Holiday Let Down

Every year after the Holiday's the nation goes through a huge merchandise return period, followed by the yearly let down that people begin to feel as their family and friends leave and head home.  Refrigerators are filled with leftovers and the nation goes through a period of feeling bloated and wishing that they hadn't over eaten.

This yearly cycle starts right around Thanksgiving and goes pretty much up till New Years.  Every year we go through the motions of stating our New Year's resolutions and for some of us we struggle for months trying to keep them.  Some give up in a day or two, others try to keep up with them longer, but eventually they are usually all broken by June.

I didn't have any big expectations for this year at Christmas, my partner was in Jail and I was spending the holiday's with my two best friends and called all my family and friends that I could think of.  But other than that I just wanted a quiet time to myself and read my books then deal with a lot of people filled with cheer and gift giving.

Unfortunately, things don't always pan out as they are planned, I had thought that I would have enough money to pay my phone bill this week and keep it from getting shut off, but unfortunately, my funding fell through and it looks like my phones are going to end up being turned off till I get paid on the 3rd of January.

This put's a wrinkle in my plans in keeping in touch with my partner.  It also limits me on some of my other plans that I had going on for the end of the year. But in the end everything is going to be alright eventually.  I am not too worried at this moment. I am trying to get things situated to so that I can move into a new place after the first of the year.  I am hoping that with all my planning and working through Miracle of Love to get into a very nice place works out smoothly so that by the time the dust settles and the partner is home that the new place is ready to move into.

I have also taken this time this holiday season to apply at Lyft and Uber trying to drive with one of them.  Unfortunately,  my background check came back with some issues and I had to send in to get them disputed and corrected.  So I am back in the waiting phase for that.  I have also put in my application to AT&T through Spring Mobile who I used to work for in Jacksonville and I am hoping that I hear something back about going back to work for them.  I really enjoyed my position in Jacksonville and I have been trying to get back in with them since they let me go due to faulty information that they pulled during my background check.

All in all the new year is looking much better and more hopeful then 2018 did.  Yet, with the holiday let down and my mood being all over the place, I have been strolling down memory lane lately and going through old posts and pictures from Facebook and Twitter and other areas of my life.  I started reaching out to people from my past trying to rekindle lost friendships and relationships along the way.  I think that getting back in touch with people that have meant something to me in the past is an important part of how I am going to move forward.  Now that I am 50 I realize that I am missing out on a lot of their lives and I feel alone at times.

For the most part the contact has been positive and well received and I am looking forward to what the future may bring with the coming months and even years as we progress on a new journey of friendship and companionship.  I look forward to reaching people who from my distant past seemed to have drifted away and I haven't heard from in years. We will see if things pan out the way I hope and pray they will.

Don't let the post party let down get to you.  Don't feel like you have screwed up irreparably your diet because you indulged during your family gatherings, you have a whole year to lose those pounds that you have gained.  Family and friends are just a call or text away, and you can stay in touch with them easier now more than ever.  With technology the way it is today there should be no reason why you can't keep in touch with those that are important to you.  Life is full of unexpected moments and we need to realize and take advantage of them as they happen. 

The year is winding down and things are finally drawing to a close for 2018.  It is time to start looking forward to 2019 and all the excitement and adventures that it will bring to your life.  Forget about everything that you went through in 2018 because it is over and done now and can't be changed even if you wanted to.  That is what is funny about the past it is the only thing that is set in stone and can't be changed! The future is fluid and elastic and isn't written till you stumble through it.  We don't even know that we are in it till it is past.  Because the present is constantly changing and fluxing as we make decisions.  Our feet may be on the path, but until you take a step the present doesn't change to the past.  Just think about it.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Journey Forbidden

The past four years have been difficult and interesting to say the least. I've been evicted from 4 different homes lived on the street twice, during the past two years. I don't know if it's me or the journey I'm on or if it's a combination of things but it's not what I want. I know that I'm not happy, I know that my health has suffered. And that I need a stable environment where I can rest my head.

As the new year 2018 begins I hope to make a new resolution where I am the focus and everyone else takes second place. This will be a first for me, as I have taken care of so many people in the past that it has become a part of my nature to feel the need to take care of others. Yet, as I look back at 2016 and 2017 it pains me to realize that I have put others before me at Great cost to myself and I've lost everything repeatedly. If I was going to do this why am I not at home in Pennsylvania taking care of my mother who is paralyzed from the waist down. Today is a turning point as I realize yet once again how alone I am against the world. Many times I have asked myself when will there be someone who wants to take care of me. When will the person emerge that loves me as much as I love them? The person who can accept my shortcomings as well as my strengths? I had my hopes and expectations raised yesterday only to have them dashed once again by refusal to come with me. For me to yet once again stand alone when all I had hoped for was someone to stand beside me.

All I can tell you is that I put myself in this position.  I put myself in love with someone who doesn't care as much about me as I do them he doesn't want to be with me  he would rather take time off from the relationship then work on it. Yet he tells me I'm the one who ran away rather than face my problems. Actuality what I was trying to do was get away from being on the street to become stable and productive and create a new beginning for the relationship. This is the first time in 4 years that I ever put myself before the other person but it felt good for me to do something for myself for a change.

By no means am I saying I'm easy to get along with or I'm easy to live with. As a matter of fact I know I'm set in my ways I'm almost 50 and the person that I was seeing is half my age maybe that's where the problem lies,  he still wants to party and do things for himself. I'm looking to build a relationship and a future for myself and another person. Maybe he is right maybe we do need to get away from one another for awhile and see what the future holds in store.

Though I find myself once again in the strange and perilous position. There is someone who has shown interest in me, someone who likes me for who I am and wants to be with me.  Here's the truth of the situation, I want to better myself, I want to make sure that I don't end up exactly where I have been. I don't want to settle for anything. I don't want to be around all the drugs and the people whom I got away from. Many of those people helped me to the streets, they took advantage of my kindness and goodness and took what they could and left me to fend for myself broken and penniless.

It is time for me to be happy, time for me to focus on me. Yes, I would love to be in a relationship where there is someone who loves me as much as I love them. Someone who really wants to be with me and see me succeed. Someone on whom I can put absolute trust. But, I am scared that this person doesn't exist. That I am kidding myself and setting myself up to be hurt once again. This is my forbidden journey, to explore and find that one soul that completes my own. To know true happiness.

I have worked and struggled all my life. I have watched everything I built come crumbling down around my ears as the years passed by and the cancer remained. It has been 26 long years and I am extremely weary of the struggle and the fight. But, here I am once again pouring my heart out wanting what I have never once found. I have thought I found it in the past. Spent years trying to make things work trying to create my ideal when it may not exist anywhere but in my mind.

Relationships are full of compromises. They are an agreement between two individuals traveling in similar directions to stand together as one and fight and build something together. If there is any hesitation, doubt, fear or other impediment the progress and the union will become unstable and falter.  Just as in a fight it takes two, so does a relationship. No more than two and no less. Anymore cause rifts and currents that pull and tear at the foundation and less then two is an individual. I am ready for a real relationship.

You want a chance I am willing to give it but don't screw it up because I am not sure that my heart can take another break. The last person I gave a chance to let me walk away. I came back to get them and they made excuses why they couldn't come. Now, when they have no where else to turn they look for me to come and help yet the help was just there yesterday and they let me go once again. They want me to bring them here this weekend when I offered tomorrow or Friday. What is two more days going to do for them? Will they really be ready then. I don't think so. They are not wanting to stay with my friends who have graciously opened up their home to give us a place to stay. Who are willing to give us time and space to get ourselves together before we have to go off on our own. But he is insistent that he doesn't want to and can't live with other people right now. When I told him that my friend Travis was in the car he didn't want to go out and even meet him. This hurt me. 

So I hope that he reads this that he sees what has happened and finally figures out what he wants and needs for himself.

But as for my wants and needs. I want it all. I want everything
I want love, passion, compassion. I want the kissing, hugging, cuddling and most of all I want to be finally happy and I don't think that is too much to ask for at the end of this forbidden journey.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you. May you love hard, laugh often and live fully for life is too short .

Uncle B

The New Year 2017

Well another year has passed me by, one that seemed to be less trouble than the years that have gone before. Oh how I wish that was true. But to my chagrin I spent so much of this past year in the hospital. There for awhile it seemed like I had a permanent residence right there in Florida Memorial Center.

2016 was a year that I am extremely glad to put behind me. It was a year that brought me in contact with the most unsavory of characters. People who would gladly claim they were your friend and then rob you blind. It was a year where I lost everything of value and taught me that things can get much worse then what they were. 

It was in 2016 that I turned 48, it was also the year that cancer decided to crop up in both my kidney and my lungs. When Halifax hospital turned me away and said that the cancer was too complex for them to handle and I was referred to the University of Florida hospital (Shands) for follow up and surgery. I also learned over again that I no longer want to do drugs anymore, that my life was worth more than a needle in my arm.

In 2016, I gave in to my suicidal nature and tried unsuccessfully to drug myself to an early grave.  I lost most of my good friends and became homeless. It became a time in my life for introspection and self evaluation which culminated in my decision that 2017 was going to be a time for change.  Daytona Beach is not the place that I want to stay much longer.

2017 rang in at midnight and I was safe at home reading a book and keeping to myself. My partner got out of jail Thursday December 29th, but he had no way to get in touch with me. I still haven't seen him and it is January 1st. I have talked with him and I have to say that December hasn't been nice to either of us. He just got out of jail on December 3rd he missed Thanksgiving then he was arrested on December 15th and missed Christmas. I spoke with him today via Facebook Messenger and found out that his grandmother had passed away on Thursday. I am sad that I am not there with him as he deals with this tragedy. But, he really hasn't tried to get out to where I am staying. I have told him that I am here for him if he needs me

This first day of the New Year has already turned out to be not so hot. I am thinking that it maybe one of those slow burn types of situations where everything just starts out but gets better as it goes along. Here's keeping my fingers crossed for that one. So let me tell you how 2017 has started for me. I spent time this afternoon with the family, told them of my upcoming trip to Gainesville to meet with the surgical and urological teams at Shands, how from this meeting a plan of care will be developed and surgery planned. Then I came back to the place I was staying took a little nap, read a book for awhile then the police came. Tonight was the night that they came and took my friend Lisa away. She had been trying to stay under the radar, but apparently they were looking for her and decided tonight was the night.

I feel bad for Ms. Millie to have to watch her daughter be taken out of the house and off to jail. Then she called and said that she thought that I had something to do with her being arrested. It makes me feel even worse that Lisa thinks that I had something to do with her getting arrested, she said while speaking to her mother that someone called on her. Told Ms. Millie to not trust me, and I have been the only one who has been trying to help out buying food and trying to make sure that Ms. Millie has been taken care of.

So 2017 may be off to a rocky start but surely it will start to get better for everyone.

I hope your 2017 is going good, no great, for you and your family.  May all your resolutions be fulfilled and your dreams be realized Happy New Year my friends.

God bless you and keep you.

As always you are in my hopes and dreams.

Uncle B

December 19th Status Update

This year has been a tough year for everyone of my friends, and me as well.  I am thankful that it is finally drawing to a close, and on the heels of all the hard times comes several blessings that I want to share with you.  Every day cannot be a picnic and something I have learned coming through 2012 is that you have to take the good with a measure of bad.  But, with hope and faith things will work out for the best, whether you want to believe that or not, it is really true.  As we went through the Thanksgiving holiday we all stopped and gave thanks for the things that we were most thankful in our lives.  But, that was just one point in the year, we need to take a closer look at our daily lives and be thankful daily for the small things that happen to us.  Once you begin to do that you are going to see that the smallest things add up together, these little blessings may not seem to mean much, but when you take a step back and look at how they multiply you will be amazed at just what you can have come through.

As 2012 draws to a close, I have to tell you that I have a new family, that has opened their hearts and home to me and accepted me with open arms.  They have done everything they can to make me feel like I am a part of their family and special.  For someone that hasn't actually enjoyed Christmas or the holidays in many many years, this has been a big shock and surprise.  Since coming out to California my life has been filled with such joy and happiness that it is hard to contain.  God has been so good to me this past year, has brought me such loving and caring friends both in Florida and in California that I can hardly believe how lucky I have been.  Everyone one of us has a story, something that we had to face and come through in 2012 and here we are we have made it. There have been people that have inspired us, motivated us and given us the strength to push onward even when it seemed the darkest.  This holiday season take the time to reach out to those that have been around you and by your side, give them the praise that you feel in your heart.  Tell them how much you appreciate them, and all that they have done for you.  None of us could have made it through this year without our support group, our family and friends that stood by us in our times of trouble and despair.  These are the ones that have made it possible for you to look back and marvel at all that you have endured and come through and deserve the highest praise.

Though I can't put everyone's story out there I want to point out a few that have inspired me and given me hope for a brighter tomorrow and a happier future.  These are stories that show strength, compassion and love.  These are fighters that even when the toughest of times seemed too much to bear they pushed ever onward and have come through.  I know a lot of you think that I am something of an inspiration through everything that I have come through, but I have a dear friend that lost her husband of many many years, who opened up her heart and her home to let me come out to visit.  She has started to live again and with just a little visit and several hugs brought Christmas back into my life.  Then there is her daughter who I have been close to since she was 8 years old that told me what was happening and wanted me to come.  These two have shown me what the meaning of Christmas is all about, love, hope, happiness and joy, even inspite of troubles.  Here is the unique thing about me and my friend, whenever we are apart our energies and lives seem to get off track and turned upside down, most of the time a phone call between us will straighten out our course, though sometimes it takes a bit more like a visit.  I can tell you that since being here I haven't felt this good and strong in a long time. The depression and despair that had seemed to fall over the house quickly evaporated once I got here.  Now with the Christmas tree up and house all decorated it seems like life is finally coming back to the house.    Then there is my friend and partner who while I was going through my own health crisis's and issues in Florida was going through his own all the way across the country.  Even though at times he wasn't sure about "Us" or "Me", we made it through and are together.  Speaking of him, he just had neuro-surgery just two weeks ago, and what a boost to his self-confidence and self-esteem it has been.  I haven't ever seen him this happy or excited since I have met him. Another friend of mine found himself in a horrible living situation that did nothing but weigh him down and destroyed his health. Yet, through it all he maintained a positive outlook and repeatedly demonstrated his strength of character in all of his emails and Facebook postings.  It takes a strong person to endure circumstances like that, and to do it with such grace and love it has truly been inspiring.  I am also wanting to mention my new family Voncellar, CeCe and Mary, thank you so much for being the greatest influence on your son/brother/grandson, and accepting me whole-heartedly into your family making this one of the best Christmas's ever!  Then there are my friends at the Positive Champions Speakers Bureau who have been there with me through every hospitalization, every health crisis and personal /emotional crisis I have gone through this year.  Even though each of them had their own health issues, and problems they made me feel accepted and part of their circle. Thank you guys you don't know how much you all mean to me.  You are my family!

I know times are tough, money is tight, and Christmas this year might not be as perfect as you want it to be, just know that Life doesn't always seem to work out as it is planned or pictured. It can be better or worse depending on your point of view. Even non perfect circumstances can bring contentment and happiness. Though we may wish for the perfect picture of our minds eye, understanding that you just might not get it makes it that much easier to accept. I have often been filled with disappointments by not understanding this little concept, but this year I have a whole new set of eyes and a brand new understanding of how things truly are.  We have to make our own happiness, our own perfect moments, don't wait around for life to give them too you.  If you do, you will be closed off to new and wondrous things that are out there waiting for you.  Understanding this will also help you to understand that even though you aren't exactly where you want to be, you are exactly where you are supposed to be.  Nothing worth having comes easy.  It is the stuff that you have to work hard for and struggle with that are the things you treasure the most.  As this year ends make sure you ring it out with good cheer and a song in your heart. Let go of the past, surrender yourself to the future, take that leap of faith and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are going to be happier and more successful in the new year than you ever have been before.

Even as I am getting ready to close this entry, a miracle of life has been granted to my family.  We are welcoming our newest member born just a few minutes ago a new nephew.  A new year, and a new life, what better symbol of hope can there be!

I love you all and wish you a very happy holiday season. Make sure you give praise to those that deserve it, cordiality to those that don't and share the joy and happiness of Christmas and New Years with all around you.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B