The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Yeah Write

The Rules Of The Game

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Self Reliance

My daughter looks at me and asks what is wrong. I don’t tell her what I really think or what I really feel. I just say that I had a bad day because I did. She smiles and she throws her arms around me.

This girl of mine, she wants to rescue daddy. That is what she says. I smile and I tell her that she doesn’t need to feel that way because I don’t need rescuing.

That is not entirely true. I do. I need to find a ship that will take me aboard. I need to stop treading water. My body is tired but that is not the hardest part. The hardest part is that my spirit feels weak. I feel battered and bruised.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors

Tonight I am writing for Just Write and Yeah Write. They are two different writing programs that I have come to love. Every week I look forward to being a part of them. Every week I find new blogs to read through them and every week new readers find me.

This post you are reading is hard for me to write. It is hard because there are a million things going on and I am guarded. I share much but I don’t share everything. This post you are reading is hard because I am trying to connect with you and I keep telling myself to stop.

Instead of just writing and letting the words flow I am thinking carefully about what I say. That is because I want you to become so enamored you can’t help but become a fan of my Facebook Page. I want you to read these words and want to be a part of this community. I want you to read these words and want to read everything I have ever written.

Part of me is digusted by that. Part of me wants to say that it is terrible to beg and debase myself. Part of me says that I need to stop thinking and just write because that is where my best writing comes from.

There is truth to that. When I ignore self doubt and turn off the editor inside my head good things happen. But there is another voice inside that says that I have to change the rules of the game.

That voice says that I have spent too much time doing things one way and it can’t hurt to change it up. So I wonder if my hesitation is fear. I wonder if I fear being successful as much as I fear failure.

Fear And Blogging

Fear is a big part of blogging or should I say my blogging. I try to write about my fear. I do it because I hope that by doing so I will understand it better and because it is easier to control. I don’t walk around in fear, but I am normal. There are things that scare me.

Somewhere there is a list of them. I usually share it around Halloween.

At the moment my two biggest fears are simple. I fear failing my children and I fear not having the courage to try. I really prefer to try and fail than fail to try. Most of the time I think I do a good job of not succumbing to that, but sometimes I fall short.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see my biggest enemy. Sometimes I think of the person that used to be my biggest cheerleader and wonder if I really need them to succeed.

I probably don’t. Not sure why I qualified that. It is times like now that I miss my grandparents. They definitely were among my biggest cheerleaders. I have blogged about them many times. I probably should link to those posts or at least some of them. You can read about my paternal grandfather here. You can read a post called Echoes Of The People We Miss and learn a bit more about my grandparents.

It touches upon how one of my grandfathers died of a broken heart. Sure he was 97 and sooner or later age would have caught up to him, but it was grandma’s death that killed him. He loved my grandma so very much.

A while back I had a dream about them. I was standing in front of my house and I saw grandma driving down the street. I couldn’t figure out how she was driving because in my dream I knew that she was dead, but dreams are funny that way.

So I ran next door to the neighbor’s house to get grandpa. I watched him run to her. They hugged each other and waved to me. They were about 2o feet away but I couldn’t get to them.

They smiled at me and I wondered why I couldn’t just walk over and say hi. It was surreal. I knew that I was an adult. I knew that I was a father, but I felt like a kid. Why couldn’t I just go hug my grandparents.

You Can’t Go Back- You Can Only Go Through

I wonder how many people will read this post. I wonder who will be interested in checking out the other links. There is one called Life is A Tale Told By An Idiot that has been calling out to me.

Several sections of it keep popping up. I keep hearing/seeing these words

If I could read your mind, love,
What a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
The kind the drugstores sell.
Then you reached the part where the heartaches come,
The hero would be me.
But heroes often fail,
And you won’t read that book again
Because the endings just too hard to take!
If You Could Read My Mind- Gordon Lightfoot

There are others that call out to me, other posts that is. I can’t provide excerpts to all of them but I can provide links and hope that some will follow:

  • New Years Eve– Sometimes they are magical and sometimes they aren’t.
  • The Final Goodbye– The Big Lug was more than just a pet, he was my best friend. Don’t know why the comments repeat there, but..
  • I Hear Music– There is no explanation. This simply is.
  • The Flying Clown– A drunk clown at a child’s birthday part is a recipe for…something.

I am chasing my dreams. Change is in the air. It is a bit exciting and disconcerting. We’re going to be moving again. Not quite sure when, but some time this year. Don’t know where we’ll move to yet. Might stay in the city or might leave the state.

Lots of possibilities.

I am chasing my dreams. If I can’t figure out the rules of the game then I might as well make them up as I go along.

Timing

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Lapse

“Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
Well run till we drop, baby well never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
`cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real”
Born To Run– Bruce Springsteen

“Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream” she said
“The one that makes me laugh” she said
And threw her arms around my neck
“Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I’ll run away with you
I’ll run away with you”
Just Like Heaven– The Cure

If you close your eyes and listen carefully you can hear the soft clink-clank of metal against metal. You’re so focused upon your task it is hard to say how long the rhythmic banging has been going on. You’re name is Johnny and you’re lifting weights in your garage. It is well after midnight and you can’t sleep.

You don’t feel much like talking to anyone and even if you did you’re friends are all asleep. It is a work night so you don’t really want to have a drink.Or maybe that is because you suspect that it won’t just be one drink and you’d rather not finish that six pack. Besides you don’t really want to drink alone.

So you decide that you are going to take your nervous energy and make use of it. You strap on your iPod and head outside to exercise because you know that you always feel better afterwards. And besides it will help clear your head.

Alone in the garage you start your workout and try not to focus on June. Been forever since she was a part of your life. But some days you can’t help but wonder what could have been. Sometimes timing is a bitch and that has you shaking your head. It seems more than a little unfair that circumstances could be the reason that a relationship doesn’t work.

As you focus on your form you can’t help but smile wistfully as you think about how unexpected it was to find June. Neither one of you could have ever predicted it. You grew up in different places and in different worlds. She used to tell you that she would never forgive you for not finding her earlier. You’d laugh and tell her that you could say the same thing.

Time would pass and you’d confess that you had never been more in love with anyone or more scared. This was the kind of thing that only happened in books and movies and that made you drag your feet. She’d tell you the same thing. And in no time you would forge a bond that was deeper and more powerful than any either one of you had known or experienced.

But life is not a book or a movie and things would happen. The world outside the one you shared would come to exert its influence upon you. The timing was off and no matter what you did you couldn’t fight it. You tried. You did what you could and when it wasn’t good enough you beat yourself up and wondered how it fell apart.

So sometimes late at night you’d wander outside and stare at the moon. Looking up at that giant white orb you’d sometimes smile and wonder if June was doing it too. Other times you’d stare at it and feel like howling in frustration and you’d wonder again if she felt like that too.

There would be good days and bad days. Moments when you were determined to walk away. You’d tell yourself that it didn’t matter why it ended or who was at fault or what. All that mattered was moving on with your life. But in the silent recesses of your heart you’d never completely let go.

The bond that you had forged was too strong and too deep. And once you acknowledged this truth of your heart you began to feel better. Once you accepted that you would always love June you were able to start living again. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, but it was a start.

Because the truth was that your heart told you that June was still out there and that the end to this story had yet to be written. The promises you made were still valid. The love you shared still lived. And maybe, just maybe there might be chance to pick things up somewhere down the road.

And then you took off your watch and stuffed it in a drawer because the last thing you wanted to be reminded of was timing.