I was injured in the line of duty on December 11, 2017, shortly after midnight. That is a day I can never forget as it ended a career that gave me so much purpose in life. I had to learn who I was and what I stood for following that. Who was I when the uniform was gone?

I was a very average student in school. Much like a lot of teenagers, doing the bare minimum to get by. I was a freshman in a small rural high school. When you go from middle school to high school, at least for me, I really thought I was something. More concerned with socializing than educating. Do NOT follow my path. Freshman English, I will refer to the teacher as Mrs. R. Mrs. R, to me appeared to maybe be around my grandmother’s age. Of course, when you are young, you think everyone is old. Mrs. R, looking back, she maybe should have retired five years prior. Walking into her classroom, there were many windows, however, the room just appeared gloomy. Nothing exciting or encouraging hanging on the walls, just another classroom. It may as well have been an interior room, it made me sleepy and extremely bored. The first day of any class was always rather dull to me, repetitive; going over classroom rules, expectations, syllabus, yada yada, going through the motions. Mrs. R’s personality was as gloomy and boring as her classroom. Mrs. R sometimes would take a cat nap during class, we watched a lot of movies. The reading list we had that year was atrocious, not at all appealing to a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old kid. The monotony was unbearable. I have always been a jokester. Anything to break the pin dropping silence. At the desk next to me was T, T was a smaller fella. You know at that age, a lot of times, the girls are taller than the boys. Mrs. R was at the chalk board, I could not tell you what she was writing. T was sleeping, I was bored per usual. I intentionally knocked T’s three ring binder onto the floor, it hit with sound that echoed in the sleepy room, boom. T startled awake and Mrs. R wheeled around from her chalkboard. In her frail, yet stern voice, who did that? Obviously, no one answered. T had no idea what had happened, after all, he was napping. I could not hold my laughter in, busted. Mrs. R most certainly did not appreciate the fact that I interrupted one of the rare moments that she was awake and writing on the chalk board. I cannot remember exactly, however, I think she had tried to teach us the Charleston, that was a type of dance from the 1920’s. I believe that same year, sophomore English had gotten a brand-new teacher. We will call her Mrs. C. during freshman English; Mrs. C would always stand outside her classroom between periods. She always had a warm and welcoming smile, much different than Mrs. R. Mrs. C, I would guess was in her early to mid-thirties. I would always peek into her classroom that was thoughtfully put together and so welcoming. Mrs. C was an elegant woman, stylish, her room emitted a scent that reminded me of an expensive perfume store, unlike Mrs. R room, the scent of her room reminded me of my grandparents’ house.  I now know that smell is the smell of vitamins and old fashion cleanliness. I envied the sophomore English students and could not wait to get out of the dungeon. Mrs. R retired at the end of my freshman year, not a moment too soon.

See me like you do: written by Truth as the Tavern

I have realized that I ask a lot of questions. Generally, they are the most random questions too. I would have greatly disliked being around the five-year old version of me, why? But why? I highly doubt that I ever got past a second why. I grew up during at time of “because I said so” was the only answer you would ever get. If you kept on with the why’s after the “because I said so” had already been given, the next step was the good ol’ back hand to the mouth. I can hear my dad clear as day greet my why with a long-exaggerated sigh, like here we go again. Being the youngest of seven children my parents were long past the answering of the why’s by the time I came along. Not only am I the seventh in line, I was for sure an ooops. There are exactly ten months and seventeen days between my brother and me. I can ask as many questions as I want, now Karen, … I turn into my father when she starts asking me questions. I have a spinal cord nerve stimulator that I am certain is strategically placed. I have permanent sciatica in my left leg. They start you off with a trial stimulator. It is almost like a fast food add. Everything looks so good in the add, however when you are starving and unwrap what you think is going to be a beautifully looking tasty burger, it looks like it was thrown in the middle of a busy interstate and ran over by every eighteen-wheeler that traveled that road. The trial stimulator worked well, when the permanent one was placed, it was such a letdown. Of course, when I need to ask questions, I obviously do not. Depending on the position I was in or how my head was positioned greatly affected the effectiveness of the stimulator. My entire life is filled with bad choices. Shortly after we were married, I purchased Karen a 1978 F-150. Bad choice of this escapade number 1. If your body is messed up bad enough that you have a stimulator so that you can walk, why on God’s green earth would you buy a truck that is more than forty years old? Any normal person would think hmmm this thing is probably going to be broke down more than it runs. Well, I have been called a lot of things in my life, normal has never been one of the names. I cannot remember exactly what had broken on it this time, it was something underneath it. Bad choice number 2, I got down on the ground to look underneath of this apparent bucket of bolts. Now, this had a few bad choices involved in it. I still had the dressings from the placement of this stimulator on my back. Now they did not tell me not to be rolling around on the ground, hindsight, they probably also did not think they would have to tell a grown adult to not be rolling around on the ground when you literally just had a foreign object implanted into your body. Getting on the ground under the truck was not an easy task. I am trying to contort my body because nothing is working right, chance number 1 to abort the mission. Karen is nagging at me telling me I really should not be doing what I am doing, chance number 2 to abort the mission. I am on the ground but cannot see whatever it was I was looking for, chance number 3 to abort the mission. Nope, I wiggled my chubby self underneath the truck. I am already in a bad way; however, I am persistent to a fault, I refuse to let anything hinder my ignorant self. I also do not possess the ability to think things through for myself. I am quick at pointing out how someone else is making a bad choice. Moving on, I try to get to a more comfortable position, yes Karen is still telling me how much I lack intelligence. Holy moly, that stimulator took to working and I literally felt like I was riding a lightening bolt. My body automatically froze in that position, so I am in a steady state of riding the lightening bolt. Karen is oblivious as to what is going on. I wanted to scream, however I could not because my dang contraption felt as if it was electrocuting me. I couldn’t even murmur a word, it was shocking me so badly, it took the air right out of my lungs. I don’t remember how old my niece was at the time, she was a teenager. She lived with us and was always outside, I thought it was because she wanted to help me all the time, now that I think about it, she was out there for the never-ending laughs from my uncanny ability to make bad choices. I am at least double the size of my niece (I hope you are getting a visual of this). I manage to muster up enough air to say help. I am certain they were slightly concerned that I asked for help, at least that is what I am going to tell myself. They were so concerned that they did not actually help me right away. I manage to tell them I am getting electrocuted. My niece has an unusual laugh when she really gets tickled. It is kind of like a donkey hee hawing. She grabs a hold of my boots and tries to drag me out. Not the greatest solution. This is when I learned that the straighter my spine it, the better the stimulator works. It is zinging me even worse. I am getting zinged to the sound of hee haw cackling. My niece gets me drug out from under the bucket of bolts. For the record, I found none of this situation funny. As a matter of fact, I am angry, of course I need to be angry with myself. I get into a position that it stops electrocuting me and catch my breath. I really want to get up and storm into the house, the problem with that is because my incisions are new enough that they still have the dressings on them, I cannot make my body do anything. Karen is reminding me how she told me it was not a good idea, like I needed the reminder. I just rode the lightening for what felt like an hour and been drug across the rocks on my back that had just been cut open and now I cannot get up. Her reminder was such a morale booster, and it decreased my anger, (sarcasm). My niece gets me off the ground. My legs feel like an overcooked spaghetti noodle looks. I attempted to storm into the house, it was more like a snail trying to tip toe.

I often feel like most of my life is a huge mess. Whenever I try to accomplish something, it turns into a mess first. If you think about it, some of the most beautiful things are just on the other side of messes. For example, when it snows, the roads, sidewalks, you track it in your vehicle, house, it just makes a mess. However, at night, when the stars are shining brightly and the moon is full, how beautiful it is to look out of the window from the comfort of your house to see the beautiful glistening snow. Even when you deep clean something, it turns into a mess before it becomes beautiful. Things get strewn about and for me, get overwhelming. Then things slowly go back together, and you can see beauty in your hard work.

Jalapeño

More Jalapeno

This morning's music is very relatable. I listen to it every morning as a reminder to myself to stand up. Stand up when all of the fear and negativity try to hold me down. There are days that I cannot stand up, I know God hears me, he sends an army on those days to not only stand me up but hold me up. One of my biggest challenges has been letting people in to see me in my rawest form. I am no longer afraid to let them in. Even at rock bottom, there are choices. If you are at rock bottom, let Gods mercy work. Let his army stand and hold you up. 

As you can tell, music is my anodyne. I attempt to interpret, as well as apply it to life. It has to mean more than just a bunch of words thrown together right? It is good brain exercise for me. My interpretation of this one is quite simple. It comes from very wise words from my high school government teacher we will refer to as coach. Coach would often say "are you going to be a horse or a saddle?" Meaning are you going to blaze the path or just go along for the ride. A leader or a follower, live life to the beat of your drum or let others tell you what beat your drum can play. I can only hear my own drum, the sound varies, good, bad and even messy. Don't let anyone tell you what you are or are not capable of. I sometimes let those opinion of others creep in on me. However, I am living proof  that with a little grit, determination, and a lot of ignorant persistence, you can do anything you set your mind to. I will prove you wrong, or die trying. The outcome of my life is determined by God and myself. That's it. Not a single other person gets to weigh in on that. So,...... I am human and not a dancer. To da loo

Have you ever stopped and wondered why things happen?  I never had a desire to have children. I never felt like I had a nurturing instinct. When I learned about Sb, I agreed to the situation more due to a promise I had made to my dad while helping him make his funeral arrangements. A promise I took to heart, after all, it was one of the last things he asked of me. We had 15 days to prepare for sb. That was 15 days for me to dwell on what a train wreck I am and 15 days of fear. Fear of being a complete failure. Little did I know that the fifteenth day would be a pivotal turning point in my life. When they handed her to me, I cried, one of those cries that sneak up on you. I am not an outwardly emotional person. I just held sb and looked into the purest, most innocent eyes I have ever seen. It was the most magical yet terrifying experience. I hope that I always remember that day. It was a rough start, mainly because I had no idea what I was doing. We had a dr appt the next day. I had to get sb around to go. I had purchased long sleeve white onesies. I opened the package and there were so many snaps on it. Why did the package not say takes a rocket scientist to operate contents inside? It did not even say that there were more snaps than material. We managed to make it to the dr.

I am almost certain that I have mentioned before that one of my brother’s is ten months seventeen days older than I am. We will call him Hank. Hank and I have not only always been close in age, but also a close relationship. I am going to refer to him as Hank for all the torturous things he did to me as we were growing up. Hank has always been an exceptional brother. I can count on Hank for anything. I always have been able to. As young adults, Hank use to live with me. He was extremely messy. I could never understand how he knew his clean clothes from his dirty clothes; they all looked the same. He never folded or hung up a single piece of clothing. He simply left it all waded up to get wrinkles after washing his clothes. One day I found out how he kept them straight, a good old fashioned smell test. Not how I handled my clothes, however, to each their own. My house had two bathrooms. You would think that Hank’s bathroom would be the guest bathroom. No, Hank’s bathroom was gross. Hank would never clean his sink. It had little beard specks all over from shaving, as well as dried toothpaste. At least he handled his teeth better than his clothes. He would need to have much more going from him than a well-kept beard if he was ever going to get a female companion because of his lack of organizational skills. When he would use the restroom, he must have been practicing the hula hoop with his eyes closed. He was just messy. Hank bought himself a 4-wheeler and turned my yard into his personal motorcross track. That was cool,….. not at all. When we were growing up, Hank would call me fatty fatty two by four can’t fit through the bathroom door. Yes, I am in fact fat, however I have never not been able to fit through a bathroom door, he would also call me fatty four eyes. Both of those statements were true. I was fat and wore coke bottle glasses. I can’t be mad at that. In the hall one day, one of Hanks friends called me fat. Hank slammed his friend up against the locker by his throat. I could always count on Hank. I had probably been running my mouth to trigger hanks friend to call me fat, I am sure I had earned it. I do not recall it ever hurting my feelings, (Hank had prepared me with his fat jokes)it was not a lie.

I have been very blessed in my life. It is not always easy in the moment to see the blessings. You could stand me in front of two paths at any given moment. One could be lined with rays of sunshine, butterflies and the most beautiful flowers anyone could imagine. The other, riddled with thorns, boulders, and dark rain clouds. Which path will I choose? 100 out of 100 times I am wondering what is over in the thorns and hidden behind the boulders, who cares about the rain, what is over there?

Waking up this morning at 5 am, I felt as if I had slept for days. Going through my morning routine, eyes pop open, greeted with initial heart racing feeling of confusion, not aware of where I am. Then it hits me, my bladder is full, I swear that thing is the size of a jellybean. I always envisioned life being like a romantic movie. Gently waking up, stretching, smiling with the warm sun beaming through the white see through curtains, simply enjoying the morning greetings. NOPE, that is not reality. Reality is, everything hurts; nothing wants to work. My jellybean bladder is on the verge of spilling over. Even though I feel as if it is a jellybean, I swear it holds a gallon. I do not have time to carefully plan my attack of getting in an upright position. Once I have acknowledged that it is full up, it waits on nothing. I am giving my absolute best version of scurrying to stand. I acknowledge that it more than likely resembles a turtle lying on its back trying to get flipped back over, slow with absolutely no grace. I really need to speed it along, not going to make it, the little engine that could unintentionally goes on repeat in my head. I am kind of stood up, yet not all the way up. More of a 90-degree angle, do not fret, with each step I muster, I am able to decrease the bulldozing position of with my head. My head cannot take one more whack, so I have my arms stretched flailing to not slam into a wall. I am not sure if this happens to everyone, I am rather unique, (the politest way I could convey odd). Anyway, once my eyes see the porcelain throne, not yet jellybean we made it this far, never fails. With all of that being said, my philosophy is, if you have seen one butt, you have seen them all, some are big, some are small. It was cold this morning, church starts at nine am sharp. During my morning reflection, I realized it was daylight. Where is my phone??? What time is it? Am I late? Phone located, 7:10 am, I am not late, why is it daylight. Back to dilly dallying, I still have twenty minutes before I hit the shower to go to church. I had something I wanted to accomplish immediately following church service; therefore, I did not dress in my Sunday best. On the drive to church this morning, Karen mentioned she had changed the clocks already. I am utterly confused, what do you mean? She said time changed. I did not respond, I instead ponder on did I know that time changed? I ponder on it for apparently too long, she said did you not know? Careful with your word’s little engine, careful. I better ponder some more. Then I said no and asked how she knew. She said it has been all over the radio and it always changes the first Sunday after Halloween. Back to pondering as to why I feel as if this is foreign to me. I pondered the rest of the way to church. Not speaking of it anymore. We oddly arrive at church early. Hank isn’t there yet, I want to get on his nerves, so I have Karen park where I thought Hank parked, key word thought. Here comes Hank and family strolling in with just a few minutes to spare. I have already socialized, had cackler that sits in the pew behind us cackling (laughing so much she smacked her leg a few times and was very conscious not to snort……. This time). I am waiting for Hank to say something about where we parked, nope, he only acknowledged that for the first time ever, I arrived before they did. I said “Hank, did we take your parking spot”, rubbing his eyes, he said no. Ugh, defeat.

Hello, this post is a little different. I wrote the lyrics to this song; however, the magic of AI brought it to life. I am not a composer. Some people have numbers floating around their heads, I have words. My own personal experiences sometimes provoke words, sometimes they come from conversations with others. Occasionally it is their lack of words that are thought provoking. I share my stories, experiences, and now music that I partially created on the slight chance that someone may need to hear it. It gives me purpose and drive that allows me to never stop trying to piece together parts of me that went missing. Unfortunately, to some, words are cheap and meaningless. Words have been my driving force for some time now. There was a time not long ago that I could not form complete sentences. This was accompanied by an embarrassingly uncontrollable stutter. I struggled to comprehend the simplest words being spoken to me. An overwhelming scary feeling.  I believe that some of the adversities that I have faced have assisted me in arriving at the season of my life to hear even what is not spoken. I began to move forward by learning new techniques to understand communication. I hope that the words that roll around in my head help in some way, shape or form. If I catch you running away out of the corner of my eye, at a bare minimum, I know you read my content. You are running in fear that you may be part of my content. Toodle-oo 

This will come to no surprise that I constantly have mishaps. I am a routine oriented person. It is necessary for me to remember simple tasks. All it takes is for one thing to be out of my routine and things go downhill quickly. The bigger the mishap, the more likely I will not be able to move past it. Yesterday was no different.

Odd title, I know. Those numbers have resonated. This week’s sermon came from Luke 21:5-19, I think it went further than 19, however 19 is about the time I became distracted. Let’s back up for a minute. I am sitting by smic, No had an entire conversation prior to my arrival how he was not sitting by me this morning, that makes me laugh. So, No was sitting between Smic and Hank. Hank was trying to talk to me across the pew. I could not hear a darn word Hank was saying, Smic was having to relay what Hank was saying. None of which was super pressing. Going back even a few minutes prior, I walked in and was harassing one of the church ladies handing out the itinerary (I do not know the proper name for it), somehow, I had turned the flashlight on my phone on, I seen Hank laughing, not unusual. I realized my flashlight was on; I truthfully think that I realized it because it reflected the bright light off of Hank’s extra-large shinny forehead and was blinding me. He, in a quiet, excited yell, tells me that I am blinding him. I did not tell Hank about it blinding me from his shinny big forehead, once in a while, I have to let Hank have a wise crack.

I realize that Amy does not have a code name, even though it is a moot point, I still had better give her one, or several. She would expect nothing less. Today she will be Punkin’ simply because it annoys her and well, in case you have not realized from all of my writings, that is how I roll. I wonder why she tolerates me too!