It's Time For A New Path

I have been in a blue funk for the last several days. People can't stand being near me. I am not sure what has set me off on this blue spiral. I am sure it is stress, but I am wondering if it is some other issue. I am not in the mood for joking and being sarcastic. I am more bitter than usual, which takes my ranting from a humorous level to simply dark. Frankly, I am more angry than usual. I am wondering if I am walking the wrong path. I am wondering if where I am now in my life is where I need to be or want to be. I am pulled in enough directions as it is and I am tired of the burns.

In the fall of 1992, I voted in my first Presidential election. At the time I was looking for a change in the country. I found the current White House occupant at the time to be desperately out of touch with the people and even reality itself. He had dug himself into so many holes with the economy that nobody believed what he saying. Even his grandmother...er...wife did not believe anything that was going on.

Personally, my life at that time was changing drastically. I was at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in my senior year as an undergraduate. I was a psychology major and I was beginning to weigh my graduate school options. I was running out of money faster than Paris Hilton and needed to figure out a decent plan to get through graduate school in the quickest amount of time so that I can reach my goal. My goal was to become a psychotherapist. More specifically, for children. In high school, my first love was a young woman who was intensely beautiful and deeply depressed and self-destructive. At the time, I became curious as to why a young woman who was both beautiful and young would be so depressed to the point that ending her life seemed like a reasonable option. I also became determined to obtain the knowledge to help her and others like her. Hence, instead of teaching I went into psychology with the goal of being a "counselor". It was a fateful decision. I went on to VCU and did very well...at least with the academics. I spent the years with my first love trying to keep her literally off the ledge. Her penchant for complete self-destruction was daunting for me as I had little knowledge of what to do to help. It became impossible. In order to save myself, I decided that I would split with my first love. This proved to be traumatic for both me and her. In the late summer of 1992, the first love of my life was dead. On the night of August 14th, 1992 she took a combination of sleeping pills and OTC pain medication. On August 21st, the decision was made to let her go. At the time, I had no idea what was happening. I was in San Francisco and no one from her family had bothered to contact me because they had blamed me for her self-destruction. By the time I had heard what had occurred all the funerals had been completed. One funeral for her adopted family.  The second funeral for everyone else.  Her adopted family had mourned in private and eventually shut all the windows and doors to their daughter's life. And I was alone. I was alone to deal with all the guilt, trauma, devastation, and sadness. I have been dealing with her ghost ever since. It is her ghost that has driven my career. It has been her ghost that I have chased. It is her ghost that is burned into everything that I have done professionally.

In the fall of 1992, Bill Clinton won the White House as a telegenic handsome and smooth talking orator who preached the need for change. I was deeply moved to see the country change in a hopeful direction. It was a fantastic moment.

Sixteen years later, I am dealing with a ghost and chasing my own demons around the block. There have been days where I believe that the ghost is gone. Other days the ghost rides with me in the car the sixty miles up to work every day. I am not sure I even know what I am doing at work anymore. I have totally lost touch with who I am and why I am even there. When I look into the mirror I am not sure who is looking back. One day my confidence is high and the next it is rock bottom. One day I may feel that I have succeeded and the next day I am burned in effigy and I am the one holding the match.  Right now, I am in need of a change.  What that change will exactly entail I am not sure.  I do not expect that I will be at the same place of employment in the near future.  It is time for me to step backwards into the woods and gain the perspective that I need to move forward and beyond the chasing of ghosts and my own need to self-destruct.  This has been a long time coming.  I have traveled this road that has been narrow with the abyss on one side and salvation on the other.  I trust the abyss, but not the salvation.  It is the abyss that I have seen many fall into.  It is the abyss that I have looked over and danced with it's guardian angel.  It is the smoke of the abyss that is both intoxicating and noxious.  It is now at this time that I seek to find the perspective that I need that has been surely lost.  It is time to make a change.  It is time to step back in order to step forward.  The ghost of a lost love who has passed on will still live.  She may be a mile a way, a thousand, or a few feet.  She will be there.  She gives me the direction and the drive.  It is the ghost that also leads me to the abyss and the temptation that lies beneath the smoke, clouds, and mirrors.  In the end, it is time for me to change into what I will be.  However, the current question is whether or not who I am now is who I will be once all the dust clears.  It is time for a new path.

As we look at our country, it is sorely in need of a dramatic change as well.  On Tuesday, the country spoke loudly that we ourselves have stepped backwards into the woods and saw clearly the abyss that America is falling head-long into.  We have found someone who has instilled hope and vision for a better future.  A change from the disastrous path that our current administration has taken us.  Our way life now threatened by those outside our country who now hate us more so than ever before and by the enormous unchecked greed of corporate institutions that chased the dollar down the rabbit hole and took everyone down with them.  This country needs a major overhaul.  This country needs a new perspective.  Sixteen years after the country, dizzy as it was, picked a telegenic orator of change, we have picked another who has inspired many and has given many hope for a better path.  Last Tuesday I was also moved to tears.  Not because our country elected it's first African-American President, but because the country took one step into the woods, looked at itself in the mirror, and decided to forever change it's course once again...to a brighter hopeful future.

Alas, my pro picks.  

Mick's luck ran out last weekend when he went 2-3.  Dippy lost his mind apparently and went 1-4.  I went 4-1 so they are both out this weekend.  So far for the season on all NFL picks I am standing at 48%.  This is in the 4th percentile of all players on wagerline.com.  I am doing great!

Without the humor on this sobering post:

I am taking New England (-3.5) over Buffalo, Arizona (-9.5) over San Francisco, Green Bay (+2.5) over Minnesota, Carolina (-10) over Oakland, and Atlanta (-1) over New Orleans.