Standing at the open door

I have been attending college part-time now for 8 years. I have a fantastic, though sometimes irritating, job as an IT Administrator that has provided me with invaluable experience over the last 2 years. This Spring I will be leaving it, my hometown, and my current university to head farther south to a bigger university and a new degree program with my wife who will be starting her masters degree. This is scary time for us as we transition to our new place in a new city where we don't now anyone and particularly for me since I have a huge problem being able to socialize. I'm extremely shy around new people and I have found that most of the time people take it like I am an asshole that thinks he is better than you and therefore refuses to talk. It is not as bad as it used to be thanks to my wonderful wife, but still it is a little awkward and irritating. So new town, new university, new home, no idea where or if we will be able to find jobs to fund this little adventure... but damnit I can't help but be really excited about it! Not being sarcastic either. We are really excited about this!

So here we stand at the open door, the light shining through inviting us in. Ready and willing, hand in hand, we move our feet forward ready to step into the unknown and prepared to face all that may come.

Mental reboot

It’s funny how sometimes the smallest action, thought, sounds or smells can send you down memory lane. My wife and I were heading home after picking up a pizza and I decided to go a backway. This backway used to be how we would get home from picking up the same brand of pizza when we lived in our old apartment almost 3 years ago. “Hey honey, do you remember when we used to…” she finished with “drive this way every time we got pizza for date night? Yes, I remember”. We have been married for 3 years now. We spent the rest of the night reminissing of old times that aren’t old, new times that seem old, and then all the possibilites of the future made possible by all the actions of the past. It reminded me of how even when the toughts of the past may send chills up our spines because of some super-embarrasing and life altering moment, the past puts exactly where we need to be. Though we very rarely see it that way.
When I think about my past, I remember very few good times and a lot of rough times. I have a lot of blame assigned to people and choices and situations along the way. Until a few months ago, that blame is what I clung to and used to validate where I was: 26, in school for 8 years and still counting, stressed out, angry, blah, blah, blah. You all know the story… It took 2 random acts of violence in the community that caused what I am calling my “blame pedestal” to crumble and I crumbled with it. I felt truly lost and broken. From that state I was able to talk to people and for once actually understand everything my wife had been telling me since the first we met: I am ME. It is ok to hate the past, fear the future, and yes even have strong negative feelings toward the people who helped put you in that state. What you really have to work on is recognizing that all that is ok, you are human and normal, and all you have to do is make yourself happy. Happy doesn’t mean shopping spree, though I am told it helps! What I mean by happiness is acceptance and growth not complacent and sedentary. The past is one giant lesson learned and a kick in the pants… Use it to figure out your likes and dislikes, your hopes and dreams, all the little future “what ifs” and then dive right in and experience life! You will find that your past experiences having given you most of the tools you will ever need.
Remembering all those converstions and self-realizations brought up more memories, some old and some new. I’ll shiver at a few of them I’m sure, but for now… I thank God I have them and pray for many more.

Life lessons in a glass of water...

So I was reminicing about what my life has been like in IT. If you can think it, I’ve probably seen it over the last 4 years. I’ve seen computers that have been run over by cars, thrown out second story windows, stabbed, kicked, etc. But one of my favorites was a cute story about a laptop that had been completely ruined and was being replaced under flood insurance. How that works I will never know because what had happend to the laptop was not a flood but a cute 5-year old little girl. The mom brought her in when she dropped off the laptop and the little girl began explaining how she was drawing on the lapdop: “I was dust making a piture for bowyow and bowyow got upset cause there’s no wader in da piture if he gots thirsty. And I didn’t wan him to gets sick frum “d-wy-dra-shun” so I got him a cup of wader.” Then the mom quietly picked up the story, “bowyow is her imaginery friend. I think he is supposed to be a dog but we aren’t quite sure. Anyway, I just gotten home from work and she was walking to the table with a cup of water. It wasn’t until I heard her saying here is the water for the piture that I knew what was going on. I went running into the the room but it was too late. I got their just in time to watch the entire cup of be poured onto the screen and hear the sizzle’s as the laptop shorted out. I called the warranty people and told them that water had gotten into the laptop and it didn’t work anymore and before i could further explain they told me to call my homeowner’s insurance. Well long story short, I told them the whole story of what happened and they decided that they would pay for the replacement or fixing of the laptop since it “would really have been a shame for bowyow not to have any water. So here we are.”
I went on to order her a new laptop and suprisingly I was able to recover some pictures and stuff from the fried laptop. And yes, one of those pictures was bowyow: 2 bright pink ovals arranged like a snow man with green squares for eyes, brown stick figure arms and legs, and one big mess of mutli-coloured scriggles for hair. Yeah, scriggles…I said it.
Remebering this story made me think. A little girl had a friend, an imaginary friend, who was upset and thirsty and she stopped what she was doing and got him something to drink.  As older people we have real friends and neighbors. And we know when they are upset and in need. Maybe they lost thier job, or the times are rough, or maybe they are just down on thier luck but so often we make ourselves blind to what is going on and turn them into imaginary friends. We make excuses like we are just to busy, or we say it’s their own fault or blame something else. Butall the excuses in the world won’t change that they need help and without it they will short out like that laptop. Maybe they need to talk, or a shoulder to cry on, or someone to hangout and laugh with, or maybe they just need something to drink. So let me ask you… have you gotten your friend a glass of water lately?