My Dear Old Friends,
It’s been a long time since we were all together in the same place at the same time. It’s been even longer since we were the kids from the town, the kids we were, the kids we used to be, and doing the things we used to do.
Continue readingThere are times when I am scrolling through my phone to find a number. I come across a word that means more to me than almost anything. Sometimes, I begin dialing a number and due to the technical intelligence of my cell phone, the dialing screen shows suggestions of whom I might be calling. Every so often, I begin to dial a similar number and the word pops on the screen.
The number I come across is not titled with a name of a client or a friend or anyone else.
The word that comes on the screen is Mom.
I was never sure what love is or if love could be defined or be distinguished by one true definition. All I know is that as I’ve grown, so has my definition of what love is or what love should be.
Love is
never the same. It changes and evolves.
Love expands and contracts. It has peaks and valleys, good times and bad. Love
does not come without mistake or flaw or pain.
I say life is math. I see us all as a mathematical equation. I believe we are all this way. I think we are the sum of our past. We are a compilation of memory and a combination of circumstance. I see our personal factors as a mixture of events; some of which, we swore would never happen again, so obviously, we behave in a way to prevent past events from ever occurring again.
Continue readingOne of my first jobs was a door to door sales job that paid cash at the end of each day. I sold small impulse items like calculators and little things like pens and other catchy knickknacks that people buy on a whim.
None of the items were high priced but in sales like this, volume is key.
In all honesty, I hated this job. I hated the network marketing aspect and the fake promises of owning my own distribution center, which is literally promised to everyone in their interview.
I knocked on doors. I sold most of my products on factory settings. In fact, lunch time was best because all the workers would stop by and buy what I had. But most days were uphill days. I heard no more than I heard yes. And the abuse was terrible. The rejection was unmatchable. At the end of the day, my feet were tired from walking all around throughout different parts of the city. At the close of business day, I went back to the home office with the balance of my goods and paid what I owe to receive what I earned.
Everyone has a dream . . .
The way I see it
there is only one thing between us and our dreams.
That is the beast within.
And everyone has a beast within them
Everyone has that inner monologue
That inner demon
That’s the beast I was telling you about
My beast speaks too
He whispers . .
But I know it’s him,
which is why he changes his dialect.
I swear this is to trick me,
My beast changes the way he speaks,
always disguising himself,
always trying to make me guess myself,
and always looking to maintain my attention
so I won’t look anyplace else.
And sometimes . . .
Sometimes I listen to the crazy laugh of my inner animal.
Every wonder why the devil never dresses himself in anything fancy?
It’s so you never see him coming . . .
Day 3—
Today is the third day after my Botox treatment. I can feel the physical differences in my shoulders and at the base of my neck. I have a better range of motion and with much less discomfort.
I can clearly see how Botox injections help with pain management. As far as the mental aspect, I am someone that lives with frequent battles of insomnia.
This is a tough thing because like most of the working world, I have a schedule to keep. This is difficult to keep on a full night’s rest, let alone a night where sleep is this thing made for other people. However, after the injections, I can see an improvement in my sleeping patterns. Although I still wake up in the middle of the night to make a bathroom trip or two, I am able to fall back asleep, which is miraculous for me.
Nothing fills a room like emptiness. There may be a chair, or a hard wooden bench or a place to sleep, like a narrow bed, there is still nothing but you an bricked room.
There is a hard floor and a flat ceiling, walls, and a door with a small window at eye-level with wire mesh that intertwines within the glass.
I sat in a chair, nervous as ever, because of an old subconscious fear about visits to doctor’s offices that resulted with needles and date back to my early childhood memories. The procedure itself is simple. The anticipation, however, was my biggest hurdle. The rest was nothing more than a few pinches of the skin. And here’s why.
Continue readingBack when I was a little kid, I remember when I had headaches that were bad. Mom used to break up little tablets of baby aspirin and put it with a teaspoon of water. I’m not sure why she delivered the aspirin this way. I suppose I struggled to take the pill itself. Maybe Mom gave me the aspirin this way because it tasted better. I can’t say why she did this.
Unfortunately, Mom is not around to ask but I do remember the teaspoon trick. The medicine was delivered delicately and with love. This was good for me. Also, the aspirin would do its trick. And I understood the exchange; therefore mentally, I knew something was going to help me. I knew that if I felt uncomfortable, I could take an aspirin, wait about 20 minutes, and then I would feel better.
