When We Get There

 I've got big plans ya know? I'm exasperated by folks I read about who have built the means by which they 

are able to dictate their lives. 

I've read about everything from FIRE movements to ex-patriates to people who have made six figures with an idea, some passion, and old-fashioned elbow grease. That needs to be me. 

The job will give me my early release if I give them 4 more years of service. I'll be 55 at that time. My kids will be 11 and 10 respectively. I'm so done with the rat race. While I believe I still have the juice so to speak, 

I want to direct my juice towards juice boxes, baths, and dinnertimes.  It's all I want to do along with writing. 

It's not the furthest thing out on the water, not an unreachable goal. It's not too much to ask, is it? I just have to furrow my brow and get down to brass tax. (I really sound old don't I?) 

Consistency is the common theme

I noticed from everyone I've been reading about. If there is a kryptonite, that is mine. The blog world

demands words, and words often. Seemingly, every little thing is irritating me with the 9 to 5. All the flaws of working for the man are coming to bear. The key to the freedom I seek is wanting it bad enough. 

I often wonder how the greats muster up the fire inside to drive them to where they have gone. 

Jordan wanted to         

destroy EVERYTHING. Brady (I can't believe I'm writing about the Hated One in this space.) was a 7th round draft pick who wasn't good enough. He's still proving himself to no one but himself. 

What's my burning bridge? What is my Batman story? I don't have one. I have no idea have to turn on the flamethrower. I'm guessing I will figure it out before I'm 55. Before I'm 65? 

I will share this: the other night, I was giving my Queen a lesson on how good she can be in her career and not settle for ditch digging. (There is NOTHING wrong with ANY profession as long as it's leading to your dreams and goals by the way.) 

I was telling her about stepping stones and destiny is what you make it. You can stop at the convenience store, but it doesn't have to be the end of your journey! 

She turned around and gave me my own medicine; she told me that she has never heard or seen an imagination like mine. She told me that I should have had several books completed by now, which I true. (We have been together for 10 plus years.) 

I just need to take the required two hours a day to write something, ANYTHING. The more I get irritated the more I realize she's right. Freedom isn't given, freedom is earned.

photo courtesy Simon Hurry

Chay 2021

Walking With Wolves at the End of Time

 So I had this dream where I was goofing off at my house (the dreamscape remember) with of all people, Peyton Manning. We were tossing the football about and I tossed it outside. It was cold and dark and I had to go get it, where I suddenly ran into...wolves. A Pack of coal-black wolves surrounded me and in the dream, I was naturally afraid. (Who wouldn't be, right?) the four approached from the right, while the one on my left eased in...nipping ever so closer...causing me to take my eyes off the splintered, ever-closing four. And then suddenly, I lie awake. I fancy myself as somewhat of a reader of the tea leaves if you will, a dreamancer if you fancy. I can tell a person what their dreams mean, including my own in most cases. Sometimes, it takes days at a time to decipher, but this time I immediately knew what it meant: The wolves represented time. They were timewolves. Predators that fed on time. They were telling me that I should avoid them at all costs. Time is that underrated, invaluable resource that we treat as if we have an endless well of but only THE LORD HIMSELF knows the GOD clock on each of us. It's our Chart of Fate, our finite spins around the sun that we can accelerate or decelerate if we choose or choose not to ignore. GOD always ALWAYS gives us a warning sign before the clock strikes, for a great deal of us. Some of us, a great deal of us live on borrowed time, at the hands of chance at the whim of fate. But if GOD speaks, no screams at you, you best listen. (Shout out to Michael K. Williams, another great one gone too soon. No more hands of sand, but everlasting in our hearts and minds for sure. Rest well, King Thespian. Your art will live on forever.) I'm listening. Loud and clear. GOD again spoke today and let me get pissed off at my job. It's not the incompetency of the company by any means, It's my own ineptitude and blissful ignorance of time that matters. I heard both messages and I am nOT awaiting a third, for when GOD speaks in threes, things tend to end or begin and know HE is tired of speaking to HIS child. So I'm writing and working, working and writing with purpose. I started grinding at the job and will go deep in from now on so that the momentum will carry over to the writing. And I will be a careful stuart of the grains that remain. The dream even helped to produce this: A writing idea. Keep posted to this forum for more details. And as always, thank you for reading and remember: Time is finite...and the clock, ever it ticks until it ticks no more.

Chay 2021

Thought

 Thought

I’ve got you in my mind’s eye

Your smell is a senses killer

I could just die for one moment

Frozen in time

Like the time when I first saw you

Thawed the deeply buried cold heart

Opened up the hope in love

Renewal sun totally the one

I’ll ask but first I need to see

The rabbit hole that leads to your soul

The gates of penance behind thine eyes

Answered all the questions before i could ask

Watered the arid flowers that are my whys

The skys to stars whats mine became ours

And time tripped to cycles of spring and winter anew

Who knew the witches brew that love become the lifelong

Ustrong stew

Just a thought within which I got lost

Your anti-frost melt sweet sundew

Untwo unto one love kindles correction

A direction protection familial a millennial few

Rebirth reborn the earth the storm cloud fade

A life or two remade the be better repaid forgiveness

From heavenly a new dawn a new day a respawn

A new legacy...maybe THE LORD the good LORD

Was just testing me...not at all HE was just blessing me

Chay2021

Afraid

 I just wouldn't do it. I didn't believe in it. There's no way that's happening. I'm speaking on vaccination. Yeah, so people were dying around the country. At the job, it seemed that we had (have) a new outbreak every week. The world is seemingly over being cooped up in quarantine. I just saw 120,000 people packed like sardines in a stadium with the return of football last weekend. But before then I just wasn't having it. I come from a people that have been used to test the limits of all kinds of horrors so I was good with not being the next crash test dummy. My wife and my in-laws were on one side of the fence having received theirs. I couldn't fathom CVS or Publix shooting me up with that madness. Johnson&Johnsons one-shot solution wasn't a solution in my eyes with people having heart issues and whatnot.  No way in the blue hell was I going to get that shit in me. Not happening. My side of the family was like me. They not putting that in their arms. My Moms and Aunt mid-seventies so I understood their why. My brother beat cancer, so I could fathom his reasoning. My wife, she was begging me to get it. And then her Moms was on me to get it. Why were they on me suddenly? Because of my girls. My three beautiful daughters. Within about 2 weeks, the younger two seemed to get more than the usual bumps and bruises and who did they call out to? "Dada!!!!" I just kept hearing that term of endearment. They didn't go to Gramma. They didn't even seek out Mommy. When the most pain came and they were in need, they called out their Daddy. So I have some thinking to do. Let logic reign, I needed to ask the new family nurse my sister. "Should I get the vaccine?" My sister, bless her, didn't and wouldn't and couldn't sign off on it. Therefore, the next was my General Practice's PA. As a physician's assistant, I felt pretty secure in her assessment. Why was she so vague in her answer? Perhaps because I was specific to how the vaccine might affect an asthmatic. I've had my share of sinus and breathing issues over the last decade. I laugh about it because I was amazing enough to help produce my two little lights from the waist down, but still breathing had been a chore. My PA had still been quite instrumental in helping me breathe to the point where I don't use my inhalers even though I have several around including in the truck. 

With my two sources I trusted most not really helping with clarity, I even sought the opinion of my employer. What I found was that the company line was "get vaxxed" while the workforce was quite the opposite. No one of my kind was considering getting the vaccine, so that left me back at square one. I had to work it within and lock onto THE GOD in me. Not the 'we all gods' theory from my northern brothers, no THE CHRIST in me. Thus armed with the knowledge that I worked in a hot zone, my babies needed their superhero and that THE LORD GOD has always backed my play, I made a decision: I would get the vaccine. So I did it, round 1 just past my birthday. Here I am 51 and scared like a little kid. It took two seconds to get those and I had to wait 15 minutes to make certain there was no allergic reaction. Longest 15 minutes of my life! What if I start spazzing on the floor? What if it triggers my breathing issues? I was super nervous. The 15 elapses and I sent a text to my Mother-in-law and my wife. "Thank GOD" my other moms said. My wife was relieved as well. 

28 Days Later

28 Days went quick and in the meanwhile at the job, we had lost someone near and dear to a lot of people. It was sad. I don't know what more my company could have said but it bothered me that we didn't send everyone home and do a super cleanse and come back in two weeks. They cleaned his floor and I would learn that different floors had different rules. My floor requires, mandates even, that we wear masks away from the desk, while other floors don't. The company is all over the place, but the machine rolls on. It made me glad for my decision. While I'm not reckless with when or how I mask up, (always everywhere even after, ever after for real.) I can't count on others to decide my fate. I read an SI article where the writer said getting the vaccine is a responsibility, I disagree. It's a personal choice. What IS a responsibility is that one wears a damn mask, with or without the vax. I won't argue the point. This whole writing is just my thought. If you not masking up, stay over there, please. I'm good. I was nervous to even tell the receptionist for fear of my reaction to her reaction. I remember way before I got vaxxed, her saying out loud how she's never getting it. It was something I agreed with at the time but not for public consumption. She checked me in and was appreciative when I specified why I was there. I got round 2. I was waiting in the lobby and the prerequisite 15 minutes passed with nary an issue. My nerves were not this time. I smartly pushed off my workday to the back half. The shift came and went. Nothing. I sat with my wife in bed, she asked me how I felt. "Pretty damn good!" "It's not midnight yet." she said. Little did I know how prophetic the Queen's words would be.

The Night the Sideffects Kicked In

I'll be damned if I started feeling a bit fatigued. I lie there and it got all dramatic within a matter of half an hour. A stormfront had settled in as indicated by the flashes of lightning penetrating the blinds. Then I started heating up. Me and my brothers usually refer to 'heating up' as 3 straight pass completions or a ballplayer's own 6-0 run. I think it came from the old video game that would say the same. When you couldn't be stopped, the game would yell "He's ON FIRE!!" and that's what was going on with my body! I got up and took my temp: 101. I got back in the bed and began to shiver like I've never. I was holding on to the Queen's back and the blanket for dear life. The ride had begun. She made me take two Tylenol and I clung to her until she couldn't take the firestorm I was producing on her back. So I went to my side and shivered and rode the wave of my body defending against that which I had been against. I watched the blinds as the lightning strikes came and went while wondering if I could get through this. I went to the Source and started praying to GOD. "I plead THE Blood of JESUS over me!" "Cover me with the Blood of THE LAMB!" I yelled silently. While I might be a foul-mouthed heathen, in my daytime alter ego, I know where my bread is buttered! I went to work and had church on my side of the bed! When I was done, so was my shivering. I counted the seconds between the lightning flashes. Each time it was fewer and fewer. Then the storm was gone and nothing remained except the morn.

I had survived the night as my body and my faith kept me. That was Tuesday. Today is Saturday and I didn't really feel like myself until yesterday night. To sum up, I had to make my own decision in concert with GOD. I know HE would've steered me in another direction if HE didn't want me to move the way I did. For you? That's your own decision. Take a thorough look at the science but you may not end up with clarity. I don't think anyone really could tell me why I should've or should not have. Ultimately, I made the best decision for me. 

Chay 2021