Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Decades
2010, Wow, a new decade has slipped up on us again! It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since the turn of the century. I've spent a lot of time lately reflecting on decades past. For those of us who were born in a year close to the start of a new decade it's common for us to define our lives in ten year segments.
For me that's easy, as it seems that some life changing event has happened in each of the six decades of life I've been around for. Just for the record I thought it would be interesting to share some of my thoughts on those events and what they meant to me, so here goes:
The 50's
As the "Baby Boom" years were winding down I was the first born to a couple of kids of 14 and 17. After five tumultuous years, my father passed away at the age of 23 leaving Mom and four kids behind. We weren’t exactly off to a flying start. As the decade came to a close my first real memories of my early childhood weren't so good and I still to this day wonder how much different my life would have been if my father had lived.
The 60's
As strange as it seems, I can trace a so much of who and what I am to what happened during this ten year period. In 1960 I started school, got a step father and began my journey through the decade that changed America forever! We spent the first five years of the 60's as most kids our age did, running, playing, going to school. My fondest memories from those years were of my grand parents as I was very close to them. Life was so simple back then. Little did I know how much things were about to change.
The second part of the decade were among the worst of my young life. It began with the death of my grand mother, and continued with a string of years laced with tough times. I began to learn the harshness of being under privileged and growing up in a college town where a lot of our peers were from well to do families connected to the school. It made it tough to fit in. I tried my best, but without parental support and a dire lack of resources, it was almost impossible. It took me years to overcome the stigma.
The 60's drew to a close as I spiraled toward my 16th birthday. I spent most of my time trying to figure out who I was and where I was going, and as Paul Simon put it "twitching like a finger on the trigger of a gun...."
To be continued .....
Monday, January 4, 2010
Decades ....continued
As I reviewed the first installment of "Decades" in preparation to write the next post, I realized it turned out to be a little different than I had intended. My original thought was to define the decades of my life by pointing to specific events but it seemed to turn into a mini autobiography. But I guess thats OK, everyone seemed to enjoy it so I will stay the course.
The 70'S
Looking back it's hard to imagine how so much can happen in ten years time. I don't think I could survive that kind of change now! When I turned sixteen my whole world seemed to change. The most amazing thing I remember about those times is how everything you do is a new experience and when you have to figure it out as you go along it can be scary.
As the seventies began I was fresh off my sixteenth birthday, I got my drivers licence, got a car, started work on my first public job and started dating my soon to be wife. From there everything became a blur. A little more than two years into the decade I was married. In that same year I graduated from high school and became a father a couple of months later. It was if I had fallen off a cliff into the abyss called adulthood.
Four years later I made what turned out to be the most important decision of my life. I accepted a job with a company that wanted me to move away from the only place I had ever known. It started me on a journey that would lead me to the wonderfull place in my life I now reside.
......as I looked to west and watched the sun set over the giant blue mountains, a fair haired princess was at that very moment preparing for her journey, a journey that would lead her to me .....
We spent the next four years raising our first daughter, creating our second beautiful daughter and moving three more times. Once again times were very hard, I worked way more than I should have and sometimes I wondered if the life we were chasing would ever be in our grasp.
The 80's were on the horizon, my twenty's were slipping away and life was becoming more and more complicated.
The 70'S
Looking back it's hard to imagine how so much can happen in ten years time. I don't think I could survive that kind of change now! When I turned sixteen my whole world seemed to change. The most amazing thing I remember about those times is how everything you do is a new experience and when you have to figure it out as you go along it can be scary.
As the seventies began I was fresh off my sixteenth birthday, I got my drivers licence, got a car, started work on my first public job and started dating my soon to be wife. From there everything became a blur. A little more than two years into the decade I was married. In that same year I graduated from high school and became a father a couple of months later. It was if I had fallen off a cliff into the abyss called adulthood.
Four years later I made what turned out to be the most important decision of my life. I accepted a job with a company that wanted me to move away from the only place I had ever known. It started me on a journey that would lead me to the wonderfull place in my life I now reside.
......as I looked to west and watched the sun set over the giant blue mountains, a fair haired princess was at that very moment preparing for her journey, a journey that would lead her to me .....
We spent the next four years raising our first daughter, creating our second beautiful daughter and moving three more times. Once again times were very hard, I worked way more than I should have and sometimes I wondered if the life we were chasing would ever be in our grasp.
The 80's were on the horizon, my twenty's were slipping away and life was becoming more and more complicated.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Decades......continued again
The 80's
As the 80's began it found us newly settled in eastern North Carolina. We busily went about the task of raising a family and managing a career . Life was pretty good. We spent a lot of time camping and doing all the things families should be doing together. In fact, the 80's were almost entirely dedicated to the kids as they worked their way through school. It was girl scouts, ballet, sports, and cheerleading. Friday night football, dances and sleep over's. I felt good about it. It was all the things I didn't have when I was their age.
It was 1985 that marked another turning point in my life. We had become weary of all the moving and missed home. Out of the blue came a job offer from back home that I couldn't pass up. So we packed up and moved back to Virginia again. This was the place that my girls finally would call home. For me it was the beginning point of a journey that would span 25 years and finally lead me to real happiness.
........ the mountains rose once again in the west before me. In the land beyond the sunset the fair haired princess was troubled as she began her search for the love she could only dream of ..........
The balance of the decade was spent working on our new place, enjoying being with family again and all the things we missed while we were away. But for me there was something different. I realized that after all these years something was missing. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on but as the 80's drew to a close there were dark clouds on the horizon warning of an eminent storm of change.
As the 80's began it found us newly settled in eastern North Carolina. We busily went about the task of raising a family and managing a career . Life was pretty good. We spent a lot of time camping and doing all the things families should be doing together. In fact, the 80's were almost entirely dedicated to the kids as they worked their way through school. It was girl scouts, ballet, sports, and cheerleading. Friday night football, dances and sleep over's. I felt good about it. It was all the things I didn't have when I was their age.
It was 1985 that marked another turning point in my life. We had become weary of all the moving and missed home. Out of the blue came a job offer from back home that I couldn't pass up. So we packed up and moved back to Virginia again. This was the place that my girls finally would call home. For me it was the beginning point of a journey that would span 25 years and finally lead me to real happiness.
........ the mountains rose once again in the west before me. In the land beyond the sunset the fair haired princess was troubled as she began her search for the love she could only dream of ..........
The balance of the decade was spent working on our new place, enjoying being with family again and all the things we missed while we were away. But for me there was something different. I realized that after all these years something was missing. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on but as the 80's drew to a close there were dark clouds on the horizon warning of an eminent storm of change.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Decades.......continued one more time
The 90's
The new decade had begun. Just like all the others before it, I had had a birthday a little more than a week before. This time it was my thirty seventh. Maybe it was what all men go through as they approach forty, or maybe it was my time to stop and evaluate where I stood in my life. Up until now I had been too busy to notice just how unhappy I was, no unhappy is not the right word, I think dissatisfied explains it better. I started to realize just how unsatisfied I was with my career, my marriage, my life in general. I had missed out on so much in my younger years, made so many mistakes and had so many things I wanted to do but never had the chance. I began to realize the window of oppertunity begins to shrink with every year that passes. It can make you do things you never would have done before.
........ as we both search for the happiness that eludes us, we find solace in the wrong people. They are not the ones ........
The first two years of the decade change me forever. Like Forest Gump "thats all I have to say about that" . By mid decade everything has changed. I am now a granfather, the nest is now empty as my youngest goes off to school, my marriage is a mess and to top it all off my employer is taken over by a Baltimore company who wants me to transfer. I am ready for a change, but I am the only one. We make the move.
The next five years drift by. The dissatisfaction I felt before now turns to unhappiness.
........ The fair haired princess also is called to the north, the wheels of destiny begin to turn .......
The new decade had begun. Just like all the others before it, I had had a birthday a little more than a week before. This time it was my thirty seventh. Maybe it was what all men go through as they approach forty, or maybe it was my time to stop and evaluate where I stood in my life. Up until now I had been too busy to notice just how unhappy I was, no unhappy is not the right word, I think dissatisfied explains it better. I started to realize just how unsatisfied I was with my career, my marriage, my life in general. I had missed out on so much in my younger years, made so many mistakes and had so many things I wanted to do but never had the chance. I began to realize the window of oppertunity begins to shrink with every year that passes. It can make you do things you never would have done before.
........ as we both search for the happiness that eludes us, we find solace in the wrong people. They are not the ones ........
The first two years of the decade change me forever. Like Forest Gump "thats all I have to say about that" . By mid decade everything has changed. I am now a granfather, the nest is now empty as my youngest goes off to school, my marriage is a mess and to top it all off my employer is taken over by a Baltimore company who wants me to transfer. I am ready for a change, but I am the only one. We make the move.
The next five years drift by. The dissatisfaction I felt before now turns to unhappiness.
........ The fair haired princess also is called to the north, the wheels of destiny begin to turn .......
Friday, January 1, 2010
Decades ....The New Millenium
Reflecting back to the year 2000 it's a little more clear just how special that date was. It's a very small percentage of us who get to experience the turn of a century, but living through the turn of a millenium is something thats incredibly special. The traces of everything and everyone we know or can imagine will be swept away on the winds of time long before this thousand years comes to a close.
Enough of that big picture thinking, it's time to get back to whats really important, our lives and loves and all the things that make our existence so very special.
Y2K.... A new beginning
A new decade, a new millenium, exciting times?, a time of change ?, for me I'm staring 50 in the face and the prospects of more of the same old stuff. Now, the strain of a high pressure job, a crumbling relationship with my wife and my bad health habits start to take it's toll on me. The years roll along. I get older and more tired mentally and physically with every passing day. The only thing that keeps me going is my relationship with my grand children. It has become the best thing in my life. It is the only thing that my wife and I have in common, it is the last remaining bond between us.
...... the fair haired princess appears before me for the first time. She is there and stays for many days, but I do not see her for what she is. She knows that I am the one but does not allow herself to look upon me ........
After a ten month failed attempt at trying to get in some kind of better shape and trying to quit smoking, I fell back into the grasp of bad eating habits and smoking again. The one good thing that comes from it is that I began to ride a bicycle again. I loved the bike when I was a child. It was my key to freedom and the world outside. As I began to ride more and more, my love of the bike is renewed and that love lives on to this day. It now is a symbol of my conquest of the health problems I was about to face.
As the fall of 2005 arrived I began to feel tinges of pain in my chest. I thought it was from lifting or some other strenuous activity and thought that it would go away. The days passed and occasionally the same pain would return and I would try to ignore it. Then on a November night just before Thanksgiving I awoke at 2 AM with that same pain in my chest except that is unlike anything I had felt before. I knew something terrible was happening but I never dreamed it could be what it was. I got up, dressed, and sat and waited.
The paramedics that hastilly checked me out told me that it appeared to be a heart attack. I couldn't believe it. It was the last thing I thought I would ever happen to me. I had never been sick enough to miss work before in my life now this!
The events that followed in the next few minutes and hours are something that I will not discuss here but lets just say I am glad to be able to share this story with you now. Several days later I leave the hospital with a chest full of stitches and a new outlook on life. I am determined to come back from this just as I have everything else I've faced in my life. The days pass and I struggle to make some kind of sense out of what's happened to me. I begin to recover, in four weeks I return to work. I start my search for answers to all the questions I now have about the past, the present and most of all the future. This time everything's changed.
.........the fair haired princess leaves for a new life across the seas but her presence lingers on. I find myself longing for her return even if it is only for a moment .............
As the months turn to years. my sadness grows as I become more and more unhappy with my life. I try to keep busy doing all the mundain things I do, but the longing for someone to share my life and love with again is sometimes more than I can bear. After a while I resign myself to the fact that this is my life and it's not going to change. I am destined to live out my remaining days without ever again knowing the joys of a companion who really loves me and wants me and wants to share my life. Little did I know I was about to find out what destiny is really all about !
......... The fair haired princess returns to the place that once brought her happiness. I embrace her as I had done many times before but this time is different. As she turns to leave once again, I silently wish "see me, see me now" and she does. We never again take our eyes from each other.
Enough of that big picture thinking, it's time to get back to whats really important, our lives and loves and all the things that make our existence so very special.
Y2K.... A new beginning
A new decade, a new millenium, exciting times?, a time of change ?, for me I'm staring 50 in the face and the prospects of more of the same old stuff. Now, the strain of a high pressure job, a crumbling relationship with my wife and my bad health habits start to take it's toll on me. The years roll along. I get older and more tired mentally and physically with every passing day. The only thing that keeps me going is my relationship with my grand children. It has become the best thing in my life. It is the only thing that my wife and I have in common, it is the last remaining bond between us.
...... the fair haired princess appears before me for the first time. She is there and stays for many days, but I do not see her for what she is. She knows that I am the one but does not allow herself to look upon me ........
After a ten month failed attempt at trying to get in some kind of better shape and trying to quit smoking, I fell back into the grasp of bad eating habits and smoking again. The one good thing that comes from it is that I began to ride a bicycle again. I loved the bike when I was a child. It was my key to freedom and the world outside. As I began to ride more and more, my love of the bike is renewed and that love lives on to this day. It now is a symbol of my conquest of the health problems I was about to face.
As the fall of 2005 arrived I began to feel tinges of pain in my chest. I thought it was from lifting or some other strenuous activity and thought that it would go away. The days passed and occasionally the same pain would return and I would try to ignore it. Then on a November night just before Thanksgiving I awoke at 2 AM with that same pain in my chest except that is unlike anything I had felt before. I knew something terrible was happening but I never dreamed it could be what it was. I got up, dressed, and sat and waited.
The paramedics that hastilly checked me out told me that it appeared to be a heart attack. I couldn't believe it. It was the last thing I thought I would ever happen to me. I had never been sick enough to miss work before in my life now this!
The events that followed in the next few minutes and hours are something that I will not discuss here but lets just say I am glad to be able to share this story with you now. Several days later I leave the hospital with a chest full of stitches and a new outlook on life. I am determined to come back from this just as I have everything else I've faced in my life. The days pass and I struggle to make some kind of sense out of what's happened to me. I begin to recover, in four weeks I return to work. I start my search for answers to all the questions I now have about the past, the present and most of all the future. This time everything's changed.
.........the fair haired princess leaves for a new life across the seas but her presence lingers on. I find myself longing for her return even if it is only for a moment .............
As the months turn to years. my sadness grows as I become more and more unhappy with my life. I try to keep busy doing all the mundain things I do, but the longing for someone to share my life and love with again is sometimes more than I can bear. After a while I resign myself to the fact that this is my life and it's not going to change. I am destined to live out my remaining days without ever again knowing the joys of a companion who really loves me and wants me and wants to share my life. Little did I know I was about to find out what destiny is really all about !
......... The fair haired princess returns to the place that once brought her happiness. I embrace her as I had done many times before but this time is different. As she turns to leave once again, I silently wish "see me, see me now" and she does. We never again take our eyes from each other.
Together we live happily ever after !!!
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