Greetings from the South

I'm in Greenville, South Carolina this week spending time with my cousin "Butch" and her family. A nice vacation away, something we haven't been able to do a lot of in recent years not having a family vehicle we felt was suitable for long distance travel.

We kept our vacations in Ohio the past few years, having only the Ranger to drive and not wanting to cram both girls into the jump seats, which are just not that comfortable for very long trips.

This year, as I'm sure everyone knows we got a new (to us) van when the cost to repair our old Passport exceeded the price of the vehicle itself.

We immediately started planning this trip. Butch and her family are some of our favorite relatives. She and I have been close through the years always sharing a bond that cousins hold. Together with Butch's sister Christie we traversed the path to adulthood, sometimes losing touch but always having each other to reach out to when needed. That's how Butch got her nickname in fact, but that's another story entirely...

This week we had planned on getting caught up, catching some rays, enjoying the holiday and watching our kids get to know one another. We're doing all of that, but we're doing something more, and maybe even something more important.

I won't get into a lot of details, and I'm glad there weren't many people left to see it, but I'm sure it's no secret that there was some less than pleasantness with my folk's visit to Golf for Joy. We were glad they came to the tournament, having dealt with a bit of turmoil over the last year or so, and we were very glad they joined us. We were unsure of the hows and the whys, but eager to put an end to the confrontation.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen last weekend. Don't worry, I've no plans to share the blow-by-blow. If I hadn't felt so many reaching out with their support I wouldn't be sharing any of this today. (Thank you all for all of your support and affirmations.)

Still to be perfectly honest it put me into quite a tailspin, and Sunday was a test of my resiliency and a testament to my wife's patience, nurturing, and understanding. If I haven't said it before or enough - Netter is far and away THE BEST, and I am so lucky to have her in my life.

Further encounters throughout the week also found me held up, quieter at parties to the point that it was noticed, staring through people who looked at me as if to say... "What in the heck is up? What is wrong with you?"

I don't know. I feel like I have lost something, maybe... Something has changed. A shift in the universe, something very uncomfortable has happened.

What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? What exactly is different?

The answer quite simply is, "I don't know."

and I hate that -

When these things happen we tend to reach out to the people that know us best, who've known us the longest, who aren't afraid to tell us what they think, to opinionate, to commiserate, to help us find perspective. Sometimes even to tell us what to do - or at least make really good suggestions.

So that's what I'm doing, and Butch and her family are doing a fine job of helping me.

Is it just me? I don't want it to be about me. I try everyday to be sure that it is not about me.

While this blog is very often a reflection of what is going on in my life, what is happening to me, I write here because I know these things happen to all of us, and I share in the hopes that we might all find answers, and solutions, and that it will be about all of us...

So we can all grow and find the answers...

Together.

Don't you think together is better?

Life Doesn't Fit in a Box

tiny intro - Alright - this one is for my friend Mo, and it is also according to the math in the sidebar the 100th post on The Life of Jimmer. My friend Cammie got more than 100 comments on her 100th post. I don't see that happening here. Perhaps you'd like to prove me wrong. (Wouldn't be the first time.)

I've been working on a project at work that has been kind of an "on the fly, seat of our pants type of operation." It had to be that way. We saw a need. It had to be filled. The moment had to be seized and such. The iron was hot. (Insert your cliche here.)

In other words, we didn't go through all the normal planning and testing and piloting and on and on and on that is so much a part of "the process."

I'm okay with that. This one didn't fit in a box. It had to be malleable. We needed to be able to adjust on the fly.

You know - a lot like life.

Many folks are finding out this year that even the best laid plans are subject to failure. Jobs are being lost. Debts are being incurred. Mortgages are being foreclosed and on and on...

And a lot of people feel like failures for no justifiable reason other than circumstance. A friend who is being "laid-off" said to me just a couple weeks ago that he was becoming very depressed over the whole situation, primarily because he was not going to be the main provider for his family for the first time in 20 years.

What do you say to that? He hadn't done anything wrong. He went to work everyday, paid his bills on time, was a good husband and father -- all the right things, all the "supposed to" things, and yet here he was planning for a future he knows nothing about, trying to remake himself at the age of 38.

I've spent a lot of the last year kicking myself for not having done some things, not making changes, not planning better, not being better with money, (Oy vey money), not being a better Daddy and on and on.

I've taken a lot of inventory as I turned 40, but not because of the number so much as because I realized that a great deal of my life had become so focused, too focused on the negative.

I feel like I've made a lot of progress and turned a lot of things around. But up until a couple of months ago there were still some things I couldn't let go of.

One April evening out of nowhere it hit me. Just like that project doesn't fit in a box, neither does life. There are just too many variables, too many unknowns, too many adjustments to be made, and too many answers we just don't see.

We can play by all the rules and "they" can change them in a second.

It was like a cloud lifted as I sat in my office and decided that I needed to live life forward instead of spending so much time looking back.

We don't have any control over the past. It's done. It's gone. It's over. If we made mistakes we can only learn from them and hope to do better next time. If we make a bad decision we can't be afraid to make a decision the next time for fear we might be wrong again. The fear of the unknown, paralysis by analysis as they say.

I know that some of this is "so obvious." What can I say? Sometimes I'm not the sharpest tack on the bulletin board.

As I talked to my friend that day and wondered what to say, I decided that the best thing I could do for him was to be a good listener, a shoulder to lean on, a sounding board for ideas. I decided that the best thing I could say to him was the same thing I had said to myself just a few weeks before.

Sometimes the answer is you just have to be nice and give yourself a break.