ThirtyTwo and Rising

These days, it’s often said that the world is a horrible place. That we are overrun by evil. The world has “gone to Hell in a hand basket.”. It’s not that hard to believe when you look around. The news outlets seem to be a revolving door of dystopian stories. Everywhere we look, we see the fingerprints of hate, of anger, of rage. It’s no wonder really that we are inundated with these things. The 24-hour new cycle thrives on it. It is dependent upon it. Bad news is shoved down our throats now more than any other time in history. All of this begs the question, is the world really that messed up, or are the people who control the flow of information just doing what they have to do to get one more click?

Whatever your thoughts on the matter, I believe there’s a more important question to answer. Where do we go from here? How do we fix it? People are quick to point out problems but seldom offer up solutions. What is the solution? The Christian in me says more Jesus. The American in me says more liberty. The Texas in me says more time in the wood shop with grandpa and more time in the kitchen with grandma. The realist in me knows that everyone experiencing these things is simply not our reality.

So then, where do we go from here? Kindness would be a good place to start. No one’s bad day has ever gotten worse because someone was kind to them. How about sympathy or, better yet, empathy. Put yourself in someone else’s situation. Perspective is also a good one. Seeing the glass half full, realizing that things may not be so bad. How about compassion? Putting your sympathy into action and doing good for those who need it. These are all great catalysts for change in this world.

Personally, I think it’s much simpler than that. When you boil all these things down to the raw ingredient that makes them a positive force in this world, you’re left with one thing.

Gratitude. It all comes down to gratitude. The Oxford dictionary defines gratitude as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” To return kindness. If you’ve ever been grateful to someone because they were kind to you, you will inturn be kind to others. What a profound and wonderful thing. When you are grateful for the things in your life, you can empathize with those who have less. When you practice empathy, you begin to feel sympathy. That feeling leads you to compassion and, in turn, back to kindness.

It’s a flowchart in which every input leads to the same output, gratitude. Just be grateful and show your appreciation for the littlest of things. The wonderful thing about gratitude is that it improves the lives on both sides of every encounter. A grateful heart does not envy. It does not hate nor boast. A grateful heart is kind, compassionate, and content. But of all the great characteristics of gratitude, my favorite 2 are this. Gratitude can be taught and practiced. But above all else, gratitude is infectious. It can take root in your heart and in your soul. It can spread through you and into others. It is the single most important emotion for fixing so many of the problems that we face today.

Wake up grateful in the morning. Grateful for a new day and a new opportunity. Grateful that you even woke up when so many others will not. Be grateful for the little things. For the green light you caught. For the radio playing the perfect song. Or just the way that first sip of coffee hits on an early morning. Be grateful for the opportunity to show gratitude towards others. Just be grateful. Express your gratitude at every opportunity and watch every other emotion fall into place. Just. Be. Grateful

I haven’t written in a while. Perhaps because I don’t like to force it. I write what comes to me and lately, nothing has. With so many things weighing on my I just felt the need to sit down and write.

What a challenge the last couple years has been for so many people, myself included. From my accident in December 2019 to covid in 2020 and now this second wave in 2021 that has impacted so many people I care about. It’s been a wild ride.

I try to stay positive and I know my friends and family probably get tired of my “#nobaddays” texts. I still maintain that there are no bad days, just bad moments that interrupt our good days. It just feels like there sure have been a lot of interruptions lately.

On top of all the sickness and hardships, the political and civil unrest is so disheartening. So many people fight and arguing. So much hate and disgust for the opposition. And why? Everyone is just so concerned with being right. People forget that being wrong is where enlightenment comes from, as long as you accept it. It makes me sad to witness all of this. To witness the decline in our ability to simply disagree and go on with our lives. When did that become so hard? When we focus on our few but polarizing differences, we lose sight of our many and unifying similarities. Don’t get me wrong, there are people in this world that absolutely and unequivocally just need to be curb stomped. I believe that to be the minority and believe that most people have an innate ability to disagree but get along. But somewhere along the way that has become less important to us. Why?

We can do better. Not just because we should but because we can. We all want to leave a better world for our children and I’m no different in that regard. But what about us? We are still in the game. Do we not deserve peace and happiness as well? My generation has witnessed so much, been a part of so much, accomplished so much. We deserve it but through our own self-absorbtion we haven’t earned it. I say instead of trying to create a better world for our children, we create a better world for ourselves and then pass that world on to them, along with a great understanding of what it take to maintain it. I guess this has just been a long, drawn-out, “rainbows and unicorns” way of saying that everyone needs to shut the hell up, refocus, realign and rethink the way we interact with one another. The sooner we stop worrying about where we fit in society and start worrying about what we are contributing to society, the better off we will be. Love y’all 😘

I’ve written before about friends and friendships and how important it is to maintain those relationships. Our friends are a huge focal point of our life. My wife and I speak to our friends daily. Even if it’s not face to face we still make the take the time to text, snap our message our friends nearly every day. They are all great people and our lives are fuller and richer because they are in it.

One dynamic of friendships that I’ve never really touched on is kind of a bit dark. I’m not usually a downer and I’m certainly not trying to be now but it’s something to be considered. Let me explain where I’m coming from. I’ve had plenty of people point out to me that I get “stuck on dad duty” or have to “babysit” my kids a lot (that one is the worst. You don’t babysit your own kids!) so that my wife can have a quick girls dinner or maybe a little overnight shopping or concert trip.

Some people ask if it’s necessary or if her and I ever actually spend time together. My answer is this; my wife and I have, what I believe is, the best relationship. We laugh together all the time. We have inside jokes, we make fun of each other and ourselves. We trust each other and we love each other unconditionally. We are friends, teammates and partners so don’t worry about if we spend enough time together or do enough things together. We are good. Secondly, is it absolutely necessary for her to take these trips and have these dinners? Is it necessary for me to do the same?

So here is the dark part. Those close bestfriend are the ones that we would lean on when things get bad. What happens when leaning on your spouse is not an option? What would happend if one of you were to get sick? What would happen if one of you passed unexpectedly? It’s hard to think about but it’s a possible reality. What I do for a living is fairly dangerous. Just driving to and from work is one of the most dangerous things a person can do. So if my wife woke up tomorrow and I wasn’t here who would help hold her and our household together? Who is going to get her out of bed and make her get dressed? Who is going to help get my kids up and make sure they are fed? Who do you think is going to help her in the days, week, and years following such a tragedy? Who will force her to want to live and enjoy life again? All those crazy girls from margarita night, that’s who. And I love them and appreciate them for that. I hope that we get the opportunity to grow old together and that she lives 1 second longer than I do so that I don’t have to watch her go. Should that not be the plan for us I am thankful that she has such an amazing group of girls, which includes her mom and sisters, that would be there for her and my little family if someday I can’t be. So do I think its necessary for my wife to build, maintain and strengthen those relationships? Damn right I do! I will take my daddy time any day so that she can have the opportunity to do that. Fellas, I would encourage you to do the same for your wife and for yourself. We have to be there for each other also and I know for a fact that my guys will be there for me no matter what. Appreciate your spouse and just as important, appreciate their friends and respect their friendships along with your own. May we all never need to appreciate the full value of those relationships.

It is often said that we can choose our own destiny. That we get to choose our own path and determine the outcome of our lives. I absolutely believe this and I also think that as humans, it is some of the best news we can have about our lives. To know that we are in control. That our goals in life can be set by us and achieved by us.

If you sat down today and wrote an autobiography would you end the story when you got to today? What if you had to finish it? What if you had to determine how the book ended? What would you write about tomorrow? Would it be different than what you will actually do tomorrow? If so, then maybe you need a change. If you were writing your own story and you had to start today and end with you reaching your goals, how would you write tomorrow? How would you write next week, next month, next year? What steps would you have to start taking to reach that goal that you know you are going to end on? How long will it take you? What sacrifices will you have to make?

You probably hear people say all the time to write down a goal and write down the steps you need to take. Have you ever actually stopped and thought about it like a story? What’s the next chapter? When do you start seeing that goal become a reality? Maybe you should do that. Play that story out in your head. Where are you going and what is it going to take you to get there? What’s your next step? If this was a book you were reading and you knew how it started and you knew how it ended what do you think the middle would be like? You already know where you’re at figure out where you want to be and start writing your middle.

It’s not too often that we, as individuals, can point to a single moment in our lives that changed the way we look at life. Sure we all have several life changing events such as deaths, births, marriages and accidents. But I’m not talking about life changing, I’m talking about a single event that fundamentally changes the way we look at life.

I’m fortunate enough to have witnessed such an event. A brief, candid moment that demanded such deep self-reflection. First, it should be noted that I’ve always been a happy, “down to earth” person who finds joy in the simple things. That being said, this moment still had a profound impact on my view of life.

It was a normal work day several years ago. I was headed out to one of my locations in a very rural area. I was driving down a slow, winding, two lane country road that I had been down many times before. Passing houses that i have passed many times before. I was nearing a house that I had seen several times but never really look at. This time, as I got closer, movement caught my attention. It was a modest but nice, well-kept house with a porch all the way across the front. The lawn and landscaping well maintained. The movement that caught my eye was an elderly man walking towards the end of the porch. I noticed something in his hand as he walked. He was unfolding a blade on a pocketknife. As he got to the end of the porch he leaned of the railing and cut a rose off of a small rosebush. At this point I had slowed down even more to satisfy my curiosity. The old man turned back around and began his slow shuffle back in the other direction. As he walked I could tell that he was carefully cutting the thorns off of the rose stems. That’s when I realized what he was doing. At the opposite end of the porch sat an elderly lady in a wheelchair. She looked weak and tired, her active years well behind her. The way she smiled at him as he made his way towards her with that rose in his hand is something I’ll never forget. I imagine, in that moment, all the years were stripped away. They were young again. She probably saw the young man he once was and no doubt he still look at her as if she where the young lady he fell in love with years ago.

I started wondering, as I passed them, what their story was. How did they meet, how long they had been together etc. That’s when it hit me like a truck. Does it matter? I’m not saying the little details are irrelevant. I’m just saying if life is a game, they clearly won. They made it to the end. How lucky would I be, at 90 years old (I’m guessing) to be bringing my sweetheart a rose and have her smiling back at me like that? Would anything else even matter? To be nearing the end of my time on this earth and have place to call home and my wife still at my side….that’s what I wanted. From that moment on, the most selfish thing I have asked for out of this life is the opportunity to grow old with my wife. Just the opportunity. It’s up to me to do right by her and keep her, I just want the opportunity. Its crazy how my whole life I thought that’s what I wanted. A simple life, decent home and a great wife. But then you see it. First hand. You see yourself there and it forever changes your perspective on life. I’m forever grateful for those two people and the change they made in my life that day.

​I was asked one time if I could talk to 18 year old me, knowing everything I know today, what would I tell me. That is something I have thought a lot about. The implications are huge and if by some miracle of modern science, that technology became available, it’s a question that I wouldn’t take lightly. So what would I say?

Would I tell me that shortly after graduation I would have my heart broken for the first time? That my dad would walk out and unfortunately would pass away before making peace with his family? Would I tell myself that at age 20 I would be worrying about if I had a place to live and that my job and my dreams of going to college would go down in flames on the same day? I could warn myself that I would be holding my grandmother’s hand when she took her last breath and that I also would have to bury a few really close friends. I would also soon get my heart broken for the second and third time. I could tell me that I would have to say goodbye to my grandfather and my cousin. I could give myself a heads up that when my brother calls me on January 30th 2015 that he has the worst news imaginable and that my mom had passed on suddenly.
Maybe instead I would tell myself that I will have a few meaningful relationships and will learn a lot about myself. I could tell me that Dad was right about so many thing and the lessons he taught me as a kid would continue to guide me. Maybe I would tell me about the cute little house that became my family’s first home and the awesome job I have that has been such a blessing to us. I would talk about all the talks I had with my grandmother and how she finally gave me her chicken and dumplin recipe. I would let me know that most of the gang is still together plus a few new ones and that our friendship is as strong as ever. I also could say that I get to marry the love of my life and that she is even more beautiful than I had hoped. I might show me the picture I have of my grandfather sitting in his chair with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen holding my first born child. I could try to describe the look on my mom’s face both times she got to witness the birth of my children and how proud she was of them. 

Which set of stories would I tell 18 year old me? They seem like two completely separate stories. It sounds like two different lives, lived by two different people. One who knows more heartache and loss than anyone should and one who is the luckiest man alive. The truth is those are actually the same life, lived by me. The same life, but two different perspectives. The moral of the story is simple. Your life is going to be a roller coaster. It’s lonesome valleys of sadness followed by soaring peaks of true happiness. You will learn that you can’t overcome and rise above if you haven’t been knocked on your face to start with. It’s simply a matter of what you choose to focus on. Are you going to let life keep you down or are you going learn from every experience and be a better person because of it? 

So, if given the chance, what would 33 year old me say to 18 year old me?  Honestly, I’d probably just say, “Get ready for the ride, hold on tight, don’t lose your faith, and keep rising. You won’t be disappointed. Maybe get in the habit of doing crunches now or the only six pack you’ll have in your 20s is the kind you don’t have  now”. 

​August 1st 2007 is a date that is etched into my mind forever. I remember so many small details about that day. I was at my brother’s house helping him build a barn on the backside of this property. I was cutting some lumber for the rafters when I got a phone call from my aunt, my dad’s sister. She called to let me know that paramedics were at my dad’s house trying to revive him but it didn’t look good. That was nearly 10 years ago and sometimes I still wonder if that phone call has sank in yet. Maybe it’s because in a way I had already mourned that loss. My dad and I had only spoken a handful of times the previous two years before he passed. Before I get too far into this I will state that this is not post about trying to mend broken relationships before it’s too late. Don’t get me wrong I hate the way things turned out but I have no guilt on my end. I did everything I could do to fix what he had broken. I offered my forgiveness and vowed to let go of the past but I believe in the end that very past that I agreed to forget, haunted him. He became so consumed by guilt that it made it hard for him to speak to us. The worst part was that he wasn’t a bad guy he wasn’t even a bad father. He coached my little league team, taught my brother and me how to ride bikes, hunt, fish, clean a rifle, work on cars and showed us by example how to be a protector and provider of a household. I remember him spending a lot of time helping other people. I vividly recall him taking some old scrap pipe he had in his shop and building new bleacher frames for the little league park. Sometimes my brother and I would tag along with him when he would go to the home of an older lady that he worked with so that we could do various chores for her. He just helped people. They seldom had to ask but when they did I never heard him say no. There are so many different directions that I could take this post but this post is not just about him. It’s about becoming a father when you don’t have father to turn to. I always wanted to be a father. Even before I was married I would think about having kids of my own. But I never really thought about becoming a father and not being able to pick up the phone and ask my dad how he did it. How do you keep from laughing when your kids do something bad yet hilarious?  How did you work 12 hours a day and have the energy to grab a ball and glove when you got home and meet us in the backyard? I don’t have the luxury of asking him those questions but what I do have is some extraordinary people in my life that I can turn to when I have no idea what I’m doing. Fortunately for me my older brother became father years before I did. Even with the absence of our father my brother has become a great dad, which alone inspires me. He is also already gone through many of the things that I go through and always offers his advice or just listens to me complain. You would be hard-pressed to find a dad anywhere that works the insane amount of hours that he does and is still so heavily involved with their children. I also have my in-laws on my side. When I met my wife her little twin brother and sister were only 8 years old.  I have got to watch them grow up and mature under the direction of my mother and father-in-law. I have learned a lot from them over the last 10 years. My father-in-law is well aware that he is one of my primary father figures and he has embraced that role. He is a wonderful mentor and I fully trust in his ability to raise exceptional children because I married one of them. 

Which brings me to my last point, my wife. My wife helps me be a better father. I could go into all the details about our ability to parent together and work with one another but really it just comes down to the simple fact that she makes me want to be a better person. A better husband, brother, friend and father. She also helps reassure me when I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. She offers her advice and her experiences and she has been more than patient with me since we have had kids. I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people. This parenting stuff isn’t for the faint of heart but it gives me a little piece of mind knowing that I have so many wonderful people in my life that are willing to help me out when I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I am also grateful for the memories I have of my own father. I’m glad that I continue to look past the negative and focus on everything positive that he did in my life. Even if for a short time, he showed us by example what to do and for that I am thankful. 

This weekend I am home alone with my two kids. My wife Chelsea, is spending the weekend at the lake with her mom and some of their friends. They try to do this a couple times a year, usually once in the spring and again in the summer. As I sit here thinking about her I’m reminded of the old saying “absence/distance makes the heart grow fonder”. That is one of the reasons that I’m never opposed to her “girls weekends”. But there’s more to it than that. It is my belief that married couples have to take time for themselves and to themselves. We all need time to decompress and get away for our routine every now and then. I also think it is important for individuals to maintain a relationship with who they are inside and who they were before life happened. See, I love my wife and I am in love with my wife and that feeling grows stronger as the years go by. I’m thankful for the life that we have built together and I am more excited every day about what our future holds. But there is one undeniable fact that I think some people overlook. No matter how much I love my wife now she is not the person that I fell in love with. I love Chelsea the wife and Chelsea the mother of two and Chelsea the new career woman but none of those people made me fall in love for the first time. You see, once upon a time there was an “18 year old college student Chelsea”.  She spent many weekends hanging out with her friends and generally doing what 18 year old girls do and enjoying life to the fullest. She was young, energetic, carefree and probably a little reckless.  That is the Chelsea that stopped my life in its tracks. That’s the Chelsea that made me feel something that I’ve never felt before. That’s the Chelsea that put me on the path towards this beautiful life that I now live. Don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t trade my wife now for the 18 year old version of herself that I fell in love with but sometimes I think we lose sight of that. We forget who we were when we fell in love and I think, on occasion, we need to be that person not just for our spouses but for ourselves. Something about you, many years ago, made your spouse stop and tell themselves that you were the one that they wanted to spend the rest of their life with. Do the both of you a favor and keep that person alive, inside of you, forever! I love you baby and I hope you girls or having a blast.

​I get told fairly often that I am wise beyond my years. I would like to think that I am and I appreciate the compliments when I get them. Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment. I believe most would agree that the key word there is experience. Wisdom is often described as something that cannot be taught but must be experienced over time. Being wise is almost synonymous with being old.  So that begs the question, how does one become wise beyond their years? In my case I believe it is an overabundance of life experience in a short amount of time. At a young age I was put in a position where I was forced to grow up fast. Sadly that’s not too uncommon these days. I think often young people find themselves in a position that requires them to make decisions that most their age do not. I don’t view that part of my life with content. I am actually, in some ways, appreciative for the things that I have learned because of the experiences that I have had, both good and bad. I’ve also been very fortunate that for most of my adult life I have worked with and around people much older than myself. I’m thankful that I had the wherewithal to actually listen when these people talked. Some were in positions that I hoped to be in someday and others were in a place that I hoped I would never find myself. Either way I listened and took note. To be surrounded by people who are older than you and willing to mentor you or even just chat with you gives you a great advantage in life. Unfortunately I don’t believe most young people take advantage of that. Not only am I thankful that I took the time to listen but I’m even more thankful that they took the time to teach and talk. They say smart people learn from their mistakes but geniuses learn from other people’s mistakes. I know I am far from a genius but I’ve tried to do my best to emulate those that are successful and not take the same path as those who are not. So maybe that’s where my wisdom comes from. Maybe it’s a combination of the two. Either way they have both served me well and I’m very thankful for them.  The best advice I can give is to surround yourself with people who were once where you are at now and ask them what they did right, what they did wrong and what they wish they would have done different. Take that information and run with it!

​I have been asked many times how I knew that my wife was the one and how we seem to be such a good match. I always give close to the same answer and that is this; When we were getting a little closer and a little more serious in our relationship we sat down one day, and almost completely by accident, had some pretty serious conversation about beliefs, ideas and goals. We got very in-depth and detailed with some of it and with some a little more broad and vague. We also talked about life in general, personal experiences, funny stories and things of that nature. By the end of that conversation, which was several hours long, I was sure of two things: one, I was in love and two, we would work as a couple. That was the basic answer I would give people when they would asked me that question. I would always throw in that I hated the fact it sounded so much like a job interview. As I’ve gotten older and we have started a family I have realized that in spite of being madly in love and working together as a team, we were absolutely interviewing one another. She is mother of my children and their caretaker, she is the manager of our household and the person who helps me make important decisions. Likewise, I am the father of her children and share in her caretaking responsibilities. I am the provider for our household. I’m the security guard and the handyman. Once I actually backed up and look at the bigger picture it dawned on me; Why on Earth would you not interview someone for those positions? We have to trust each other with our finances, safety, security and most importantly our children. I cannot think of another “job” on the planet that we should be more critical of. I no longer hesitate to say that we interviewed each other on that day because we both know that we don’t view one another as an employee or even as a co-worker. We know that we are each just one piece of a family unit. We understand now, just as we did then, that being that piece of the puzzle comes with great responsibility. The type of responsibility that shouldn’t be trusted with just anyone. Don’t get me wrong our marriage is not perfect but I believe no marriage is. We are all imperfect people. We have our share of disagreements but I believe that first long conversation and some conversations that followed, has helped us avoid many post-marriage arguments. I hear often from family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances that they and their spouse can’t agree on politics, religion where they want to live, how many children they want if any, overall goals …the list goes on. I hear these things and think to myself “how is that conversation just now coming up?” I’m not one to tell other people that they are doing it wrong or that people should do it my way. Coming to an agreement or a compromise is an excellent exercise in any relationship but trust me when I tell you there will be plenty of opportunity for that. Different individuals have different wants, needs and goals and all those play out differently in a relationship. I guess what I’m trying to say it is that I don’t think enough people know what to expect out of their spouse or what is expected out of them until it is much too late. I have also heard the excuse that you can’t help who you fall in love with and once you’re in love you just have to work out the details. It’s hard to argue with that but the way I see it, if you don’t know some of these things about a person, basic things like goals, religion or political views why would you put yourself in a position to fall in love with them. Moreover, how do you even know them well enough to be in love with them. Be careful who you give your heart to. Don’t take it lightly. Don’t make marriage harder than it already is by trying to mix oil and water. I believe there is some one out there for each of us. Get out there and find that person and love like there is no tomorrow.