The Luckiest Man in the World

It’s so easy to forget who we really are when we start listening to who the world tells us we are supposed to be…

Thirty and one half years have passed since serving in the US Navy Submarine service for 9 years… Then trying to fit into the box the world said I should live in for the next 20 years… It might have been OK for a while… But it was living someone else’s truth and eventually regret and resentment take their toll…

After two failed marriages trying to fit into the box… And thinking I had finally found a happy place… Still inside the box but on the edge looking out… Though still working in an industry and career I had come to despise… I had freedom to pursue my places of refuge… The quiet home on the lake and the standup comedy stage…

In a scene right out of “On the Water Front.” I coulda been a contenda… A contenda for contentment… But like a boxer throwing a fight on a promise of a bigger payday…

The quiet home on the lake… The quiet… My favorite sound… The freedom to pursue a dream to step on stage and say whatever I felt like saying…

Like crabs in a box pulling the escaping crab back into the box… Wife number three… In the end the worst of the most dishonest of the three…

All the things professed as attraction points… Became points not to be respected… The peace and quiet replaced by constant noise and chaos… The freedom to step on stage and say what I wanted replaced by drama…

No longer attraction points… But points to be used against me… They were points to control… There were dreams to be stolen…

In typical narcissistic fashion… Caring more about what those outside the home thought and felt than what those (me) inside the home thought… Drama constantly played out for the world to see… In an effort to convince the rest of the world she was a dream to live with while stuffing potato chips and Good ‘n Plenty’s in her face…

The truth of not serving two masters proven… The happy place I had found for myself at the edge of the box the world said I should live in was gone… I was pulled back into the box… An even deeper box than the one I had climbed to the edge of… I am so happy I finally said no more… I would not live in the box the world tried to fit me in any longer…

Sadly, it hurt to lose the quiet home of the lake and yes… Pursuing the freedom of the stage again might always be an option… I willingly gave that up pursuing that to provide the best life possible for my boys… Yes, there’s been heartbreak along the way because sadly now they have all crossed the rainbow bridge… but they’ll never forgotten…

Another truth played out… “To find your life… You must lose your life.” In giving up pursuing the dream of a life on stage… I found something much better… Real freedom…

Selling everything I could not fit into my RV… Packing up my three dogs and the rest of my possessions… Travelling all over the wild west… Mountains… Desert… Oceans… Idaho, California… Washington… Oregon… Montana… Utah… Colorado… Arizona and now New Mexico… The Boys and I have had the whole wild west as our playground…

Ocean and Desert sunsets… Mountain streams… Campfires… Stars… Quiet and calm… No drama… No drama queens… No chaos… Sometimes days… Weeks and even months at a time with no human contact… Time only think… To feel… To listen… To hear what those who fill their lives with noise and chaos are afraid to hear… 

The freedom to go where we want… When we want… With who we want… Without those we don’t want… Without those who neither respect it or appreciate it…

It took three and a half years to finally wash it all out of me… And become me again… It wasn’t always easy and I will always be thankful for those that stood with me during some of the rough spots… But today there are… No boxes… No boundaries… The rest of my life… The best of my life…

Only the real me… My truth and those who understand, respect and share the same truth are granted a spot at the campfire… They know who they are…

Today it feels so good to say… Today I am the luckiest man in the world…  It’s going to be a great adventure…