I'm Not All That And A Bag Of Chips.

Let me go off on a little bit of a metaphoric bender here.

Being in life is like driving a car. The majority of the time you have control of it but it is still subject to events outside of our control. We do our best to keep it between the ditches, avoid obstacles, and hose ourselves off once or twice a month.

But as we careen down the two lane blacktop like a Saturn 5 rocket experiencing full gimbal failure, we are going to fall victim to outside forces. We will be T-Boned, sideswiped, and at times crushed and declared a total loss but hopefully we get a little better at it as we go.

Like most people, I have made mistakes, fucked up here and there, done a few things I'm not proud of and had a few successes. But for all the rights and wrongs I've done I have always thought of myself as a person who made an extra effort to be thoughtful of the people in my life regardless of the circumstances of the relationship. In short; to do the right thing.

I have never pictured myself as the great altruist, or the patron saint of nicety, but I have never felt that I hurt anyone out of maliciousness or purpose. But as you get older reality starts to seep into your bubble of perceived reality and after 47 years on this oversize dirt clod I have started to come to the conclusion that perhaps I am not the person I thought I was. Or at least, not as successful at being good to people as I wanted to be. Besides the gradual leak of self awareness sometimes life will slap you out of your disillusionment.

We get these wake up calls at various times along the way but they haven't really hit me as profoundly as they do now. Somebody got hurt and it was my fault. I don't know any other way to put it without it sounding like an excuse. It's not that this type of thing hasn't always bothered me but I have tried very hard to lessen their occurrence.

It's knowing this that makes it all that more urgent and important for me in whatever time I've got here, to do things right. To not spend my last years believing myself to be a person I'm not really living up to, but to do it right.

But today I'm forced to ask myself why I am still making the same mistakes. How is it that even with new self awareness that instead of slowing down and looking both ways before I enter the intersection, I keep barreling through, convinced I have the right of way?

In life just like in driving; you need to pay attention, and keep your eyes on the road. I don't think I'm a bad driver but perhaps I'm a bit careless at times.

Here's hoping we can all learn to share the road.

Keep The Faith.