My Journal 142

I had two realizations recently. The first has to do with my belief in signs from my god.

Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night I was furious. (Duh!) Now when I get angry, which doesn’t happen but about once every two or three years, I get away from people. I don’t trust myself when I get angry. But what I will do is complain to my god.

I realize that we are supposed to praise and give thanks. I do that as well. But like I’ve said before, my god and I chat a lot. And I feel that if things aren’t going as well as I hoped that I have a right to complain. This is what I was doing Wednesday night. My complaining started with the crap from Wednesday, but it quickly expanded.

At one point I was even complaining about my inflatable raft sinking on a vacation I once took to Africa (Some of you heard about that trip). You see, I always felt that the raft getting ripped caused this chain of events which led to a miserable vacation. So while I was bitching to my god about all the crap I could think of, I bitched about that too. Why did he make my raft fall apart?

And that was when I began to have my first realization.

I began to wonder if the sinking of the raft was really the beginning of a mess; or was it possibly a means to save my life down the road. Here were my thoughts. When the raft began to sink, I knew it wouldn’t go all the way down. So I tried to find things to make it sink so it wouldn’t float onto a beach at an embarrassing moment. So I used a sidearm to weigh it down.

Up until this moment I always believed that this was a horrendously stupid move on my part, especially the way things turned out. But then I realized that if I hadn’t used the weapon to sink the raft then I would have had it on the beach with me hours later. If I had it with me, and knowing that I was a young, brash, ignorant, and testosterone filled youth that had just run a mile (In less than 7 minutes), I definitely would have used it.

Yup, I would have “popped some caps in their ass”. (Do I sound ghetto?). I know this for a fact. That is exactly what I would have done if I still had my sidearm. I would have believed that I could blast my way out of a mess. But now that I am a bit more mature and wiser it is obvious to me that I wouldn’t have made it very long. There were about 30 guys on that beach, and even though the skinnies don’t aim it is safe to assume one of them would have hit me. And let’s not forget the 50 caliber gun. If I had been hit by that, then they would still be finding pieces of me on that beach today.

So it seems that losing my sidearm, which caused me to be hustled away, may have in fact saved my life. Yes, what I went through was bad. But I have had a lot of great times since so I believe I like the events as they were. Seriously now, stop and imagine for one moment what the world would be like today if I were not around and you never met me. I would have been gone before most of you were born. And there wouldn’t be a single record of any of it to be found. Scary, huh?

At this point I am beginning to be a bit floored with my revelation. But I also begin to expand my thoughts, like the backfire that hit my face. It made me lose vision in one eye and made me make two loud sounds. I always believe that this was the reason that they found me. But the actually found me a mile away and nowhere near the building where the noise came from.

If I had not had to waste the time to make a second noise, and been slowed down by my lack of vision; then I would have been on that beach about 4 minutes sooner. Had I made the beach 4 minutes sooner; then when the skinnies arrived I would have been about 50 yards off of the beach doing a breast stroke. (Not really a breast stroke, I just have this thing about breasts and I wanted to use that word)

You will now have to trust me on this, there is no way the skinnies would have gone into the gulf to “swim me down”. First, most of them can’t swim. Second, I would have had a large head start. Third, what the heck would they have done if they caught up to me in the water? Brought me back?

Nope, what would have happened is the dude on the 50 caliber gun would have fired into the water and I would have become fish food. So the explosion in my face saved my life as well. Now there was something more about the voice I heard later on, but I think that you get my point. And that point is:

SOMETIMES, WHEN THINGS SEEM TO BE AT THEIR WORST, IT MAY BE THAT IT REALLY ISN’T A BAD TIME, BUT A CHANCE TO SAVE YOU FROM SOMETHING EVEN WORSER!

[Is “worser” a word?]

Now back to my comments about that voice. It was my darkest hour and probably the only time I ever wanted to leave this life. And then I heard a voice.

I have heard from a couple of you that you believe that this part of my story is bull shit. That there is no way I could have been talked to by someone that hadn’t been born yet; and be able to actually meet them 30 years later. You have to trust me, it is true.

This voice said to me, “Get up. You must live. I will need you.” So Wednesday night, during my rage fit (Oh, I do pushups when I am pissed. I did about 300 from 9:00 pm until 4:00 am that night. I was really pissed) I was remembering this voice. But then I thought about the odd message.

You all know by now that I have experienced damn near everything in my life. But for the past few years I have craved only one thing. It’s the only thing I have left that I haven’t experienced, and it may be something that I will never experience. I want to be needed by someone. No, not like you have a flat and you need me to fix it. You know what I am talking about.

But this particular want of mine has just come to light recently. So how in the world would I have known way back there in time that I would want to live just because someone would need me? I mean seriously, of all the messages I could have received that one phrase got me going. There is no way I would have known the effect of that message, so how could I have made it up? Yet it was probably the only message I would have heard at that moment.

“I will need you”

I hold out hope for that moment.

Ok, my second revelation is sort of personal. So bear with me.

I got a text message yesterday. I thought about it all day and night (Yup, I haven’t slept a wink since Tuesday night). I didn’t understand this message and I had no means of understanding it without asking. FYI, I hate to ask questions. But in my “groggy” state, I decided to ask at 2:30 am. And believe it or not, I even got a response. But then I got a second response.

The question became immaterial. The second response was the beginning of my second realization.

I am a guy that is curious. When I first meet someone I question them. I want to find out what I want to know and I want to find out if they are honest. So I ask a lot of “designed” questions for a greater purpose. But for the most part, once I get to know someone I never ask a question again. I believe that if someone wants me to know something then they will just tell me what they want me to know. If they tell me nothing, then I assume that they want me to know nothing. And this tells me what type of person that they really are inside.

But the second response made me believe that there are people out there who are not like me (Go figure, right?) So perhaps this person is the type that never tells anyone anything. Perhaps this person waits to see what you ask so they can find out if you care enough to ask something, what you are interested in knowing, and to gain insight into you based on this. It’s sort of the reverse of what I do when I meet someone.

I am the type of person that tells people EVERYTHING, whether they want to hear it or not. That is just me. But some people don’t do this. So does this mean that I should not associate with people that are not like me? Shit, I don’t know anyone quite like me so if all I had were people like me to choose then I would have no friends. (Hey, maybe that is why I have such few friends)

So now I have to decide if I should change. I can’t ask someone else to change for me, that’s not right. And I don’t ask . . . remember. Then, if I choose to change I have to figure out IF I can change.

I have a heavy weekend of pontification ahead of me. But trust me when I tell you that this is probably the most important topic I have had to ponder in years. And this concept is my second revelation.

So have a great weekend. As for me, I am going to get high and debate this particular person and this specific topic in my head with all my personalities all weekend. And I really have no idea how it will all work out. Damn I hate not knowing!

Luv Ya!