OTHER PEOPLE'S TEARS

Since I was up this morning, rather, since I was still up this morning, poking around my blogs, I ran across an old blog which marked a very important moment in my life. I was writing about my ex wife and our relationship, and something profound slipped out. I had quite forgotten about it until this morning. Well, since I know she has never seen my blog, and had never read the entry, and since we are now talking again after several years of not talking, I went ahead and called her at work (she works graveyard) and asked if I could share the blog (read it to her). http://thetruthhurts.blogspot.com/2005_08_20_archive.html (You can find it here)

So I began to read. I thought it would only take a couple minutes... may have taken a few, but as I began to read, I realized that she had become deathly quiet. I realized I had her attention, and she was listening to me, so I continued to read. Now, I know I can write halfway decent if I set my mind to it, and that on occasion I actually write quite well. I think the entry wrote itself for me, but it came out well. As I finished reading the blog entry, I realized that she was crying softly. This was confirmed moments later when she sniffled a little, and said, "You asshole!"

I never intended to make her cry. God knows how many tears she has shed because of me. I think back over my life, and while I have had more than my own share of tears, I recognize that I have been the cause of many more tears. Not only with my ex wife, but my current girlfriend, my past girlfriends, my sister, my mother, my nephew once or twice, a particularly rude and obnoxious customer at the bar I used to work at; the list goes on. How many tears besides my own am I responsible for? When I got married, Pastor Jon wished Terri and I "enough tears to make us tender". We should never have given him free reign to modify our ceremony as he saw fit. But, in retrospect, I kinda understand what he meant, and I am thankful.

I really do have a lot to be thankful for. Not everyone can remain friends with thier ex spouse. Not everyone has the opportunity to take a good long hard look at themself and then have the opportunity to change.

I guess perhaps I am approaching yet another crossroads in my life, and I will be facing the prospect of changing yet again. This time, I think, I will be changing to save my life. I have promised it so many times through the years, and it is past time, way past time I live up to my promises.

NOCTURNE

Something is wrong. You feel somehow inexplicably that something is amiss, yet you cannot put your finger on it, and say "There! That's it! That is my problem!" No; you just do not feel right, and something deep inside you is telling you something is wrong. This is what I am feeling tonight, and it may be a large part of the reason I have not been sleeping well lately. This is like the third day of messed of sleep for me, and I have lost count of the number of days in a row that my stupid heart acted up. Yes, even now, as I type this, I can feel my heart beating rapid and irregular. Actually, it is in atrial fibrulation, so it is not so much beating in my chest as it is having a siezure. It is completely my fault too, I should not complain about my lot in life, or the trouble I have, because everything that is happening to me now is pretty much the result of me making some incredibly poor decisions in the past.

My heart; lack of exercise, smoking, bad diet, genetic predisposition aside, and diabetes aside, I made choices that affected my heart health, and I ended up with triple bypass at 37 years old. Too young for this sort of stuff. Okay, my diabetes situation is much the same.... Had I taken better care of myself.... and of course diabetes leaves me predisposed for heart disease.... CRAP!

Sometimes, I am afraid to go to sleep because on some level I am afraid I will not wake up. My father went to bed one night, he was 43 years old... he had been sick, and had just returned to work.... and that night died of a massive heart attack. I cannot say that less than 7 months before my 43rd birthday that it is not something I think about. I have long believed that I would not see past 43, but it was so much further away then. Now, it is practically here. My cardio surgeon told me if I did not change, I had 5 years, and that time is up in a few weeks. I think about this a lot and lament that I screwed up so bad. I had the opportunity to change... I had the opportunity to live.... but I wasted it. So.... leaves me asking myself: "Whatchugointodoaboutitasshole?"

For now, I am going to get my feet up, and try to get some rest. I will consider this all later.

THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

I realized that for some reason this poem was not legible when I posted it before, and since it is an image file and not a text file, it made it difficult to edit.. sorta. I broke it up to 3 larger images so it could be read. Have fun.