Tag: managing grief

Posting has been slow due to some unforeseen problems.  For reasons I’m not sure I’m not ready to discuss yet, I may not be sitting for the Bar.  Then again, I might.  Hell, I don’t know.

So, I’ve taken a couple days off of Bar study and will continue tomorrow.  I’m in a situation where if I do not study for the Bar and resolve the problem I will be behind the power curve.  However, if I do study for it and cannot resolve this situation, then I’m losing time I need to be out pumping gas or something to pay the bills.

So I’ve gotten the rug pulled out from under me at the last minute.  Who cares?  It has cost me 2 days of study time, but not a single thing more.  It doesn’t take from what I’ve accomplished this semester, or in this life.  I had a moment today where I looked at the position my ex-wife is in, then the fact that I’m sleeping on the floor in a ratty 2-bedroom apartment barely able to pay my bills.  Cops were over about 0300 across the street in response to some gunfire.  Nice.  After probably 15 minutes of sitting here feeling sorry for myself and leaking a little sympathy juice a few thoughts entered my mind:

The first is that sure, I’ve been kicked back a few years in “status”, but not in stories or experience.  My story is but in its opening chapters.  How interesting would Ben Franklin’s story be if it didn’t begin with him coming to America penniless because he got rolled by a couple of hotties?  Still interesting?  Yeah okay, you win.  But the second and more important story is something I’m sure you’d approve of John (since you’ve probably pointed it out to me at some point)

Two monks were making a pilgrimage to venerate the relics of a great Saint. During the course of their journey, they came to a river where they met a beautiful young woman — an apparently worldly creature, dressed in expensive finery and with her hair done up in the latest fashion. She was afraid of the current and afraid of ruining her lovely clothing, so asked the brothers if they might carry her across the river.

The younger and more exacting of the brothers was offended at the very idea and turned away with an attitude of disgust. The older brother didn’t hesitate, and quickly picked the woman up on his shoulders, carried her across the river, and set her down on the other side. She thanked him and went on her way, and the brother waded back through the waters.

The monks resumed their walk, the older one in perfect equanimity and enjoying the beautiful countryside, while the younger one grew more and more brooding and distracted, so much so that he could keep his silence no longer and suddenly burst out, “Brother, we are taught to avoid contact with women, and there you were, not just touching a woman, but carrying her on your shoulders!”

The older monk looked at the younger with a loving, pitiful smile and said, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river; you are still carrying her.”

Now, I’ve been knocked back by the divorce.  I may well be knocked back by this new development (Waiting is the hardest part).  So yeah, I’ve had my setbacks, but there’s one thing I have never in my life lost faith in:  myself.  Even in my saddest days I’ve always believed my best days were ahead of me.  I may well be a Pollyanna; I’m very likely to some degree delusional.  A large part of my depression has been intimately connected to my belief in myself and the lack of doing anything about it.  But there’s something incredible in each and every one of us.  The only thing that separates me from the rest is that I haven’t lost my belief in that.  So yeah, I’m a renegade.  A renegade of self love (yeah, let’s not go with that).

But you know why I believe in myself?  Because I’m moving this machine around and I’ve seen what it can do.  It’s the machine that swam the reservoir in the middle of November.  It’s the machine that lead some of the most incredible human beings I’ve ever known in a warzone.   It’s the machine that has never stayed down.  It’s the machine that is pressing through this Bar study and running 10 miles tomorrow.

There are a LOT more setbacks in my future.  But as Santiago said, “A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.”  So far, I’m neither.  This guy…fucking Unbreakable.  Also, kind of a prick.  It’s a grunt thing.  All hail the infantry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K626gMvu2ds&feature=related

I miss my ex-wife. Full stop.

But there are days, among which today is one where I can admit that to myself, yet still not wipe the smile off of my face.  I assume this is just part of the healing process.  I dunno.  Honestly, I don’t really care if it is or isn’t.  These days are coming more and more than they have in years.  There is such an incredible amount of joy in my heart.  Perhaps it’s getting back on the track as I prep for the Spartan Beast.  Perhaps it’s Spring.  Perhaps it’s simply me supplementing with vitamin D.  You know what I think it is?  I’m about to graduate.  This should scare me.  I’m in a financial tailspin.  I try unsuccessfully to find my ex-wife, whom I think about daily, in other women.  Near every minute is spoken for.  I’m trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to get a practice started with no money and against the advice of everyone I know.

But my joy is real and it is not fleeting.  It has nothing to do with women fixing my ego.  Honestly, chasing women has probably hurt more than helped.  I misidentified the hurt following the divorce.

My joy is an anxious excitement.  My friends, it has been 7 long years in college.  I loved college.  But my collegiate years were more of a chilling phase in my life.  I’m thawing out.  I’m about to finally grab my gear and get back into the phalanx in the battle for liberty.  “Once More Into the Fray” and whatnot.

I am a scholar.  At least that’s how I picture myself.  But college removed me from myself.  I belong in the fight.  I’ve often said that when I die, I wish it to be with my boots on, in an obscene amount of pain and my mind spent, because I got every last mile out of this body.  College gave me easy years.  It caused my spirit to atrophy.  That isn’t to say that I didn’t earn a few easy years after my time in the Corps.  But just because I earned those easy years doesn’t mean I should have taken them.  In all honesty, I never should have taken an easy day.

But I’m young.  And I am excited for battle.

Going into video withdrawals?