What color best discribes your life?

I treasure my memories because contained in my mind I have buried an endless source of events that I find myself digging out from time to time to help me see, relive, and enjoy so many beautiful and wonderful moments. Inside the biochemical reactions in my brain, neurons have found a way to store just about everything that is important to me. Childhood faces rush to the surface making me smile, as one by one remind me of how lucky I have been to share with these individuals that somehow touched my life. Friends, family, and even pets come pouring out of my gray matter forming images of what they looked like at the time that they were filed away in my head. Without any effort or control a message that tells my lips to create a smile instantly performs its duty and an overall feeling of well being takes over my mood and emotions. I've said it before and I will say it again, what a wonderful gift this ability to recall our past is for us sentient beings!

My life, just as yours, is not just composed of great happy memories. If you have been reading this blog you can surely recognize that sadness has also touched me in many ways throughout my days. In fact, not to sound overly dramatic since I have seen many more heart breaking events happen to family members and friends, but if I were to assign a color to describe my own life, I would definitely not pick pink. I'd say that if pink represented a beautiful perfect life, and black one of terrible hardships, pain, and despair, mine is more like a lite melancholic shade of blue. Probably something like the blue of the rocket ship rocker and the background sky in the picture above. In other words, my life experiences have added many colors to my emotional state. Just as expected, the abundance of positive moments has overruled the typically expected gray that comes from the physics of mixing too many colors. It is for this reason that I am so grateful to God, since I am fully aware that He has been very good to me overall. I share the above so that you will not be misguided when I start to describe the topic of this post, my dreams.

Lately I have been having some of the strangest dreams. While I was in Puerto Rico on vacation during the Christmas holidays I mentioned to my mom that for several days in a row I dreamt that I was in a wheelchair. Interestingly, none of the dreams actually had much to do with me not being able to move from the waist down, instead the plot typically carried on as most of my dreams do, but instead of me walking...I rolled. Almost instantly, once I told her that I was dreaming that I was unable to walk, in my next dream I simply had an accident and died instead. I think I liked it more when I was rolling than when I was a stiff. Most recently I have had several dreams in which I have been ordered to serve in the war. In my dreams I find myself making out my last will and testament, plus preparing all of those that are in my life to the cold realization that I would probably not come back once I was sent to Afghanistan. Even though I work for the Department of Defense, my job as a civil servant does not require me to actively participate in the risky and dangerous reality of war, so in essence the plot of my dream is far from being a possible outcome in my life. In fact, if it were not because of the repetitiousness of the dream in itself, I would probably not even remember it at all. What is it exactly that my mind is processing while I am asleep that takes its shape in this particular kind of dream? Is it important, should I be concerned, and does it matter in any way that I am having these dreams?

Even though I am curious and wonder the meaning of these kind of dreams, in real life I am not feeling ill, have no plans to do anything of significant risk, and am most definitely not depressed. So why would my subconscious decide to play such a strange game by untangling my life with such radical conclusions? It is true that sometimes I feel exhausted with having to deal on a daily basis with so much sadness because of my lack of power over my son's complicated personality and behavior, but never to the extreme of wishing myself dead. On the contrary, the more tired I get from this unavoidable part of my life, the more resigned I am to the reality that God must have a plan and that I am needed here to be part of it. In fact, the hidden wheelchair metaphor in my dreams probably makes a lot of sense, since it surely represents my feelings of acceptance to my powerless role in the life of my son. Dying, that on the other hand is just plain weird, don't you think? Unless of course it might represent an unavoidable end to some part of my life. In other words, some things just come to an end regardless of what we try to do to avoid it.

What are dreams anyway? One school of thought is that dreams are how our subconscious interprets certain emotions we are dealing with at the moment. Others believe that at nights, dreams are a sort of cover up that hides the actual process of filing our thoughts. The actual process of archiving memories is a mystery and the research conducted on the subject reveals very little with respect to why we dream, much less the subject matter of our dreams. One thing is for sure, the alternate reality created in our minds while we are asleep, many times seems just as real as our awaken state of reality. This in essence is related to the school of thought about dreams in which it is believed that if one collects enough of our dreams and analyze their content and learn about the individuals daily life, eventually we can quantitatively find a consistent pattern within them that basically represents a continuation of our wake state that reveals our conceptions and concerns. In fact, the University of California in Santa Cruz has a study titled "The Quantitative Study of Dreams" which is extremely interesting and insightful. Me being an engineer and scientist at heart, I tend to gravitate to believing the enlightening results from this study.

So if my dreams are actually a continuation of my wake state which over time reveal many of my conceptions and concerns, then it might be safe to say that just one or two dreams are not enough to give a big enough picture of what is in my head. After all, my conceptions and concerns are definitely complicated to say the least. However, this is assuming that someone else is in charge of interpreting my dreams, not myself. For a stranger to be able to make a reasonable interpretation, he or she would require that I kept a journal of my dreams for years before they could truly gauge what they are all about. the interpreter would also be required to get to know me and the people I interact with in order to make any reasonable comparison of their interpretation versus my wake state life. However, since I myself am aware of what my wake state life conceptions and concerns are, plus I have better access to the details contained in my dreams, it stands to reason that with enough practice I should be able to interpret my dreams better than anyone else. Of course, this line of thought stands true for all of you individually too. It is most likely that nobody can make more sense of your own dreams than yourself.

What could any of this have to do with parenting, you may ask? Well, in essence it probably has everything to do with parenting since knowing and understanding myself is fundamental in my ability to guide my children in any way. If I do not know the true reasons for my own concerns, how can I in all fairness expect my children to understand me? The stronger I have a grasp of my own beliefs, the clearer and healthier the motive of my concerns become, allowing me then to be consistent and fair with my children. Nobody really likes the "because I said so" answer to the frequently asked question of "Why?" Is it not more effective to have a good reason to why your children should not run with scissors? Of course that is an easy one, but wait until your child wants to know why he or she should not do drugs, not have sex, not to drink alcohol, or simply why they should believe in God. What I have discovered is that with my son, the answers that my own parents gave me are simply not enough. I must find in my own conceptions and concerns the true reasons to answer those questions in order to be heard and hopefully believed. The credibility of my words is only as good as my ability to truly relate my life to what I am saying, and for this I need to know myself very well.

I might initially feel confused when I dream of myself on a wheelchair, but then eventually I understand how powerless I have been feeling lately with regards to the situation with my son. It definitely bothers me to dream of myself dying, but there is no surprise to this dream either, since in essence I, like all of us, am dying a little bit at a time from the day I was born. I cannot run away from the fact that I am a mortal. Being sent to war is another way of my mind making me face the facts that I am not in charge of everything, some of my life is truly out of my hands and most definitely unavoidable. Those are just recent dreams, a few in thousands that I believe adequately define my current conceptions and concerns. I like my life regardless of the challenges that I have faced, so I assure you that I do not mind its color. Even though I gravitate towards wearing black and gray, when it all comes off, yes, a melancholic shade of blue is who I truly am.

Dad

Eating tomato sandwiches...

Many, many, many years ago (maybe not so "many"), when I was in high school, tomatoes made their first impression in my life when a classmate decided to do the "Grow your Plants with Music" science fair experiment. I am sure that by now this project has been done a gazillion times and most likely never been proven a success. The young man created two acrylic boxes to enclose a tomato plant in each of them. In one box a tomato plant was grown in a quite environment, in the other, in addition to a tomato plant he also placed a small speaker that was attached to a recorder that played music continuously. OK, can you figure out the problem with the setup of his experiment? Even though he had bought perfectly healthy tomato plants that both seemed to be just about the same size, he watered them equally and exposed them to the same amount of sunlight, enclosing just about any plant inside an acrylic box will deprive them of precious carbon dioxide which is essential to the well known process of photosynthesis. Sure enough, sooner or later both of the plants wilted and died. My friend obviously did what all kids our age would of done, he took the shortcut and went back to the store a few days before the science fair and bought two brand new tomato plants. This time though, instead of both being the same size he made sure that one was much larger than the other in order to prove his not so scientific hypothesis. In fact, as I recall I am pretty sure he won first prize at the science fair at our school that year. What was the lesson learned, you may ask? First prize at the Science Fair definitely does not mean you are the smartest kid in your science class.

There is a particularly splendid satisfaction that comes from eating something that you have grown on your own. I cannot claim to have a green thumb, since most of the time too much care must go into growing healthy plants and time is by far my least abundant commodity. Years back during a warm southern summer, when I was an engineering student at the University of Mississippi, I remember sharing a trailer home with a dear friend and classmate to save money on rent. My friend was an amazing guy by many standards. He was an excellent study mate, a descent drummer, extremely handy in vehicle repair, hard working as a cook in various establishments while he attended college, and yes, you guessed it, had a green thumb. Starting from seeds in little black cups filled with nutrient filled soil and sitting on the edge of the kitchen window of his previous dwelling he managed to grow at least 10 or 12 tomato plants. By the time we moved in together the hungry for more water and soil plants where ready to be transplanted and soon enough some beautiful tomatoes where on their way to our dinner table. I am not sure if it was the fact that they were so fresh, or the pride of having grown them ourselves (I add myself loosely into the growing part of the story), but they tasted exquisite and delicious! It was during this summer that I consumed my first tomato sandwich. If you have never had one, do not waste your time by trying one out with store bought tomatoes unless you have access to buying them from a farmer's market where they are totally fresh and organically grown. Also, I am not a vegetarian, but in my opinion once you add any kind of meat into making the sandwich, forget about calling it a tomato sandwich. Instead, go veggie only and trust me when I tell you that you will never taste anything else like this in your entire life. You start with the freshest whole grain wheat bread you can find, add some fresh lettuce, a slice of Swiss or provolone cheese, a good portion of sliced tomatoes, add a bit of salt and pepper, and then grill it on a skillet until the bread is nice and toasted and the cheese has melted. Mmmmm, you will be in heaven! What is the lesson? Don't ever write about something as delicious as a southern tomato sandwich when fresh tomatoes are out of season!

You might find it odd or strange, but to me raising my kids has been a lot like the two stories above. In the first one, all the right good intentions were in place when my friend set out to do his science fair "Grow your Plants with Music" experiment. I am sure he did not originally intend to cheat in any way when he set out to prove or disprove his hypothesis. As a father I have always had the best of intentions with respect to everything that has to do with parenting my children. However, not everything I did was correct, effective, and sometimes not even fair. Not understanding what I might of been doing wrong, many times I made mistakes that wilted some of the possible beauty of my children. Divorce, for instance, is by far one of the most written about emotionally impacting events on children's lives. I never set myself a goal to purposely dissolve my marriage after 18 years, yet even with as much as I adore my children I found it essential for my own survival to take that dreadful and painful road. In essence, the original plan of providing my children with a single healthy family environment was eventually replaced with an as close as possible alternate life of separate households. Similar to the young man that concealed the truth about his mistake, I have many times also found myself concealing some of my own mistakes in order to find it easier to live with myself. There were probably more things that I could of tried to do to keep the family together, yet the divorce shortcut was all I could focus on during my own frustrated and failed relationship. Just like the plants that needed a healthier environment full of carbon dioxide to survive, I needed my own emotional nourishment too, so I walked away to find it regardless of the consequences and impact on my kids. This is probably why today I now live in a constant state of trying to be as good a father as I can possibly be in order to make up for any damage my selfish act of breaking the household might of caused. However, I honestly believe that by me being emotionally healthier I am definitely more available to my children and have in fact become a better father too.

You might be wondering how it is that I can correlate my story about growing my own tomatoes and making tomato sandwiches to raising my kids? It is actually quite simple. Remember how I mentioned that my shortcoming as a gardener was tied to my lack of time? As a father, I have learned that giving my children the right amount of time is probably the most valuable and effective commodity in nourishing their well being. I might not have the time to grow my own tomatoes, but one thing is for sure, I need to always have the time to raise my kids. The reason my children "taste" so good to me regardless of the difficulties I have encountered through the years is because I have spent so much of my time growing, pruning, nourishing, feeding, and taking care of them. Some of the people that know me in person and have been privy to my particularly challenging circumstances have commented that they cannot imagine going through it all themselves. "How can you give so much...love so much...care so much?" Easy, these kids are "my" tomato plants...they are mine to take care of as long as I have air in my lungs!

Dad

Planes, trains, automobiles, cat toys, and wooden decks...

My flood and rain saga has not ended. Even though the amount of flooding was minimal this time, over the weekend some of the rain still found its way inside my home. As a consequence I had to take a day to work to create more drainage on the other side of my house in an effort to keep the water level in the soil below the footing of my living room space when the ground is saturated. I started at 9:00 a.m. and was not done shoveling dirt back into the newly placed drain pipes until a bit past 11:00 p.m. If there is one thing that I have learned throughout the years is that any home project I envision might take 3 to 4 hours, all I have to do is multiply it by 3 and I will have the exact number of laborious hours it will take to complete. I am a pretty handy guy, but looks are deceiving when it comes to the simplicity of manual labor. Below the innocent sight of some pavers on what might seem to be just dirt, hide all kinds of mysterious barriers and challenges. This time, even though the trench to be dug was only 30 feet long instead of the previous 70 feet project from the previous week, under the shorter distance laid concrete, wire mesh, and wood. Who lays a concrete patio floor without removing the old wooden deck first? It is that same rotting wood that is actually making canals to bring water from everywhere else in the backyard against the footing and foundation of my home. Needless to say, now I was back on a full treatment of muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatory drugs to be able to come in to work today.

Some of the simplest things in life are amazingly complex when I take the time to look at them carefully. I am surprised as to how many times something completely innocent looking finds a way to create problems. A simple hollow plastic ball that my cat uses to frolic and kick around in the back yard seems innocent enough, but when the little red and blue ball falls into the pool it sinks to the bottom where if left there unattended it will get stuck on the suction intake of the automated pool floor cleaner. I have found the pool vacuum stuck in the same place for what was probably hours due to the cat dropping her toy accidentally inside the water. As Murphy's Law will prove itself over and over again, the lesson is simple, no matter how small, innocent, or inconsequential something might seem, when something can go wrong, chances are it will go wrong. In fact, in physics this concept of incredibly small statistical probabilities holds the answer to some of the most amazing discoveries including the creation of sentient life on our planet. If there is a chance of something happening, no matter how small a chance, eventually it will happen given enough time.

I wonder if this concept of statistical probabilities holds water in the universe that is a person's mind? If I gathered enough information with regards to someones personality and behavior, could I somehow calculate the probabilities of possible outcomes? Is this not the same kind of logic that profilers use when they seek to identify an unknown subject based on the signs he or she leaves behind while interacting with their victims and the world around them? I find it interesting that when investigations are conducted to discover the root cause of a plane, train, or automobile accident, most of the time once the fault is found to be "human error," the research is typically concluded. The human error is swiftly categorized under "fault" or "no fault" depending on whether the individual that committed the error had any chance at avoiding the final outcome or not, and then penalties or pardons are applied. When I take a closer look at this concept, I cannot help but realize that even though we might categorize other reasons for the accident as "mechanical, design, or material failure, " it still all boils down to human error since humans are the ones that create, design, and build things in the first place. All that is left is "an act of God." Rain, lightening, wind, birds, dogs, anything that nature throws at us without rhyme or reason is then categorized as "an act of God."

So where am I going with all of this, you may ask? I suppose I am just having a little fun with the concept of blame. After all, we tend to put a lot of value and weight in assigning blame to someone or something when things don't work out too well. I remember a long time ago joking around following the blame trail to its final and ultimate conclusion and making the argument that in the end it is really all God's fault. Remember this is just a joke, but in essence a reality too so if you want to feel better when something bad happens that you might think is your fault, all you have to do is follow the train of thought that ultimately God was the one that created my cat, the rain, birds, dogs, you, me, and our ability to think for ourselves and make things such as planes, trains, automobiles, cat toys, and wooden decks. I feel much better now!

Dad

Anonymous...

As you read this blog, you might think that I am a very public individual that is willing to pour his heart out upon request. It certainly might seem that way from so many personal stories that I have shared with you so far. However, I want you to know that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this is probably the greatest challenge I have forced myself to face in my entire life. This medium might give the initial impression that I am trying to teach you something, and if in the process of me sharing my stories you are learning something useful, then that is fine with me. However, the truth is that I do not write in order to be heard, I write in order to hear what you might have to say to me that might help. As much as I have learned in my journey to become an effective father, I still have what seems as oceans of doubt with respect to parenting, teenage behavior, and what sometimes feels like a unique and very hard to deal with reality with my oldest son. So you see, as therapeutic as my blog truly is for me, my main goal is really to learn from the wisdom of others, including you.

When I called my sister in Plano Texas yesterday, probably the most loyal reader to this blog, she once again found a way to provoke my thirst to discover more answers to so many of my questions about parenting. I can tell that she cares immensely for me and my family. From the instant she climbed aboard what now seems more like the "Starship Dad4Life" with a mission to boldly go where no father has gone before and explore the parenting challenges of teenagers, she has constantly provided me with great feedback. One of the main reasons that the relationship with my sister works so well is because in between her advice a robe of love envelopes each word with constant encouragement. It would be very hard for me not to listen to her when she is always interjecting compassion with her words. Part of her advice yesterday was for me to ask you to share more by writing comments, giving your own advice, and sharing your own stories. Her biggest questions were, "Who else is going through these kind of problems?...What do other people do to cope?...Are there other resources that any reader has found that have helped them?" All excellent questions that I am sure everyone reading could benefit from their answers.

We are on the verge of crossing the 2,600 hits on this blog in which I started posting less than 6 months ago. It still amazes me that so many of you are able to find the time to read it. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you and once again encourage you to write to me or share with the rest of the class your own stories, comments, and advice. Remember that you can post your words anonymously and your privacy will be always be respected. If you know of someone that has travelled this crazy parenting road and could inject their knowledge for all of us to learn from, please forward them the link to this post so that they can read and contribute. If you know of someone that could benefit from our shared experiences, it would also be great if you sent them the link so that they can participate.

What do you have to say? Interesting question, huh? There is plenty to be learned from our parents, grandparents, and elders. There is also plenty to be learned from our own children when you give them the opportunity to speak up and tell you what they are thinking. I managed to be the nosy dad and find the recent letter that "anonymous," another teenager, sent to my son and two of his friends. Honestly, I am baffled and truly impressed with what it contained. If it were not because I feel as if I was betraying someones trust by doing so, I would love to post it here for all of you to read. Maybe in time my son will be in a better place and I'll be able to ask his permission to post it. For now my comments will have to do some kind of justice about its content. The outside envelope had all the tell tails that identified it as written by another teenager. the inside however, was typed and then printed with an effort to conceal the originator's identity. Each of the three recipients were individually addressed with clever and even poetic nicknames. To each individual the writer confessed how much he or she cared for them and for what reason such a bond existed. Then in beautiful words the worries of a comrade revealed themselves expressing fear not only to the path the three readers were on with the use of drugs, but also for how their personalities were being eroded with their careless behavior. I really wish I knew the identity of the writer. In the context of all that was written, love, fear, hurt, compassion, worry, and genuine concern was all summarized in a single page. There was no abusive terms, no delinquent expressions of hate or anger. Instead, in a noble effort of true friendship this individual was able to express eloquently every single one of my parental fears at whatever his or her tender age might be. This my dear readers is nothing short of God's loving hand inspiring a selfless soul to reach into the heart of some very complicated teenage minds. If this young and wild free spirit is able to teach anything to my son, should there not be hope of us older and tamed parents to teach each other too? Really, what do you have to say?

Dad

How long can you hold your breath under water?

When our planet takes its seasonal turn and the hot summer months arrive in California, nothing can be more enticing than the beautiful cool and crystal clear water of a well cared swimming pool. It is almost as if my skin feels drawn towards an oasis and is begging to be tempered by its wonderful cooling effects. A few years back before I bought my home and while I was living in Redlands, California, my boys and I spent quality time having fun in the main pool of the apartment complex that we lived in. The second floor two master bedroom unit which we occupied was just around the corner from the gate that gave us access to a basketball court, racquetball court, a gym, the jacuzzi, and a very large pool. In all, the apartment complex had a total of three pools. However, the main pool was at least three times larger than the other two and the closest to our place. As a prerequisite for all three of us to decide to go and get wet, my oldest son would first take a peek from his bedroom window to make sure that nobody else was using the pool. To my surprise, even though hundreds of people lived in the surrounding apartments, very few would actually make use of the pristine water hole, making it a lot easier to meet the mental requirements that my son had established in order for us to have some fun. Several times I made it a point to try to convince him for all of us to go to the pool while just a few other people were in it, but I only recall being able to twist his arm once and never again. When this happened, the outdoor sharing time was limited to me and my youngest son, whom almost never declined an invitation to go have a good time with his dad.

In the few years that we lived in that apartment, my oldest son never made a single friend from the surrounding area. As I have already mentioned in previous posts, this behavior began a lot earlier. In elementary school he rarely had more than two friends at a time. It is interesting though, if you saw him interacting with his current pack of buddies it would never cross your mind that he has any kind of social interaction deficit. As I have recently mentioned, it is not uncommon for me to arrive at my home and find him surrounded by anywhere from six to nine other teenagers having a good time. To be honest, even though many times the tribe which he hangs out with can drive me to the brink of madness, I feel a lot better with his current social interaction than when he would be locked up in his singular mental and emotional world instead. These boys and girls that are contained within his social bubble are far from the ideal choice that I would prefer he interact with, but the alternative of limited or no social interaction frightens me even more. At least within themselves I have been able to watch as they all make mistakes and then provide each other a support system to recover from the consequences of their deeds. It is a very slow process, but nevertheless it is a positive process, which allows them to learn from each other's failures as a collective.

I have discovered that it is not uncommon for anonymous letters to float around among this clan of teenagers that has been created. A concerned individual will write about his or her worries with respect to some of the wild behavior that goes on amongst themselves. The empty envelopes which originally contained these letters find themselves dropped on the floor for me to carefully inspect before filing them away. With terrible penmanship they address one, two, and even three individuals at the same time while the sender keeps his or her anonymity by simply writing "from a concerned friend." Rarely am I able to get my hands on the original content which would probably scare the life out of my parental mind. Most frequent than not, the remains of the letters are burned in the back yard of my home and then left mostly in ashes for me to pick up as the ground's keeper. I always ask, just in case my son is willing to share any of the content of these letters, however, their secret society is kept intact with his persistent silence. My second query is typically with respect to the well being of the parties addressed on the envelope, for which an almost angry "everything is fine DAD!" reply always follows leaving me clueless to the main drama at hand.

A favorite thing to do when we would all jump together into the pool was to time ourselves to see who could hold his breath the longest under water. We'd play tricks on each other trying to make the record holder lose control and start laughing during his record breaking attempts. It has been a while and I cannot remember what the standing record was at the time, but it really did not matter because the point was for us to share and have a good time together. Some time while residing at the apartment complex we watched a magician try to break the world record for holding his breath under water. In the show they showed techniques that he used to slow down his heart rate and oxygenate his blood during his attempt. As all three of us learned to do the same things, little by little our under water breath holding personal records got better with time. Afterwards the planet took it's course around the sun and we found ourselves embracing colder months with pool access limited and then eventually closed for the winter. By the time warm weather came back, our fun for free had expired with much more serious problems creeping their ugly head within us and even though I tried to get us all to go into the pool together, we never did make it back in.

Now we have our own pool with a beautiful view of the San Bernardino Mountains in the back yard of my home. When warm weather shows up we are back to sharing in the water by tossing a ball and a few other things between each other and sometimes we compete a little by trying to break records of how many laps each of us can do. However, instead of holding my breath under water I find myself holding it above while waiting for things to get better between me and my son a little bit at a time. Every time I discover the ashes of a burned letter between teenage friends, I find myself feeling much of the same sensations that I used to feel while holding my breath under water. Anxiety, doubt about my abilities, and strangely enough sometimes a lot of a peculiarly and similar solitude that I felt while submerged inside a pool. Even though my kids are just a few feet away, I feel isolation. Is that not the strangest feeling? I hope this feeling goes away soon. I am very used to being able to connect and be part of their lives and I do not care for the current disconnect.

Dad

Survive!

In an effort to support my migraine avoidance, every morning as I walk into my office I turn on my desktop computer, grab my USS Carl Vinson 16 ounce coffee mug and head upstairs to the second floor break area to make myself a 2 single serve tubs of Nestle's Coffee-Mate Creamy Chocolate, 2 tablespoons of the Original Non-Dairy Powder Creamer, 3 single packets of Splenda, and approximately 14 ounces of Yuban coffee. As you can tell it really is not about the coffee, it is more like I am having coffee with my chocolate, creamer, and Splenda! I could just go and pour myself some coffee from the downstairs break room which is just a few feet away from my office, but for some reason their coffee does not taste as good and I am not sure why. It could be because of the coffee machine, or maybe it's because I've come to enjoy the few minutes of pleasant conversation with the folks upstairs every day. By the time I'm back at my desk with mug in hand my computer is usually just about finished doing it's hamster in a wheel routine and ready for me to access the electronic part of my daily routine. It never takes me more than ten minutes to get my caffeine fix, yet in that short amount of time I somehow always learn something new from someone in the break room. I wonder why it's so simple to gain knowledge in such a short amount of time from these folks, yet I could spend the entire day at home with my oldest son and not be able to make first contact no matter what I try. I am not clueless to the reasons, just frustrated as hell.

As I drove back home from work yesterday I called my sister in Plano Texas and we shared a bit of our day. It is always nice to catch up with her since she almost always has some very good advice and I love the fact that we communicate so well. Typically by the time I am pulling into my driveway we both know that our conversation is not even close to being over, but the fact that I arrived home means that in less than 30 seconds I will be all consumed with what might be going on inside my residence, plus hungry teenagers will be tackling me with the "what's for dinner" query, so we always say goodbye before I exit my vehicle. It does not matter how many times I have asked my oldest son not to bring friends into the house when I am not home, the request is taken more as a nag than a rule. So I walk in and at least 6 to 10 teenagers are typically roaming around with guitars, ukulele, video games, and the most common factor, food. Did I mention that only one of those 6 to 10 kids is mine? My youngest son is always locked up in his own room multitasking. All at once he is typically doing homework, playing a game, watching TV, and patiently waiting for me to come home to either feed him or take him somewhere to buy something. It kind of blows my mind that he does so well in school, so this is why I don't intervene on his methods, since it is rare when he messes up. Even if he does mess up, he then feels so guilt ridden that his auto fix mode kicks in and he does everything possible to correct what went wrong.

So back to 6 to 10 children roaming in my home. It is common for me to arrive and find my sink full with every single dinner plate and eating utensil that I have revealing what has been consumed by these hungry critters. The first thought that crosses my mind is "What, do these kids not get fed in their own homes?" We used to joke around with my oldest sister when I lived in Puerto Rico and called her "Salvation Army." The nickname was earned because she was always saving someone from something. Not a week would go by without her re-arranging her schedule to take someone somewhere as a favor. Yes, I think I need to rename myself to the "Teenage Salvation Army Dad" or "TSAD." There is even a sleeping bag from what I later found out to be a runaway teenager that took shelter in my backyard one night while I was on travel. I can only imagine how terrified his parents were the night he did not come home. I know I would of not been able to get one wink of sleep if it had been my child. Just two weeks ago I woke up a Saturday morning to find five teenagers playing cards in one of my backyard umbrella tables next to the pool. It was at least 40 degrees outside, yet they somehow all but one had managed to stay up all night. Two of the players were wearing jackets, two were bundled up in blankets, and the fifth one was snug as a bug inside the sleeping bag sound asleep on the concrete floor.

As I typically do, yesterday as soon as I arrived I did my rounds inspecting the entire house including the outside perimeter. Three boys including my oldest son in his room typing lyrics of a new song they had written into the computer so that they could later print it out and all sing to the correct words. One young lady, the girlfriend of one of the singers, in the family room reading a book. Two other boys in the backyard "chillaxing" under the umbrella table that has been covered with drawings, poems, comments, and all sorts of memories of their hangout days. Again, both side of the sink full with dishes, a shovel handle that I had recently accidentally broken floating in my pool, a cat toy under water in the pool, three empty cans of Dr. Pepper, a patio chair moved deep inside the garden area, the Tiki statue toppled, and the unsatisfactory smell of urine in one of the outside bushes. Everything but the urine smell was typical and unfortunately for me not the first time. After hosing down the area to clear up the gross stench I went in the home and made sure every single one of them heard me complain and request to please not pee in my yard! I also found a puddle of water in the bathroom from my son taking a shower and leaving the curtain hanging on the outside instead of inside of the tub.

A few minutes later I was out the door with my youngest son to go buy him something to eat and gas up my car. On my way to the gas station the young lad earned his meal by patiently listening to me vent about how tired I am of being the freaking maid, janitor, and cook. He's a good sport and never contradicts me making me feel like I must of done something right while parenting him. The drive allowed me to catch my breath and find a bit of peace before heading back home to deal with the teenage jungle that awaited me. In the past my neurosis typically kicks in and I find it very hard to control myself escalating the tension between me and my oldest son to levels that are dangerously unhealthy. Yesterday, as I drove out of the home with my youngest son and vented a little, I could feel my chest compress and a bit of pain from the tension and stress the whole situation was causing me. Maybe I should of once again laid down the law and put down my foot to try to curtail so much of the inconsiderate behavior that my son invites into my life. However, between being tired from a long day of work, the recent long hours of digging a 70 foot trench on the side of my house, the not so fun to feel pain in my chest, and finally the fact that my ex-wife was heading the next day for a well deserved vacation to Puerto Rico and I did not want to complicate her exit...I just hosed the pee, washed the dishes, threw out the trash, mopped the floor, fed the kids, did some laundry, paid some bills, and then simply collapsed in bed under the effects of an exhausting day.

A day might come when being a TSAD might be remembered as something funny in my life. Currently it is just a sad realization that I face one day at a time. I know that I need to be stronger, stricter, and most definitely less of a pushover, but when I was all of those things it honestly did not make a positive difference. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I just keep picking my battles and praying that sooner or later God will have mercy on my white hairs and give me some peace. It is a miracle that any parent can actually survive all of this crazy part of raising their children. As much as I adore my children I so many times wish I could switch them off so I can get some rest. Today as I drive back from work and go home, I plan on buying a Mega Millions Lottery ticket. The jackpot is up to $144 million. That my dear friends is a huge amount of money. I am pretty sure that with even one tenth of that amount I could retire and build a facility where I could hire professionals to teach teenagers and parents how to survive each other in a positive environment. The key word is "survive."

Dad

Individuality...

On our first trip to Nogales Mexico one of the first gifts my parents gave me was a Pancho Villa marionette. The jumping Mexican beans in the clear plastic pill case stopped their little rattle sooner than expected, but the puppet on strings kept dancing away for many years afterwards. I was only seven years old, and little did I know that the funny looking toy would stick to my mind as one of the most easy to recall memories of my childhood. I got pretty good at it and was able to make it walk, dance, and even pull up its hands individually pointing the guns it held in any favored direction. At least 40 years later, the image of the big sombrero on the tiny wooden man reminds me that just like strings on a marionette, everything I do is tied together by how I relate to what is around me.


Experts have written hundreds of books on the subject of human relationships. In my opinion there is either a great need to share what has been discovered on this subject, or there must be some massive confusion as to what there is to say about it. One thing is for sure, how I interact with all that surrounds me is definitely of significant consequence to my life. Working, family, friendship, personal, and even animal relationships all have a set of rules that when matched between the different parties a clear "good, bad, or neutral" adjective can be assigned to describe their overall status. Depending on my role in each of these relationships I have different abilities to influence success and outcome. For example, as a parent I should be much more capable of having a good relationship with my children than with my co-workers. Interestingly though, this is not necessarily always true. I have learned that the more intimate and personal a relationship, the greater effort I am required to put on my part to make it work properly. By simply being pleasant and agreeable with co-workers I might find myself in a satisfactory status, while with my children my role as a father requires me to not always be agreeable straining the status of the relationship. Hierarchy might also have a lot to do with how hard it is to maintain a good status in my relationships. When I am relating to others at the same level and degree of authority that they are, there seems to be less challenges if we have the ability to see eye to eye. I have learned that this perception and feeling of equality is essential in having successful emotional relationships in my life. In other words, having the upper hand, or worse the lower hand in an emotional relationship is just a recipe for disaster in the long run. The sooner I accept my role as an equal, the greater my chances are of not messing up the relationship. However, I could be giving my share of equality but unless the individual on the other side is doing the same, a significant unbalance will still be in place straining the relationship and affecting the final outcome in a negative way.

I went through a significant part of my life not realizing how important it was to not be the individual causing the deficit in my relationships. Many times I caused a great deal of pain in others while I justified my actions with excuses and selfish reasoning. It took me a while, but eventually I realized that I was not just cheating others from their true value, but also myself from the benefit of what they truly had to offer. As a father I don't have the luxury of perpetuating this kind of mistake because of the obvious consequences that reveal themselves when I don't make the right choices with my children. After all, I am their role model and probably most influential person in their lives next to their mother.

So what is there to say about relationships that might of not already been said in the past? To begin, let me narrow down the scope of this question to what might be of use within this forum. What have I not read about with respect relationships between fathers and teenage sons? Honestly, the biggest gap I have found is totally related to how individuality affects parental relationships. There is plenty of good advice in general terms explaining techniques to communicate with teenagers and how to interpret their responses, or even better, lack of responses. However, I have discovered that as sound as all of this advice might seem, it almost never is one hundred percent applicable to my individual child. Somehow counselors seem to want to address the most common problems with adolescents not realizing that most parents that have common problems with their children don't really need much help in the first place. In my opinion, the quicker I accept the fact that my kids are not "average," the quicker I am able to focus my efforts in establishing a functional relationship with my children. This is harder than you might realize since no parent really wants to admit that their child is not an "average" child. Just the idea that our children might be different than the rest conjures images of anti-social behavior and consequences that are just too hard to accept. Let's be honest, when was the last time that you saw one hundred percent eye to eye in your opinions, way of thinking, or behavior with anyone else? So why should our children be any different than us? Accepting your child's individuality is crucial to understanding them, making contact with them at a productive level, and of course having any kind of healthy relationship with them. This is a theme you have heard in my previous posts, my son is wired differently and I love him and want to be there for him regardless.

Eventually I learned my lesson from making so many mistakes in my own personal relationships. If I am ever to be happy with anyone that is a part of my life, I first and foremost have to accept their individuality. In fact, that should be my main reason to love, to praise, and to want to be with anyone. The scars that we have are not what make us ugly, they are what make us unique and special. If I truly love you, my goal should always be to make you feel good about yourself regardless of your past, your shortcomings, and every little thing that makes you different from anyone else. This I need to apply with every relationship that is of value to me, but more importantly with my children. They need to know without a shadow of a doubt that my love for them is unwavering. I might not agree with their childish decisions, but I do need to give in to their childish individuality. How boring would the world be if every individual we met thought like us? What would an opinion be if everyone would be the same? I want to look into your eyes and see that you and me are not the same so that I can learn from you. This is probably not the most important lesson in life, but I have to say it is a pretty big one. Think about it!

Dad

Start building bridges now!

It helps to keep things in perspective. Every time I get frustrated with my inability to make a connection with my oldest son, I then think about how much worse things can always turn out to be in my life. This really applies to everything that surrounds me. For example, here I've been totally consumed with my home flooding problem, yet I do have a home. Yesterday, as I opened my Internet browser the front page Yahoo story was "Homes evacuated in San Antonio as hill crumbles." As terrible as it was for me to have to deal with a few continuous days of rain that kept flooding my living room, these poor folks in San Antonio Texas have been having to deal with a much more devastating turn of events. Don't even get me started with the horrendous situation in Haiti, mother nature has a way of causing so much chaos in the lives of so many innocent people.

I took off from work at noon yesterday in an effort to finish digging a trench that I started on Sunday which is now home of 70 feet of 4 inch wide leach pipe that should drain most of the water that was flooding my home away and on to my front yard and street. While digging I found huge stones, water pipes, and even electrical pipes that all became obstacles and influenced the amount of labor needed to get the job done. Yesterday, after nine more hours of continuous work, I completed the largest part of the project. Now all that remains is to make things look pretty again. As exhausted as I am today, I feel a great sense of accomplishment and pride from having completed the job. If it works properly then the water level surrounding the footing at the back of my home should never reach high enough to flood my living room again. If it does not work as planned, then I am going to have to add more drainage from the other side of my home, which will mean another three to four days of back breaking work.

There is an upside to all of this since I regained contact with an old friend that was very helpful throughout the project. When he was able to make himself available to lessen my burden, we caught up with more than 7 years of our lives that had transpired since the last time we were in contact. As we planned our strategy to solve my leaky dilemma, drove around shopping for materials, later spent several days digging the trench, and finally put the entire plan into action, stories from our past history together climbing mountains, fixing cars, and both of us doing many other home projects together filled any and all empty space and time. I find it extremely interesting how bonding all of the above can be between friends. We truly have a lot of history together with stories of shared back breaking labor and even rattle snake encounters too.

If so much can be gained by the bond that friends develop while doing things together, just imagine how powerful a bond and all that there is to be gained by a father doing some of these things with his children too. So here is some free advice to any parent that is reading this post and still has the opportunity to get involved with the kids. Take advantage while they are young to spend time doing things together. Not only will you have the chance to teach them how to fix things, grow things, or make things, but you will also be building bridges for use in the future of your relationship with your them. Even though I always liked involving my kids in the process of getting things done around the house, I feel like I did not do it enough. There were too many wasted opportunities in which I knew that I could get the job done faster and probably better by simply doing it on my own, so I took the easier way out. What I did not know at the time was that these were my chances to build the bridges that would later on in life help cross the gap between older and younger men. I really wish I would of known this sooner. It is a lot harder now than it really has to be since I find myself feeling as if I am walking barefoot across the cold emotional water between us. But then again, it is really a matter of perspective, since I know that things can be much worse. It is not as if I never did it, since I can recall many times in which I got my boys involved in what I was doing. I just wish I had done it a lot more often.

Dad

Filters, they are not just for water...

36 gallons of water per hour. That is the rate at which I found myself removing water from my living room during last week's rain storms. After two and a half days of almost continuous rain, by Wednesday night the ground around my home was so saturated that water started to creep in through a small crack in the corner of my sunken living room. Sealing the crack was not an option while it was raining even though I tried and failed miserably. Putting in a pump that would evacuate the water was also not an option since I would have to allow the area to remain flooded to a level high enough for the pump to work, while also ruining my drywall in surrounding area. Unfortunately the only thing at the moment that I could do was pray that it would stop raining, and continue the painstaking task of carrying the nine gallon bucket of my wet shop vacuum, which weighs around 80 pounds when full of water, out to the front of the house and on to the street. I tried to stay awake and keep at it, but by Friday morning I was exhausted at 2:00 a.m. and fell asleep. When I woke up close to 6:00 am. I found myself with over 100 gallons of water in my living room. It did not stop raining until Friday night. By Saturday I was able to get some professional advice and started the task of creating a more effective drain system around my home to prevent this mess from happening again. I am almost half way done and guess what, rain is in the forecast for tomorrow night again! Hopefully I'll have enough work done to keep the water level low enough and avoid having to miss work again just to save my home from disaster.

My home is in a beautiful neighborhood halfway down the slope of a mountain. The better the draining systems are on the houses above mine, the more efficient I have to build the draining solution to my own home. Four homes above mine the owner spent over $15,000 building a concrete wall surrounding his foundation and going three feet deep to be able to survive the same problem a few years back. I suspect that this problem was something the seller needed to disclose to me before I purchased this home, but maybe he had never run into the problem while he occupied the property. Leaky roof, leaky foundation, they all sound strangely suspect to me. Statistically speaking I find it hard to believe that he had not faced some of these problems in the past. Actually, once I was able to narrow down the exact place in which the water was coming in, I noticed some rubbery material around the problematic area which makes me think that the previous owner had tried to fix this or a similar problem in the past. So, why would he take the risk of me taking legal action for not disclosing the problem? How does this correlate to many people's ability to convince themselves that by not saying something, they might not be lying? We all know all too well that this is very common among younger adults, which seem to be amazed when you confront them of something that they were doing wrong but apparently had felt no guilt at all until they were caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar afterwards. It is pretty much like saying that you are not cheating or lying until the moment that you get caught cheating or lying!

A common theme in my posts is my admitting to making many mistakes in my life which have taught me the lessons to be a better father. It is not good enough to simply admit my failings, I need to do something to avoid making the same mistakes again in order to grow. The same thought process is applicable to my children. Yes, they do need to make their own mistakes to learn, but they also need to find ways to stop making those mistakes over and over again. How many times should I need to feel the painful sensation of electricity running through my body for me to learn not to stick metal object inside an electric socket? Unless I enjoy pain, you would think that once would probably be enough. So how many times do teenagers need to get caught making pitiful choices in their lives before they decide to make the right ones? For some children the lessons are learned very quickly, but then for others it almost feels as if they are going to be our age and still be making the same mistakes over and over again.

We finally got through the complete 10 week process of counseling which was required by the court to clear my son from his juvenile legal problem that he got himself into almost a year ago. In fact, because of some problems we ran into, he ended taking 18 weeks instead of 10. You would think that from the professional side 18 weeks should do more good than 10, but in his situation it worked out backwards. The longer the process, the more apathetic he became to the speakers and what was being taught. By the end, his mother would be begging him to not say anything during the meetings because all that he wanted to say was so negative and counterproductive, making his situation worse with the administrators of the program. I did learn that when the speaker of the weekly topic was someone that treated the attendees with respect and did not talk down to them, he was much more receptive and agreeable. If the subject expert would not show and the lecture was left to be taught by the director of the program, he would be enraged by the end of the hour and literally shaking while trying to contain himself to not explode and say something offensive. Was my son the problem, or was the director the problem? I want to tell it as it is and not sugar coat it. As an adult, even I was offended by the way the director of the program addressed the audience. I am not saying that my son was right and she was wrong. What I am saying is that the administrator did not help the cause one bit with her patronizing and down talking attitude towards the kids in the room. This is a serious problem with some of these "help" programs. Instead of getting the kids in the room to want to attend and listen, just one bad attitude from the counselors and the whole program becomes almost a total waste of time. Thank God it is over for now.

I am glad I experienced the above situation. Watching professionals screw up so badly the effort of helping young people gives me a bit of relief about the mistakes that I have made as a father with my own parenting efforts. Having the opportunity to see others do something badly, allows me to learn from their mistakes. Not all was a waste of time, at least I learned a lot of what not to do when trying to communicate with my son. Also, some of the speakers where quite enlightening and their topics useful. It is too bad that the people that should actually have the best grip on how to reach young minds, are sometimes the ones with the least aptitude for the job. We have all seen this with a few teachers that truly have not business teaching young minds because of their terrible attitude and incredibly bad skills. But life is exactly like that, with people that withhold information, lie, and many times even mislead others in many ways. I hope my son can learn from this without becoming so disenchanted with adults overall to not allow himself to grow from the ones that are actually out there trying to do some good. I have a filter that I have learned to put in place in order to screen the good and the bad from those that surround me. I know well that I am not able to change people, so what would be the use of getting into heated arguments with anyone with which I disagree? Instead I take what I can use and is worth taking, the rest I dispose of almost instantly. This take practice to do it well, but it is essential that my son learn it soon so that he too can grow with others instead of isolating himself from others. I am working on a plan on how to teach him this lesson. Know all I need is for him to lower his guard long enough to allow himself to learn. Time, it takes time to get it right.

Dad

The forecast predicts rain...

There is something almost mystical to the sounds of heavy drops of water falling from the sky for us to hear when they bounce against the otherwise undisturbed surroundings of our lives. They trigger all of our senses in strange ways that can only be described uniquely and individually. For some, the sounds, feel, smell, view, and even the taste of it carries memories that transport us to different places and times in our lives. I've heard everything from stories of nostalgia, joy, sadness, fear, and even kinky and erotic memories of desires being triggered by the simple and common event of rainfall. It is as if the rain in itself holds some strange power over it's witness that awakens the mind and creates a link between life experiences and emotions.

I like the rain. I hate that lately I have not being able enjoy it like I normally do because I have not had a chance, and by chance I mean enough money, to pay a contractor to come and fix whatever is wrong that makes my living room flood every time it rains for more than two days in a row. I am smart enough to know that even though I have a small roof leak, the last 55 gallons I took out a few weeks ago must also be coming in from some other source through my foundation when the soil around my home is over saturated. It started to rain again two days ago, then yesterday it did the same for a good part of the day, and today it has been mostly drizzling. As I checked the forecast I've discovered that the wet stuff is in the forecast for at least the rest of the week, meaning that sooner or later I am going to be facing my flooded living space all over again very soon. Maybe this time since I have already removed the carpet and padding in the space I will finally be able to tell where the leak is coming from. As frustrated as I am about the whole situation, this one is no different than so many others in my life that I have come to realize that I have very little power or control over. Like everything else, I know it can always get worse...so I pray.


I find it interesting the fact that rain has a way of changing people's mood. What is the connection between our emotional state and the weather? To me, like many others, rain makes me want to curl up in bed and just let the whole day waste away. I really wish that life was that simple and that dripping drops on the roof and walls of my house could be good enough of a reason to not have to go to work. As we grow up, we learn to accept our reality and include a degree of responsibility into our decision processes, making our daily duties a much higher priority than they were when we were kids. Even though I did not hate school, I promise you that I never felt bad about being able to stay home when school was called off because of something like bad weather. How does our mind find a way to make the later on connection that eventually turns us into adult thinking individuals? I am sure that some smart brain science expert would be able to answer that question without much hesitation. However, have you notice that as adults even though we will probably almost always do the right thing, still in the back of our minds the desire to stay home and cuddle under a warm blanket prevails? So in essence we do not lose our childhood desires, we just "control" them better as adults.


This reminds me that I should be a little more understanding about my teenage kid's lack of "control" over their childish impulses and desires. After all, the desires are and always will be there to stay, so expecting them to not have them would be ludicrous. When I ask my children "what were you thinking?," am I not being a bit unfair about the question? Instead of expecting them to think differently, I need to help them learn how to manage their thought process instead. I confess that I have no magical abilities to avoid having thoughts that could get me into trouble. A good example is the not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and stay home during a rainy day. My mind actually goes through what seems like a very elaborate process to convince me that I need to drag my butt out of bed and go to work, otherwise I would probably never make it in during a rainy day. For us men, no matter what your good hearted husband, boyfriend, or partner tells you, whenever we are attracted physically to someone our minds almost inevitably take a turn into places that we should probably be ashamed of. However, most of us have fortunately learned to not act on our impulses and desires without first making an assessment of what the proper behavior on our part should be and this typically will keep us out of trouble. But there is no doubt about it, the thoughts are all there one way or the other.

I want to make a suggestion that could prove my above point and help us all learn a bit more about our children's though process when they have to make choices that are either good or not so good for them. Consider the following scenario and at the end try to make a mental list of all of the choices you made while reading it:

"It is Saturday morning and you have nothing significant planned for the day. As you start to wake up in the morning and begin to be aware of your surroundings you hear a rush of raindrops pounding outside of your bedroom window. The curtains are just a bit open, enough to reveal strings of dripping water giving into the effects of gravity and making the small view seem as if tears were rolling down the glassy view. Under the covers you feel the warm cozy effects of the sheets and blankets keeping you nice and snug. Then you realize that it is not just the artificial contents of your bed that are keeping you at the right temperature, but also the oh so pleasing feeling of the person you truly love sound asleep just inches away too. As your senses start to awaken you begin to realize that once you uncover yourself the air in the room is much colder and it will take you some time to adjust to this change, so your still fuzzy mind instantly rejects the impulse of getting out of bed. From a distance your previously sleepy ears now start to hear how lightning in the close by mountains creates a roaring rumble of thunder that makes its way through the air all the way to your home. Vaguely you flash your vision towards your alarm clock and realize that it is only 6:00 a.m. and the only reason your eyes have decided to open at all is because of your habit of getting out of bed at the same time every day when you are headed to your busy day. Your soft pillow finds the side of your head, your arms the warm backside of your significant other, and your legs curl themselves in between theirs locking yourself back into the where you should of been all along and fall right back to sleep."

In the above I can safely bet that it is pretty easy to go with the flow and as the paragraph finally suggest, fall right back to sleep. Now all you have to do is change a few words to the scenario and pay attention as your mind works out the process of making some very different decisions:

"It is Monday morning and you have all kinds of things planned for your busy day. As you start to wake up in the morning and begin to be aware of your surroundings you hear a rush of raindrops pounding outside of your bedroom window. The curtains are just a bit open, enough to reveal strings of dripping water giving into the effects of gravity and making the small view seem as if tears were rolling down the glassy view. Under the covers you feel the warm cozy effects of the sheets and blankets keeping you nice and snug. Then you realize that it is not just the artificial contents of your bed that are keeping you at the right temperature, but also the oh so pleasing feeling of the person you truly love sound asleep just inches away too. As your senses start to awaken you begin to realize that once you uncover yourself the air in the room is much colder and it will take you some time to adjust to this change, so your still fuzzy mind instantly rejects the impulse of getting out of bed. From a distance your previously sleepy ears now start to hear how lightning in the close by mountains creates a roaring rumble of thunder that makes its way through the air all the way to your home. Vaguely you flash your vision towards your alarm clock and realize that it is only 6:00 a.m. and if you don't make an effort to get out of bed your whole schedule will be complicated with delays, traffic, and rushing. Your soft pillow temptingly finds the side of your head, and your arms the warm backside of your significant other, but reality's a drag and from this moment on your mind takes turns giving you every reason for which you should not wrap your legs around your loved one and go back to sleep. Don't forget your umbrella!"

Dad

Friendship...

Over 30 years have passed since my early college days when I was attending what was then a small annex to the University of Puerto Rico in my home town of Arecibo. I had graduated from high school a year early by taking some of the necessary core classes during the previous summers, so as I began my higher education journey I had just turned 17 years of age, the same age my oldest son has today. My first few days at the university were filled with nervousness and insecurities that were all grounded on the fear that maybe I was taking too big of a bite for my first semester by having enrolled in a total of 21 semester hours. At the time, my eagerness to become a medical doctor filled my mind with goals that required me to basically become a professional student for at least 10 more years, so it just made sense to take as many classes as I could right from the get go in order to shave off a year or two if at all possible. By the time I was graduating from my associates in science two years down the road, I had already completed 80 semester hours and was well on my way to finishing pre-med. Like everything else that I have experienced in life, what I planned never really matched what I eventually achieved. My dreams of becoming a doctor soon got derailed into a completely new direction which led me to become an engineer instead. In retrospect, I find myself agreeing with an interesting line from the dialog of some of the characters from the movie "Across the Universe" in which when an argument arises between a father and son with respect to what the young man was planning to do with his life, eventually the most adequate answer reveals itself as the statement made by the main character of the movie. First the son argues that who you are should define what you do. Then an uncle intercedes in behalf of the angry father and says that what you do defines who you are. Eventually the visiting friend and main character of the movie is put on the spot to settle the argument and he wisely says something like..."surely it is not what you do that defines who you are, but rather how you do it." I tend to agree with that last statement.

On my recent visit to Puerto Rico during the Christmas holidays I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to reunite with some of the friends I had shared my life with during those early college days. The amazing technology of the Internet has once again found a way to bring into my life something that I needed and was missing. Getting in contact with one friend led into eventually making contact with many more, which soon enough made it possible for at least having a small reunion that was amazingly heartwarming and fun. Even though we only shared a few hours together during this last minute planned and accomplished re-encounter, I must say that it was the most wonderful experience I have had in a very long time. I feel as if I am cheating you with my words, since I believe that nothing I can say or write will be able to adequately describe what I felt for those few short hours together. It is like when you see a beautiful piece of art or a majestic landscape and find it impossible to put into words an adequate description of either one of them. Still I feel emotionally in debt to these individuals to at least try to reveal what they all mean to me.

A bit over 30 years ago one by one these individuals, together with a few more that were not able to attend our reunion, walked into my life in the simple act of college friends taking a lot of classes together. A little bit at a time we all became closer and closer to the point that a strong brotherhood evolved that basically turned us into a family. The typical youth emotions with respect to some becoming closer than others was present, however, overall the bond leveled itself out to be amazingly strong and evenhanded. As wild and crazy as some of our gatherings became, never did we lose track of the fact that we all wanted to succeed in our college endeavor, so endless hours of studying together brought us even closer. Some where better at certain subjects, making it advantageous to the others in order to obtain help understanding the difficulties of advanced math, chemistry, biology, and other subjects. The more we shared our lives, the closer we all became, and interestingly, the more we respected each other. One thing led to another and soon we were inseparable. The bond that glued our relationships had everything to do with respect and love, and not once did we stear away from those values.

In the middle of my second year of college, as I have previously posted, my father passed away at the young age of 44. One by one these friends found a way to fill in the gap of my devastating loss by caring for me, helping me get back on track in school, and mostly making me feel loved. During the recent reunion one of my dear friends attending quoted something I had said right after my father's funeral but had forgotten altogether..."many attended, but few where there." Meaning that even though the funeral was packed with people, only a few had made a difference to how I felt. I remember it clearly now, as one by one of my wonderful and loving friends walked into the funeral home, hugged me, and sat down on the floor next to each other and started to play the guitar and sing some soft and loving songs. The guitarist had lost his mother less than a year before, and in his heart he knew that there were absolutely no words that could be said to make the pain go away. Instead, he and the rest brought comfort into my heart by sharing their love with music and their devoted time, which was actually precious to all of them in the middle of mid-term exams. I confess that each and every one of these individuals are nothing less than my brothers and sisters. Even after so many years, to lose any of them would hurt as deep and as painful as it would be to lose a family member. In fact, while I caught up a little with each one of them, I heard about their lives, joys, successes, struggles, difficulties, and illnesses, and every one of them found a way to park themselves deep into my heart all over again. One thing that surprised me was the fact that after all of these years, some did not even have to speak for me to notice that they were in pain because of something difficult going on in their lives. They were not revealing in their physical expressions, not at all, since all we did was laugh, and sing, and share in between beautiful smiles and stories. However, once the bond was created years back, apparently it is not so simple to loosen up our emotional connections. Still, after so long I confess to love them just as much as I did back then, and even more.

My oldest son is now at the same age as I was then. I see him interacting with his friends and am able to understand him much better than he can possibly imagine. Friendship is a powerful drug that has incredible healing powers. I for one have enjoyed the benefits of being drunk with this elixir that life has given me with my loving friends. I hope that in there, between the wild moments of my son's life, he too can find what he needs from some of his friends to become whole. I am a witness to the benefits of having great people in my life, and no matter how far away we might all be from each other at any given time, it is what we have inside of our minds, hearts, and souls that lead us towards happiness and well being. To the great friends that have made an extraordinary difference in my life I say this...

"I have found in you something that is amazingly wonderful and beautiful. You have the power to refill me with so much of what I need to be happy. I want you to know that I have taken your heart and laid it next to my own so that they can comfort each other even when we are apart. Don't worry, they know what they are doing."

Dad

To reset, press HERE...

It is extremely interesting to me how clear my life became the moment I decided to stop making it complicated. As a teenager and later on as a young adult, I found myself so many times in the middle of self-inflicted dilemmas that literally consumed too much of my time and effort in order to get through them all. It is almost as if I was constantly conspiring against myself to sabotage any chances of living a happy life. One day after another I would complicate personal, school, work, and relationship situations until the entire pile of daily events would collapse on top of me, leaving me with no other alternative than to seek an escape route to avoid the wrath of my failings. There is something very unusual about the human mind which apparently contains a sort of switch that when flipped by either ourselves seeking to have a certain degree of normalcy in our lives, or by the effects and consequences of our actions, we then are able to adequately process and understand what is needed on our end to be OK.

I clearly remember moments in my life in which I realized that my actions had led me in an auto destructive path. I also remember either taking the wrong action to fix the problems at hand, or not taking any action at all and allowing things to fall apart around me instead. I raise this issue today in order to share a bit of research I have conducted on my own for some time now with respect to our ability to change what to most mature eyes seems as reckless behavior. Since I am able to recall my reckless moments, I am under a safe assumption that most other people can too. So in order to gain insight into what are the things that make us change our out of control childish behavior, I have made it a habit of asking those that are willing to share with me information about that particular phase of their lives, what or who influenced them to change?

In the spectrum of answers to the above questions a significant number of people have answered "God." A much younger than me, yet already very mature friend of mine once said "it was not until I realized that everything that I was doing was offensive to God, that I then became able to control my actions in fear of God being displeased with me." He revealed to me that even though he had lived in a household in which religion was a very strong influence during his childhood, it was not until much later in his life that he embraced his religion in order to be a much happier individual. I myself was raised Catholic and guilt, fear, and remorse was always planted in my mind, yet even though it helped me not go to extremes in my behavior, it never did really stop me from hurting others in exchange for my own gratification at a younger age. Today, as an adult I am fortunate to have a belief system that allows me to sometimes make mistakes and still find ways to make up for them.

Another typical answer to the question of what or who influenced significant change in an individuals behavior is "love." Finding someone that was willing to share their lives and be a positive influence is a very common reason for change. Again, just as some fear that offending God will bring scary consequences to their lives, the same way others fear that their behavior will cause them to lose their main source of love. It is interesting though how many times it is not until an individual has lost this source of love, that then they finally realize how destructive their behavior was in the first place. Which brings me to the most common answer, "it was not until I hit bottom that I realized that I needed to change," comes flowing out of many people's lips in the most honest and personal confession I typically hear. Losing what is precious to us, hurting someone else beyond repair, being emotionally drained from our wild child behavior, all are associated to finding ourselves at the bottom of our personal well. This last answer no longer carries the "fear" factor as the main influence for change since the consequence of our actions has already taken their toll and made their mark in our lives by then. Instead, hitting bottom serves more as a reset button we can mentally press on our own in order to take responsibility for our actions and try to start living our lives all over again.

As a father of two teenage boys I am constantly trying to influence my children to make the right choices in life in order for them to be happy individuals. I know as an adult that bad choices mean bad consequences, so I keep trying to help them navigate through their lives while avoiding a minefield of scary actions. Sometimes I succeed, but many more times I fail regardless of my good intentions. It is obvious to me that my lack of effectiveness has much less to do with my methods than it does with their personalities. One child listens, while the other appears not to listen at all. I know that he hears me, but in his mind it really does not matter what I say since he feels entitled to make his own decisions and mistakes. The truth is, he is right. Unfortunately for me this means having to witness the "hitting bottom" process unfold right before my very own eyes and feel totally powerless to do anything about it. If only I knew where his reset button resides in his mind in order for me to press it and be able to avoid the painful scenario play itself out on its own. Unfortunately, as far as I am able to tell, nobody but him can press that button anyway. One individual after another has told me the same answer to the "hitting bottom" scenario, only they were able to press reset and start all over in their lives.

Here I sit pondering if there is a girl out there that might have the ability to influence my oldest son's emotional state enough for him to fear losing her and want to change. To date, the effect has been backwards since it is he that has influenced them instead. Not a day goes by that I don't pray to God that He somehow touch my son's heart in a way that will fill him with enough love that he might also fear the consequences of his actions. I am not foolish enough to think that God's influence is in any way in my hands. Instead I pray knowing that I am heard and He is already interceding. However, as much as I try to leave it all in His hands, my breath finds it hard to follow a normal rhythm while my eyes swell and my throat struggles to contain the pain I feel in my chest when I consider all of the possible outcomes to the current scenario. At nights I fall asleep only because my lack of physical endurance manages to take over my state of anxiety allowing me to collapse in exhaustion. I know that mature wise my son is still too young and foolish, even though intellectually he seems too smart for his own good. Again I pray, this time that today be the day of his awakening. In the meantime I am constantly running out of gas and having to recharge myself from my family, my friends, and those that have proven to love me regardless of my own circumstances. Thank you all for being here for me, without you I'd be on empty by now.

Dad

Happiness...

Some years back I remember reading a headline on the main page of Yahoo News that reported something like "Puertorricans are the Happiest People in the World." The news reported that the University of Michigan's World Values Surveys had compiled data on the happiest countries in the world for over twenty years, and their results were considered the most authoritative by happiness researchers. When individuals were asked ''taking all things together, if they would say that they were: 1. Very happy, 2. Rather happy, 3. Not very happy, 4. Not at all happy;" and then combined those results with their response to "on a scale of one to ten, all things considered, how satisfied they were with their life as a whole these days" a subjective well-being ranking was computed that placed Puertorricans as number 1 out of a total of 79 countries. Statistically and mathematically there are many considerations that take place which placed my culture in that privileged position. However, in the past I had never needed an official report to know this to be a fact. There is something special, interesting, and very obvious about the general mentality of most Puertorricans. I could write volumes with respect to this, but nothing will shed better light on this fact than me describing to you something that happened on my way from Los Angeles California to San Juan Puerto Rico.

I left my home early enough to arrive at the airport at least three hours early as recommended by the new security rules that had been placed right after the terrorist bomb attempt on the previous week's Detroit flight. Being early at the ticket counter only assured me an earlier spot in line, since the counter agents were all there, but had instructions not to open their posts until 8:30 p.m. Anxious passengers kept going back and forth to take advantage of the wait in order to weigh their bags and try to distribute their belongings in no more than 50 pounds of stuff in a single bag. Soon it was my turn to be checked in, go through security, and finally head to the correct departure terminal. The flight left only a few minutes late and we headed towards Fort Lauderdale, Florida at which I was to arrive at 7:30 a.m. and wait for my connecting flight to San Juan that departed at 10:40 a.m. The three hour layover went curiously fast as I met a very kind, interesting, and enlightening individual also waiting for his connecting flight, and we spent the time talking and sharing about many wonderful subjects. Soon I headed closer to my own terminal to make sure that I would be able to hear the announcements over the loudspeakers instructing us on when to board. It was obvious that this flight was going to be late leaving since even though we were to depart at 10:40 a.m., we did not actually start boarding until a bit past 11:00 a.m. Almost an hour after sitting in the plane a loudspeaker announcement from the cabin requested that we all pick up our personal items and get back off the plane because of some apparent problem with the aircraft. The terminal was already packed with people waiting to board a different plane that was to depart on its way to New York. Close to 200 people scattered around, mostly sitting on the floor, all waiting for any news on when we would be heading to our beloved island to celebrate New Year's Eve. Around 2:00 p.m. we finally received notice that we would be boarding a different plane out of a different terminal that would be departing around 3:30 p.m.

At least 200 passengers got up from their resting positions and gathered all of their belongings and headed from terminal H3 to terminal H10. On their way, someone decided to take out their guitar and start playing some Puertorrican Christmas music. We had not all arrived at Terminal H10 when at least one third of the passengers where already dancing and singing to the tune of "Esta es la Parranda" and "Quítale el Tapón." It was infectious. For almost two hours one song would lead into another and clapping and dancing was all you could hear from Terminal H10. Finally, sometime close to 3:30 p.m. everybody packed their party mood and took it onboard the aircraft. This is my count of times in which almost the entire crowd of passengers headed to San Juan gave out effusive cheers and clapping to show their joy during the flight:

1 - The pilot reports that instead of the previous 2 hours and 3 minutes of flight, this airplane would arrive in only 2 hours and 2 minutes instead. For this news the crowd broke out in euphoric applause.

2 - The pilot reports "I have good news and bad news...the bad news is that we are late...the good news is that we'll be arriving in time to celebrate New Year's in time in Puerto Rico." Another round of applause and cheering!

3 - The plane starts to move backwards and away from the terminal. More applause from the crowd.

4 - The plane starts to accelerate in the runway. Joy, cheering, and applause!

5 - The plane leaves the ground and finally is in the air. More clapping and cheering!

6 - The flight attendant reports that since we had such a long delay, the airline would be handing out $100 vouchers for future flights. Applauding and cheering all at once from the crowd!

7 - The pilot reports that we are less than 15 minutes away from landing and that if we look out of the right hand side of the aircraft we would be able to see the brilliant lights from the town of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Nothing could stop the crowd from their exaltation!

8 - The plane finally touches ground on the island airstrip. Probably the loudest of all the applause and cheers so far!!!

9 - The plane comes to a complete stop in the gate terminal in San Juan. WEPA!!! The final and most joyful moment of the trip!

Mind you my dear readers that this was a flight that at least in my schedule had me arriving 8 hours later than planned to my final destination. There was absolutely no food or drink dispensed on the plane, and with today's airport restrictions nobody in the crowd had been able to carry with them any kind of alcohol drink either. So in essence, this is a wonderful example of pure unadulterated happiness. I was indeed surprised that I never did hear anyone around me complaining or in anger because of the delay. On the contrary, the mood was intensely joyful and positive overall. I have no doubt than even though I am sure that our yearly status with respect to who are the happiest people on Earth might change, deep inside, this is proof enough for me that Puertorricans are by far the happiest people I know in person. I had to take time out of my fun trip to post this message from my sister's laptop before I would lose count of all of the applauding moments. Interestingly, as soon as I told this story to my family, I have an aunt that has made sure that the count is much higher by taking every chance she has to start the family and friends crowd going on in cheer and applause again. She then just looks and me and smiles to make sure I know that she's got me covered!

Dad

Happy New Year!!!

New Year's Eve brings back a collage of memories of fun times with friends and family during almost every phase of my life. Most of these memories are happy in nature, and then of course there is always one or two that bring back a bit of sadness for reasons I will not get into in an effort of maintaining a positive attitude on the upcoming occasion. To me, nothing can top celebrating this festive night in the company of all the people that I love, an arrangement that is almost always impossible because of life's incessant effect on my destiny. The moment that I set in motion my choices of attending school out of state and later taking a job here in California, the chances of sharing special occasions with those that I left behind decreased immensely. In fact, it has been so long ago that I was in Puerto Rico during the Christmas holidays that I am actually having trouble narrowing down the last time I did so. At least eight or nine years have gone by and just when I thought that this year would be no different, suddenly I received a Christmas present from my mom and older sister in the form of an airplane ticket to go and celebrate New Year's Eve and a few more days with them in Puerto Rico. Nothing can wipe away a sudden and permanent smile that has invaded my face since I got this wonderful news and I started to get ready for this trip. Tonight I am departing on a late flight leaving Los Angeles and won't make it to San Juan until past two in the afternoon tomorrow. I am so excited that this morning I woke up at four in the morning and I was never able to get back to sleep again.

As a family tradition New Year's Eve is always celebrated at my mother's home in Puerto Rico and a great deal of family members and friends will be attending as usual. This festive night brings back memories of delicious treats, delightful conversations, and a healthy dose of wonderful music, dancing, and drinking. By the time the New Year comes in with the sounds of firecrackers, laughter, and dozens of hugs and kisses, what then remains is the task of sobering up the crowd with a wonderfully steaming hot "asopao." Nobody leaves without eating first! I'll be doing a lot of catching up with my family starting this wonderful night of fun, and I am pretty sure some very entertaining post will flow from this great experience. A bonus to my trip back home will come in the form of getting back together to see some friends which have been absent from my life ranging from 20 to 30 years. I am so excited to be able to at least spend a few hours with my early college friends.

I wonder why it is that my heart beats faster when I just thing about the prospect of landing on my beautiful Puerto Rico? Inside my mind there must be some amazing neuro assosiation to my childhood and teenage life that trigger a great deal of physiological reactions in my body. I can compare this to an experience that I have that is annoying and funny at the same time. While I was growing up and living at home our next door neighbor had geese in their yard that served more as an alarm and security system than anything else. These white long necked bastards would scare the living heck out of me when I was asked to go over to their house for any particular reason. As soon as I would stand in front of their gate, no matter how far away the feathered beasts would come extending their necks and screaming right at me. I never did get bitten, but just the basic fear of the possibility of it happening was enough to give me instant "goose bumps" on my skin and all over my body. They seemed vicious and out of control, and I dreaded ever having to enter their territory unless they had been locked up. Why do I tell you this story, you may ask? Well, the plot thickens because for the last almost 25 years I have worked on a military base that is also a wilderness refuge. The place is very beautiful and includes a man made lake that is typically full of all sorts of birds including, you guessed it, geese. Mind you, not one or two fine feathered friends, but hundreds of these huge creatures have made that land their home. So on my way from the parking lot to my work building I typically encounter at least ten of these animals a day, many times more. I have tried for years to figure out why it is that every time I walk by what to me seems like alligators to others, I cannot control the rush of adrenaline and my skin curls up and I get goose bumps. The closer I have to walk by them, the less of an ability I posses to control this annoying physiological reaction. Even though I have practiced, and concentrated, and focused on trying to keep it from happening, nine out of ten times I am not able to do so. This is what I compare my heart racing when I start to think about coming back home to spend time with my family. I hold very little control over my inability to stop smiling too.

This will most certainly be my last post for the year 2009. I am actually kind of excited about 2010, for some reason I get a warm feeling that this will be a good year to me, and I hope it will be as well for all of you. I want to thank you for reading and sharing with me. I want to wish you a wonderful rest of the year and a safe and fun time too. I wish I could be close enough to each and every one of you to give you a great big New Year's hug and kiss. I am on my way to finish packing for my trip and getting ready to get my dosage of Puerto Rico, family, and dear friends. Almost 100 posts on this blog are witness to my desires of sharing my life and experiences with all of you from the bottom of my heart. My gift to you is the knowledge that I am in a much better place because of what we have learned here together, so feel proud of your role in this sharing exercise. If you have a moment, a parenthesis if you will, during these last hours before the end of the year, I would really appreciate your good thoughts, prayers, and of course as always, anything you would like to share with the rest of the class.

Dad