A Rare Meme (kinda like leap year for me): 25 Random Things

1. I'm afraid to do a meme like this for fear, the fear of being less than revealing, the fear of being misunderstood, the fear of being judged and rejected.

2. For the first five years of my life, I was an only child and loved the feeling of being singular, special; and I've never completely recovered from the resentment of siblings messing up my perfect oneness. :-D

3. People tell me I have unique talents and abilities. I've never been able to see what they see.

4. When I was eighteen months old, I had my tonsils removed. My voice has always been soft. So soft that I often have to raise my voice to be heard, which is then misunderstood as me yelling. In college, when I went out to bars, I simply gave up trying to talk with anyone since no one could ever hear anything I was saying over the din. When speaking within a group, I am often ignored and I never know if people just aren't interested in what I have to say or they just can't hear me. Either way, I've developed a distaste of group settings and prefer spending time alone or one-on-one.

5. I have an innate sensitivity so refined, daily life is often painful. I avoid conflict at all cost. I even turn off movies and TV when the scenes turn hostile. If at all possible, when I have a fly in my house, I will work as hard as I can to shoo the fly out as opposed to swatting it. One morning, I found a mosquito in my bathroom. I had seen it the night before, couldn't kill it and was surprised to find it still alive in the morning. Still, I couldn't kill it. I'm either completely absurd or completely insane but I couldn't tell you which.

6. Until around my junior year in college, I had the sense that I was destined to do great things, to do something unique and remarkable with my life. I cannot pinpoint the moment, but I remember the place when that idea slipped from my mind as a flower floating out to sea, never to return, silent but for the gentle undulations of a sighing sea.

7. There is rarely a day that I don't question my value as a father, husband, neighbor or co-worker. My personality is so self-critical, I thrive on the kind words from others as bread and water. Without those kindnesses, I'm not sure how long I would survive.

8. In the past few years, I've become something other than what I was. There are days when I hardly recognize myself and what I see makes my stomach turn. I have always felt that the only thing that can come out of you is what is in you and there is something in me akin to an alien creature, eating me away from the inside, but it never makes itself known and I know it only from the shadows. My fight is not to succeed but rather to survive. To see another dawn is triumph. And I fight this battle alone, for the battles of the soul are solitary affairs.

9. I have an obsession with books. I own more than a thousand and I keep buying, even though I know I will probably never read most of them. The bookstore is my chapel. I find more peace in the aisles than I do in the pews. Today I purchased an old classic, Art & Fear, which about sums up my life.

10. I love writing, something I did not do until three years ago, for I had been told, and I listened, that I should not pursue a career with the written word. So, for about a 25 year period of my life, I penned next to nothing. Why write when you can't. Right? I mean experts are always right. ;-)

11. Nothing has given me more joy over the last three years than the comments I have received on my writing. There were days, weeks, where the only thing that kept my head above water was the kindness of strangers. I learned anew, the power of a kind word, not from a book, or a speaker but from direct, first-hand experience and I am here to say, I know of no greater power than the hand of compassion, kindness and love.

12. About three months ago, one day, I just stopped wearing my glasses and contacts. My sight is no better than before, but for some inexplicable reason, I don't mind nor do I notice and I've been wearing glasses for close to twenty years or so. The brain is an amazing thing. Just don't get too close to me on the highway.

13. A couple years ago I felt I hit the wall with stuff and instead of figuring out how to acquire more stuff, my mind started figuring out how to simplify, how to have less, to de-clutter and enjoy the birds in the orchard as my dear Ms Dickinson would say. I still like stuff, but, assuming I have money in my bank account to pay my bills, I'd rather have a good cup of coffee and the peace and quiet to read, think, write, draw, sketch and continue to touch as many lives as I can with kindness.

14. I'm not sure if the internet is a blessing or a curse.

15. Got my first Mac about a year and a half ago and can't imagine having to use a PC again.

16. I rediscovered music about three years ago and now have over 3,000 songs on my iPod and rarely go a day without listening to my favorite artists.

17. There is no other place I would rather be than near the ocean, listening to a chorus of waves dance upon a carpet of sand, to hear the gull as the sun rises and sets on a clean horizon.

18. After my father passed away and I saw him silently slip from sight and then memory, nary a trace on the surface of life remaining, life as ocean self-healing, I asked myself how my life, in this moment, if I were to pass, would be any different. From that moment I turned a different eye to art and prose, driven by a desire to leave some mark behind and my great hope is, one day, long after I am gone, my son will see what I have written and turn to his spouse, and with a wet eye, say, my dad wrote this.

19. My hairdresser, of more than twenty years, will arbitrarily change the part in my hair from left to right and from right to left. I never say anything to her.

20. I drink more than I use too and almost always alone. Rarely do I drink with others. What concerns me most is not the drinking but knowing I am more creative with than without and this desire to go someplace in the world of imagination that is otherwise locked is not a battle I like fighting. The good news is, I find music works almost the same way and that a song, melody or lyric will also unlock areas of creativity that I cannot find with song. Now, when I put song and wine together, well, that is a special creative place and some of my best work has come at those times.

21. Speaking of creativity, I am not and have never been a morning person. It is usually best not to speak to me as it is that I don't speak to anyone, before my third cup of coffee. However, and this I find most fascinating, in that window of semi-consciousness, I have written probably half of the Story I write. As my fingers are moving on the keyboard, the experience in this state is akin to an out of body experience. I literally feel as if the words are coming from elsewhere, that someone else is writing and there are times I feel guilty to say this is mine, for what has been created in that window is as if a gift and not an act.

22. I cry easily. I am moved to emotion as a feather on the breeze. I have cried driving down the highway as I envision a scene to write in my Story. I have cried watching movies in which no one else cries. And I have cried with the death of every pet I've ever shared my life. I could try not to cry, but to do so would be to deny myself, to be something other than what I am, so I cry without shame and, I suppose, will do so for all the days of my life.

23. I would rather feel pain than feel nothing. I would rather be slapped than ignored. I would rather be kicked than forgotten. I find a truth in pain and illness that eludes me in happiness and health. I wish it weren't so, but to say otherwise would be less than honest. Maybe one day, the coin will flip and the inverse will be true. But I'm not holding my breath.

24. I don't believe in rules but I love them all the same. I try to live by one rule only, Don't be an Asshole. Unfortunately, I violate my own rule more than I would like.

25. I don't like meme's. This is only the second one I've done in four years. Don't expect another anytime soon.