Ideas on friendship and relationships

Did you know that when I approach a new person, a stranger to myself, that I approach them exactly the same exact way.  I plan on developing a life long friendship with that person.  When I extend my hand in friendship to you, it is not something that I do lightly.  When I tell you that you are my friend you are till the end.  I would say that 85 percent of the friends in my life I have known more than 10 years, or darn close too it.

I have been guided by the philosophy that my grandfather told me almost 30 years ago.  He told me "Bryan a person doesn't leave their mark on this world by how much material possessions they accumulate or how much wealth they have, or houses or anything like that.  A man leaves his mark on the world by how many lives he has touched and how many people remember him after he is gone. " I don't take my friendships lightly, if extend my hand to you I mean it to be a bond that is going to last forever.

I feel that there are always room for more friendships in this life.  I don't think one person is supposed to handle everything that life has on their own. They need an extended family, a support network and friends that all pull together when things go wrong.  People that you can depend on, trust with your life and know that they value you just as much.  I have been so very blessed since I moved back to Florida in March of 2012.  I was introduced by Donna Wood (my original case manager here) to Jeff Allen and his partner Jim Geary and was told about PCHAAP and the Daytona Speakers Bureau (Now the Positive Champions Speakers Bureau) through Jeff and Jim I met Omar Mayes and Mary Benefield, Jack Garcia and Robert Moyer.  These people helped me transition from my old life in Atlanta to the slower more moderate pace of Daytona. 

I am so very happy that each and everyone of them has come into my life, and though over the past 2 years my life and health has been a constant roller coaster ride. They have stuck with me and encouraged me to get back on my feet and healthy.  I don't think that I would have stayed in Daytona if it wasn't for this wonderful group of people that have been in my life since the 2nd week I was here.  Over the years we have all been through our own ups and downs but we have remained close through everything that has come at all of us.  Now, more and more people are coming into my life from exposure to this dynamic group and all I can say is that I am so excited and happy that I am still here and participating once again.

But do you know what friendship means too me?  These are the folks I turn too when I am sad, hurt, sick and down. They are my friends whether I am healthy or ill.  They stay in touch with me and make me feel like I am a part of their group and family.  They have become my extended family. I saw a picture tonight and it said "Blood means we are related, Loyalty means we are family".  What an honest and universal truth that is.

So you know more about me now than you did before, but here is some interesting tidbits of information that I would like to share with you.  I am not the kind of person that is going to be super clingy, I am a person who is always there just at the edge of sight that you can call or holler at.  I am going to come to your aid and defense whenever I am needed no matter what.  I am also the one that tries to put myself in the other persons shoes and think about what they are going through and I explain it to everyone else around me in terms that they can understand.  Understand that there is a significant difference in explaining things in terms that people can understand and talking down to people.

I learned along time ago that it necessarily isn't what you say but the manner in which is spoken that is the cause of strife in life.  You have to be very careful how you put thing out there. Remember that anything put into the universe by you comes back ten fold whether good or bad it comes back at you trust me on this.

I have also learned that no matter how much you want someone to change, or how much help you offer others that you see in need, that they are not going to change unless they really want too. The old adage "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink" holds true with individuals as well.  You can put yourself out there and try and help those around you, but unless they have reached a point in their own life that they want to change they aren't going too no matter what you do.  A person has to reach rock bottom before they turn their lives around. It hurts to watch someone you love spiral downward and crash, but sometimes you have to give tough love and let them make their own decisions.  Keep in mind that it is their life not yours.  They have to live and learn their own way.

You don't owe anyone any explanation for what you are feeling and what your decisions are.  See, you must be concerned with yourself first and foremost then what others think or feel about you.  It is your time, your life, and you have to do for you because no one else will do for you.  Hold your head high and move forward you owe no one an explanation, you have your own mind and are blessed with intelligence to make your own decisions.  Do not let others make you feel guilty for what you have decided is best for you and your life, because it is you who has to live with your decision no one else.  

I am also a person who loves hard and gives 100 percent of myself in a relationship and I have certain expectations from the person that I am dating.  I am hurting and hunting for someone to love me as much as I love them.  I would love to find a person who can and wants to spend the rest of their life with me building a future together.  I believe that a relationship is something that should not be entered into lightly, I believe that it takes a combination of love, trust, faith and honesty for a relationship to work.  I think that it is a mutual partnership that helps each party of the relationship to build on and move towards the next level.

In a nut shell you are agreeing that no matter what the circumstances are, the situations you find yourselves in, and no matter who or what comes into or through your lives you do not let them interfere with the two of you.  It takes a total change in mindset, for a relationship to work.  You are now making decisions and choices for two. You have to consider your partners feelings, thoughts, expectations before you make any choice.  You have to think of we before  you think of I. If you can't do that then you shouldn't be in a relationship anyway, because you are not going to remain faithful to the commitment that you have made to each other.

Love is just a minor part of the relationship equation. There is so much work involved and it constantly needs to be tended and watered, nurtured and taken care of.  So if you are of the fainthearted sort you may want to avoid them as long as you can.  Because when you are thinking for two it is much more difficult than thinking for one person.  See when you are in a relationship you owe your partner an explanation for everything you do.  They deserve that respect and consideration.


See my last relationship wasn't based on trust, loyalty and love.  I gave love and a hundred percent of myself, but it wasn't returned.  Every chance my ex got to talk and speak to other guys he did.  He would often mislead me into going on trips to Atlanta because he had been flirting with someone either on Facebook or Adam4Adam.  Every single time we would go to Atlanta, I would come back to Florida and have to spend 3 or more days in the hospital.  We were constantly battling the past and addictions and couldn't move forward together, because it wasn't what he really wanted.

I tried to build a home and a new life in Florida, and all he longed for was to go back to his old life in Atlanta.  But even going back to Atlanta he found that he couldn't bring back that old life no matter how hard he tried.  I believe that he has finally battled and defeated the demon that was holding him in check here.  He no longer has a need for the drug that kept us fighting and in trouble.  He has moved on and is in a new relationship and I am glad that he is doing well for himself.  But I can tell that he isn't where he wants to be mentally. He still feels he needs to get out there and get his own place and stuff again.  I don't think he can actually do that when he is struggling in a relationship.

I have found a happy place in the middle for myself. I am out on my own and surrounded by a loving network of friends that are close by and I can reach out and pick up the phone and call them.  I have my own little one bedroom place close to the causeway that will take me over to beach side and I am enjoying a certain sense of freedom and independence.  I have even started talking to someone that I had met on one of mine and my ex's adventures to Atlanta.  As a matter of fact I am planning on going down to South Florida to see him and celebrate his birthday with him.  I am wanting to take my time and explore and learn everything I can about this person.  He caught my imagination, my mind and has intrigued my soul.  He likes the fact that I am an intellectual and he supports my passion for writing and feels that I am extremely gifted when it comes to putting thoughts on paper.  I believe that this is a person who is close enough in age to me that we have lot's of things in common and can come together and build a strong relationship based on mutual trust, understanding and respect, with a healthy dose of attraction and love thrown into the mix.

So do you think you know me pretty well now?  We have just scratched the surface of my beliefs and desires.  But if you take the time to explore my blog from the beginning to now, I think you will have a better understanding of who I am and what I am looking for in life.  You will learn the cold hard facts of the addictions I have faced and overcome.  You will also learn about my fears, desires, random thoughts and the journey that I am on.  

I am not sure if a person can ever truly know another person.  You can begin to understand them a little better, you can see their motivations, but I don't think you can ever really truly know what is going on in their head or what they are thinking.  In my past I have been blindsided by hidden agendas and half-truths that it makes it hard for me to 100 percent trust anyone.  But I am not letting my past color my future, and I will not let that same past interfere with my happiness and my ability to get to know this new person that has come into my life.

 See for right now everything is about me and him and it might eventually become a WE thing, but I am going to have to wait and see.  I do know that I care about him and that I have made him 2 promises that I know will be very easy for me to keep.  The first promise is that I will never lie to him, he will always know my heart and mind before anyone else does, and the second is that no matter how busy I am in my life I will never be too busy for him.  See I know that if I want him to take a central role in my life that I am going to have to be completely open, and honest with him and myself.  I can't rationalize, generalize or kid myself into thinking something that isn't the whole truth.

 I also have to be flexible, open to change and be non judgmental.  I have caught myself attempting to compare previous relationships to the one that I am currently in, and I have learned that no two people are the same, therefore the relationship are as varied as the people that are in them.  No two relationships can be compared because if you start doing that you have condemned it from the moment that you start, because no one can live up to someone that is in your past.

I hope that you take away from this rambling on about friendships and relationships that they all start out the same. You must be a friend with someone and build a measure of trust before you can explore a relationship side with them.  Please keep in mind that if you really want your relationship to stand the test of time, you have to be open, honest, trustworthy, and committed. You have to be flexible to change and emotionally involved, you have to kill off the I and substitute We into it.  For a relationship cannot withstand only the I's and forget to consider the We.  We is the important unit of measure here.

Don't fool yourself into believing that love is the only thing it takes to make a relationship work, because Love is not a cure-all.  It does have it limitations and cannot change another person into what you think they should be.  You have to have total acceptance of each other if you are going to work.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you!

Uncle B

 

You know secrets come with a price, they aren't free not now not ever!

You know we have been talking a lot about life and relationships, but have you ever thought what the cost of a secret does to the relationship?  See it is true that secrets and lies are not free, they come with a cost, not only to you, but to the ones you love and the ones you are trying to protect.  With lies and secrets comes a certain air of mistrust and that puts a strain on the relationship.  You can't expect someone to trust you if there is something in the way of that trust and that is what secrets are. When you are secretive you start acting a certain way and others can tell that you are hiding something.  They begin to wonder what it is that you don't want them too know.  From there leads to speculation and ultimately they begin to doubt everything you are saying to them.  Curiosity is a trait that is not only confined to cats you know, human curiosity is something that never ceases.  Why do you think mystery novels are so popular.  Everyone loves a good mystery and they try to figure it out way before they ever know the whole plot.

Try to keep in mind that secrets have a toll on you too, they add stress and worry to your life, and once you start keeping them either by hiding them with lies or by silence, it starts to truly add weight on your shoulders. Once you start telling lies you have to keep telling them in order to keep them hidden.  It becomes a never ending task and sooner or later someone is going to catch you at it.  When they do there goes the trust that you have built up with them.  Life is too short to have secrets and lies in your life.  Especially if you are in a relationship.  How can a person really know you if you are keeping things back from them.  As I have always told you communication is the key and honesty is what is important.  Being honest not only to your loved ones and family, but you always need to be totally honest with yourself.  I know sometimes it seems easier to rationalize and lie to yourself, but at the end of the day you know what really happened and no matter how many lies you tell yourself it is not going to change the situation.

That is another thing about hiding the truth and lies, it ties you to them. How can you move forward if you are carrying around baggage of the past?  Lies and secrets keep you firmly rooted to a story that just isn't true and you continually are brought back to it.  You have to keep covering it up, and like I said lies upon lies is like building a house of cards, sooner or later one wrong move is going to bring the whole thing crashing down on you. Again, for your own peace of mind and that of the ones you care about you need to put everything out in the open. If you do that you will find that there is less stress in your life, and that if you stick together you can overcome any obstacle.  Like they say 2 heads are better than one. Don't isolate yourself and keep yourself from truly experiencing love with another person because of lies.  Secrets and lies are the same thing, believe me I know all about them.  I used to do Meth, and that is a drug that manipulates the brain.  Some people think more clearly on it and the lies they tell just to get the next hit or fix can leave your head spinning.  The trouble is most people can see through those lies and see you for what you are and what you are doing, but your head is so filled with the drug you never even realize.

Don't take the risk of being alienated by your friends and family because you are trying to hide something.  For years I didn't speak to my parents, because I was doing drugs, and was partying all the time, but also because I didn't want them to know what I was into.  They knew because my ex told them.  He told them when he thought I had gotten out of control. I was confronted by my mother, of course I denied it. It was my secret and I didn't want her to know.  Then I got arrested for possession, however, in that case I was telling the truth that it wasn't my stuff, however because my parents knew about the drug use and I had denied it, they didn't believe me. Luckily I got off of the charges, but it isn't something that I am willing to go through again.  Hence the reason why I put everything out on the web. I have nothing to hide anymore. I have come to far and lived through too much to go back and start hiding who I really am now.  See the truth of the matter is when Sterling and I were dating he and I did way more drugs than we should have.  We were doing so much that others couldn't believe it.  It wasn't a proud time of my life let me tell you.  When we both came to realize how much we were really doing and how utter ridiculous we had been, and what risks we had taken, we both cut way back, but hadn't quit entirely.

Then later on it started coming to light to everyone around us about how much we did. It was even thrown in my face a couple of times by a number of people that I had gotten so many people hooked on the stuff.  Do you know how scary it is to find out that you were responsible for hundreds of young men shooting up Meth?  Over and over again I hear how "oh, I know Bryan, he was the one that taught me how to slam"  That is not a fond reputation that I like having.  I was always safe, made sure that people knew what they were doing and how to mix up the stuff.  I also stayed with them and provided them a safe place to do the stuff, but that isn't the point. The point is I may have ruined a great many of lives just by teaching them slamming.  Meth is not a drug to play with lightly, it is not physically addicting like heroin, it alters the brain, and is a mental addiction that is extremely hard to break. You can be away from it for years and still think about the feeling, you still get the longing for it. I don't know how else to explain, but it is true. I don't think you ever truly escape it's grasp.  But as I have told you in the past, you can't escape your past! What was hidden and done in the dark always comes to light!

I cannot change my past, the only thing I can do is try to make the right choices in the future and move forward.  I have to let go of the past no matter how hard that is. One of the reasons why people hold on to the past is because they tend to remember it better than it was, and they view the present harder than it really is.  It is always nicer to compare what is happening in our lives with the past, we have a tendency to make it out that things were better back then, but in actuality they were probably pretty much the same.  The difficulty level only changes when we learn to change the way we look at things.  We have a tendency to make up stories and hide the truth of things when we are not satisfied with what we have or where we are at in life.  What happens then is that the lies spin out of our control and before we know it you are defending something that isn't real.

Life is what we make out of it, as I have told you before. If we constantly embellish, lie or be secretive about ourselves how can we expect anyone to ever get to know the real you?  How can you honestly find someone that can love you?  Do you want to be alone forever?  I know that I don't.  Even now I am hoping against hope that someone will find me and love me for the person I am.  I used to live a life of lies and deceit but now I put everything out in the open for the world to see. I don't have any secrets to hide. I have lost too much in my life because of lying and secrets. I want to be free of that and find love and happiness.  Which if you refer back to my earliest post you know that I know that happiness is found within ones self.  But I also think that you can find happiness in another person. One that makes you better than you are and inspires you to do more than you have before.  That is the type of love I want.

Do yourself a favor, when you meet someone new that you are interested in, be yourself, your true self.  Don't embellish, make up stuff to make yourself look better.  Just be who you are.  Be sincere and genuine.  I honestly think you will be much better off for it.  Secrets and lies cost so much and will damage your relationship way faster than anything else.  Be honest with yourself and the other person.  Earn their trust and respect. Be their friend and confidant and trust me everything else will fall into place.

Try and remember that no secret is ever free, not now not ever!

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B