Where I Am

I've documented so much of my life in blogs that it seem odd that now, of all times, I'd be reluctant to blog what I've been going through.  In an odd way, so much has been going on that I've been too wrapped up in the real world to write about it.

First, I guess I'll talk about the most obvious thing.  The one that folks are most likely to notice when they see me in person.  I've been able to start running again.  Physically, I'm just much smaller.  At first, it didn't seem like it, but it is absolutely true.  I don't particularly like the act of running.  My head does clear and I think clearly on what's on my mind, but the act of running, itself, has never really been joyful for me.  After 3 miles or so, I settle into a sustainable tranquility, but it's never really fun.  The other things, though?  The impact on my life?  Huge.  My physical health, mental well-being, energy level, everything improves.  Just had a routine blood test and they could have used my results as a textbook example of perfect bloodwork.

I haven't been able to run much for the past 10 years or so due to various injuries.  Most notably, my 4 year battle with plantar fasciitis.  Now, though, I'm running injury free.  I'm trying not to push it too hard and end up broken again.  We'll see.  My routine is 6 miles, 3 or 4 times a week.  If things continue to go well, I'll shoot for the AF Marathon in Fall of 2015.

So, fitness, all blue skies these days.  I'm still lifting, but not as much.  I haven't fully decided on a fitness goal.  I'm just enjoying being in shape.  If I do a fall marathon, I may give up the lifting for a while.  I'll worry about that later.

Second, things in general have improved and because of that, so has my general mood.  As I have whined incessantly about, things have been tough since 2009, and everything sorta crashed in 2012.  The bad news all seems to be behind me at the moment, though.  My feet are firmly beneath me and I'm feeling ready to explore what's next.  I'm contemplating my next entrepreneurial step.  Not sure what it is, but for the first time in a while, I'm sure it'll be something.

I will have to make some sort of change regarding my living situation.  I have a year left on my service committment at my current job, but after that, I will be looking for something closer to my son.  If I can't find that, I'll be moving closer to my job and go on the distance parenting schedule.  (Instead of every other weekend, I'd have him half the summer.)  I will probably continue to hang on to the current situation, as gruelling and expensive as it is, until then.

Lastly, and more importantly, I had an extraordinary person come into my life.  Honestly, this is why I haven't been blogging.  It's just that I didn't know what, if anything, I could say about this.  Yet, at the same time, it's probably the biggest thing that's happened to me lately.

For reasons too personal, numerous and complicated to divulge publicly, I really can't talk a lot of specifics about this person.  She's somebody who came into my life oddly and suddenly.  We shared an extraordinary connection.  It didn't hurt that she was smart and beautiful.

Timing truly is everything.  She came into my life when I needed her most.  I needed somebody to remind me that I was truly capable of caring about another person.  I needed somebody to show me that there are people I can relate to, deeply and personally.  I have never met another person who I connected with on this level, at this depth.

Unfortunately, because timing is, indeed, everything, I did not come into her life at a time when she was in a position to be ready for this to progress much beyond a complicated friendship.  Or, maybe it's just me.  Or maybe a combination of both.  My heart was hers to take, but hers was not mine.  The reasons why, ultimately, really don't matter.

Still, I find myself being more grateful than hearbroken in the end.  You have to be grateful when a person comes into your life, picks you up and leaves you better than they found you. Life is made the greater by the people in your life.  My life is greater now that she is part of mine.

Gotta make a change...

I'm in training in Sterling Heights for the next couple of weeks.  Easy stuff.  Pricing and Cost analysis, which is sorta in my wheelhouse.  (Lots of math and spreadsheets for a guy who writes Excel Macros when he's home and bored.)

The thing that stands out about this is that I'm sleeping in my own bed every night.  Man, this is nice.  I really need to make a change here in the foreseeable future.  Will do it, but more on that in a bit.

For those who are just tuning in, I drive down to Dayton every week.  If my son has sports, I drive up for the games.  It's exhausting, expensive... well, there isn't much to like about it at all, other than it giving me time with my son.

As he gets older, though, that time gets smaller and smaller.  On a weekend, I might only see him a handful of hours.  If I lived further away, he'd spend half the Summer with me.

If I had my way, I'd probably just find a way to continue this, but the expense and fatigue are pretty insane.

I have a little less than a year left on my service commitment for my job.  Love the job, but there are lots of comparable jobs within the DOD.  So, I may be looking at changing jobs next year.  Either that, or I'll be looking at relocating closer to the job.

Dayton is sort of nice in that it's basically an hour from Cinci or Columbus.  Not the easiest commute, but if anything happened to the Dayton gig, I'd have two of the biggest cities in Ohio within feasible driving distance.

So, yeah, probably going to make a change.  Not sure when, but sometime.  I set up this arrangement a few years ago when the job was new and everything else in my life was up in the air, but it is time to reassess it, now.

Other than that, busy, busy, busy.  Social life has been insane.  Also, I've been doing a yeoman's job of keeping up with the fitness.  I am only running while on this training.  (Though may do the rower after 3 straight days of 6 milers... that's a lot of days in a row for me.)  I'm missing the occasional 2nd workout at the gym.  So, there are upsides to returning to my Dayton routine.  (Of course, I could have that upside if I lived down there, too.)

I do notice that my hips don't hurt as much when I'm not driving so long, too.  I thought running was wearing them out, but I think it's just all the sitting in a car.

Oh, and I'm recovering from a sinus infection.  Ever notice how all sinus infections are categorized as "nasty".  Yeah, here in this part of the country, we all get them and they're all nasty.

But mine are a little beyond that.  I usually get them taken care of at the doc in the box because they treat with both steroids and antibiotics and usually give me some injection in the ass to get things going.

For folks who have known me a while, I'm definitely a veteran of these wars after having been hospitalized twice for sinusitis in my lifetime, including once with a stay in the ICU and not waking up for 4 days.  (Yeah, they thought I was going to die... dad flew in from Philly to say goodbye and everything.)

So, when I go in there and get some PA and explain, "I have a bacterial infection of the right maxillary sinus", they usually get a sort of chuckle.  I usually have little patience for questions like, "how do you know it's a sinus infection?"

This is my first sinus infection in a while.  I had been taking benedryl, both to keep my sinuses clear and to help me sleep.  Sorta got on the stuff back in 2012.  Just got off it in July due to a lot of positive changes in my life.  Sleeping (for the most part... no worse than before, on balance) without the help of benedryl these days.

So, that's the long and short of it.  Something has to give.  I'll be moving here sometime in the next 12 months.  And if you're in Dallas or Phoenix, I have those on the radar screen.  I would never move anywhere I didn't have family or friends, and that pretty much leaves Dallas, Phoenix or Ohio.  (Yeah, "Ohio" is sort of a cop-out, but even being in C-bus or Cinci isn't that bad.)

Juicing Status

It's been 2 weeks now since I bought the vitamix, and it has probably resulted in some positive change.

For one, it actually led me to go to the supermarket to buy vegetables.  I can't tell you how seldom that happened before.  For another, on weekends, I'm juicing at least half my meals.

It's also encouraging me to eat more raw fruits and vegetables.  There are some vegetables that I like, for instance, salted bell pepper.

I felt a big increase in energy last week that lasted about to mid-week.  (I'm on the road during the week.  So, I was just working on residual whatever after Sunday.)

I'm still eating normal food on weekends, too.  Saturdays more than Sundays.  It sort of takes a day to detox myself a bit.

Fruit smoothies are going well.  Veggie smoothies, not so much.  Today, I'm going to try a more tomato-centered mix to get a more v-8 type flavor.  This may be a losing battle, who knows.  First veggie cocktail wasn't bad, but this last one was awful.  Too much new stuff in there:  onion and broccoli, for instance.  I'll be less indiscriminate on the next one I make.

Like any positive health lifestyle change, this spills over into my conduct during the rest of the week.  If you just spent the weekend eating a great healthy diet, the last thing you want to do is undo all your good work with terrible food during the week.

I also bought a little water bottle to keep at my desk at work.  I've been drinking a lot of water.  Probably like a gallon a day or something of the sort.  Otherwise, literally, I'd be drinking a six pack's worth of diet coke, instead.  Not that I have anything against diet coke, but it certainly isn't good for you, and probably is bad for you if you overdo it.  I've been overdoing it for about 30 years, now.

Today, I stepped on the scale and I was at 206.  That probably represents some modest weight-loss.  Which, really, if I could get a lifestyle change that resulted in losing a pound or two a week, that would be absolutely wonderful.  We'll see how it goes.  Last week, I weighed myself and was at like 213.5 or so, but that was a late in the day, fully hydrated weight.  Today was first thing in the morning.  So, you gain a pound and a half after your morning coffee.

The weather is also getting better.  So, I can start walking and getting outdoors a bit.  This has been a brutal Winter.

I feel like there are some general improvements in my mood, but that could also just be a reflection of things starting to go my way a little more these days.

Pulling Myself Together

Feeling really good right now.  Better than I can remember feeling in a long, long time.  For those who haven't been keeping up with the saga, it's been a rough turn of events since about mid-2009.  Lots of pretty awful stuff.

The worst part was the sensation that the bad stuff just kept coming and coming.  It's not like just surviving a short-term event.  It was like crappy things happened over the course of month after month after month.  Just when I thought I was done with something, I'd get blindsided by it again.  It was horrible.

Now, though, I feel like maybe, finally, the waves have subsided.  Most of the bad news appears to be, finally and mercifully, behind me.  At least for now.

Two things that I have really been neglecting have been my fitness and my music.  Those are, coincidentally, two of my favorite things in the world.

It's just that the events of my life were so exhausting that by the time the day ended, all I wanted to do was dissolve into the couch and watch TV.  Who knows, I guess I also had this nagging sensation in the back of my head that I wasn't entitled to enjoy those things since I'd made such a mess of the rest of my life.

The insidious thing about that is that, especially with exercise, you end up in a downward spiral.

Exercise makes you healthier, improves your mood and gives you greater endurance.  When things are bad and I stopped exercising, all three of those things took a hit just when I needed them most.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I've moved some hand-weights into the condo from the detached garage.  I've been doing a few reps of this and that.  I just set up my rower and did a 10K row.  I'm ready to get physically active again.  It's been a long time.

Not sure what goals I'm going to have with this, other than just making myself healthier.  We'll see.  The trick now is to keep up working out regularly.

My doctor actually prescribed over the counter Omega-3 fish oil for me to take.  I think it's going to have a positive impact on my bloodwork, but I also find I'm just not as hungry throughout the day, now, either.  If the press is to be believed, this is a good supplement for folks who don't get much fish in their diet.  I doubt it could possibly do any harm.  And if the press is to be believed, it may do tremendous good.

The other thing is that I get a promotion at work again this year.  It comes with a pretty big bump in pay.  Things will be easier, financially, after that.

The upcoming promotion (not until August), and a pretty good tax refund also mean I could afford to start rebuilding my guitar collection.  I'm actually playing again, and it feels good.

Really, the two things in my life I've ever done that resulted in me just getting lost in things and losing track of time are playing music and writing computer code.  The computer code was seldom enjoyable because whether I lost myself in it or not, there were always deadlines to meet.  The guitar, though, is something I love to do.

I was going to take a guitar with me down to the hotel in Dayton where I spend my week-days, but the temperatures lately have been around zero.  I am afraid it may damage any instrument I might take down.  Once my tax return arrives, though, I'm going to buy a little portable keyboard and road-case.  I figure that'll handle extremes in temperature better.

Also, my goal was to get my credit rating back into the 700s, and at least according to one service, it is.  I'll continue rebuilding.  My near-term goal (sometime in the next 3 years) is to get back to where I can get 0% promotional financing on a new car.  I just hope my current hoopty can hold out a few more months or years until that happens.

So, I don't know what it is that triggered things, but things got better all in a hurry.  During these past few years, things were pretty hard.  I was barely holding it together.  My main goal throughout was to not-fail my son, and I hope I did a good job of that.  Now, though, I have the energy to devote to making myself a better person.

I'm still not entirely sure what the future holds, but I feel like I'm back on track.  2012 was the year everything fell apart.  2013 was the year it took all I could do to stop losing ground.  2014 may be the year I start making strides forward.

So, goals for this year are:

1.  To play music every week
2.  To try and exercise every day
3.  Stay debt-free
4.  Keep making progress professionally

The Word According to The Fresh Prince

Recently, a friend posted a Will Smith quote on Facebook.  Honestly, I have no idea if it is actually a Will Smith quote, but the basic gist was, "Sometimes you have to put the past in the past.  Take inventory and appreciate what remains.  Then, move forward."  (Apologies if the paraphrase is off if, indeed, the famous philospher, "fresh prince of bel aire" is offended.)

That got me thinking.  I have gotten very, very good at putting the past in the past.  Comes from the learning style of "do it wrong so many times, you have no choice but to stumble on the right way."  I have to thank my son for that.  I spent the first 35 years of my life regretting pretty much everything I had ever done.

Once my son came around, I wouldn't have changed a single thing about my life, because it all led to him.  I wouldn't change a thing about him.  I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, but the love of a parent for a child is unlike anything else in life.  He is perfect to me.  He was also a perfect beginning.  From the moment he was born, I put the past in the past and kept an eye to the future.

I've also always been very, very good about keeping an eye to the future.  I was unhappy with my life for most of it.  What has always kept me going is the promise of a better day ahead.  People will eventually believe what they need to believe in order to face each day.  Some people fill this need with faith in God, or love of their fellow man, or a sense of purpose in their lives.  I wish I could say that I was driven primarily by all of those things, but that simply isn't true.  My faith is in the future.  It always has been.  Even during my darkest times as a little child, my grandmother would fill my heart and head with visions of a better tomorrow.

That's a great thing, I think.  The people I admire most tend to be those with optimism and a vision of the future.  The downside is that focusing too much on the future can keep a person from appreciating the present.

That is where I truly fail.  I really need to do a better job of appreciating where I am, instead of focusing solely on where I'm going.  I need to be more thankful for the many, many blessings in my life.

This is the future I waited so long for.  Not all of it turned out badly.  In fact, some of it turned out better than I ever could have imagined.

I truly believe that a person's happiness or sadness in life lies largely with their perception of things.  Some situations are truly so great that virtually nobody would be unhappy in them.  Some situations are truly so horrible that nobody could possibly be happy in them.  But most of life, the vast, vast majority, and the way most of us live our lives, is someplace in-between.

I have a challenging situation with trying to balance my time with my son, and a job that's 150 miles away.  I'm fortunate, though, that my job is as accommodating of this challenge as any job could reasonably be.  I work with great people.  I have a sense of purpose in what I do.  Even though it's less money than what I'd become accustomed to, the pay is actually very good.  Not great, mind you, but good.

There's an old Chinese proverb (probably apocryphal and invented in Los Angeles, like egg rolls), that a blessing for most people is to wish them "enough".  As in, "I wish you enough", versus, say, "I wish you tremendous wealth."

This whole thing could have gone so many other ways.  Every time I read the paper about those bizarre near-hermits the Walton family, or hear a tale of somebody murdered by a relative in a plot to steal their riches, or a story of a wealthy family's kids dying of a drug overdose, I'm reminded that sometimes wealth isn't the cure-all that I've always thought it would be.  Sure, it solves a host of problems.  However, it brings a host of different problems.

At a minimum, I know my friends are not motivated by any ulterior motive.  I know my son won't be tempted to live a wasted and pointless life on hoarded wealth.  Now, yes, if given the choice, I'd take rich people's problems over struggling people's problems any day.  However, it's important to note that you truly are trading one set of problems for another.  The other set of problems may be less challenging, but they're still problems.

So, I don't have wealth, but I have a good job.  I don't have every moment with my son like I'd like, but I do have quality time with him.  I still see pretty much every sporting event he's in.  There are plenty of fathers who, due to the demands of their work, are far less involved in their kids' lives than they want to be.  It wouldn't take much of a stretch to envision myself in that situation.

All in all, if I had to chose between success, wealth, leisure, all the trappings of a fabulous life, and having a healthy son I could be proud of, I'd pick the healthy son.  Every time, no hesitation.  Well... that's sort of the deal I got.  I sort of lost out on all the parts of my life that amount to tinkering around the edges, and I got the only part that really, truly means the world to me.  I'm doing pretty good.

Mostly, I should take a look and realize that I still have a lot of time left in my life.  I've got a lot of spins of the globe left in me.  There is still so much adventure ahead.  I can still dream.  10 years from now, I could be working for the government in some foreign country.  Or, I could be back writing applications software in Silicon Valley.  20 years from now, I could be comfortably retired, spending my time with my grandkids.

But again, that's looking to the future.  In the mean time, my bills are paid and my heart is full.  That's enough.

Time

It is amazing how the perception of the passage of time changes in a person's lifetime.  I can still remember being a grade-schooler waiting for Christmas day.  One week felt like an eternity.  As time goes on, it passes more and more quickly.

When you are a kid, your life stretches out in an incomprehensibly long trail before you.  Time is everywhere.  It is mostly an obstacle.  Time stands in the way of what you want.  It makes you wait to graduate high school, to graduate college, to get out of the military.

Eventually, though, time becomes precious.  You realize that there are more years behind you than ahead.  You wish time could slow down.  You now know that time isn't the obstacle to the things you want.  Time becomes the thing you want.

2014 will be the year my son turns 13 and starts 8th grade, his final year before High School.  He's mostly a young man these days.  No longer a little boy.  Time set that table, and then cleared it away.  I know how quickly 2 or 3 or 4 years can pass.  Soon, he'll be out of High School and one way or another, independent and making his way in the world.  I can help if I want, but so, so soon, my incredible time watching a boy grow into a man will be over.  Now that I've seen so many years, I know that each year will continually pass faster and faster.

I actually don't look forward to the day he's grown.  I know he'll be a fine man.  I hope things work out so that I'll have grandchildren to play with.  I hope my life will be such that I can be an active part of their lives.  But it will never feel exactly like this again.

So, I remind myself that each thing has its season.  You can't stop and linger at the parts you like the most.  The best you can do is appreciate things as they come.

A few years ago, I started on a road that I knew was going to be unpleasant for a few years.  2012 was the start of my great depression.  A depression emotionally and financially.  Life ebbs and flows.  I was riding high from 2007 to 2009.  But the downstroke was really, really bad.  It has lasted a long, long time.

2014 things will start to get better.  Barring any unforeseeable calamities, it should be the start of building something great with what's left of my life.  I'll be able to buy a nice house and drive nice cars again, eventually.  2015 should be great.

So, in a way, 2014 is like the last of the bad years.  Things will be getting better, but only relative to a pretty deep hole.  I need to think of this in the same way I thought of my last year before graduating college, or my last year before getting out of the Army.  I need to fill it with the optimism that comes with knowing that you did a drawn-out, challenging thing.

Often, those things that seemed so excruciating when you were going through them provide the most pleasant memories later.  I do have joy in my life.  Mostly around my son.

He's one of the most athletic kids in his grade, despite being one of the youngest.  More importantly, I'm proud of the fine young man he is.  He has strong, positive character.  I worry about him like any parent would, but he has the tools to go far in life.  He gives every indication that he'll make good use of his potential.

So, I find myself torn.  Torn between wanting 2014 to end quickly, because it represents the last of the dues I need to pay for my most recent setbacks.  Also, torn because I just don't have that many years left with my son as a young man before he is, simply, a full grown man.

In the end, things aren't good or bad because I decide they should be.  I can alter the way I look at things, but most things are pretty far outside my control.  And time doesn't pass quickly or slowly based on my desires.  It passes as it passes.

So, while I'm paying the last of my dues (for now) and looking forward to a better 2015, I will try as much as possible, to enjoy the time as it passes.

Now, on more mundane notes:

1.  I think next Winter, if I'm in Ohio, I'm going to take the 2 weeks around Christmas off.  Logan is off from school, and I may see if there's any way I can work a week in Phoenix in there.  That was a fun thing to do last year.  It'd be nice to ring in the New Year with my family out there.  Plus, lord knows the weather is a really, really welcome break.  Not sure if I'll make it a ski vacation or not, but we'll see.

2.  I'm not big on New Year's resolutions because, frankly, they're a cliche.  You promise you'll do better on a number of things and by February, you discover you're the same person you always were.  But I do believe in trying to be better.  I do believe that sometimes you just have to commit to making a change.  So, my ONE resolution this year is oatmeal.  I'm going to keep oatmeal at work and instead of eating McDonald's or bagels from the bagel shop, I'm going to eat oatmeal for breakfast.

3.  I won't know for a few months, but I may have the chance to do some job-related travel in 2014.  Sort of a complicated topic, but I really, really want to do this.  It's hard to think about much else at the moment.

4.  As some of you may know, I was accepted to a code bootcamp in San Francisco last year.  However, I decided to ride out the government job just a little longer.  I still don't know which direction my life will take.  I just believe in investing in yourself.  Probably always, but now more than ever, your only job security is the investments you make in your skills.  Government work is pretty steady and secure, but nothing is a certainty and the applications development job market is pretty crazy in a few parts of the country.  If the economy heats up, things could get sorta nutso.  When I will go, or even ultimately if I'll go are still up in the air.  But I've got that on the back burner.

5.  2015 is the year when I should be able to decisively turn the tide.  So, despite the fact that all time is precious, I hope I can be forgiven for looking past 2014 to some degree.

Merry Christmas! End of Year 2013!!!

2013 is coming to an end.  My apologies to everybody who won't be getting a Christmas card this year.  It sort of snuck up on me and I guess I'm still shaking off mope-mode.

2012 was a terrible year.  Just a year where a whole lot of terrible things all happened in rapid succession.  2013, I feel like I've stopped losing ground.  Things didn't get good, per se, but at least I wasn't in full retreat all year like I was in 2012.

I did get a few small mercies in 2013.  I found a great condo.  It isn't my ideal living situation, but it's spacious and feels homey.  It's within walking distance of Logan's home games at his Junior High.  The job continues to go well.  The longer I do it, the more I like it.  I was dealing with lingering ill effects of 2012 all year, but I have my fingers crossed that everything should be taken care of from here on out.

I am also grateful for my job, especially in an economy where so many others are struggling.  I have friends and I have my son.  So, I have some blessings to count.

2014 is still a little early for me to say I'll turn the tide, but it's going to be a year where I get my feet more solidly underneath me.

My brother is moving back to Ohio.  It'll be good to have Rob back in the state.  He was a lot of fun to chum around with before he moved to California.  It'll be good to see a lot more of him.

I am sorta making peace with my current situation.  I drive to Dayton for work during the week, then back up here on weekends.  I also try to drive up for Logan's sporting events.  It's a hassle.  I do a lot of driving, but it could be worse.  At least I do get quite a few days with my son.  It's not as good as if I had an actual job around here, but it is what it is.  Toledo has a horrible economy.

There will be some developments at work in 2014.  I will rotate out of my current office and I'm looking forward to seeing where I go next.  There are a few other opportunities that may pop up, too.

Until then, well, it feels like I'm still treading water, but at least I'm not drowning so much anymore.

I'm hopeful that my December 2014 update has a lot more good news.  We'll see.  Sometimes you just have to play the game to see how it ends.