So here are the pics from my weekend with the kids, some breakfast, soccer, and manatees on a Single dad weekend with my kids:

I don’t know where to begin.  I feel partly lost, partly sad, and also committed.  Looking back on my life I can see clearly that I do not trust others to catch me when I am hurting or hold me when I need support.  I have learned over the years that you can’t trust someone to do that for you, the time when you need it they will be too busy, won’t care, or will simply let you down.  The only person you can trust is yourself.  I learned this lesson at a very young age from my mother.  I can’t say that she never taught me anything; she taught me how to survive in a very cruel world, taught me that nobody will protect you.

I want to create a different legacy for my own children.  I won’t allow them to go through what I did, I will strive every day to show them what a caring parent is and how my kids should be treated and cared for.  I will protect them from the truly horrible things in this world but will allow them to learn to deal with the small injustices now to prepare them for the larger unfairness of life.  If by allowing my son and daughter to realize that homework is hard or that you don’t always get what you want, or to struggle to save and work for something you really want they will later be better equipped to deal with those problems on a larger scale (how to cope in a work environment, saving for what you want instead of instant gratification, dealing with a hard breakup, etc).

But for me that message seems ingrained.  It impacts my personal relationships, I stay behind the walls of my heart because those I love and those I have loved have always let me down.  I hope that in my life I can teach my children a different lesson than the harsh one my mother taught me.  I am a survivor, I will make it, but as for my children, they won’t merely survive I hope that I can allow them to thrive and to feel without having to guard their hearts.

Where do I begin? The VA is such a poorly run system for veterans, such paltry care with every air of indifference possible blatantly inferred upon us poor souls who seek care. It must be my fault, must be my fellow veteran’s faults for coming back from multiple tours of combat duty so broken both inside and out. I had a doctor tell me today that she didn’t have time for my scheduled appointment. This is the second time she has not shown up for a SCHEDULED appointment. Next I was seen for a second appointment and told that it was normal to have medical students sit in on my private sessions, what am I? Some teaching aid? No, I’m a soldier who has served his country with honor and who should be treated with honor. I don’t know if I will go back… Every time I go I am sick afterwards at the way the VA treats us. It is no wonder that my fellow veteran friends have only each other’s broken souls to lean on, because the VA simply doesn’t care…

This weekend blew by.  Friday night we spent it going out to eat at Applebees and after that a wonderful evening of watching Little Shop of Horrors.  I haven’t seen that movie in years and my kids loved it.  I had completely forgotten that Rick Moranis was even in it, let alone the main character.  Saturday morning my son had his soccer game which they lost but I would have to say he played his best during that game that he has played all season.  We spent the afternoon at my friend Daniel’s house with his wife and him for a cookout and to have our dogs all play together.  In all we had 5 dogs there (my Benny and their 3 dogs and their friend’s dog).  It was good fun.  Saturday night we watched Paul Blart Mall Cop (and yes, I am reluctant to admit that it was a decent family movie).  I woke up bright and early Sunday morning and we spent the afternoon fishing on the Skyway Pier but alas fate was not in our favor.  We caught not a single fish…

My ex picked up my son early so that I could take my daughter on a motorcycle ride.  We did about 50 miles and then stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings to have dinner.  All in all it was a wonderful weekend.  Yeah, my kids have their own moto gear, helmet, gloves, jacket and all…

So with all the holidays over I am finally getting back in the swing of things. these mid week nights where I get to keep my kids overnight are little treasures in my schedule. times where I can forget about all the other stress in my life and focus on my kids. Focus on my son’s soccer practice, a family dinner, and a short run with my kids.

As I sit here I can hear the other moms (yeah I am part of the soccer mom croud I suppose) griping about ex’s, bills, finances, and their jobs. I just sit here happy. Like I said, these nights are when I get to see my kids in the middle of their week and they are my treasure.

So, I realize I have been incommunicado lately, I have had an interesting weekend.  You won’t get the details but it has been both stressful and good.  I miss my kids but will get them tomorrow.  One thing that has sucked my life away has been the relatively new video game called Borderlands.  It is addictive.  I have a semi free week this coming week but the following week I will be pretty busy.  Just a little bland update of where I am at and what I’m doing.

Today my daughter got stuck in an elevator.  It was in the Urban Outfitters at Ybor city in Tampa florida.  I knew she had kind of snuck off to go use the elevator to go to the first story of this shop.  I let her go because it was a small store and I had used the elevator myself quite a few times during my visits there so I knew it would be no big deal.  that was until I heard her little voice yelling for me.  I thought at first that it was a game, that she wanted me to know where she was so she was yelling at me from the inside of the elevator but then I heard the panic.  I heard the panic and I saw that this wasn’t right. How could she be yelling at me from the 2nd story of this store but not have the doors open shortly after she spoke?

She wasn’t playing a game, she was stuck in an elevator.  I have read about people who have had this happens to, but never had someone I know actually been stuck in an elevator.  Hey honey, it’s me, daddy, I’m here.  Dad?  I can’t get out, the doors won’t open (the tears were close).  You’re doing really good lov.  She calmed down and as we spoke I asked her to try pushing the door open button as well as the other floor buttons.  Nothing was working.  I alerted the store and they called some elevator repair number as I stood outside of the elevator door and talked to my brave daughter.  I asked her if she saw the phone in the elevator.  She did and I talked her through the call process.

We both were frightened when the phone got really loud and stated: There is an ELEVATOR EMERGENCY at URBAN OUTFITTERS! and then rang the rescue service.  The whole process lasted about 30 to 40 minutes and the whole while I never left the door but I also didn’t get scared.  My daughter was so brave, but I knew that if I didn’t give her other things to think about the fear would return.  In the end the elevator guy arrived and stuck some long metal rod into a hole at the top of the door and it unlatched it and the elevator door opened.  My daughter was there smiling.  I took a picture of her with her rescuer.  We went on to lunch and had a good rest of the day.  I shook her hand and told her when she got out that I had never met anyone who had been stuck in an elevator so I wanted to shake her hand.

It is a little blurry but here it is:

I remember jumping off of a cliff.  The cliff was in Washington, it was about 100 feet up and I was in high school.  A couple of kids had died there from falling off the waterfall but if you jumped out far enough the story was that you’d make it just fine.  I remember watching the water cascade off the edge from the top of the falls.  There was a winding path that you could take if you wanted to walk down to the bottom where the water crashed down with a thundering roar.

I squatted there looking over the edge.  I didn’t know what it would be like.  I was told that if you crossed your arms across your chest and kept your legs closed you’d be just fine.  Looking over the edge I remember thinking that I couldn’t do it.  then the next thing I know my legs are bending and my muscles are tensing for the jump.  I can’t do this my mind screamed.  I am going to die.  I won’t make it.  No matter how long those brief seconds felt like they lasted hours in my own head.  I was tensing and squatting for the jump.  I was alive and invincible.  I was scared and going to die.  I was jumping.

I landed in the bottom of the falls.  I was alive and never had I felt such a feeling.  Fear won’t stop me I decided that day.  I would jump off the cliff about once every 2 weeks all summer long, just to know that I could still do it, that I wasn’t afraid.  I don’t remember ever being scared of dying to the point where I couldn’t move or react, I had tested my limits and found that I could surpass them.  That is my story, that is what I have felt in war when I entered Iraq in 2003 at the beginning of the war and that is how I felt every time I pulled the trigger to protect my life or the life of my fellow soldiers.

The sorrow and emptiness at times have filled me up.  I didn’t know how to stop it.  Was there a drain or would I simply drown in all of it.  The whole mess of my memories, my shortcomings and my pain.  The next question was, how many others will my pain end up hurting as well?  Why does it have to be this way? What is normal?  How can I be normal?  When do I get to feel like everyone else does?  Fair?  I never expected fair, but how unfair can things be?  Do I need to be heartless like the others?  Can I make it and still keep my soul?  Those thoughts are in my head every day.  Every week. Every year.  Can I be normal?  Do I want to be normal?

How many of you go through life happy?  Why do we put so much emphasis on being happy?  I have been happy at times, will be happy at other times.  But it isn’t the norm to just go through life on some unfeeling level of happiness.  You are supposed to hurt, to feel pain and sorrow as well as anger, fear and, happiness.  Prozac isn’t a cure-all for the feelings we are SUPPOSED to have.  We all have our vices and mine are as personal as the next guy’s (or girl’s) but those things are part of us too aren’t they?  It is the hard questions that we forget to ask.  Forget?  Is it really that we forget or is it that we refrain to ask those questions?  Is it easier to just not know the answer to some of our troubles?  I think so but I have always been stubborn as well.  I can’t help but ask even if the answer will hurt.  Pain and I go way back.  Not necessarily the physical kind, but emotional pain?  Yeah, we are old friends.  Joy is a pal of mine as well, but she visits less often.  These are just a couple thoughts for the day…  Things that go through my head at times.  Not all the time mind you, but just those times of self reflection, when we let our guard down to allow what is inside to come out for a cup of tea before we once again lock it away for a rainy day…

Had a dream. It was some kind of horror story. There were three characters that were good and three that were bad.  The main bad guy was like this hunchback in a tight trench coat and a big set of keys on a key ring, he also had a top hat.  The main good guy thought that they were prepared to face the bad guys.  The main good guy had a girl with him and a disabled guy with them as well.  For some reason they were running from the bad guys.  As the good guys open this door the bad guys just overtake the good ones.  The girl gets bitten by the hunchback and her teeth fall out and he (the hunchback) puts them back in her.  She is now under his control.  The good guy gets his whole hand bitten off by the girl. It is now mangled and gone.  A 4th guy gets destroyed as well. The mentally ill man gets his foot mangled and the bad guys take off.  They leave in a carriage.  The good are left behind.  They try to find help in the town they are left in.  They don’t know where to go so they look for help and decide to follow after the carriage to see if there is any way to help the girl who is captive and under the bad man’s control.