Setting An Example

I’ve been realizing lately that I’m not setting the greatest example for my kids. I’m not proud of the way that I’ve let some things slip in my life. I’m not proud of the way I’m not an example of how to live you life. Whether you look at how I my health is horrible. I’m extremely out of shape. I’ve never really done anything with my life and I find myself getting lower everyday.

But all of this really pales in comparison to how I’ve let my spiritual life fall by the wayside. There are reasons for some of this. But more than likely they are just excuses that I make to make myself feel better about letting my family down.

I have very vivid memories of seeing my dad spending time daily reading his bible and spending time with God. Sure he was a pastor and this was part of his job. But it was always more than that. You could tell that it was what he drew from for how to live his life.

I find myself now, not being very good about reading my bible or making it a priority to spend time in prayer. I can’t even bring myself to make it to church most weeks. I make excuses that I need to sleep or I’m not feeling well. But for the most part it’s just not a priority in my life. I want it to be. But it’s just not.

This really wasn’t that big of a deal for me before having kids. But now I know that Max and Chloe are watching my every move. They are learning how to live their lives from what they see me do. And I know that I’m not the best example most of the time.

I don’t have any answers here. I’m not going to make a promise that I’ll spend time each day reading my bible or make sure to be in church each week. We all know how good I am at keeping the promises I make on this blog. But I am going to try to be a better example to my kids. I’m going to try to make more time to spend with God and make sure that my kids see me making this a priority.

They are going to learn from they way I live my life. I just hope that they learn some good things from me along the way.

Being a dad is confusing

Being a dad is hard. I know most people, especially dads, know this. But it really is hard. I live my kids more than anything in this world. And would give up anything to be with them. But it’s not always easy.

I know that I am blessed with two beautiful healthy children. They are both amazing. But that really doesn’t always help. Maybe my case is different because I stay home with them, but there are days where I just don’t think I’m going to be able to do it anymore.

Lately I feel like an explosion is building up inside of me, and I’m scared if how it might come out. I find that there are days where all I want to do it put them in their rooms and walk out the front door.

But then there are some amazing times too. The last few days Max and I have been having a hard time. I’m not sure what’s been going on, but he seems to be trying everything he can to get on my nerves.

Then tonight one of our friends to him for a little bit, for which they deserve an award. When they came back I met them at the top of the stairs to our apartment. Max came around the corner and saw me and yelled, “daddy.” And ran up the rest of the stairs. I have to say that made me feel really good.

Than we spent some of the rest of the evening watching Lion King and hanging out. It’s pretty amazing to sit with your son on your lap and have him tell you he loves you. There really is nothing like it in this world.

Maybe I should have started off this blog, being a dad is confusing. That sums it up a little better. It’s great. But it’s also horrible.

I call Max the most demanding boss I’ve ever had and its the truth. No other boss I’ve ever had would wake up me up in the middle of the night or have me cuddle up with them after they’ve had a bad dream. And if they did I think I’d have to quit. That would have been weird.

Day 2/31 - Likes/Dislikes

So, here I am on day two of this project. Today’s prompt was to look at your blog as if you weren’t the one writing it and find things that you dislike and also like.

I came up with a list of my own. But I was thinking maybe those who read this might be a little better at pointing these things out. That way I can look to change things or keep doing them.

So, if you could, take a few minutes to look around my blog and tell me a few things you don’t like and a few you do.

I know this wasn’t the greatest blog. But, I’m trying to make this place better for both of us.

Day 1/31

So today was day one for me of going through 31 Days To Finding Your Blogging Mojo by Bryan Allain. The question that he put to the reader was to think about what your blog would look like when it is running full steam. I took this as a way of looking at my goals for this blog. I haven’t really been all that certain about what I was wanting to do with it. But I really think this exercise made me think about what I wanted to do here. I’ve stated some of it here before but here is my response to the question.

“That’s a hard question for me. I’d like to have a fair amount of readers and maybe a little income coming from it. I’d like to be able to post regularly and come up with things that people really want to read. I’d like to get my voice out there. See if there is anyone else with my problems and see if we can help each other fix them. I’d like for my writing to reach people. To connect with people and affect positive change in their lives. That if a bumbling idiot like me can do something, then they are more than capable of doing it too. I’d like to get my music out there and share the gifts that I believe God has given me. I’d like others to hear me and have a conversation with me. I’d like to find some way of making this my life. To write for a living and bring some money into the family with it.”

I think it’s interesting that I mentioned twice that I want to make money doing this. I’ve thought about it some, but I guess it really is the point of it. Right now I’m not making anything. But that’s because I haven’t looked into ways of putting ads on here or things like that. But I think that comes back to feeling bad about putting so much pressure on Jennifer to make all the money for the family. I know that I won’t make much doing this. But in some ways it would be nice to bring a little into the family. Make me feel a little less like a stay-at-home loser and more like a contributing member of society.

That’s all for today. I’ll try to post again in the next few days. Thank you for taking this trip with me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

New Month

Well, as you can probably tell from my lack of posts lately, things haven’t been going exactly like I said they would. Which I guess is what they call life. Seems to be that every time I try to change things around, things get changed around in a completely different direction.

Over the last most or so, our family has been sick one after another. It seemed like we were just getting over the first bout of sickness when the second hit us. The kids are still sick and I’m still not doing great. But I think at least I’m on my way back to the land of the living. Part of the problem is, that I try to make sure Jennifer can get enough sleep to make it through her days at work ok. So, there are some nights, like last night, where I’m up for most of it trying to take care of the kids. I figure I can hang around here with the kids in a little bit more of a zombie state better than she could in a room full of middle-schoolers. But that hasn’t helped me get over my cold either.

But that isn’t why I came here to talk today.

I started a new book 31 Days To Finding Your Blogging Mojo by Bryan Allain. Like the title would suggest, it’s a book about getting back into blogging or getting your blog really working. So, I thought I’d take the month of October to work my way through it. I’m not sure how this will work. I’ll try to be posting the things that it tells me to write for that days exercise. Not sure if I’ll be posting every day with this, or just when I have a feeling that this is worth something. But hopefully this will mean I’ll be changing a few things around here. This one is getting a little wordy, so I think I’ll actually end this here and then start a new one with the exercise from today. I hope you all like this. I’m going to be trying my best to figure out what this blog is in the next month. If you can bear with me,  I’ll try to make it interesting and keep you entertained.

Blank Page

Blank pages have always haunted me. I’ve always felt the need to fill them with something. I sat down today to write something, and I just sat there looking at the blank page on my screen.

It just sits there and taunts me.

“You have nothing worthwhile to say.”

“Nobody really cares what you think.”

“Why are you still wasting your time on this pipe dream?”

“You’ll never amount to anything.”

“Don’t even try. Just give up and go back to ignoring life.”

These voices in my head tell me all these things every time I sit down to try to write something. Sometimes I listen. Obviously, sometimes I don’t, or else you wouldn’t be reading this.

I think most people go through this though. I know that I’m not alone. If you read any blog about writing and creativity, you’ll see that it happens to everyone. But that doesn’t mean the voices aren’t just as loud in my ears. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe them half the time.

I’m not saying that I have anything earth shattering to say. I’m not saying that everyone should listen to the advice I have. I’m not saying that my writing is the best in the world.

I’m just saying that for some reason, I have these words that I need to get out sometimes. If people want to read them, that’s great.

I’d love to have feedback from people. I’d love to make this more of a conversation. A two-way conversation. I’m not really sure how to do that. I know other people are better at the whole conversation thing then I am. I’m aware of my need to work on following up with people who comment. on here. I’m just not sure how to do that.

So, for now I’ll just try to fill the blank pages with a little bit of myself. I’ll try to defy the voices in my head often enough to write a couple of times a week. Hopefully, the more I do defy the voices, the easier it will be to not listen to them at all.

Another year gone

So, as some of you might know, today is my birthday. For the last few years, this has brought up some really strange feelings. It’s like I can’t really believe that I’m as old as I am. This year I turn 32. I know this doesn’t really seem all that old. But it’s just crazy to me that I could be that old. Plus I think with each passing year, I feel the added weight of what I haven’t done that year. It’s a very strange feeling to know that I’ve spent another year of my life not really knowing what I’m doing with it.

I wish I had answers for where I’m going in this life. I wish I knew what I was supposed to be doing. But the more I search for these answers, the more confused I seem to get. And as the years add up, I see all the people my age or younger, that have made something of themselves. They’re living their dreams. Or at least living their lives. I feel like I’m stuck in this never-ending spiral. I’m not really getting anywhere. I’m just ending back here again. But a year older. A year more tired. A year lazier. A year further down in the ruts I’m digging for myself.

So, with each year, it becomes harder and harder to dig out of the hole I’ve made for myself. I try different things to get out of it. But every time I end up back here.

If this post seems kind of cyclical, that’s because that’s the way I see my life now. In so many ways I don’t know why I should even really try anymore. Which brings up the other reason that I have a hard time really celebrating my birthday.

When I was turning 19 was the darkest day of my life that I can remember. I had gone, against my better judgement, to SDSU for my first semester of college. I was looking forward to getting out of the house. To be honest I wanted, more than anything to be a party kid. I wanted to spend my time at college getting into as much trouble as I could find. I even signed up to be in the dorm that I had heard was the party dorm.

But then I found myself in the reality of being alone in a new place with no friends and no one to talk to. I had a job and a class schedule. I can tell you that soon after the semester started I knew that I’d made the wrong decision. In both my major and in going to college in the first place. It was during this time that I realized that I wanted to write. But I had gone to college to be an engineer. I truly wanted to be an architect, but I’d heard that it was a better career decision to become an engineer. But I was all alone. I had no one to really talk to this stuff about. I felt so alone. I started dropping classes. Or just not attending them. I started spending way too much time stuck in my room playing my guitar.

Keep in my that I had struggled with depression for most of my teenage years. Then I found myself so utterly alone. I felt abandoned by God. I felt so distant from everything that I had known. I didn’t even end up going to any parties, because I didn’t know anyone and didn’t really get to know anyone.

I’m not sure how long we’d been in school, but it obviously couldn’t have been too long since my birthday is this early in the school year. But I know that when my birthday came around in 1999, I felt so bad that I just wanted it all to end. But I didn’t know how. I laid in bed trying to figure out what was wrong with me and why I should even continue living another day. During these years, I was having such a hard time sleeping that I would sleep with headphones on. On the night of September 14th when I went to bed, I had, for whatever reason, chosen to listen to the Bon Jovi CD, Crossroad. I was laying in bed and looked up at the clock to see that it was midnight. It was now my birthday. I burst into tears and could not think of a reason to go on. Then the pictures popped into my head of me laying dead on the dorm room floor. And I can honestly say, the reason I didn’t do it then, was that I didn’t want my roommate, who I barely knew, to have to deal with that.

But then a song came on called “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night.” I won’t tell you all about the song, if you want to hear it, click on the title and it will take you to the music video for it. But it’s about people being down and out, but not giving up and making something of themselves. For me it wasn’t that I felt I was supposed to be famous. I just felt as I listened to this song this time, that I was supposed to go on and keep on trying. That I may be down and out now. But that didn’t mean I always had to be that way. That I could still live and have a good life.

This song actually started me back on track to seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. That semester was still the worst time in my life. But I don’t think I’d be who I am without it.

Shortly after that I would start going regularly to the Nazarene Church in Madison, SD. And through God and the love of the pastor and his family, I fought my way through that semester.

Sorry, this was a little long. The words just started to flow and now we’re around 1000 words. But anyway. This is why my birthday is both a good and bad day for me. It’s a very complicated day. I never really know what to do with it. It’s a day that everybody says they’re happy to have me around. But every year, I’m reminded that I don’t always want to have me around. How’s that for a sad thought for your birthday.

So, here’s to another year. Maybe this time next year I’ll be in a different place. Or at least I’ll have tried.