Little Easter Lily

And all of you thought I had forgotten about posting new pictures again! Shame on you! Now for your enjoyment is a batch of forty-some-odd pics of us (including a rare shot of myself in my bald-headed glory). These were taken over the past two weeks or so and include vacation, Emma playing outdoors, and Easter. Feel free to peruse!

And as a special bonus, I’ve also added a short video clip. Feel free to view!

Perspectives

I look at my life and how it seems that thirty-one years have just slipped by. Time slides through my fingers as grains of sand, laughing at my feeble attempts to grab it and hold it steady for a microsecond. Each morning I get up, only to watch the sun set and it is time to return to bed once again. I watch my daughter grow and laugh and learn by the hour, then I peek at photos of her from scant weeks and months ago marveling at the difference between then and now.

I looked in the mirror the other day and saw that I am getting old(er). I realized this in a surreal scenario at a restaurant Saturday morning before last. I was with my father-in-law at breakfast in a place that had mirrors on both walls. I talked with him and watched myself reflected twice over from behind as he laughed about our topic of conversation and I saw my head nod from the rear. There was a nearly bald spot on the back of my nearly shaved head. Later on that day I would look in a different mirror and notice a line here and a crease there. I’m far from vain, but it bothered me.

It occurred to me tonight as I was on my way in to give my daughter a bath that I have grown up. Not only that, the sand is falling even faster through my fingers now. I neurotically examine the substance of my life and experience and naively try to tell myself that I have made a difference somehow. Then another part of me just says stop being so dramatic and just live your life.

"Stop being so damn neurotic and just be yourself. Live your life, write your stories, love your wife, and raise your child."

I’m trying, I really am.

---

Last night we had a showing of The Passion of the Christ at our church. To call it a movie is a disservice. To say it is good or great is far from adequate. Lest I open my mouth too far and fall into one of two stereotypical camps regarding this film, I’ll just say that for me it brought my views on my faith and belief in God into new perspective. The phrase "life changing" isn’t entirely accurate as it is highly overused and extremly cliche. Let’s just say that the movie acts as a sort of spiritual contact lens. For me anyway. For you, it may be something different. And as someone once said, "that’s all I have to say about that."

---

The ghosts of my past rise up around me and cackle at me as I try to make something of my life other than an exercise in futility. I find I am still shackled at times by the chains of memory and past experiences. There are times I feel that I am free of my past and my Mother’s misguidedly tyrannical hold on my life. Free of the schoolhouse taunts and jeers that surrounded me as I grew up. Then something happens to take me back to those moments in time and relive them in some semi-post-traumatic-stress-disorder sort of way. Some little thing like a song, or a fragrance, or the sight of one of my old classmates will bring it all rushing back and I find myself mentally in a fetal ball on the floor sobbing. It doesn’t take much really to send me back to my cocoon, huddling in fear.

I fully recognize that my life is a series of decisions. More often than not I usually wind up deciding to worry about this or that, one thing or the other. More often than not I try to escape from this well of self-pity and usually just wind up sitting here typing out "poor poor pitiful me" in long-winded prose. More often than not, I am afraid to take those first few steps towards true change.

But slowly and cautiously I am climbing out of my shell. I am opening my eyes and staring into the sky, seeing the beauty that is there. The promise. The potential. I’m far from a perfect human being but I am slowly taking control of my life away from the ghosts of the past. I am learning to ignore the voices in the back of my head telling me that I will never be good enough. Never smart enough. Never perfect enough.

My life is slowly getting on track. Slowly becoming happier, more fulfilled. Slowly the jeers and cackles are fading into nothingness.

Soon, the only thing left will be me and the future.

A One Legged Man

I have been busy. Things are crazy as I wrap up this term and plan to start the next. I am trying to juggle so many things and find that I can’t wait for this year to just be over. I’m starting to get assignments jumbled and e-mails to my teammates are halfhearted at best. I’m struggling to maintain coherent thought and string together meaningful sentences. Even now, trying to post this entry is pushing my fragile remnants of consciousness to the breaking point.

My writing and speech patters are developing dyslexic tendencies as I start typing a word that is three words down in a sentence before I get the previous two on the paper. I juxtapose words back and forth in my speech patterns. This is because my brain is constantly running at full throttle. I ponder things incessantly. I obsess over minutiae and stare at walls blankly. I am on an endless loop of mental feedback.

I tried to slow down and not think on the way into work this morning, but it didn’t work. I lapsed back into obsessive tendencies and thought about my budget, homework, school, church, or any of ten million other things that are going on in my life right now. I can’t stop thinking and it’s driving me mad.

Signs

In the past month I have had two reminders of my own mortality. A friend of the family who was not much older than me died of a heart attack. Apparently he was just doing his normal thing and collapsed as he was getting into his work truck.

Today, a close friend of mine let me in on the fact that someone even closer to my age died of a heart attack as well. He was born in 1971 and graduated two years ahead of me in high school.

I weigh in excess of four hundred pounds. I don’t know my actual weight since there isn’t a conventional scale that will weigh me short of going to a weight watchers meeting or something.

Needless to say my neuroses are eating away at the back of my mind and I’m already reading things into these "signs" that tell me I need to get off my rear and start doing something about my health.

I don’t want to wind up like the rest of my family and have my chest sawed open in a few years. Or worse.

*sigh*

Bliss

There is nothing more perfect than a cup of Tim Horton’s tea. It must (of course) be purchased in Canada to get the full effect.

I was here less than two hours before I made my way through a Tim Horton’s drive thru. There are some traditions you don’t screw with. This is one of them.

Livin’ La Vida Crappa

Tomorrow will be my last day of work for awhile since Cheryl and I are taking Emma up to Canada for vacation. I was just going to take Monday through Friday of next week off, but decided at the last minute to take this coming Friday off as well. That will give me a full ten days out of the office and I am really looking forward to it.

I’ve been getting my homework done ahead of time so I spend little to no time doing homework and a LOT of time relaxing. I’m looking forward to bathing every other day (maybe) and spending most of my time pushing Clone Troopers around in Republic Commando. Or blowing crap up in Burnout 3: Takedown. Thank God for Gamefly, or else I would never get to play all these cool games.

I cancelled my pre-order for the PSP given the rumblings that I am hearing out of Silicon Valley regarding limited battery life and dead or overlit pixels on the display. Looks like my five-hundred big ones are going to sit in the bank until I hear better things coming out of the Sony camp. You know that weird feeling you get when the bum on the street looks at you as you walk by? That’s what it felt like when I was thinking about playing my PSP. You know the money might be going for the right cause but you just don’t want to take the chance yet.

Anywho.

We’re running around and planning everything that goes into a trip North. As usual there is a ton of crap to haul up and two tons to haul back. I somehow agreed to take an entire crib and put it somewhere in the back of my car. I have vague visions of folding the seats in my Element up, then laying the two ends of the crib down on the floor, then sitting the seats back into place hoping that the braces will fit in the open spaces between the railings. Then I need to figure out where to put the other three pieces of the godforsaken thing. It’s times like this I wish I’d bought an Element with a luggage rack on top of it instead of the "bald" model.

Ugh.

So, as the cliche goes I’m going to be shoving twenty pounds of crap into a ten pound sack and hoping that I don’t get searched and seized when I cross the border. God knows that’s like getting a root canal and a prostate exam at the same time. (It’s not that bad actually… the customs people are actually very nice).

I hate carrying a truckload of crap when I cross the border. It’s already a long drive, and taking another half hour on top of my wait at the border just does not appeal to me.

*grumble murmur mumble whine*