years trying to convince myself that who I was and what I had heard wasn't the TRUTH, but eventually I gave up. My sister went to college four years before I did and when she did, for the most part, the family vacations and the family time we had spent together simply dwindled away. My parents spent most weekends during my high school career away at Virginia Tech football games, leaving me free reign to have weekend parties and piss off all the neighbors. This isolation was what convinced me that the conversation I overheard that night was true. If it hadn't been, they would have wanted to be more present during my high school career, and our family would have continued to be a family into adulthood. I see many friends on Facebook and in life who still carry close connections with their family's, the same way they did as children......................unfortunately myself nor my family are one of them. In fact, both my mother and father have me blocked on Facebook. Talk about a kick in the nuts.
I have spent the last twenty years of my life attempting to connect with the two people who I knew all along never really wanted me to be there in the first place..............and I have failed miserably in that attempt. So it was this year that I finally concluded what I knew all along. They just don't care. They make no attempt to contact me nor do they care to speak with me. They have never met Marcie, are unaware of any of the successes that I have made throughout this year, and show no interest in the progress of my life. They are aware of the letter that Marcelle sent me earlier this year attempting to buy away my rights as a father, but they continue to visit Marcelle and pretend as though none of it is happening. In their minds, as long as they are able to see the boys, why should they care about me.........................after all, I am nothing more than their regret.
I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.”
~Jonathan Safran Foer~
The final occurrence of 2015 that has severely impacted my life was the death of my friend, Carter Worthington. Carter and I only recently became friends, but I will always cherish the months of March and April, because most of that time was spent with Carter and his beautiful family. The subject of Carter deserves more respect than a few simple paragraphs here in this post. I have vowed to myself that I will follow up this post with a second one that explains the story and adventure that Carter and I shared a few months before he passed away. My friend Matthew Purebeater has already written an exceptional piece on who Carter was, and what kind of character he possessed. You can read his piece here.......... The End of One Adventure. The Beginning of Another.
Carter and I spent a copious amount of time discussing the subjects that I needed to face in order to heal from the past five years. We sat in his garage, sometimes until the wee hours, talking of rivahs and adventures that we had both experienced, as well as the commonalities that we shared within our own minds. Carter understood me because he, just like me, was slightly bent. It was this connection that allowed me to understand that I did not need to walk alone with the pain that I had been carrying on my back for years. Carter was there, and he would always understand how I thought and felt.
But for me, Carter represented something more. He always referred to me as his brother, and we traveled as brothers for a month through the rivahs and canyons of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. While on that trip Carter discussed with me my new found love for Marcie, my confusion about ADHD, medication, and the loss of my boys. We shared safety meetings, he helped me fix my car, and explained to me why I needed to stand up and face the fears I had been running from for so long. One of the biggest regrets I will ever have in my life is the fact that I never was able to tell Carter how much he meant to me. Although he always described me as his brother, I viewed Carter in a very different light. He always represented the father that I never had. I am grateful for the time he and I were able to spend together, and it will impact me for the remainder of my life.
― Shannon L. Alder
These five events dictated the course of my recovery this past year, and allowed me to understand who I was and what I needed to do moving forward. My attempts at a so called "career", finding a soul mate, letting go of the things I just hadn't been able to let go of, and kicking a habit that is eroding the foundation of our emotional strength in this society, have all placed me in this position. Now I am able to look forward instead of back, and I am able to do it with a clear conscious and with love in my heart.
The most important lesson that I have learned in life is that difficult times and unfortunate situations are in actuality a chance to grow and learn, and from each of these situations I learned a different lesson and grew to be my own person. Falling in love has taught me to never stop searching and always follow your heart. Marcie and I crossed paths at a point in our lives when we both found ourselves alone and giving up on the idea of a soul mate. Had I missed the opportunity to take the trip I took in 2014 I never would have met her and fallen in love. Ironically, at the time that I decided to leave RVA and hit the road, most of the people still left in my life had advised me against the trip. But I followed my heart, knowing that there was a purpose to why I was doing it. Marcie was that reason, and I will never again allow others to convince me to second guess my own instincts.
Receiving the letter that I unfortunately received from Marcelle's family lawyer taught me that time is in fact a flat circle and giving in is not the same as giving up. There will come a time when I am reunited with my children.................but now is not that time. Marcelle isn't ready to let go of the past and my life is not stable enough to be the father my children deserve. But time will come back around, and when it does I will be there for them, no matter when the opportunity presents itself. The best thing that I can do for now is to rebuild my life the way I view happiness and enjoy the gifts that I have been given. Time heals all wounds.
Detoxing off twelve years of anxiety and ADHD medications taught me that life is meant to be experienced, and that emotion is a good tool to have. Sometimes those emotions hurt, but that pain has purpose and it allows the happiness and the love and the experiences of life to be that much more appreciated. Yes, the medicine covered up the pain that I had endured, but it also robbed me of the happiness that should always exist in life. My struggles, just like all of yours, are what make me the man I am today, and for the first time in a very long time I can say that I am proud of my decisions and of the path I now find myself on.
Accepting my parents for who they were taught me one of the most important lessons of my life...............family is not necessarily the people who choose to give you life. Family are the people who choose to be a part of your life. There are so many people who made their own choice to ignore the bandwagon and the social norms and decided to stick by me, no matter what. Loyalty matters in this world, and those people are who I now call my family. Marcie, DJ, Matt and Liz, Shawn, Josh, Travis, Purebeater, Meredith (both of them) my newly found Mchenry family, all of the boaters who chose to ignore the rumors both in RVA and beyond, and everyone else who stuck with me or came on board for the ride along the way...................these are the people that I now call my family. Thank You.
And finally..............Carter. Carter taught me so much in our short time together, but above all else he taught me that life is short. It was not his death that taught me this..............it was his life. Carter lived as though he may die tomorrow, and when he did leave us, the legacy that he left behind demonstrated the way he had lived his life. He lived it with love, compassion, adventure, understanding, and above all else, dignity. Thank you Carter. A part of you will always live inside me and I promise that I will never lose my spirit of adventure.
“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.”
~Anonymous~
So here I am; at 37 years old I find myself back at the beginning asking the question we all ask at some point in our lives....................what am I meant to do? I haven't figured the answer out yet, but I have discovered a starting point, and for the first time in my life I plan to do what I should have been doing all along................to follow my heart. At the beginning of this post I described a world that existed within a 20 mile radius of home. After pouring my soul out here for anyone to read, I now understand how that 20 mile radius relates to our world today.............home is where our heart is. Our worlds can change and we can be exposed to the problems of society, the cultural dilemmas that exist between our country and the ones throughout the world, or the political oppression that EVERYONE seems to be victimizing themselves with. But no matter how much "education" you absorb yourself with through the media, at the end of the day the things that really affect your lives happen within a 20 mile radius of your heart. It is that which is directly in front of you and it is that which is your world..................not the propaganda shoved into your minds. But everyday we seem to distance ourselves further and further away from what is REAL. I plan to start my journey by discovering all that exists within a 20 mile radius of my heart, and to find the adventure that I have always longed to unearth. I hope you will join me for the odyssey.
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
~Anaïs Nin~
See ya on the rivah..................and the slopes, finding my adventures. PEACE
