A Debt

The older I get the more I lose my sense of ego.  I am having the privilege of becoming more humble as time goes on, and realizing that it is happening.  Which is a fascinating experience. 

In retrospect it seems that I owe a lot of people in my past a debt.  That debt can never be repaid, not in any currency anyway.  I owe them a debt of knowledge, growth, and self awareness.  Some of the lessons taught were harsh and some were kind.  All of them were necessary.

You see, I wouldn't be here today without them.  My life would have taken a very different path, of that I am sure.  Those lessons have become the foundation for my character and for who I still want to become in life. The people who supplied those lessons also supplied a snapshot of what those possibilities are.  Both good and bad.

So I paid attention to what the experiences taught me.  I continue to learn as I grow and mature.  The experience will always be the same, but the lesson will change with growth and time.

I have not always been ready for what I needed to be taught.  Time and retrospect allows me to learn even today. 

So to the people of my past, my sincerest thanks to you all.  Whether you were a friend or foe does not matter.  I took the experiences you provided and applied them to my life.  I learned from them.  And because of that I can move forward towards the man I want to be.

A little kindness

I just got some bad news over the weekend.  An incredibly kind person passed away.  She was 94.  I knew her and her husband 15 years ago in a tiny ghost town called Kilgore, Idaho.

It was January, and according to the locals, the worst winter anyone could remember.  It was 30 below zero every morning when we went to work, and on good days it got to minus 10.  There was 10 feet of snow on the ground.  Some mornings we had to use the truck exhaust to warm up the snow machines so they would start.  The job we were doing was crazy.  We tried to convince our client to hold off, but to no avail.  We shouldn't have been there.

But we were.  We were all pretty tough guys.  We'd spent a lot of time in the elements and had the right gear for the weather.  But nothing can prepare you for that grind of working 15 days straight in those conditions.  I didn't see the sun until the day we left and went home.  All of us had frostbite.  Pulled ribs, blown out knees, bad backs.  We were either breaking trail, or we were trying to snowshoe through rugged country.  Our bodies eventually had to give out.

The one bright spot in this adventure was that the two year round inhabitants of Kilgore took us under their wing.  An older couple who had lived and ranched in that valley for many years.  Their daughter lived one town over.  We got to know them all, even most of the people in the next town over.  They thought we were crazy.  And talk of crazy people spreads pretty quickly.

Those two showed us a kindness that seems to be disapearing today.  They took us in, looked out for us, and did their best to make sure we survived.  The didn't have to, but they were from a different era.  A different place in time and space.  I truly believe that we would never have been successful without them.  They always had a pot of coffee in the morning for us while we got ready.  They would call the road department to pull us out of the ditch if we didn't arrive by a certain time.  They made sure we all made it out of the back country every day.  They did their absolute best to help us nurse our wounds.

We knew they were beautiful souls, and that we were lucky to have that brief time with them.  Their kindness made us better, and made us want to be better.

He died of an accidental gun discharge on the ranch he loved.  We went to his funeral.

She died this last weekend of natural causes in the next town over.  With her daughter next to her.  I won't be able to go to hers.

Enough time has passed that my heart isn't broken, but I do feel a deep sadness.  They were extraordinary people, and my life has been better for knowing them.  Even for that short of a time.

Making Due

Sometimes you have to make due with what you have.  It may be harder, take longer and in general be a huge pain in the ass.  But there are going to be times in life when it is just going to be what it is.  And, to be totally honest, there isn't a damn thing  you can do about it.

I've been in that situation for a little while now.  I've had to learn the quirks and personalities of things that should not have an ounce of either.  But there I was, talking to inanimate objects like they could hear me.  If someone actually saw me they would have been tempted to call the authorities.  And off to the loony bin I would have went.  Oddly enough, those things could get the whole range of emotions out of me.  From rage to quiet resignation and everything in between.

But just recently I got an upgrade.  Not the one I really wanted, but one that would help considerably.  I was ecstatic.  Finally I wouldn't be banging my head against the wall.  Finally I had some new tech that would alleviate my frustration.  Or so I thought.

That's the funny part about mixing the old and the new.  The problems that I was having simply disappeared.  And for a brief moment all was right with the universe.  But then problems I could not have imagined started to pop up.  And I was straight back to talking like a mad man.  All I can say is thank god for youtube and message boards.  It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one who has these issues.  Oh, and now I can at least try a few things to regain my sanity.

I see the point in all of this of course.  Just because it's new doesn't mean that it's going to make everything better.  It's just new, not a magic wand.

I think this is where we get all wound up in our society.  We all want new.  Thinking that it will solve all of our problems.  We want the bright shiny penny.  But it really doesn't make a difference in the end.  New won't get rid of our problems.  It won't placate our demons.  It's just new.

So next time I'll have high hopes that new will be helpful.  But I'll check my enthusiasm with the knowledge that it may just be new problems. 

A busy summer

It's been a while since I posted.  Sorry about that.  Once again, the summer has flown by.  We seem to have been consumed with projects.  One right after the other with no time in between.  We did finally get to take a long weekend to the lake.  Which was just what we needed. 

The weird part about that is that we were stressing out about it leading up to the trip.  Getting ready, doing this and that, traveling.  My brain was lying to me and saying that it was to much trouble.  Funny, when we got there it was exactly the thing we needed.  We relaxed, if just for a few days.  We didn't work on projects.  We let you batteries recharge.

I needed it.  Life has been hectic.

I think we all suffer from the same thing every once in a while.  We get so wound up in what we are doing we forget to step back and give ourselves a little space.  We forget that life isn't all about work, sometimes it's simply about leaning back and enjoying the view. 

I need to work on that.  I need to be able to step back, look at my life as a whole, and see what's really important.  I get buried in what I'm doing, and that's not a good way to live life.  You need to have a balance where you can get into the weeds, but you can also step back and look up.  See the actual forest, not just the trees.

I think I've known this since I was young.  But it's easy to forget these things when you think life has to be a certain way.  When you see the image of what you are expected to be as a man, father, husband.  It's an image I only have for myself oddly enough.  Other people don't put those expectations on me.  I put them on myself.

I'm going to try to use this as a wake up call of sorts.  To give myself a little space to enjoy life a little more and try to worry a little less.  And to attempt to break the shackles of the expectations I put on myself as a younger man.

Maybe I can grow a little young again.