It Must Be Working

Every parent knows that one day their physical gifts will diminish and their children will beat them in some sort of physical contest. If you are ridiculously competitive like me you dread that day. It is not because I don’t want the best for my children because I do.

I want them to have a better life. I want them to be happier, stronger, smarter, basically ever ‘er’ that you can think of is something that I want for my children. But that doesn’t mean that I want some of these things to happen today, except they did…sort of.

My little man and I were in front of the house and he took off running. I started to laugh and then set off after him. I was barefoot and figured that it wouldn’t be a problem because I am far too fast for him to out run me. On the basketball court I can still run with most of the twenty somethings. I can’t go full bore for long, but a short sprint shouldn’t be a problem.

Shouldn’t be is the operative word(s) here because it was. He was too damn fast.

Granted I was barefoot and am getting over a cold, but my fragile male ego wasn’t worried about it. I knew that I could catch him, but I didn’t. I tried, but I failed. I want to tell you again about being barefoot and how I now have a ton of blisters on my feet. Except I didn’t have blisters when we started.

I lost. It sucks.I am proud of him, but it sucks. We are going to have a rematch when I am in shoes. I’ll still give him a lead, but it won’t matter because I will win.

I will. It is not a question but that won’t erase his victory. It won’t make me forget that the clock has truly started. Rise of the son is in full effect. I love that guy and if I have to lose it is ok, but I would prefer to have a few more years before it happens consistently.

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Whatever I am doing here  must be working. The blog is growing. Traffic and page views are up. There are more subscribers and more Facebook Fan page members. It must be working, whatever I am doing that is. I am pleased by that. It is organic growth, slow but steady. But there are issues.

Some people have told me that they are having trouble using Livefyre. I have noticed that I have duplicate comments on a bunch of posts and am still waiting for old comments to be imported on others.

There aren’t enough pictures on my posts and there are too many broken links. But in spite of all of these things the blog is growing and I am appreciative and grateful. It is normal and ok for their to be some problems. Challenges are fine. I like progress.

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I wrote a post called A Work in Progress. It is basically a backup of the story that I am working on at Words Left Unwritten. I was disappointed with how it read and concerned about issues. Several people have told me that they really like it. I am grateful for their feedback and their compliments but concerned.

It is not a horrible thing because this is more of a first draft but that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish it was better and cleaner. I don’t trust writers who say that all of their work is great. I don’t trust writers who never experience any angst over their work. It is not right. That is wrong, or maybe  I am just biased.

Either way I need to step it up a bit, got to get this thing turned into something more than what it is today.

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I decided not to publish a bunch of posts that I wrote but I am going to share a few fragments from them.

Fragment number one

Los Angeles is home. It is where I was born and where I have lived my entire life. I have been privileged to travel all over the U.S. and to many different places around the world. I have seen a lot of cities and been through a lot of towns. I have wandered through villages and hiked across mountains that captured my eye and captivated my mind.

These places I have seen are part of why I want to live to be a 1,000. I want to be more than a tourist. I want to do more than just pass through town. I don’t want to be the daddy blogger who lives his dreams solely between the pixels, pictures and posts. I want more. I need more.

But to do that I have to shake it up. I have to mix it up. I have to take all that my children have know and turn it upside down and inside out. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be wrong.

It could be good. It could be great. It might be the best thing that ever happened, but I can’t say for certain because I am not prescient.

Fragment number Two

I remember the day you said you loved me and I remember the day you said that we had bad timing. I remember the day you said that you would never forgive me for not finding you earlier. You said it during a telephone call so you didn’t see me nod my head in agreement.

It really wasn’t my fault or anything that I could control, but I nodded my head because I liked making you happy. It was easy to do and I liked the way your eyes would light up when you smile. I liked the way your I could hear your voice smile. I liked all those things and more.

You told me that when you were done you were done. You said that it wouldn’t be possible to go back. I told you that I didn’t believe those things nor did I accept them. You said that I didn’t have a choice and to some extent you were right. I couldn’t make you do anything or feel anything. All I could do was try to open your eyes to possibilities.

Possibilities. Opportunities. Potential.

I said that I didn’t want to go back in time because I am not who I was and you aren’t who you were either. We can’t be who we were together or apart. But I am good with that because I know things. I asked you to meet me in the echoes of the future. You said ok and then later on you said I couldn’t hold you to your promise. That is true and I am ok with that too.

All I can do is try to open your eyes…again.

Possibilities. Opportunities. Potential.

I see a time in the future where you’ll walk into the room and then take my hand. I’ll smile and we’ll walk through the door and find out what those echoes of the future look like…together.

Two different fragments, two different directions. Don’t have a roadmap or a GPS for this journey, at least not in the conventional sense. All I have a is a gut feeling that I am following and an idea.

Don’t have much more to say other than when it comes to the blog it must be working.

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