Learning To Fly Again

I have been a career salesman for roughly the last 15 years from the urging of my parents I was encouraged to join the family sales and marketing business rather than taking my post secondary education…..I worked hard to learn the business from a very young age. While in highschool and the other kids were learning in the afternoons I left the school dawned a suit and tie and did sales calls all afternoon. I thought I had a my  future pretty mapped out. I would learn through experience and not old books. Over this time I picked up many great sales and communication skills. It was all layed out…”work hard son and all this will be yours”. I did just that and heard this echoed in my ears for years.  

Fast forward to April 20th 2010 the morning my father picked me up from my home office took me a local park and proceeded to tell me that my days at this company were over due to poor spending practices by my parents. That they need my income more than my family of two small children and their son and daughter in law. Their position of life financially was more important than their own son and their two grandkids. My father looked me in the eye and said he was willing to never see the kids again to be able to right his and my mothers financial position by taking my income. My father also confessed when asked if they intentional kept me from my brother whom I had an estranged relationship with based on a long list of things my parents had told us about my brother and his feelings toward me…that information turned out to be lies that I wa sa only able to realize after my brother and I reconnected on our own accord late in Dec 2009. My father looked me in the eye and admitted to doing this to me. I lost 8 years of life with my brother based on covered up lies on my parents behalf…..WHY? I will search for this answer my whole life I think.

With that…my father turned around got in his car and left me in the park to walk home.

My life changed in an instant the career I saw as my future was over. My relationship as a son was over. Money greed and selfishness won over on me.

I’m left trying to understand what has happened and who I really am. I’m a pretty strong-minded person as most could tell you, and I’m in an abyss of uncertainty. I have no post secondary education I have worked for most of my career in one place and now have to find my place all over again while carrying a mountain of mental family strain as baggage…..the bags are heavey…I just drag them …hopefully I can find a trolley along the way to put them on to pull alongside me. 

I must be honest….this all feels like a tall order….everyone tells me I fill get to the other side…I’m sure I will. But these damn bags are so heavy…my mind is filling with water and feel as though I’m drowning….I wanna swim I kick my legs but I’m not at the surface to swim yet. I’m trying many new things to learn to live another way all over again. I’m reaching out to learn to heal my head to find vigor again so I can lift myself up and paint a new picture. The colors all seem grey but its time to paint only in color again….I think I need some help…”it is around me…” I will grab it” I just might need a push sometimes. to find the brushes.

I’m learning to fly again….seems my hardest battle to date. But at sometime soon I hope I will soar high in the sky and I can fly down and share the keys to the locks and the chains he saw everywhere.

Fly Whole Soon

I Got Id

I am an old soul living in the this ultra fast paced and somewhat uncaring world. I find it on the run in a race that can’t be won…..so to that I try to live free. My spirit is on a constant quest and battle of how to live well and right within myself in this crazy world. I live as “I Am Mine” because it’s all we really and truly have here in this place…..with that view I can be true to myself and what’s right so I can be true to everyone and everything around me…..it took 35 years to figure that one out….oops.  

I live in the music, I am extremely passionate about music and Pearl Jam’s music in particular. It’s very much been the soundtrack of my life this past 20 years…..I spread the jam, live the jam and travel the jam, my family is the jam in many ways. My church choir sings of the real world and its players through an amazing story teller. You will find the depth of this lyrical muse deep in my flesh….I would have it no other way.

I like anything that sets my hair on fire……Must be why my hair is so short …..cars seem to fit that bill well. I’m an avid auto detailer and have worked on some amazing vehicles over the years and actually love the results aspect of doing so.

I’m an artist…..I truly love to draw and be creative…I still amaze myself as to where this creativity comes from…but am glad to have it. My favourite place to draw is by far at the kitchen table with my co-artists Kalman (5) and Ella (3)….my awesome kids…..who coined  the name of my new business “My Daddy Draws”. I create hand drawn art pieces for children. I am in the midst of illustrating my first children’s book around what else??? My children and music. And who better to do this creative work with but my favourite people with the sound of our muse in the background…..oh some air guitar breaks by all help too.

I’m a daddy….my most important job to date. I don’t see a more challenging job than that one and nothing else makes me feel more like a man and rewards me more. My kids really are cool…I know everyone says that….but they too are avid Pearl Jam fans, have amazing imaginations and love to create things and draw much like daddy….oh and great looking like their mommy. And above all they are filled with love…..Im the coolest person they know….that makes any bad day good. They too are very old souls.

I’m the husband to the most amazing woman/person/spirit who ever graced my life period. Nobody knows me like my wife Lindsay….”she gets me”. She has taught me more than she will ever know. She makes me the father I am. The gifts she has given me in life, knowledge, music and love could never be replicated.

Sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky a human being that was GIVEN TO FLY!