9,980

Nine thousand, nine hundred, and eighty words.  That is what I patched together over the last week for one story.  They call that type of story a novelette I guess.  A novella that deals with something tribal or sentimental themes.  It is also a narrative work of prose fiction shorter than a novella and longer than a short story.  Examples of such stories include "Children of the Corn" by the master King himself.  The Birds was also a Novelette and google tells me it is the most famous of all time.  I don't really care what you call it.  Tonight marks a wonderful step forward for me.  It marks the first time that I wrote a beginning, a middle, and a end to a story.  the only problem is you can't read it :D  I won't post it here today.  I am superstitious I guess and I don't want anyone to read it until re-write is done, and I sent it out.  the point is I did it.  I really did it.  I am so proud of myself.  I have really been writing a lot in the last year, more than I ever have.  I was told that 2014 was gonna be my year and well I think it is.  So, I am going to bed now happy as can be, and with the knowledge I put my mind to something, I started it and finished it. That feels good!

We are making a difference.  Each day we get a little bit better than the day before.  Each day we get closer to our finish line.  

Billy b and the Twenty Years in between.....

Terre Haute is half a country away and Terre Haute South and the class of 1994 is half a life away.  Tonight many of my classmates will celebrate our twenty-year reunion.  Obviously as I sit typing on my back porch in California I will not be one of them.  Will I be missed some say "Si", some say "No".

Billy b - summer before Sr. Year at THS!


There are many reasons that I didn't go back.  New job and new responsibilities.  Terre Haute is home and well home is home.   My blood is to thick for Indiana and I have never been able to properly express myself in the humidity of July and August.  Mostly, I am a poor reforestation of the man I left Terre Haute searching for.  I don't think anyone there would give to shits that I am fat as a Christmas Goose.  However, this reason shames me and I just couldn't go back with not putting my best foot forward.  Dumb I know.  Guess what I am hiding behind my weight one more time, because let's face it that's exactly what I do.

I left The Haute lost and I have drifted ever since.  Chasing an idea that I can actually be ok living on my own and in my own skin.  I have spent a lifetime searching for acceptance everywhere but where I should have look and that is in my own minds eye.

I wish to all the old gods and new ones that I could see myself just for one second thru the eyes of my friends and co-workers.  That my over compensation would good and weight is just a crutch.  That it is not needed because even without it I matter and I make a difference.   I never saw this in high school.   I see a glimmer if it now.  I see it out there in the near future and I see it in the form of my tower!  I know my tower is closer!  I see it on the horizon, it fades in and out but I see it shimmering in the distance on my path.

However I know it has never been my body that made a difference.  No.  That's not what anyone ever loved Billy b for.  Instead it was what was under the service that he tried so hard to hide so he could be like his brothers and every other high school boy he ever met.

It was his heart, his soul, and his beautifully flawed mind.  His heart is still the size of the moon and is forever giving.  He is still empathetic even if it was rare that he showed this growing up.  He feels.  He feels on a level very few can understand.

His mind makes him unique.  His mind makes him have a lot to offer far beyond anything else.  He is the smartest if smart Asses, trained by the legendary Ben Laycock.  His wit is fast and hard and he never met a line he didn't want to push as far as it could go.  He accepts his mind is flawed and it gets stuck like a record player on a scratch.  However more importantly it can create worlds.  It sees things in a unique and wonderful perspective that the light will inevitably out shine the dark.  That there is good in this world and in the end the human spirit isn't a cruel and evil husk.

Twenty years is a long time to live wandering the secret highways of addiction, hate, and fear.  Twenty years is to long to hide from the man you were born to be and from the life you seek.  I have no regrets not going back.  However there are people that I miss and wish I could see, and to them I say if KA wills it, then our paths shall cross again.


To Poogie Adler, my good buddy Chip, and Hammie Horns, I love you my brothers!  I miss you and we shall speak soon!


To the rest of my classmates I say:

“So don't worry about tomorrow

Take it today

Forget about the cheque

We'll get hell to pay
Have a drink on me

Have a drink on me

Yeah

Have a drink on me

Have a drink on me

On me”

Have fun, enjoy the memories and I'll see you next time around!

The need of my addiction

My name is Billy b and I am an addict.  I don’t have an addiction anything that would make you say damn, poor bastard.  Basically, I am saying I not hooked on Sweet Lady H, Cocaine, Booze, nicotine, or hell even porn (although this one could be argued, I am a perv after all).  No, I am addicted to eating.  I think I have said this before, but I didn’t really believe it.  Not because I can’t look in the mirror and see I am huge, full, and not hungry and I just keep on eating. 

No I didn’t believe it because I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t think my issue was worthy.  I wanted to ignore it and just hope that one day I would wake up without it.  I didn’t want to admit that I was weak.  I didn’t want to admit that I had a problem that I couldn’t fix and make better on my own.   However, I think I finally realize now, that I can’t.

I am 100% sure that my weight will take care of itself as soon as I get my mind right.  My mind has come a really long way.  The prison walls that once existed might still be there, but they aren’t as strong as they once were. 

If anything, I think I have learned from my time in rabbit hole.  I learned that if I try to measure success in pounds that I am not very successful.  However, if I measure success on whom I have become mentally, and emotionally then I can hold my head up high and pull my shoulders back and say,  gods be  damned I have come a long way.

However, what I can’t get around is the eating.  The need to not only make me full but fuller then I already am.  I can binge on four burger at M’s and then still get up the next morning and want a full breakfast.  I can drink 7 liters of water a day and still somehow find a way to put more food into my system on top of a completely full tummy. 

You have to understand this need is not hunger.  It is part boredom.  It is part need.  It is part trying to fill up my soul with something other than the black I live in constant fear of.   

I will end with two stories today, and hopefully be able to return to regular blogging tomorrow.  I have missed writing and sharing.  I have a need to externalize everything to make it real to me.  So, I guess I have not felt very real lately.

The first story is last Friday, I didn’t eat dinner.  It felt so strange to me.  I felt empty almost.  I wasn’t feeling well.  My neck hurt from the whiplash and I just didn’t want to get out of bed after lying down at 4:30 PM to just relax.  To not eat a meal shouldn’t feel so strange.  It is normal, if you aren’t hungry, then you don’t eat.  It is a concept that the addicted mind doesn’t understand.  I understand eating, three or four times a day. 

The other story is that on Saturday I went on a feverish writing frenzy.  I wrote and I wrote.  I lost all track of space and time as I created in my office.  It might take me four hours to seven pages, but none the less I felt so productive.  The entire time I never once thought about eating. I had to remember to eat something that night before I went to bed. 

These are both stories I don’t really understand.  However, I am hoping that it is the start of me seeing that I can detach myself from my addiction.   It would seem to me that I can live a life without the compulsion in my mind to eat, eat, and then eat some more.  I just have to start doing each day little bit more. 

In conclusion a friend approached me at work last week and said hey I want to talk to you as a friend.  I rolled my eyes and sure ok, why not.  I mean how many times have I had a friend talk to me about trying to help me get healthy.  I was surprised this one would approach me about it.  When we met she told she had a friend who had gone to OA.  Lost a significant amount of weight and has kept it off for two years. 

I told her about my one time trip to OA and how as much as I respect people of faith, it just wasn’t for me.  She assured me her friend was a new age thinker.  That she it couldn’t hurt.  What I was most surprised by is that I wanted to meet with this person and that I finally wanted help and I accept the fact that I can’t do this alone. 

The whole purpose of this blog was because I can’t do this alone.   I know that I am in need of the help and support that only my friends and family can provide.  However, I also need an arena free of those who know me.  I need an arena of people who have had their own battles with demons. 

I think I have finally accepted that admitting I am an addict doesn’t mean I am a weak person or that I have major issues.  I think it I have finally just realized that maybe just maybe I have a really shitty way of coping with things in my life that are outside of my control.   I know I have other tools to quiet my mind: swimming, walking, and writing and I need to distance myself from my food.  I need to focus on the holy trilogy of healthy outlets and be better in this moment than I was in the last. 

We are no the eve of the Labor Day weekend.  A year ago in a fog of smoke, and Coors light two old friends.  I and Master Krug (wish you were here buddy) hatched an idea to be better than we were.  I know the Master has lost weight and is getting more active all the time.  I know I am better than I was a year ago, and the best is yet to come. 

 

Late swim

It would be so easy to lay down and not go... It would.  I'm home, I've eaten.  I've checked emails.  I've Facebook stalked.  I've walked puppy.  I've tried to join a sales group on linked in, and I've put my dry cleaning out.  By all accounts not a bad night, right? 

Then why am I compelled to do more?  Why am I he'll bent on trying out the new gym and pool tonight?  It's 8:30 PM.  Why go?

Because I want more out of life than what I have today!  I want my life back.  I want to feel the pool water all around me.  I want to push my body.  I want to chase down another 60,000 meters!  I want to get back in charge of my life.

Look, I will measure success in pounds.  I won't measure success in blogs.  I won't measure it in page views.  I'll measure it in how I feel.  Right now I feel good.  I come thru so much of the rabbit while already.  I'm smiling again.  I'm energized.  

----

11:24 pm update

The pool was awesome at active sports the three day free trial my therapist got me is nice.  The pool allows for great turns, it is the perfect depth at both ends.  I did 1100 boob.  It was tough.  However I nailed it!  

Like I said the gym is nice.  Two saunas in the men's locker room and a hot tub, what??? Ya a hot tub, rub a dub dub billy gonna hot tub, rub a dub dub dub!

Shiner is crazy tonight she is running around like a mad dog.  She is in the bath room right now.  I don't know why when I say go to your mom's room she goes in there?  I was heading into my room and she poked her head out and looked at me.  When I looked back she turned her head and looked into living room.    I shut my door, but not all the way.  I looked back out and she was looking at my door.  I opened the door and looked at her she turned to the living room :) she was trying to be all nonchalant about wanting attention.  We did this five times, before I had her come over for a belly rub.  She is a good puppy :)

Good day today, good night tonight!

Now that is what they call the "Double Deuce!" (A burr cut story)

 

When you see that hair and beard in the mirror and think oh my god, I look like a freaking hippy, what can you really do? 

You can go see you friendly neighborhood barber that is what you can do.  You walk in there and tell him son, I look like a hippy, “see how long this hair is?”  It won’t due, son, it won’t due at all.  No you realize you are telling this to a 50 plus year old Asian man, but no matter that.  You talk in your best southern draw, which with you shitty impersonation probably comes out quite British.  You tell him straight, last time we didn’t go short enough and this time we need to do the “Deuce Deuce” or as I prefer to call it the “Double Deuce”! 

First thing you need to know about the “Double Deuce” or the number 22, is it is my favorite number of all time.  Ask me why I will tell you it is simple it is two two’s.  Which means it is perfect.  Everyone loves a good deuce, and for once I am not trying to talk about crap.  I mean what other number can be called “Double Deuce” or “Deuce Deuce”.  Not too many, well actually none.  My love affair with the ole double deuce started when I was 18.  Something I and my boy CK used to do. Every time he would say 22 I would you mean the “the ole double deuce eh?”  Now you have to remember 18 was a very confusing time for me.  I was graduating high school and things like the word Sign in math class made me do a little dance number to the Ace of Base song.  Tangent made me think of monkey’s running. Co-tangent made me think of monkey’s running backwards. 

When I got to IU after graduating from high school The Double Deuce became my nickname.  Before my fraternity dad was my fraternity dad I told him I was an accounting major.  He asked me if that was because I like numbers.  I said sure.  He asked if I had a favorite, and I was like Duh, it is the Double Deuce.  He said like two two’s.  I said is there any other kind of 2?  I think a friendship was born that day.  Nickname for sure.  I bet if I bumped into or call Kyle Hoagie up right now he would call me Double Deuce, Deuce, or Chili Palmer, the last is another story of drunken debauchery, a monkey, a women, and a gravity bong.  Ask me about it some time.  The point is that during college I was known as the Double Deuce and it was because of a pooping incident. 

What the best part of sitting in the barber’s chair was and ordering the Double Deuce was he knew exactly what I meant.  Even though I have never had this cut from before, curious?  Look, the last time I rolled with the Double Deuce was 2005 I think.  Pitt was sporting in Ocean’s 12 and I was damn, I used to roll that way back in the day, so I can do it again. 

Look the Double Deuce as a hair style is quite simple.  They give you a two guard on top.  Then they give you a two guard on the face.  I think we have established what two two’s are right?  It is the Double Deuce.  As seen below:

 

Look the truth is I know I have been off.  The path has been rougher than I ever imagined it could be.  However, I bounce back faster than I ever have before. I won’t let this week get the best of me.  No matter how much I want to go back, I know I can’t.  I know the only path is the one forward, wherever that might lead.  I believe in the will KA.  I believe in the power of fate and destiny.  I know we are a year later.  A year from the beginning of this blog or pretty damn close to the time I decided no more waiting it is time to start living.  The inspiration I had to do that will never be forgotten.  Never, it is still so important to me, even now.  WE must find the way forward.  We must continue on the path, and KA will lead us to where we need to go.  We will sing our song of triumph (Ves-ka Gan) in the red fields of Can'-Ka No Rey.

Sometimes all that matters is...

 

Sometimes the only thing that really matters is that you wake up each day with hope!  Every day when I wake up its a new start and the world is mine!  If you don't wake up with hope then what is the point.

I'm not saying everyday I wake up and I'm all shits and giggles.  I'm not waking up and bouncing off walls.  I'm not.  I'm a grizzly bear when I wake up.  I'm borderline hateful till I have my coffee.  However, at the same time I feel a sense of rejuvenation and purpose.  A sense that until two weeks ago was crush soon as I plugged snow flake my electric car into the outlet in Pleasanton.  I felt stuck and trapped in a situation I wasn't in charge of, or felt I wasn't.

However every day but one over the last two weeks I've been up before my alarm.  Everyday I have a sense of purpose and that what I'm doing is taken for granite and I'm making a difference.   Not just at work, no, mostly in my own life.

Yes I get down.  Last nights blog is a testament to just how close the black and darkness always is to me. This is a hard week for me.  It's easy to get down.  However each morning I get up and I feel alive!  I feel like the sky is the limit for me.  I dream big and want to live bigger.

So each day is a new day!  Each time we get up and face what's out there we get a little bit better than before.

My road is a hard one.  200 plus pounds have to be shed.  Food addiction to over come.  However most importantly I have to use the key I have to unlock the prison of my mind.  So much mind fucking I've done to myself over that last twenty years.  I have to unravel that mystery of my mind.  It's gonna be hard, it's full of plot twists and loop holes.  It's a living beast that doesn't want to be riddled.

However, I will.  I will because I have hope that I will.  I will because each day I accept that challenge that i have to get better.  I will because each day I wake up with hope!  Sometimes that hope is all that matters!

something from nothing....

“There is only one real solution to health, it begins with the realization that everything is connected... It's not about a guru, it's not about a pill, it's about you - it's about realizing you have all the tools YOU need within!”
- Jason Wachob


"It's getting dark."  He said
The person he was talking to looked around at the sunny august afternoon.  He looked north, he looked south, and he looked east and shook his head.   "It's broad daylight?"

"No not out there!"

He pinched his face and looked at the man in the dark glasses, all he could really see is his glasses, and his reflection in the mirrors of those dark lenses.  “If not out there then where man?  Where?”

The man in the glasses tapped above his glasses, not once, not twice, but thrice.

He had know what the man had mean before he ever tapped there.  He knew because he felt it.  He could feel it coming on.  Like the first sprinkles in a storm.

He looked south again.  He looked at rolling hills of the Sonul Grade and further down into the valley.  He tried to smile and tell himself how beautiful life was.  How beautiful this moment was.  However, it didn’t matter how beautiful it was, though, he still felt its rapid approach.

He had hoped that a change in job would help, and it had for two weeks.  He had hoped that turning off the information flow would help.  It had had for a bit.  However, nothing could really change his needy, nature.  It was getting dark.  The man in the sunglasses was right.  It was getting was getting so dark it was black.

Never underestimate the power of the mind. I do and each time I do it is more than happy to show me what an insignificant little piece of the plan I actually am.  A year ago on this night, I was larger than life.  Not just physically, but emotionally.  I knew then on that night in that moment that I was going to win.  That I would conquer my demons, now, I say I will but I am not sure.

Of all people, I know best that the only way this works is if I can get my mind right.  That only thing I need in this world is myself.  I don’t need any social media, blog, or anything else to substantiate who and what I am.  Then how come I can’t stop looking at my phone?  Why can’t stop going onto facebook? Why can’t I just accept this is the way things are and we can’t ever go back?  The thing that will really blow your noodle is f we could would want to.

As happy and content as I was then or thought I was.  I can’t unlearn what I know.  I can’t see I was living a lie.  Just like from Blog to blog I can’t spin a lie.  I can’t make you believe what I don’t.

I was broken.  I still am.  I was weak.  I still am.

Fuck it didn’t used to be this hard to blog.  I always had something to say.  Now, I don’t.

Maybe, I am just tired of fighting.  Maybe, I am tired of lying and not being completely honest.  I know I am hurting right now.  I just want the next few weeks to be over and never to look back.  I want to be the man who I am supposed to be.  The man I can be.

I know the keys to everything I have ever wanted reside in one place.  Picture me tapping on my head right above my glasses.  Because that is where the key is.  That is where map is.  I have to understand there are no answers in surgery.  There are no answers in therapist’s offices.  There is no answer in being Mr. Popular.  Talk to as many other people as you want, it really can’t change a thing.  There is only the validity you can hold in your own mind.  The simple believe that you are worth it.  That not only do you you deserve a wonderful life but you are willing to chase, find it and live it.

You have to take that small piece of knowledge and plant it in the fertile guardian that is your mind and let it grow.  It won’t grow easy.  It will take a lot of time to cultivate.  You will have to work at it.  You will fail.  You will sit there and hit refresh on your phone 100 times hoping she will email you, or text, or call.  She won’t and frankly it doesn’t matter either way.  You will get frustrated and you will eat McDonald’s.  It won’t help, but it will give you diarrhea.  You pull up websites to order Pizza Hut, and then put it down, and try to order Chinese, only to realize that isn’t what you want.  You will go get a Subway and know you did just a little better than before.

Each day you guardian will grow a little. Each day you will believe you are actually worth something.  Each day you will to be a little bit better.  Day by day you will realize you are the cure.  You are the answer.  You are exactly what you need to be.

You know you are on your path.  You know depression won’t win, because we have beaten it before.  We know the black won’t maintain its grip on us.  We know this because it can’t.  Nothing lasts forever.  More importantly we don’t want it too.  We choose to fight.  We choose to live.  This is our time.  Our moment.

No, things can’t ever go back to how they were, for that time has passed.  No, you can’t turn back the clocks of time.  All you can do is unlock the key to your mind.  That is our gift.

A Game of..... Phones???????????

We aren't merely connected in Today’s world we are part of the information flow. With the rise of social media we aren't simply passive users of information received. We are active users of information. We as active users push the information and therefore have a direct impact on the world. We direct that information and share it through social media, email, and blogs. People in today's world are so saturated with information it is hard to tell if we are coming or going. Is the world really a worse place or do we just hear about issues quicker and faster? In our everyday lives we get a tidal wave of information.

Anyone who knows me knows I am addicted to the information flow.  I am a whore to email and I have been since I started using it.  I can remember running around my apartment in San Francisco as I was trying to dial into MSN so I could see if my sweet, sweet Russian Guitar teacher had emailed me back.  Take me to dinner and I am looking at my phone more than you.  I had dinner one night with my friend Deb and she actually said before it started, can we please have a conversation and play on your phone all night. When I would go to team lunches, I used to hand my cell phone telephone to a co-worker and tell them not to let me have it back until it was over. 

I think my incessant need to be connected and get information is twofold.  One there is absolutely no doubt I have ADD or some type of disorder where I can’t sit still with an idol mind.  It drives me nuts.  My mind is a powerful machine and it never turns off.  It is constantly churning.  It is either thinking about my next blog, what I need to do for work or the women who is the object of my affection.  Even worse it could be some ridiculous thing I have made up in my mind just so I have something to keep my mind occupied.  You have no idea how many issues I have created for myself in my mind’s eye. 

The other reason is that I am a multi-tasking machine.  Gabe told me one thing he really admired about me is my ability to multi-task.  I quote him here “you do have an astounding ability to multi-task. If I was on Facebook and blogging as much as you I’d get absolutely nothing done!” A key component of that is my phone.  I could do my job without my phone.  It is really that simple. 

Ok, technically, and as much as I hate to admit this, there is a third reason.  I am a needy person.  I need to be told how good I am doing in my new life.  I need to be on social media and know people are reading what I am writing.  I need it.  I have been told that I believe the world revolves around me.  I see it.  I do.  I hate this about myself.  That I have to externalize everything and that I measure who I am by the thoughts of someone else. 

So, imagine how I felt on Sunday morning when RG was telling me that some asshat had stolen her phone.  I recoiled in horror.  To me there was nothing worse that could have happened.  I spent a lot of time on Sunday trying to help her find a replacement so she could do her job.  I had no luck at all.  Then I started to notice the performance on my phone gradually getting worse of the rest of the day. 

So, I was terrified when I got to work on Monday and not only was my charge almost fully gone after being on the charger all night, but also I wasn’t getting emails. I thought I was walking into a peaceful morning in the 2^nd week of my new gig.  Wrong!  Wrong! Wrong!  I had like 28 emails before 9 a.m.  Then to make things worse my phone was running a temperature.  Seriously it was hotter than a two dollar pistol.  Then I plugged the phone in to charge and I swear on the charger with the lightning bolt showing it went from 5% charge to 3%. Tell me in what dimension does that actually happen? 

My phone is a work phone.  So, I engage IT for support.  After 5 hours of talking about potential fixes and trying to delete and add email accounts I found myself rebooting my phone.  A hard reboot and still nothing is working.  By this point I was starting to get hulk like angry.  I found myself actually saying I couldn’t possibly function without my phone.  That is was my life line.  Gabe told me I was acting like a teenage girl and the VP of American sales said the same thing.  Finally, I just turned off the email and kept charging the phone.  The next day went through more of same crap.  Until finally the executive admin for the company marched me over to IT and made me tell them to fix it, because I needed my phone. 

However, what I had started to realize is that I actually like not being connected all the time.  I like the fact that I could bounce in and check Facebook ever few minutes.  I liked not having hangouts pop up every few minutes.  I liked the simple life of not being constantly on the go.

When IT brought me my phone back my simplicity lasted for a while longer.  For the next 28 hours I lived with a phone which I only got work email, and texts from people who initiated them.  One down side of the phone going to the apple store is that I came back with no contacts (YES I have lost everyone’s contacts at least for the time being).  That is ok.  The people who want to get a hold of me will.  The others well, I still have a list of contacts in google, I guess. 

So after 24 hours I reload my information from the cloud.  Everything seems to be working fine.  Why not try and load my work email.  I will be fucking damned if the same thing doesn’t happen again.  The running hot, hot, hot, and all the other shenanigans.  So, I said fuck, I am going simple again. So I rebooted it again, and again I lost everything. 

I think the point is that I have realized I don’t want to be tied to my phone.  I love my new job. I think I am going to be really successful and awesome at it.  However, I want more out of life than the grind of a job.  I want to be peaceful and at peace.  I want to write and tell my story.  I want to win my war.   Look, I never want to be like the cunt on the elevator who just got off on the third floor!  I mean not only was she Face-booking that she was waiting in elevator, but practiced terrible elevator etiquette getting onto the elevator.  Then instead of being polite and holding the doors she was glued to her phone the entire time. l and I got slammed with the doors. Then she leans up against the wall and continues to check status all the way up.  I don't give a shit how nice her ass is, don't be so fucking rude!  I don't want to continue to be glued to my phone.  However right now I am.  Not as bad as her though.

So I have decided no matter what happens, Facebook not going back on the phone.  Facebook messenger not going back on the phone.  Hang-outs are not going on the phone.  Blogger going back on the phone because we all know a blogging Billy b is a happy Billy b.  I need to compromise my lifestyle.  I think it is time. 

I am really working hard with Sue to no longer need the external validation of who I am.  I am pretty awesome the way I am, but I want to be better.  I need to be better.  I see my live and I see it coming into place… Long days and Pleasant Nights! 

 

The Next Chapter…

“Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There's always gonna be holes. And since it's the ending, it's all supposed to add up to something. I'm telling you, they're a raging pain in the ass.” – Chuck, Supernatural

I once heard somewhere that endings are hard.  Well Look up above and you will know exactly where I first heard it.  I am not a writer, I am a hack.  Spinning words is a hobby of mine and I try to do it as often as I can.  It is less often these days.  I think that is because I am fairly certain I shouldn’t go over 365 blogs in my first year of blogging.  Call me crazy for that.  It is ok to call me crazy, my shrink does all the time. 

Ending are hard.  I cannot tell you how many things I have started in my life and left unfinished.  I wouldn’t know where to start.  Whether we are talking about my blog, my job, a friendship, about a girl or anything else in your life, it really doesn’t matter endings are always hard. 

For me even as hard as endings are, starting a new chapter is even harder.  I am my own worst critic.  The expectations of what I am to do in my own mind are larger than my body.  We all know that is big, big!  As the Japanese man told me in the baths at Mount Fuji “YOU, BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG and me Small!”  Add in hand motions and of his making arms wide open to about three inches apart and you will get how he did it. 

So, every day even to blog it is challenge.  I want it to be bigger and better than the day before.  Believe it or not, I take the same approach with my career.  Yes, jinkies, I have a career.   This is what I see in my mind.   I see a successful writer, who has real day job on the side.  I don’t know why that is the goal and the dream, but it is.   Dream big or don’t dream at all I always say. 

So on Monday of last week, I started a new chapter of my life.  As of Monday Billy b is no longer an accountant or even a member of a finance organization.  What I have to say about that is Monthly and Quarterly close Kiss my Shiny Metal ASS!  I took a new job on Monday working in sales operations and support.  I am working for a guy who I have grown up with at the company and have a lot of respect for.  I know that respect goes both ways.  I am so excited to get this opportunity and new path underway.

However, as happy as I am, I will miss my former team.  I love those people.  Over the last year I really have built a wonderful team.  A team that worked really well together, but also laughed a lot together.  That team will be ok.  However, it is hard watching the team you built start to function without you.  I can honestly say I love those people and I know they will continue to kick ass.  It’s a good thing for all involved.  Really it is, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.  I have been blessed over the years with amazing people working for me.  Even when I wasn’t the easiest person to work for and was running around bat shit fucking crazy.  Always, had the most amazing people there in the trenches with me, getting the job done and not to take anything away from them, but when I say the three people I am leaving behind now were the best, I mean it.  I think in a lot of ways it was because I was my best a lot in the last year.  I have moved on from so much.  I think it is because I had partners not employees.  I just think it was you had four people that just really worked well with and off each other. 

Now, I turn to a new world, a world that I will admit used to scare the shit out of me, SALES!  Trainer, coach, strategist, friend, and supporter, I will be all of these things in a new and exciting and dynamic organization.  I am not just the back in guy stamping approvals yes or no, I am actually out on the floor, making shit happen, and I really want to make it rain!  I am nervous but confident that I will get the job done. 

It is funny one day you wake up from sleeping and realize that everything you want is at your fingertips.  You see that you are in the right place, at the right time, in your life.  You see that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and you accept that. 

You also realize you have lot of things to forgive and ask forgiveness for.  You see the grudges you hold aren’t always fair.  You see the disappointments from both sides.  You realize that you are more grown up than you ever gave yourself credit for.  Also, you are wiser than you would have ever believed.  There are few people on this earth that know themselves better than I.   I have to forgive, so I can move on.  Because it is time to move on and time to start the next chapter of my life.  I think I have spent the last year waiting for some break thru.  Waiting for something or someone to inspire me to live the life I want to live.  I call bullshit on myself for that.  The only thing keeping me from living my life is me.   The only person who can change my life is me.

For the first time in 38 years I am making my own reality.  The new job, I did that, I did that thru years of hard work and excellent service.  The ability to forgive those who have wronged me, I did that by looking through both ends of the looking glass.  The want and need to be happy is me waking up every day with a new hope!

My name is Billy b, and today I believe that the rest of my life is going to be amazing.  It is going to be amazing because I am going to make it that way.  I believe I deserve this life.  This is amazing and wonderful life.  I will only put myself in situations that make me successful.  That is the key and in this new chapter, I have done just that.  I am going to make myself successful. 

So as hard as it is to do an ending and move on to the next chapter, I think we all agree that it is time.  Time for me to make the right decisions in my life and make choices that help me be heathier and happier.  Each day is a new beginning but we are what we put into our body.  Our body is our vessel on this place and time.  It is a temple and needs to be treated as such.  Being fully awake and accepting of the life you have and the place you want to go is huge.  It is always great to know right now you are exactly where you should be.  You know that you are and will be the man you are supposed to be. 

Back to my roots (a new look story)

I still look at the above picture and ask myself just what in the fuck happened to me on Saturday night.  The answer keeps coming back, I have not fucking clue, but it must have been one hell of a night for my hair to be looking the way it did.  Either I got stuck in some type of wind tunnel or vortex, tried sniffing model airplane glue for the first time, or just slept on it wrong with my CPAP machine I don’t think it really matters.  Looking at that ridiculousness leads to one question and one question only “Just what the fuck is going on with my hair in the first place.”

It’s not the first time I have had issues with longer hair and it doing whatever the hell it wanted to do.  This takes me back to the time the rooster showed its ugly head.  Literally picture the same picture with no facial hair, and instead of the hair sticking out to the right, it was all standing straight up.  Now picture with each step I took the damn hair flapping back in forth like a rooster getting ready to cock-a-doodle-do.  The vision is not very pleasant is it?  Well the night wasn’t either.  This is honest to god one of Mom Carol’s favorite stories.  It was the only night of the entire summer all three of her boys went to bed before 11 p.m. and she will be damned if my friends don’t carry on a party without us.  It was true.  All three of the brother’s b did go to bed that night early.  It is also true the boys continued to party in the wee hours of the night.  After all we were 17, and young, lived in a cornfield so what else was there to do other than drink copious amounts of Busch and Miller Lite?  Absolutely nothing that is what.  I don’t fault the boys for partying.  Why would I.  Was I angry as hell when Mom Carol woke me at 3 or 4 a.m. and told me to go through out all my friends, yes, yes I was very angry. 

Of course the conversation with Mom Carol started off like every other conversation with her during those days “Who are all the god damned whores in her basement.”  You back then it didn’t matter if my Mom knew your name or not.  It didn’t matter if you were a whore or not.  What mattered if you were in her basement and you woke her up because of noise, every chic became a god damned WHORE.  I can’t make this shit up.  However, unlike most nights when this happened (and yes it happened pretty much every weekend of my high school life) instead of Mom Carol walking down in her night gown and it was a night gown not a teddy as one of my best friends likes to say, and only upon arriving at the bottom of the stairs and then closing her robe, would she yell “Who are all these god damned whores Billy?  I can hear them giggling.  So I know there are whores down here!”  She came and got me out of my bed.  She told me my friends were throwing a rager and it was up to me to get rid of them or she was calling the fucking police.

If you have never seen an angry bear woken up, then you probably have no idea what I am like when woken up middle of the night to throw out the God Damn Whores, but I can tell you that I am not in a good mood.   I am sure I fired off every obscenity in the book to my mom before starting the death march down stairs.  These things usually went very simply.  I walk down stairs, I point to the God Damned Whore in question and I tell them to either leave or tell someone who can drive them home to make them gone.  Usually at the dissatisfaction of some young man who thought he might actually score that night.  Really as legendary as the b basement was, it was not the brothel it was made out to be.  Some legends never live up to expectation.  So I march back to the pool and I tell everyone out and we are going to bed.  They argue and threats of parents being called to pick them up get them moving. 

This is when some poor son of a bitch makes the mistake of telling me my hair flapping around like a roosters is the funniest thing they have ever seen.  This of course leads to me very politely slamming them into the wall.  Then Removing Busch lite from their hand, and dumping it over their head.  Upon realizing this was not punishment enough for them, I pick up said friend and toss in pool and tell them to shut the fuck up and if they ever talk bad of my hair again, there will be repercussions.  Apparently, slamming, pouring, and tossing into bull is not enough.  To this day every time I see said friend he reminds me of the night I came down stairs puffed up like a rooster and insults my flapping hair. 

You can see why this selfie of me was such a problem, right?  It’s all bad juju, all over again.  So, we have to come up with a new hair strategy and that is it.  We must get a cut. 

Actually, I think I was just trying to find a way to make this blog funny.  I am not sure it worked.  The truth is the decision to cut my hair came long before I ever got up Saturday.   I think most decisions re like that aren’t they?  Not made on the fly.  The truth is my hair just wasn’t working for me anymore.  There are lots of reasons why it longer worked.  However, we will stick with it was hot and annoying if you like.  We can also go with sometimes you have to purge everything in order to really start fresh.  We can say maybe we decided it just didn’t look good anymore.  It could have been all of these reasons and none of them.  It doesn’t really matter.  When it is time, it is time. 

So we went the barbar shop and left the floor like this:

 

We walked out with a cut that took us back to our roots.  Literarily and figuratively, I mean for the first 13 years of my life did Doc Burkle not scalp me and my brothers good?  It is funny whenever my hair is long, I want a buzz.  Whenever it is short I want it long. 

So here is the new look (Yes, I look like a bad ass)!

 

And the truth if no one likes it that is ok because I know this, Shiner sure does:

Truth be told... Yesterday and Today were some very big new beginnings for myself.  So this haircut is sort of  bridge to my new life and new role, and a healthier and happier me....

Also the cute girl in the office said I look 200% better and with my sunglasses on she said I looked like a badass!!!  Actually got a lot of compliments and I am happy with it. 

Things I am learning as I grow up, so I can find the love I deserve and live the life I want (Conclusion)

We are at ground zero now.  Three hundred and sixty-five days away from the series of events that would ultimately lead to me wanting to change the person who I am.  Those events are in the past and with the world I have moved on.  I can’t sit here and say it has all been easy.  Most of the time healing isn’t.  There is lots of pain at first.  Then pain every now.  Sometimes it is intense, and sometimes it just there.  Then you go into a phase of lingering pain.  Eventually the pain fades and when you least expect it hits you and then it is gone again.  Each time the pain comes back it is a little duller, like a light bulb burning out, it will never be as bright as the first time you turn it on, no longer how long it lasts.  I am better though and better than I have ever been.  I am on my way to having the life I want.  I know that now.  It isn’t just something I glimpse out of the corner of my eye.  It is something that is real and in my face.  I am now the one who holds the keys to the car in one hand and the map to my life in the other.

We have spoken about so many things this week about what we have to do to have a wonderful life.  We know we have to love ourselves first unconditionally.  We know that we have to have faith our life is out there and more importantly we deserve to have it.  We know that we have to learn to accept the love offered to us.  Just because one door doesn’t open the way you want.  Just because your love isn’t reciprocated the way you want, doesn’t mean that the love doesn’t exist at all, we have to broaden our vision and see the entire galaxy instead of just one passing meteor.  We have to cast aside our expectations about the person who we are going to love or the live we are going to lead.  It is ok to look for things but once again we should never limit ourselves.  We can’t be so laser focused that we allow life, real life to be lived all around us while we are waiting for our dare to be great moment.  This is what we know.  However, now let us touch on what I believe is the final thing I need to learn and do so that I can finally grow up and find the love and the life that I want.

Embrace, nurture, and use the gifts that the universe gave you.  I believe, no I know this is the final step.  I will be point blank here I have three gifts from the universe, ok actually four, but some things are just too personal for a blog.  One will benefit no one it is just being born with the curse of good hair.  All I can do is wash, rinse, condition, and repeat.  Short or long, my hair looks good.  I accept this.  

No, I jest, I do have good hair but it’s not the gateway to a beautiful life.  I am amused it has taken me so long to come to terms with my gifts.  I always remember when I was doing eHarmony that I would always get a question what are the best three qualities I had to offer a partner.  Looking back, I realize now that I never really answered the correctly.  The answer I always gave was my heart, my loyalty, and smile.  All three things are good things.  However, my heart was flawed.  My loyalty isn’t really a good thing because like a dog it is unquestioned and blind.  My smile?  Well you’d have to be the judge of that.  My true gifts are simple: A gift of words, and a gift of laughter.

I have an entire blog on the power of laughter.  However we can all use a little bit more laughter in our lives.  How there is a direct correlation between how happy we are and how much we laugh.  I am quick witted and normally have comeback on my tongue before you have even finished your thought.  For every funny thing I say, there are four other comments that aren’t funny.  I believe you just have to keep putting it out there.  My humor is smart; it is dry, and not always understood.  It is also repetitive.   There is nothing I love more than beating a dead horse.  I ripe on everything, nothing is sacred to me.  I believe I do this for one reason and one reason only because when I laugh hardest and loudest is when I laugh at myself.  I am the punch line in most of my jokes.  I laugh hardest at the mistakes I make.  The stupid situation I get myself into and the picking myself up after a fall, because I might be the biggest klutz on earth and that is ok.  I always felt like I was supposed to change the world.  I realize now that I do.  Every time I make some laugh.  Every time I give them joy and make them smile.  I have changed the world.  So I will keep laughing at the world and mostly at myself, if you will keep laughing with me.  After all my humor is a gift and I must nurture it and let it grow.

Whether it was as a jealous and mean spirited boy growing up.   Or as a witty fat man who has the ability to say what others either won’t or can’t.  My main gift has always been that of words.  It is a gift I have been scared to use for a long time.  Mainly because I was afraid no one would like what I had to say.  That people would have another thing to judge me on.  I realize now that I don’t give a shit what people think about what I write.  I know my grammar is bad.  I know that I use the wrong words.  However, the emotion is there.  The joy, the sadness, the highs, and the lows it is all there on the page for you the reader to take it or leave it. 

I have been so afraid to write.  I was afraid I would offend someone.  However, not writing was not being true to my heart.  That is a mortal sin in my book.  It is me turning my back on my universe and not listening to what it is asking me to do.  I could never be happy if I didn’t.  I had to talk about my broken heart.  My food addiction and my binge eating and let me tell you that ain’t an easy thing to talk about.  I talked about how misguided I have been a lot of my life.  This is all what makes me.  It is the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

I am not afraid anymore to be honest about my life.  I am not afraid to admit that I have a problem and tell you about the pain that it causes me.  I am not afraid to nurture my gift.  So here it is, this blog is me, and I am this blog. I will keep writing because I know some where at some point what I say will help someone else make better decision than what I made.

So looking back on the things I have said this week I can say I am doing what I need to do.  I am moving in the direction that I need to go.  For the reasons I need and those reasons are finding the love and the life I need and want.  It is pushing myself every day to the limits of what I can do.  Every new day begins a new chapter in a life I am proud of.  I know we will get there.  I know each day I get a little bit better than the day before.  Each moment in time we leave behind our old life and grow and work towards the new one.  The old alliances might be dead.  The Black Reaper right has risen.  Finally, I will say I am enjoying and will enjoy every day and moment of my beautiful new life. 

 

 

And…..

 

The Tower is Closer!