my careless contagion

"Divorce is stupid," I thought, as I turned my attention back to the game of billiards I was playing with my son. I observed the man I just met with his girlfriend and her kids at the pool. We were playing pool at the clubhouse, and my son said he knew the man so went and said hi, which led to me meeting him, as well. My thoughts continued with, "You just exchange families and end up raising someone else's kids, while some other man raises yours."  Incidentally, I met this man before, before all the bullying at my son's school. It was orientation. The man knew who I was and introduced himself because he did work for my parents and thought they were great people. (They can be.) Dominic is his name. He is the father of the kid, Ben, who was my son's main bully when school started. To say he was displeased with his son's actions would be an understatement. His son continues to exhibit poor behavior, but it's not usually directed at my son. They say ...

When all is said and done, these pages are a microcosm. So much love. So many questions. So many lines intersecting, reaching out, connecting, diverging, close but never leading anywhere. How many millions of love letters has mankind written? How many lines went unsaid, never acted upon? I wrote my lines. I'm content knowing I tried, loved, waited, did everything I was supposed to do. What they did with my love was never in my hands. I faithfully loved until doors closed forever. Love is beautiful, but it must be chosen, accepted, brought in from the rain. Mine was discarded like an ill-timed valentine, ink bleeding in the rain, tossed about by the wind, wet and matted in a gutter.  Here, loved turned to hate. Hate turned to tears. Tears turned to forgiveness. Forgiveness turned to prayer. Prayer ended in upturned hands to a knowing God and a brokenness that cannot be healed. All the things that were once in my hands are gone. I am left with questions that stretch to the horizon....

Yeah. Random stuff. I wanted to dump a bunch of files and comment about them. It keeps me writing but in a different way. Writing about fun stuff draws me in that direction. It remains to be seen how fun this is. The more I go in the direction of happiness and fun, the more I will have that in my life. That is where I am now. Just having fun and trying to stay on the sunny side of the street. I'm happy and doing well, in case anyone wondered about me. If not, I understand. I didn't think about you either. Haha. Kidding. Whoever you are. Thanks for reading! And happy new year!  Yeah, I know. Nobody cares, especially at this stage in the game. But I'm going to have fun with this post, like it or not.  For some reason, when I open Instagram, I see stuff like this. I don't see models. I see this. Why? Because this is what I look at. IG learns and shows more stuff like this. Haha. Opossums and raccoons saying stupid stuff. I love it. Some of it is pretty bizarre. If you need...

I have to admit, stoicism has an allure for me. Too often, I've been overwhelmed, paralyzed, pummeled, and defeated by my emotions. But, just as often, I've told myself I don't care or that I shouldn't care. This pendulum swing is something I've struggled with most of my life. I've endured so much heartache, and acting like I didn't care only let the heartache continue. I was strong through so much pain. In the end, the pain overcame all the walls I built to keep it out. I don't consider myself an emotional person. Yes, I have emotions. As I've gotten older, the repressed stuff has gotten more vocal, so I've allowed myself to show my feelings more. I see it as a volcano letting off steam. Better to have a constant release of pressure than all at once. I can't repress my feelings forever, after all. Traditionally, though, that wasn't the case. As with many men, I was reared to be mostly emotionless. And I think that's wrong. ...