Welcome to my closet!

This post is probably 16 post past due, since when I started to write this blog I just went straight to the task of typing away without taking the time to welcome you to my closet. I say closet so that you have a visualization of where my stories come from. If you have been reading I am sure you have already discovered that I pretty much tell it as it is even if it means having to come out of my closet with some truths that can sometimes be a bit embarrassing, painful, and maybe even scary.


I remember as a child being scared of the dark. I think this is common for most kids, hence the cute nightlights, cracked open doors, and "tell me a story" requests we had just minutes before going to bed. I personally used to have some pretty scary dreams which would keep my feet off the floor at all times in case something would come out and grab them from underneath my bed after I woke up in fear. A typical request I had was for my parents to please close my closet door before leaving my room at night. For some now interesting reason, having that door open would trigger some of my worse nightmares. It was as if monsters lived in my closet and as long as the door was totally shut before I fell asleep, they had no power to turn the door knob and exit to freak me out. What is interesting about this, and at the same time a bit embarrassing, even now at my oh not so young age of 47, I rarely allow my closet door to remain open when I go to bed. It might just be out of habit, or it could just be that the monsters in my closet are now even scarier than they were when I was five years old.


Fear to me is a paralyzing emotion. The more scared I am about something, the less I am able to do to get past it. The things that scare me are not horror movies, roller coasters, or standing up in front of people to give a presentation. Nope, the things that scare me are tied to my heart. For example I believe that my biggest fear is that of losing what is precious to me. If it is in my heart, I am scared of it tearing my soul as it makes it's exit without warning. This fear has many times paralyzed me, made me regress into the fetal position in my bed and not allowed me to live a normal life. This is the main reason for this blog. In here I have found the power to confront my demons, monsters that live in my closet and keep me from being able to fall asleep at night and sometimes even get out of my bed in the mornings. Even though I hope that what I write will bring some of you closer to finding your own answers to be happy, this is therapy for me, and without having to pay a not so interested therapist money for them to say "uhu, yes, hmmm, interesting" to my rambles.


I am honestly not sure if it is working, because it is too soon to tell. I have only been posting here for ten days, yet it has felt more like ten weeks because I have put so much out there about my life in such a short amount of time. When I sit here and write I wonder if you on the other end are able to feel anything close to what I feel as I type away. I have laughed as I write stories of my childhood, and cried as I admit on this technological marvel that is the Internet some of the things that I am currently having to deal with my oldest son. I hope that in me writing, and you reading, we can somehow connect and help each other. I am grateful for all of the emails I have received with so many words of encouragement, and I hope that if you have the time, once in a while you might post a comment at the end of my post so that others are able to grow too with your wisdom. If there is something I have already learned it is that I am not alone, which means that neither are you. However, even if you are just a passive reader and find it difficult to give any advice or make any comments, I truly believe that your contribution goes much deeper than what you know. As you read my blog, you are constantly finding places in your mind and heart to file away what has touched you. It is in those places that hope to be as long as you allow me to stay so that I can benefit of your prayers and caring hearts.


Whenever we used to go visit my parental grandmother, as soon as we would arrive, the first thing out of her beautiful lips were "I brought you with my mind." What a wonderful power that must be, to be able to think about someone you love and to have them at your side moments later. I for one choose to believe that she had that power and that it was not just a way of greeting us upon arrival. I believe that her heart was so wonderfully powerful that she was able to bring us to her when she took time to think about us. I also believe that you have such a marvelous power too. Whenever you are thinking of me, my children, my family, and my life, all you have to do is log into my blog and I promise I will walk straight towards you without any detours to share my heart and soul with you.


So, on this subject, I would like to thank all of you that have been able to find time to read my blog. I know that it is not easy sometimes to make a parenthesis in your busy days to be able to take time for this sort of thing. I hope that you are enjoying reading it as much as I am enjoyed writing it. If I ever figure out how it is that smarter people than me put those cute counters at the bottom of their page which tells how many people have visited the site without having my blog bombarded with endless pop-ups and ads, I will then do so. In the meantime, if you are curious, according to the counter that is provided to me by Google internally to keep track of page hits, so far there have been 365 visits to this blog since I started posting 10 days ago. I did add a small tool that you can all check out when you open my page, it resides on the right side of the most recent post called Ligit that allows anyone to see where the most recent readers are located, plus it has a cool map feature that puts a dot on there for every location around the world that has accessed my blog. Interestingly enough this feature shows that I even have a visitor from a town in Germany called Essen. I think this is of a good friend that is there on vacation. Cool, huh?

One last thing before I go. If you have recently logged on to my blog you should know that there is a bit of logic to my madness so as you read it might be a good idea to read the older posts first (scroll to the bottom of the page and start reading those post first) since sometimes the stories are a bit long and I publish them by Part I, Part II, Part III, and so on.

OK, so come on in and pour yourself something to drink, relax, and share with me a little. I promise to do my best to not get on any soap boxes, but instead share with you some of my reality in a fun and entertaining way. Welcome to my closet, sorry, I mean blog! *wink*

Dad