The Battle for Joe: A Plan for Victory

I. A Word of Thanks

   Last week's post was hard to write.  Though the layout was simple, the writing straightforward, the whole thing took two weeks to put together.  While difficult, I was compelled to do it.  I needed to relive that terrible event so that I could put it to bed.  I needed to lay bare the fears, doubts, misdeeds and misgivings so that I could feel honest again.  I did not want to advertise my baggage, I just did not want to hide it.  I had doubts anyone cared, but you all proved me wrong.  

   The outpouring of support, and real, honest feedback really hit home.  I still fight back a tear reading through the comments, the notes of encouragement that have been sent, and the thinking about the words that have been spoken to me directly.  I owe all of you a great debt of gratitude for contributing to my healing.  I will never underestimate my friends again.  I love all of you, and I will use your encouragement to heal myself, and return that favor.   Below is my plan for victory over this adversity. 

II.  The Sitrep

  Last week was a breakthrough.  Writing about the experience allowed me to deal with it.  I can now recount the experience without crying.  I can now talk about things more honestly.  I have not had an unprovoked emotional outburst in nearly a week.  I can now sleep without Patty in the bed with me. I can now talk about charged topics rationally, but still allow some emotion.  The therapist is happy with my progress, and suggested I start looking forward, now that we have dealt with the past.  

  I am still emotional, and I still have my share of doubts and fears, though they are manageable.  I am still a bit lost as to who I am, and I only have a general idea as to where I want to go from here.  I am generally in a happier place than I was a month ago, but I know I need to progress further.

III.  Who I Want To Be

    When I sit down and analyze what kind of person I see as ideal, it's tempting to start with the easy stuff.  Honesty, kindness, patience, caring, these are the things that everyone wants to be.  The difficulty is digging deeper into these attributes and defining what about them makes them tough to become in practice.  It's easy to want to be these things, but what holds me back from becoming them?  

   Honesty is at the top of my list.  When I look to my friends and family I admire most, the one trait about them I admire the most is honesty.  I value friends who disagree with me.  I value people who are not afraid to tell me when they think I am wrong.  I love people who will not give up a disagreement because they are passionate about how they feel.  I also value those who are willing to share their innermost thoughts, things that are difficult to talk about.  These people become so much more to me as complete, real individuals, and I am honored that they would share their honest thoughts with me.  I want to be like them.  For some relationships, it's easier.   For others, it is more difficult because of the deep emotional attachment and the fear to cause offense or anger when I disagree.  That honesty requires bravery to speak my mind, trust that those I care about will respect that honesty, and tact to deliver that honesty in a way that is encouraging to discussion and sensitive to feelings.  Anyone that knows me, knows that tact is the skill I possess very little of.  

   Integrity comes next.  I have heard integrity be defined as "being the person you imagine you should be".  The core of this is deep examination of the self, identifying failings, and coming up with a plan to remedy them.  I want to be able to honestly address my faults as a person and deal with them.  This is a difficult line to walk; it is easy to ignore the faults, but it is also easy to be too hard on oneself as well.  It is helpful to analyze oneself, but it is also helpful to have the input of loved ones as well.  

   Responsibility is also important.  Some responsibilities are easy; as a husband who loves his wife, and a father who loves his children, it is not hard to want to be the best I can be in those regards.  That will never change, though the form that those responsibilities take might.  Other responsibilities are difficult, and I want to be the person that can be relied upon to handle those.  

   Lastly, I will say that I want to be a person that can not only ask for help, but for others to feel comfortable  asking us for help.  For too long, I have felt like Patty and I were an island; self-sufficient, but disconnected.  I want to change that.  I want to establish understandings with our close friends that, like how we have had to depend on them these past few months, that they can also depend on us.  I want a strong sense of "give and take".  Patty and I have had much discussion in the past on how we will never be the type to give freely; however, to those that meet the criteria of responsible adults among our circle, we need to be very clear that they should never hesitate to approach us for help, because we now know how much they themselves are willing to help.

IV.  What I Want To Do

   While taking the risk of potentially sounding like a list of New Year's Resolutions, I have compiled a list of things I want to do in 2013:

Music:  

 I want to join a band.  Deep down, I have always wanted to.  Music is just a part of how I function.  I can't drive without it, I can't work without it, I can't think without it.  I attend small shows with a dozen people in the crowd, watching these people on stage just lose themselves, and I am filled with jealousy.  These guys live in a van, traveling from town to town, and they come to Boise to play to nobody and I am jealous of them because they lose themselves on stage every god-damned day of their lives.  

   Now, I know that touring is not something I can do and meet some of those core values I have listed above, and I can be very happy to not live out of a van.  But I do want to play. I don't care if its playing tambourine or cowbell.  If I can somehow take part in creating an hour full of heavy riffs that I can swim in, I will be happy.  

  At the very least, I need to start writing songs, creating sounds, and making noise.  If I can't find some like-minded individuals in this town (and I know, this isn't the most Doom friendly town), then I am going to have to resort to making it myself.  I will gladly supply earplugs for anyone caught within the wake of my sound waves.

Family:

   I want to spend a hell of a lot of time with my wife and kids.  I want to take Patty out...a lot.  I want to meet her for lunch.  I want to take her out on the town.  I want to take her out dancing.  I want to sit with her on the couch and giggle.  I want to take drives out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night and stargaze.  I want to do all of these other things on my own so that I can have something interesting to talk about with her.  I want to be passionate about music and religion and philosophy and politics and then share that passion with her.  

  I want to share that passion for life with my kids.  I want to share a variety of life experiences with them just to see what sticks for them.  I want them to be able to be happy experiencing new things, no matter what they are, just so that they have the benefit of trying.  I want them to love life and to explore all of the things it has to offer.

Reading:

   I want to read more books.  For many years I concentrated on reading short, technical type articles, and I somehow even have gotten away from that.  It's time to move away from summing up every topic in a simple image or short phrase, but embracing the complexity that is life.  Religion, ethics, politics, are all things that have been written about non-stop for the last several millenia without resolution, so it is time for my education about such matters to become a bit more sophisticated.  It is time to challenge my preconceptions.

Writing:

   Since you are reading this blog, you can probably guess that I have already started this one.  Writing about my experience has been a positive, therapeutic experience, and I want to expand that.  I want to not only explore personal topics, but also philosophical ones as well.  Obviously writing is also tied into music, and I may consider writing fiction.  I don't think how or what matters so much as I write in such a way as to engage my brain on a more challenging level.  

Photography: 

    I know the amount of pictures I take is incredibly annoying to the various members of my family that are consistently caught in the glare of my flash, unfortunately I don't plan on changing that much.  I love documenting the miscellaneous minutiae of our lives, and I want to do more of it.  Where I want to change here is, I want to not only be behind the camera, but also in front of it.  I look through all of our old pictures, and it makes me a bit sad that I am not in many of them.  For the ones that I am in, and vicariously through the pictures of my family, I can be reminded of where I have been, for better or worse.

   There is something comforting about looking at old photos, and remembering events that would be long lost to memory otherwise.  I see pictures of Joey's birth, strapped to machines, and I am reminded of the sadness of him nearly dying, and I appreciate the wonders of modern medicine that gave him back to us.  I see pictures of Christi's birth, and I see the relief and happiness that came from knowing how a healthy child is born.  I see pictures of us in times of happiness, sadness, regret, fondness, love, sorrow, old friends, lost friends, new friends, old us, and new us, and I cherish every single one.  

  While I love the candid pictures of everyday life, I also want to expand beyond that as well.  I want to take more pictures of nature.  I want to take pictures of space.  I want to sit in my backyard and stare into the chaos of the cosmos, and capture a little piece of that onto memory.  I want to encourage my wife, my kids, and myself to creatively portray ourselves in such a way that I can then capture and share with the world.

Fitness: 

   One of the biggest regrets I have is getting out of shape.  I used to be in such good shape...I was thin, I was able to run for miles, I had the stamina of a god.  Somehow, I let that all slip away.  I have made good progress, I can run again, and I have lost nearly 40 pounds in 2012 alone.  I want more, though.  I am going to run more races, lift more weights, eat less sugar, and make sure that diabetes risk does not become reality for a long, long time.  

V. Conclusion

   I hope that in a short time, I will have achieved that goal of being a smart, attractive, interesting, and happy person that Patty enjoys being around, that my kids look up to, and that I can be proud of.  Time to get started.