50 years and still going strong

Despite my many health issues and set backs on this very rough journey I call my life, I am surprised and amazed at reaching my 50 year mark.  I have come through some really difficult spots in the road, but I made it through relatively unscathed.  My personality and body have battle scars and show definite signs of wear and tear but all in all I am still going strong after all this time.  In this blog we have covered many of the battles I have faced and overcome, and many people get the wrong idea that I am a super strong person.  They think that I have gotten life and all it's mysteries figured out and they would be so wrong.  I am an everyday person who wakes up and faces demons both inside and out of my body.  I have a mental addiction to narcotics, and I suffer from severe depression and anxiety to mention just a few of them.

I am also plagued with self-doubt and self-worth issues, and I deem myself unworthy of finding and keeping love.  I repeat my own follies and don't seem to learn from my own mistakes, but I have learned that I have the gift of helping people and that by sharing my experiences in this journal of sorts many lives have been touched.  I see comments on Facebook and Google + that people leave me regarding what I write and it encourages me to express myself more.

I have just come through a health crisis that has left my body weak and tired.  I have found myself lying bed and sleeping most days away.  The doctor's tell me that my body is on the mend and that I should be getting my strength back and the sleepiness that I am feeling should fall away from me soon.  I hope this is true and that this really isn't a side affect of bout of depression which is keeping me locked down inside myself.  I find that when I write in my blog and I purge my soul to you my readers I sometimes feel better about my situation and I find the needed strength to carry on my daily activities and I can cope so much better with the stress and depression I have been feeling.

So here I sit at my laptop and I am pouring out my heart to you once again, even though I just wrote in you just yesterday.  But, I couldn't seem to drag myself out of bed today and literally slept till 5pm this evening. I did get up to go to the restroom several times throughout the day but I couldn't bring myself to crawl out of my room or leave my bed for more than 5 minutes at a time.  This is not my typical behavior and I am wondering if there isn't something more wrong with me that the doctors haven't figure out yet.  For almost 6 weeks I suffered from internal bleeding and on Thursday of this past week I had an endoscopy where the doctor went in cauterized the ulcer that he found bleeding and took some biopsies and sent me home.  I was told that I would feel sluggish for a little while, but this hit me 2 days after I had the minor surgery.  The at home nurse from Humana suggested that I may be suffering low blood counts with my hemoglobin so low from the blood loss that might be the reason why I am tired all the time.  I honestly don't know what my reasons are for feeling like this and I need to look at my schedule closely for the coming week to make sure that I don't miss any of my follow-up appointments because I am hoping to get back on the road to health and start doing stuff for myself and others again.

See, as I look back at what I have been through and all that I have accomplished during the past 25 years I am impressed with the amount of time, energy and emotion I have spent on taking care of others and how selflessly I have given of myself to making sure that my friends and family and extended family were well taken care of.  But, this year I have learned that I can't always take care of others for numerous reasons and that I have to be content and happy with whatever level others allow me to participate in their lives.  The first lesson is that you can't help everyone, and Second you can only help them if they want your help, otherwise you are meddling in things you shouldn't stick your nose into.  Third lesson that I learned is that I can't take care of anyone if I can't take care of myself.  Fourth and probably the most important lesson is that it is okay to focus on myself and say NO when I have too.  Which, brings me to the fifth and final lesson I cannot continue to give myself, my money, my energy, my love, and my all to everyone that asks for it.  I have to be selective and make sure that I am getting back from these individuals what I need to maintain my safety and security and health.  Because No one is going to look out for me but myself.

2018 was a growing and learning year for me and I have had to experience more issues and problems so I could learn these valuable lessons.  Which are lessons I should have learned a long time ago, but had been so busy trying to help others, and keep my mind occupied with their issues that I didn't have time to focus on myself or my own personal needs.  But I was forced this year to take a long hard look at myself and I discovered that by wrapping myself so completely with other peoples issues I was neglecting myself and my own problems and that brought me some serious health issues that I had to deal with over the summer like constant kidney failure, heart issues and long extended stays in the hospital.  I spent more time in 2018 in the hospital than I did in 2017 and almost as much as I did back in 2014 when I had my aneurysm and had to have my gallbladder removed and part of my stomach, then spent all of the fall that year in the hospital and rehab center because of osteomyelitis of the spine.

I have grown and learned a lot about human nature, the people I once considered friends, and about myself in 2018 and I am carrying that forward with me into my 50th year of life and 2019.  I have learned that many people have hidden agendas that we are never made aware of and they have ulterior motivations for everything they do.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately I am not like them, I am what you see is what you get kind of guy, and if I make you a promise I strive my hardest to make sure I make it happen. 

Medical science is still in it's infancy and still cannot predict with any certain accuracy when and if the human body is going to expire.  For years they have been telling me that I am not going to make it and every year there is something new that crops up in my life that has the doctors trying to tell me that I am not going to live to see my next birthday, and every year I find a way to make their predictions wrong.  One day I might not be able to succeed but not today!  My body with the help of the medication that I take daily has controlled the advancement of the diseases that I have been infected with and I am maintaining a sense of health that many of the medical professionals I see are baffled.  They can't figure it out and how I can keep going with so many issues wrong with me.

To me it's a no brainer, it isn't my time yet, and God isn't ready to call me home that there is some work left unfinished that I have to complete before my time on this earth is done. Plus, I haven't figure out how not to get up every morning and live.  I feel like I need to wake up daily and at least attempt to accomplish something.  Like today I feel that I needed to at least write in my blog to make some sort of achievement for today.  Yesterday, I accomplished a lot and I have so much stuff coming at me next week that I am going to be going non-stop.  I have back to back doctors appointment starting at 8am on Monday and going all the way till Friday with a rest of going to Court on Wednesday for my partner but again that is an early morning as well.

This year isn't going to be typical for me.  Ever since I lost all my relatives at Christmas the holidays haven't been special to me or held any special place in my heart.  Dominic and I have not spent a single Christmas together in 5 years until this year.  I don't really like to decorate or get presents or do the festive holiday themed things that everyone seems to get trapped by.  To me it is just another day of the year.  So far this year is turning out the same way and I am hoping that something will change this week that will make the difference for me and bring me back to the Holiday festivities and celebration.  But I am not really holding my breathe and counting on it.  But I am striving towards that as I write this entry. 

But here I am with 7 terminal illnesses, I am now 50 years old and I am still going strong. I am still looking out for my partner and friends and I am still taking care of myself. But I am now also following the lessons that I gleaned this year! That is the most important thing that I have found that I need to focus on myself first and take care of everything else after I have done that. 

I promise you that if you take the advice given in this entry you will have a more happy and fulfilling 2019.  Look forward to pampering and taking care of yourself first.  Let those that depend on you take a back seat for once to your own needs.  This is not selfish behavior it is truly human nature.  Like me you have fallen into the trap of co-dependency and you let other take advantage of you and use your kindness for weakness and your big heart has become a target for abuse and misuse.  Take back your power and live.  Please don't wait till you are 50 to learn the life lessons I have just now learned.  Something I should have known and exercised years ago.  Take care of yourself, Love yourself and then look at those around you and see who really is worthy to receive your love and energy, you might find like I did that none of them are worth it and have to move on.  If that becomes the case then so be it. AS Long as you are Happy nothing else matters.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Family Ties

This evening I am sitting here thinking back over my family and wondering what happened in my life that there are no Family Ties.  My mother and I are pretty close, I call her when I have the time and I am feeling up to it.  But, I hardly speak to my father or my brother.  I am trying to figure out what happened to these two relationships that makes them so difficult and hard for me.  My father and I got along pretty well when I stayed with him, but since I moved out and have tried to make it on my own we have had some troubled times and have shared some harsh words and feelings. 

My brother on the other hand we were closer when we were younger but ever since I moved to Atlanta back in 1997 we have drifted further and further apart and we hardly speak to one another unless something bad has happened in the family.  I see some of his posts on Facebook but I don't even have an address or phone number to contact him on. I have asked my mom several times to send me his number she says that she will and never does.

But my family hasn't always been this distant to one another. When my dad's mom was alive we were a much closer knit family, and all of the relatives talked and we saw each other quite often. Since her passing the whole family drifted apart and seemed to go their own separate ways. My dad's youngest brother died just last month in November and that leaves only my father as the last of my grandmother's children.  Though all of us grandchildren and great grandchildren are still around my dad immediate family line is completely gone except for him. This must make it lonely for him, though he drifted further and further from his family as the years went by it must be a terrible feeling knowing that you are the last one standing.

I really don't know what caused the rift in my own immediate family and I don't know what is keeping us so far apart from one another. I call my dad when I am go into the hospital, and I try to check up on him every couple of weeks, but he really doesn't reach out and call me like that unless it is my birthday or a holiday.  As far as my brother, I don't know what happened between us, when we are together we seem to get along fine and we talk to one another as far as I know there is no hard feelings between us or a reason that is keeping us apart.

I don't know maybe it has something to do with me being gay and always being in a relationship that has kept him away.  I don't know, or it could be that I have been sick for so long and everyone has thought I was going to die so many times maybe he doesn't want to get close to me because losing his brother to illness and death might be too hard to bare.  I really don't know the answer to that question.

How can a family turn out to produce 4 individuals that are so different from one another?  It is almost like we are total strangers to one another, we don't seem to confide in each other and we are all dealing with our own illnesses on our own and trying not to involve the other family members.  I think this is totally strange. I see so many families that are so close, that the brothers are best friends and are there for each other.  My family is nothing like that.

Maybe it is because of the difference in our ages. I am 7 years older than my brother and that is quite a bit of distance. He had to follow in my footsteps go to the same high school I went to and deal with the same teachers I had, who all probably remembered me.  Maybe there was too much comparison between the two of us as he was going to school and he felt like he was treated differently because I was so much older than  him.  Again, I cannot tell you the answer because no one has told me how they have felt.  Now back in June my father and I did have a heated discussion where he frankly told me that I have made his life miserable for the last 50 years and that I was making his death that much worse than it could be.  We have made up since then but the words still haunt me to this day.

No, I wasn't the perfect child and I missed some very important life lessons along the way, and I am don't know how to correct that which I have never picked up or learned.  I can tell you that I care deeply about people and I am a nurturer and that I try to take care of everyone around me.  Most people including my parents are not like that.  I may be stuck in a codependency issue at this point, because I feel like I need to take care of everyone and everything around me. Yet, many times I end up losing control of the situation and get myself hurt.

I struggle with these issues as well as self-esteem issues and self-worth issues as well and none of my immediate family seem to suffer from any of these problems.  Some of these feelings I can attribute to my early age of having cancer and the scars and surgeries that needed to be done to correct the issues that I had.  Some of these surgeries have left physical scars and permanent damage to my body that can never be reversed and at the age of 24 dealing with these life changing events can be traumatic. Not to mention that I suffer from severe depression and anxiety and in 2014 was diagnosed with PTSD. 

I am actively seeking help through VA counseling and seeking psychiatric help as well.  Nothing that my parents, military or friends taught me helped me deal with my body, illness and disability.  I have had to learn to adapt and cope with this on my own.  Luckily, I have made some very good friends along the way and have created a pretty manageable support network through them.  I also am a writer and I use writing as a sort of coping mechanism that helps me deal with the issues that I am facing. There used to be a time when I wrote every day, but I haven't had that luxury in several years, though I am trying to get back in the swing of it. Because believe it or not it really does help me calm myself and focus on the things that are relevant and important to me at the moment.  Writing not only allows me to express myself in words, it is an outlet where I can channel my frustrations and ask myself questions like I am doing tonight when talking about my personal family.

My writing is personal and based on my own life and experiences, it is an outlet and a medium where I can put my thoughts, ideas, poems, and prose into action to help others who may be facing or going through something similar to what I am going through at the moment.  Not everyone can benefit from what I write, but I am read by over a million readers a day and I have followers in 40 countries and that is something to be proud of. My words are reaching people across the world and who knows who might be benefitting from my experiences.

Every day I remind myself that I have no idea who might be watching me, who might be learning from me by seeing how I function on a daily basis, nor do I know who is reading and hearing my words.  That a simple casual conversation can lead you to an unexpected place.  Fate, Destiny and Karma bring us to the place that we need to be at exactly the right moment that we need to be there.  Plus God promises us that if we keep the Faith that he will not give us more than we can bear, for just as long as we can stand and will be with us through it all.  He will carry us when we falter and lift us up when we fall. 

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Death comes for us all

Back in April my father found out that he had late stages of lung cancer.  By the time that they found the large mass in his lungs he had already developed 2 matastasized tumors in his brain.  Within a few days of finding out that he had cancer he was in the operating room and had brain surgery.  He recovered from that rather quickly and seemed to be getting stronger.  However, when I went to visit him in June he had started treatments and was feeling sick all the time.  I must admit that my troubles in Daytona with my car, and then my wallet and checking account plus being in and out of the hospital all the time didn't help his situation.  At one point he told me that I made his life miserable, why couldn't I just leave him alone and not make his death miserable.  I was hurt because my father is my go to person whenever I am having problems and he has been there for me every single time that I needed his advice or rescuing.  My step mother talk to me one afternoon after him and I had a fight and told me that the medication and the steroids they had my father on was making him angry and crouchy and that he didn't mean to hurt me.

However, in a way I think some of what he said to me that day was true.  Over the past 6 years my dad has had to rescue me or bail me out at least 15 or 20 times.  I got stranded in Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale and struggled since my break up with Kerry.  My dad was there for all the problems that Dominic and I had and all the fighting that him and I went through. Dad had to come and get me several times when the fighting became physical.  My dad has been my rock and sounding board since I got sick in 2005 when he came to live with me and Joe and take care of me after my first couple of bowel resections.  It is hard to think of the man who has been there for me so much in the past to be down and out like his right now.  As a matter of fact his birthday is just a few days away and he is going to be 73 years old.  It makes me feel bad that the last summer of his life I made him miserable and had him worried about me and my welfare when his own health was hanging in the balance.  But the job of a parent doesn't ever end no matter what is happening.  I am just learning this now.

I hope that my dad gets better and is able to read this post because I want to tell him that I am very appreciative of all the things that he has done for me and that I am thankful for all the times he has been there for me and that I am going to be lost without him.  He is right that I never grew up and I don't know how to live on my own.  I don't know how to deal with people and that I am better off on my own.  Because I really don't have a clue as to what I am doing.  I am very intelligent but I don't have any common sense at all.  I was lucky when I met Joe Royer and I left Orlando and I went to Atlanta.  He was the stabalizing force in my life, he had the practical knowledge  on how to survive, and since him and I separated I have been drifting and struggling with people, emotions, and drugs.  I found my refuge in my high and I used it to escape the reality of my situation and my disability.

I have some growing up to do.  I have to figure out how I am going to survive on my own without having my dad as a safety net.  He was correct that I could take chances in my life because I knew that he was right there and would help me pick up the peices of my life if I failed or made a mistake.

Maybe I took that too much for granted, and didn't tell my dad as much as I needed to how much he meant to me.  Now that I am sitting here this morning I am really scared and wondering what I am going to do if he dies. I know that sounds silly and selfish and pretty childish, but honestly I have never truly been on my own,  all I had to do is pick up the phone and call my dad.  Last night when I was told that my dad was in the hospital again, and that he wasn't doing all that well, I got to thinking about how much he means to me and what it would be like to loose him.

Apparently, according to my step mother he has contracted a virus and hasn't been eating or drinking and has not been in his right mind in a couple of days.  He apparently doesn't always know who is around or where he is at.  He mistook my brother for my step mothers son, who is in Ohio and not close by at this time.  This makes me think back to the last few weeks of my friend Demario's life and how right before we got him to the hospital he was experiencing a similar episode and didn't remember leaving one hospital and being admitted at a different one.   My friend never recovered after that and was gone in less than 10 days.  I am hoping that this isn't the case with my father but I don't really know what to expect because this is my first time when I was extremely close with death.  When my grandparents died I wasn't anywhere near them and couldn't tell you how they acted.  But, I was there for Demario's passing and I know the struggles that he went through and I am seeing a similar pattern with my father.

I know that each of us has and allotted time upon the Earth and when it is our time it is our time to go.  That there is nothing that is going to change that fact, but there is still the hope that more time will be granted if asked for.  The mind and the body are incredible pieces of machinery that have the ability to adapt and overcome to a myriad of illnesses and disabilities.  The human brain can cause miracles to happen and heal wounds by sheer though power alone.  But I also believe in the healing power of prayer.  I believe that God has a plan for each of our lives and that He is the ultimate physician and can heal the body totally and instantly. 

I would ask all of you to keep my family, especially my father Bryan Zepp Sr. in your prayers.  Because I don't think that it is quite his time to go just yet.  I would ask for prayers of total and complete recovery and the lessening of pain so that he is comfortable.

Please do this for me.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Everything you said but didn't really mean

You have walked away and left me after 4 long years. You made some promises and said a lot of things but in the end you never meant any one of them.  You said you loved me, but you left and didn't come back, I came for you and you wouldn't come.  Then you blamed me and said things that were hard and untrue.  You tried to turn this around on me, but the truth of the matter is that you never really cared.  If you did you would be here.  You wouldn't have said the thing you did to others.  You had me convinced that I was the problem, yet over the last 2 years the violence has increased instead of walking away you would rather hit me, spit on me and say unkind words.  This is not love, this is not something that one should have to endure. Yet, despite it all I have been there for you, sheltered you and still tried to make things work.

Do you get a sense of satisfaction hurting me and using me.  Telling people that I am nasty and that you can't stand to be around me. But when you are in trouble or in a bind I am the one that you come and find.  I have remained constant and faithful doing what I could to show that I care, yet you are not here your still there. I am going through so much and you don't even care.  You don't call or write, I only hear from you when you need something or want something from me. That is not fair.

My mind is in disarray, my emotions are scattered. My nights are sleepless and I am very restless.  Yet still my heart is hurting because I have a love for you. Despite all that you have done to me and against me I am still here. But that my dear one is about to come to an end.  I am torn you have accused me of talking to others behind your back which isn't true.  Many have reached out and talked to me about the things that you are doing.  It breaks my heart to think that you would be so cruel but the words that I have heard you have thrown in my face before so they can't be anything but true.  I find that it has been you that has spoken to others about me and made me seem a monster. 

I am finding out that I have been scared to leave because I have been afraid of being alone, but it seems so easy for you to throw me away.  I have been reminded recently by many people that if you truly cared you would be here, you would be going through this with me.  Someone who loves and cares about another would move heaven and earth to be with that person in their time of need.  Yet, there you are getting high and still shooting dope after you promised you would stop if I bailed you out. You promised that you would be with me and go to every doctor appointment that I wouldn't have to do this all alone. Words, just empty hollow words it is the same thing every time you are in jail you make promises, tell me that you miss me, that you want to marry me, and stay with me.  Yet where are you now?  Not here!

You went back to Daytona to take care of your legal problems and appear for pre-trial services but guess what everyday the bondsman calls demanding that I pay them for both of your bonds. You are hiding and on the run. I am left holding the bag and soon they will be taking money from my check to cover the $6,500.00 that you were your bonds.  I put my faith and trust in you and you have let me down not this time but over and over again.  I don't know what you expect me to do, I can't live torn up like this.  You have no respect for me, you  have no love for me and you made the choice to leave and not return.  Through all of this I have been patient, I have reached out to you and  I have sent you money even when I knew I shouldn't have.  Days have gone by and I hear nothing from you. I have had serious test run and spoken to surgeons and have you reached out to find out about their outcome?  NO.

I am writing this to try and sort out my feelings, to know my heart and to try and clean the wounds in my mind.  Yes I am hurt, but I need to let go. You are doing nothing for me and haven't for a long long time except make excuses and lie.  I came here to re-build, re-group and get my feet back under me I am doing well with that.  Yet I waste energy and money on you when I should be focusing on myself first.  You have shown by your actions that you don't want me around. I have been told some of the things you think of me.  I am amazed that you can lie directly too me and tell me that you love me and care for me yet still do and say the things that you have been doing.  Karma is a terrible mistress and she will come and collect from you all that you have put out.  People are saying that you are lying and stealing from them, that you are using them when I hear these things I don't know what to say.  I am sad because things that I have been told about you in the past of things that you used to do behind my back have proven to be true and it hurts more and more.

The person that I fell in love with 4 plus years ago isn't you.  I don't know where that man went.  He wouldn't have left me, he didn't leave me when I was sick and almost died, he stayed by my side and protected me.  He would never hit me, but since the trailer on Nova Rd it has become worse and worse.  I am not the type to give up on another person, but it seems that you have given up on me so why should I stand in a relationship all alone?  A relationship is a partnership between two individuals to come together and support one another, to build a better future for each other.  I don't know what else to do but say goodbye and walk away.  Something that you have already done.  Days and weeks go by and I hear nothing from you, yet I continue to pay for your cellphone bill.  You aren't here for me!

I have no idea what you expect from me or what you thought was going to happen. But you have been gone over 3 months and it really doesn't seem like you have any intention of returning. I am probably leaving and going back to California and starting over.  There is nothing in Florida for me anymore. 

Please take care. I do still care, but I can't put myself out there anymore for you.  My heart is broken and it will take a long long time to mend. 

Goodbye dear one, Good luck.

Time and place

When you have reached the fill of bullshit that others throw your way you are going to change major components of your life. This may entail changing your venue and restarting your life over again or simply adjusting the current way you are living.

This prospect is usually unappealing and daunting, but trust me there may come a time and place where this may be the only available option. Each of us have different breaking points just like each of us has different levels of patience and when that runs out tester beware because the resulting explosion may actually take their head off. It is never fun or pleasant to see someone reach their wits end not is it fun to be the recipient of of such a cataclysm.

Life presents each of us with challenges and problems in which we must strive to overcome. We may not know the first steps we have to take, we may even be blindsided by these issues, just know that everything in time has an ending. Nothing lasts forever and all issues seek their own resolution in their own time. Though we may not know the correct actions to take each problem will present it's own resolution in time, be patient and trust that God has you and will carry you through.

I don't know what my point of no return is, and I hope that I am never pushed that far. I am patient and try to be understanding in all things that deal with others. Though I will admit that there are times when my buttons are pushed and my patience is tried, especially lately, my​ health is steadily decreasing due to the advancing of cancer throughout my body and those around me seek to undermine me and test the limits of my nature.

On March 28th I will be heading to Gainesville, FL where at Shand's Hospital they will be operating on me to remove a portion of my right Kidney. To some this might be a routine operation, but for someone like me that has had so many abdominal surgeries in the past this is going to be a tricky procedure. One in which my doctor's feel that I will be successful and recover from. Though, I have my misgivings about such risky surgery since I have suffered near death on a few occasions.

Yet, for all things there is a time and a place. I am reminded of something that I once told you about how it is not the ending of the road but the path we take that creates the character and strength of who we become. We are all works in progress and the journey is what molds and shapes us. Fate and Destiny work hand in hand to bring us to the exact place we are supposed to be at exactly the right time. You will see that no matter the path that you choose you are going to reach the exact spot you were meant to be, at exactly the precise time. This is just one of the immutable facts of cyclical living. Our lives are a basis of cycle and circles, think about it this way everything has a way of coming back around. What's​old will come back in fashion, when one relationship ends another begins and so forth. Life is a series of circles​and cycles.

So, as this time of surgery and recovery looms near, I know that it is but for a mere fraction of time and then I will be on to face something else just as harrowing as this, though if luck holds maybe not as adruous or hard. But again only time will tell.  I just keep firmly entrenched in my mind that "This too shall pass" and remember that nothing lasts longer than it is supposed to. Because everything has it's own time and place.

As always Live well, Love much and Laugh often.

Uncle B

There are times when you need to shake your head and walk away

I have been watching two different couples over the past few days tear each other apart with words. Something has to give in these relationships if they are going to survive. "I am sorry" may not be enough to overcome the pain that we inflict upon one another. I am learning that in my own relationship that there has to be a certain amount of give, we cannot expect our partners to do everything the way that we would. See at the end of the day the results are what matter, not the method.

Each of us is taught a certain way to do things and it may differ from how they were taught. We each have our own unique strengths and skills. These attributes are what compliment our partner and complete us making us whole. But no one is perfect and often we lash out with words that are aimed at inflicting maximum pain to those that are close to us. We must remember that words can be lethal and can cause serious wounds that even time can't heal. Be careful with what you say, and more importantly be mindful of how they are spoken. Too often we can get caught up in the heat of the moment and lash out without really thinking. It's those times when we need to try and slow things down and engage our brains before we speak.

I have found myself in these predicaments before and before I realize what is actually happening I get pulled into an argument time and again. So before I open my mouth to speak. I honestly try to think about how my partner may react to what I have to say. I try to couch the words in such away as to avoid unnecessary fallout from what I have to say. However, when this doesn't work I have to divorce myself from the situation and just shake my head and walk away. I know that this might be the best option for me because no matter what at the end of everything an argument might erupt and trouble might be lurking right before me.

Only I have the power stop and argument from happening and only I have the power to walk away and not cause the issue to progress any further. The same is true for each one of you. Remember that it takes 2 to fight and carry on.  One person cannot possibly win an argument with themselves. Try to keep in mind that it might not be what is said, but how it is said that can trigger the undesirable argument that you are trying to avoid. No one is perfect and you can't expect someone else to do what you would do. Because you can only control you and your own actions.

Words used in anger or as weapons can be devastating and extremely hurtful. You must take into consideration this when you are fighting. Because if you don't you one day might find yourself very alone with no one to stand by your side. Words should be used to encourage, uplift and reinforce the positive aspects of your life. Shy away from negativity and focus only on the positive for this will build a solid foundation for your relationship to stand on. Keep in mind that another person whose feelings are a reflection of your own should always be given the benefit of the doubt. Because they are the only ones that are going to have your back.

As always Live well, love much, laugh often.

Uncle B

Dazed and confused

ByWhen it comes to matters of the heart you would think that everything from my past would have taught me that my choice in partners is usually dead wrong. You would also think that by now I would have the relationship thing nailed down and perfected by now.  But with as many heart breaks that I have been through, I still haven't learned a damn thing.

Once again I have invested time, energy and love on a relationship and once again the trust and love that I have given to another has pretty much been in vain. Everything that I do is wrong in his eyes and he doesn't open up and communicate with me at all. I am constantly unaware of how he truly feels.

However, actions speak louder than words and it has become painfully obvious to me that I may consider myself in a relationship, he doesn't necessarily feel the same way.  For months now he has been sleeping in another room, there is no longer any intimacy between us. I feel alone when he is here. Yet, I was miserable when he wasn't around. So what should I do? What answer is there for the dilemma that I find myself in?

Trusting someone after all the hurt I have been through has been extremely hard for me. But I made concessions and compromise's and I came to love this person even though I never intended that to happen.  Somehow it did and at times I can tell that he cares about me. But I really don't think that is enough. There have been words that were said out of anger that have caused wounds within me that don't seem to heal. With him sleeping on the sofa I feel like he is pushing me as far away as he can.  I have asked him more than once if he was embarrassed by me, the response is no. But I cannot get him to tell me what he is feeling. So once again I am dazed and confused.

There are times when we are good together, then there are times like this past evening where things were said and I felt bad about my actions and choice that I had made, so I came home hoping to fix what I had messed up. But to my chagrin he wasn't home and didn't come home at all. Communication was sporadic and very inconsistent and the longer I sat waiting for news the more hurt I felt. So now comes the time where I am going to have to pull him aside and try to get him to open up to me and tell me what he really feels.

Several days ago during an argument he stated that he didn't love me, that I have lied to everyone about him saying that we have had sex. He also stated that he didn't consider us to ever be in a relationship and that is why he sleeps on the couch.  On the other hand I have heard him tell others  that he doesn't know why but he does love me. So which is the truth and which do I believe? I honestly don't know anymore!

I have looked back at my life and what I have given up for others and I wonder often how I have made it as far as I have in life. Before cancer and all the operations that I have had to endure over the last ten years, I can see the strong young Bryan going out and getting whatever I wanted. I was driven, strong, confident and had a sense of purpose and direction. I succeeded in business as well as in my personal life. So what happened to that strong minded individual? What caused me to loose my way and drift aimlessly through life for the past ten years? Is there still a fire burning in my soul a need that can be used to fuel my drive and ambition?

Yes I can see that there are still strong commitments and goals that I desire to reach, and I feel that as I embark on a new journey I can find contentment and direction from these goals.  I still have a purpose and that is why I think that I am still here breathing air and living. I have a voice that needs to be heard, I have years of experience and advice that I can share with others that will make their journey so much easier.  I have experienced so many things that have made me remarkable and unique. Others see strength in me, I see purpose and desire to help those around me that are hurting, suffering, or struggling with the burdens that life has put in their way.

It is here that I want to remind you of an important fact. This is something that I have stressed over and over again in almost every blog entry that I have written from 2012 till now. The important fact that you must remember is that it is not where you are at in life or where you have been, or even where you think you should be that molds and builds you. It is the journey that you take and the road you choose to walk on that give you the strength and experience you need to meet every challenge and obstacle that comes your way. It is through adversity that we grow and become stronger individuals.  Every choice and decision has a price and a consequence, you have to pay these things as you move forward in your journey and they will pave the way for wisdom, patience and understanding to come your way.

So I have said all of this to illustrate that life doesn't stop happening when love fails. Each time you are hurt you learn a new lesson. Some hurt more than others, but in the end you benefit from each and every hurt.  Strength comes from within you, and no one knows how truly strong they are till a crisis comes up. Then you will see that you have been adequately trained for that crisis.

So how will I deal with what is happening in my life? I am going to have to confront it head on and take whatever repercussions happen with dignity and grace and just make the best decision I can with the information that I am presented with.  Frankly, I hope that I will hear the truth and not just what he thinks I want to hear. I need to know what is really in his heart and on his mind. There are something's that are bothering me and they are a little deeper than his actions. The are things that he has done that tell me a different story. I guess it is time to play detective and see where the investigation leads me.

Dealing with others is always hard, and when you are in a relationship with someone or trying to be in one, it can be extremely confusing and difficult to comprehend what is really going on because it is not always easy for others to open up and tell you the truth about the way they are feeling or their true intentions.  My next few days are going to be hard but I am going to have to get to the truth of the situation and either move on or make adjustments because I am unsure of my place and standing in this persons life and before I invest more of myself and my time,effort and energy I want to know the truth and if I am hurt so be it. Because I can't see holding on to something that is only in my mind.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Here I am

Knock knock
Do you hear me?
I am knocking on your hearts door
You have changed the locks
I can't get in...
Knock knock
Only you can open the door again.
The man before you is incomplete
You are my confidence in the face of fear
You are the strength I lack
You are my memory
The best of me is you
I lost you due to foolish pride
Now I am lost without you by my side
I miss you with all my being
You are my reason for being
Please forgive me and come back
I love you

A new Dawn

Last night I swear I was visited by my friend Mary, she kept me up most of the night but helped me work through some very tough and touchy issues that have been brought up in my life.  I keep coming back to her this morning as I sit here listening to Gospel music and thinking about my night.  I am reminded that I am not my illness, I am not my sexual preference, I am human, and I have a face and a name.  I want to remind each of us that we are all important, we each have a voice and a story to tell.  I encourage you to tell your story to anyone who will listen to you.  Because, you never know what the person next to you is going through.   The pain that you have felt  will be conveyed in your story through the power of your voice, and you don't know how much that pain you have experienced will help the next person.  I have told you so many times before that you never know where a casual conversation is going to take you.

I encourage each and everyone of you to reach out a hand of help and support to a stranger today, tell at least one person what you are going through and how you have overcome the past.  See, the courage and strength that you have displayed in your journey may give that person the hope they need to see their way clear of whatever it is that they have going on.  I want you to look at the person you are riding the train next too, the person you past by on the street and see the as a person with a name, problems of their very own, smile at them tell the it is going to be okay.  Because everything passes, nothing last forever and that pain that has you in it's grip right now will soon fade away and a new adventure is awaiting.

Too many times society labels us, puts us in categories, pushes into a box, whether we fit in it or not.  It is societies attempt to understand you and classify you.  But I was reminded just recently that the boxes that society puts us in easily turn into coffins and before we know it we are buried in stereotype and labels.  You are an individual, you are a person, you have a face and a name. You are someone that makes a difference in this world and nothing is going to hold you down and keep you prisoner.  Take back that power that has  been robbed from you by those you once held esteem for, because you are much more than that label that has been placed upon you.

Get yourself together, it isn't as hard as you think. Start with the person you see staring back at you in the mirror.  It is with them that your are going to walk with for the first part of your journey.  They can explain to you your past, help you to come to terms with where you are at and give you some insights into how you came to be in the state that you are in.  Once your road and questions have come to be fulfilled you are going to have to take another journey.  You are going to have to open yourself up and let the Spirit fill you and guide you from there the journey is going to be beyond your wildest imagining.

I have to tell you that if you want to set yourself up for success each and every day all you have to do is wake up and give thanks for all that you have been carried through and all the blessings that have been bestowed upon you.  If you do that you are going to feel so good that a positive mental attitude is the only thing that you can have.  From there as you dress the final accessory of the morning should be a smile upon your face as you walk out the door.  For you are loved, blessed and favored!

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Leave it alone!

I know that I have talked to you extensively in 2012 about the past, but something has been in my spirit today and God has been telling me that I needed to put this back out there for someone.  I am not sure who you are, but I am positive that God wants you to remember this simple fact.

So tonight I am going to talk to you about the past.  See there is nothing you can do to change the past, what has happened cannot be changed no matter what you wish.  I have to tell you that when you look back over your life, you are going to see so many things that you will want to change.  But the secret here is that you can do nothing but change whatever it is inside of you that made you act that way.  It was your actions, choices, deeds and who you hung around that influenced those actions that caused those mistakes.  If you truly want to learn and change then you have to self reflect, you have to do some deep soul searching. The answer is right there inside of you.  You have to change yourself, change your environment, change those that you associate with.  In other words, if you are truly serious about change you need to start over, reinvent yourself.  Take those pains and aches of the past and turn them around.  Know that you can, you are the only one that has that power.  Remember looking backwards is 20/20, you can see everything when you look backwards.  Here is something that you might not realize, but the past starts right now, this very moment. You have to understand that everything up until this exact moment is your past.  For we do not know what the next minute will bring, but because we are here and looking at this the present and the past must at some point must be one.

You cannot step forward, move into a new relationship or try anything new if you are carrying the baggage of  your past with you.  It will weigh you down and throw more stumbling blocks in your way at every turn.  You have to accept the past and accept that you can do nothing about it. You may be able to learn from it and change the way you act if a similar situation comes your way.  However, I have to tell you if you keep picking up that baggage no one is going to be able to handle all that you bring to the table. It will overwhelm those you are trying to start something with. So it is very important to forgive yourself and others so that you have the closure you need so that you can move on.  Once you have closure you can drop those bags from the past that are weighing you down so heavily.  Forgiveness is for you and you alone.  Surrender your self-pity, and regain your self-esteem because you achieve balance by seeking knowledge. Truth and harmony are right there for you to pick up and take forward with you, but if your hands are full with your baggage of the past how can you pick up anything else?

You have to remember yesterday is dead and gone.  You must deal with it as you do with all the things from your past, you must walk this walk alone.  Remember that God is just a call away and will help take that burden off of your shoulders, but you have to be 100 percent honest with yourself and Him.  Keep in mind that tomorrow has yet to begin and anticipate the journeys that may come to you on the new dawn.  Adventure awaits the souls that are free, and who live in the moment.  Time has no meaning now as the divine descends upon you.  In the morning all things seem possible, there are no mistakes it is a clean new day.  The slate has been cleansed and you get to start all over again.  God will never ever give you more than you can handle.  All the turmoil, adversity, hurt, and loss only serve to make you stronger.  They give you hope for a new day and new start.  Give thanks for the adversity that comes to you, because the next time you will have the knowledge and the strength to withstand it.

No one ever promised that life was easy.  Who told you that you would only have a garden full of roses?  If you had just roses the thorns would be so sharp that you wouldn't be able to enjoy them at all.  But your garden is full of flowers, weeds, bees and so many other things. It is the variety and the spice that gives us adventure and life.  Make the most of every day because they are a gift from God.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Trust is a Must No Negotiation

Friends we have talked about trust extensively before, but maybe it is time again to revisit the subject.  You would be surprised at how many people out there are just having sex and jumping right into relationships.  No groundwork has been laid, the two individual know absolutely nothing about each other and yet because they have had sex and it was good or adequate they automatically think they are in love,  What is actually happening is folks are replacing love for lust and thinking that they can build relationships off of that. Unfortunately that is flawed thinking and nothing lasting can be built on that foundation.  You have to begin each relationship in the manner like you are creating a friendship, and here is another piece of information I have learned along the way, if you don't know someone you have no basis for trusting them. Trust comes from knowing a person, spending time around that person and seeing how they react to certain situations and how they handle the trust that you extend to them.  If they don't earn it or display back what you have given them then are they truly worth you spending your time on?  The answer to that is no they are not.

A friend of mine once told me that life is like a checkbook, we make deposits and withdrawals from it all the time.  However, if there is someone in your life that is withdrawing more than they are depositing what happens?  Well, just like in a checking account if you have more debits than deposits your checkbook will go negative and will be impossible to balance.  The same thing holds true for your own life.  If someone is not giving you as much as you are giving them, your life becomes negative and you go out of balance.  Balance is very important in a relationship, and helps you start building up trust with another individual.  You can apply this to your love life, as well as your personal life.

A relationship is a relationship whether it is a friendship, love interest, family or any other type of social interaction you might have or experience.  Just a couple of days ago I was talking to you about this very subject and that I approach each new encounter like I am creating a foundation of friendship that will last long term.  I don't want to throw my care and love away, I want to build something that reflects how I am feeling, and I do this by making new friends and cultivating them the same exact way.  But you may be wondering to yourself by this point what does this all have to do with trust, well let me explain something to you.  Trust is the foundation on which friendships and relationships can be built upon, it is solid, unbroken and strong.  The Bible tells us that we should build our relationships upon a rock or firm foundation that sand or clay as the foundation wouldn't be sturdy enough to hold up a building let alone a relationship.  What do I mean by stating this fact?  I mean that a firm foundation of trust is a must.  You have to be able to have faith and trust in your partner or your relationship is doomed from the very beginning just like if you tried to build a house on a sand or clay foundation.  As soon as a strong wind comes against the structure it will fall or fold under the pressure if it is built upon the sand or the clay.  A foundation of trust is like building your relationship/friendship on solid stone.  You can add weight, pressure and even dimensions to a strong rock and it will not budge or falter.

Do you know what happens when those closest to you betray you or break your trust?  I can tell you that some of it would be anger, resentment, maybe even hatred. Most importantly is the fact that the trust you have has been betrayed or broken which could cause emotional trauma that might lead the other person down a very dark road, which ends up in their destruction.  It is important to respect each other and continually strengthen the bonds of trust.  There has to be clear lines of communication, and I am not just talking about telling someone how your day was or what you are up too.  I mean really communicating, listening as well as speaking.  You can't grow as a listener if your are always talking and vice versus, there has to be a happy middle ground.  Trust grows with each passing day and with every interaction you have with another person.  If there isn't, the relationship can become stagnant almost certainly diseases and depression can occur.  Trust is one of the most important things you can build between yourself and another person.
In a previous article I mentioned that we truly will never know what another person is thinking. You might wonder what I am trying tell to you. Is that no matter how long you have known a person, you cannot be 100% sure of what they are thinking or how they might act.  Humans are very secretive in nature, they also have a tendency to lie directly to you. All of these things shape how you look at relationships and who you let get close to you.   Each of us has built walls inside ourselves to avoid hurt and pain that others have inflicted upon you.  Once you have been hurt you immediately go into a tailspin, you feel hurt, anger, betrayal, resolution and finally you get past the hurt.  However, one thing that happens is that a wall is built up so that another person cannot do the same thing to you and hurt you all over again. It is the process of grieving that we each go through when a break-up occurs.  Therefore, it is going to take an extra special person to break through that wall, and it is going to take you sometime before you can open your heart up totally and let someone in.

I hope I haven't lost you along the way, but these two things are important for any relationship to have.  First, you have to build trust and get to know a person.  Secondly, you are going to have to study the person and figure out their patterns..  Each of us has a routine or pattern that we constantly update and work on.  If you can figure out the other person's pattern you can start to understand them better.  Because you can predict how they are going to react in each situation.  But, you must be observant and really get to know the person.  Once you figure out a persons pattern, a foundation begins to be laid, a friendship begins to form and stabilize.  The more you get to know a person, and their patterns trust starts to build between the too of you.  When this foundation is finally laid and you really start to get the person and can understand how they work, their moods, and their behaviors it becomes easier see if the person is being 100% truthful with you and can also begin to see through their lies if they do happen to lie to you.  However, remember what I told you at the beginning of this entry, if someone lies to you or you breaks your trust you need to let them go.  More debits than deposit throws your whole life out of balance and brings in negativity.

Please keep this in mind that trust flows both ways, and both people in the friendship or relationship have the potential to break each others trust and cause hurt.  Therefore it is very important that you are open and honest with your friends and partners.  Please keep in mind that if you shatter the bonds of trust with those you love you could tumble them down a dark path .  Those bonds of trust may never be able to be recreated again because they have lost faith in you and there is no going back once that trust has been discarded. Family and friends can hurt you just as bad as someone you have just met and are trying to get to know on a more intimate basis.

In the gay community, males have a tendency to be attracted to good looking people.  I believe that our priorities are screwed up and off balance.  Don't get me wrong looks do play a minor role in getting two people together.  But it isn't the most important thing.  Mental connection, the ability to make you laugh, someone who can make you feel good about yourself, they build you up and never tears you down.  These are the important traits that a relationship should be built on.  However, in the gay community we have the tendency to confuse lust for love, we jump into bed with the person we find attractive.  Here is the problem with that, when lust is confused for love there isn't a firm foundation you are building your house or relationship on sand, and sooner or later it will crumble and fall apart.  Love is something that grows, needs attention and has to have 100 % participation by both people involved in the relationship.  If you remember the song "The Rose" by Bette Middler, you understand that love starts out as a seed and grows into a beautiful flower.  Patience is necessary in any relationship.  You have to be open and receptive as well.

If you want to know if someone really loves you and cares about your well being, try and get to know someone and resist jumping directly into bed with the person.  Abstain for at least a month and if the person really cares about you they will understand and will wait for you.  Once sex gets comes into the equation our feelings get all messed up, we get confused and lust takes over, and yet there might be a seed planted, it hasn't even started to grow yet.  Learning another person, exploring everything about them is just the first step in building a relationship, but it also the first step towards building trust.  Remember, that relationships/friendship are tenuous things at the beginning and if you don't cultivate them correctly they wither and die before they have a chance to grow deep roots.

It is my hope that by you reading this you will be able to cultivate new friends and relationships.  Love is grown and cultivated in the same way.  A seed is planted, watered with attention, weeded with knowledge and before you know it it will have bloomed into a beautiful flower with strong roots and can stand any storm that comes it's way.

So when I tell you that trust is a must, you can see that it is essential for both a budding relationship as well as a full bloom relationship.  Trust is the foundation that is solid and allows a relationship to be strong and stable.  Words, deeds and lies can destroy even the strongest foundation and cause a relationship to spiral downward and break apart.  Remember that once that lie comes to light they are going to loose all faith in you and then there is no going back.

Please understand that if you want to be in a relationship you are going to have to work hard at it and build it on a firm foundation with compromise and open heart and mind. Remember being forewarned is forearmed.

All I can say from here is trust in yourself, find the goodness in others, cultivate every encounter with the mindset of forming a lasting friendship and sit back and see what happens.  If you feel it is right plant the seed of love and cultivate it properly.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

The weight on my chest

They keep telling me that life is what you make of it.  I have yet again taken a wrong turn and before I realized it I was back to where I started.

It is sad when you really like someone and they take advantage and end up pretty much just used you.  You know it used to be that way in my life not to very long ago.  There was always and excuse or false hood that had been concocted and I would allow myself to be dragged in.

Ulterior motives, hidden agendas, and pretty much the norm these days.  This new generation feels that they have to hide what is really going on.

I am hurt, betrayed, angry, frustrated, and laughing and crying at the same time.  Why not just tell me that you want to party and have some fun.  Why put me through Atlanta all over again?  Why do what he did?

I have learned my lesson, a true friend would not have encouraged me to stay off the drugs and walk away.  However, the temptation was there and then it got so easy to take advantage, purchase, and even take extra money out of my account.  All under the guise I know only too well "Lets go half, and I got you, don't worry, I am going to give the money back.'

I am not sure why you played with my heart, you should have just asked for the money.  But, I take responsibility, I could have walked away anytime and come home. I chose to stay, because I thought I saw an honest and kind person. But as the weekend progressed, I heard things and realized that I never should have come down there.  It was a set up from the get go.

Okay I accept that and now are letting go of all the animosity, hurt and pain that I am feeling. See the writing gets it out of my system. Now that I have written about this I am going to be fine emotionally that is, any other way I don't think you honestly give a crap about my health or well being.

I only stayed because my heart wanted to believe that I had met someone that truly liked me.  But, the day that you hit me you told me I was ugly.  Which only confirmed the other little comments that were said under your breathe.  You knew what happened to me every time I went to Atlanta and you orchestrated it well, yet I stayed.  I stayed because I think there were some sincere moments when the real you surfaced for just a minute, and that was the person I was trying to get too.

You knew the limitations I continually told you that I needed at least 700 in my account to keep the rent check from bouncing.  Yet you manipulated me, told me you were going to take 40 out of my account yet when you came back you took 100 out of my account.  I am not sure why you did it. Once again, if I would have been told the entire situation, I could have  bought more stuff and saved some money.  But here we are and I am sitting negative 500.00.  That come on you know I got you.  I am going half with you, everything is going to be alright.  Guess what it isn't alright.

A real friend and someone that wants to get to know you. Would have been up front told you what the plans were and that drugs were going to be involved.  Second they would have shown some interest in you which never happened.

What I find even more funny  is that I was buying the sTuff, and I was shorted all weekend.  You gave everyone more than me.  I didn't say anything it was just drugs.  But for you to actually get mad at me and punched me in the face and told me that I shorted and stole the sTuff,  which was impossible it was mine to begin with I paid for it.

But, through everything that you did too me, I still turned around and picked you up and took you to your mom's house.  I still wanted to be a friend and made sure you weren't stranded.

Damn if you were just a fraction of the man I thought you were and what you portrayed yourself to be while talking to me on  the phone, I would have been happy.

How disappointing!

But I have to give credit where credit is due.  My ex never, ever, hit me first off especially over drugs. Second him and I always made sure  the the bills were paid first they were priority.  Over and over I kept telling him that I didn't have the money and that my rent check still hadn't processed.  He didn't care, just kept on pushing and nagging and wheedling and eventually I caved in.  Now, I have to face the consequences of all of this alone.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

When you make time still

Last night we talked about how life comes out of darkness and from strife comes change.  I wanted to talk to you more about darkness and moments in our lives when we need to sit back and reflect.  Each of us comes to a point in our lives when we look back over our life and are disheartened by where we are at.  Most of the time this comes when we are down and are trying to figure out which way we have to go.  Darkness has descended on our lives and our emotions are all embroiled.  I reflect back and I look at where I am today and I am saddened because I sometimes feel like I have been a complete failure.  My father said once that Bryan look at your life and what you have lost, you are 46 years old and you should know better.  You cannot help everyone, some people don't want saving, and they just want to take advantage of you and your kindness. You should be so much more secure in your life and situation.  FAILURE is what that message screamed to me, making me feel even worse about myself and the my life.

See, I never thought that at 46 I would be living back at my dad's struggling to get back on my feet and to turn my life around.  If you look back at where I have been and what I had you will begin to realize that my life wasn't so bad.  But from my current vantage point it is just so much easier to see where I am and not where I have been.  Yes, I miss my home, my cars, my friends, my old life, but the loss was not of my own doing.  I had some fault in the matter, but illness took the center stage in my life and rewrote my story.  This can happen to anyone, no matter where you are at in life and what you have achieved, illness can come in and with a wide sweeping reach can take everything away in a blink.  I have been going through a very dark place for a very long time, and it will never be over.  What I look forward to is the bits of light that break through that darkness and for a little bit light my path.  In other words, from 2005 till now I have been in and out of hospitals constantly and have been fighting for my life. I have been sick and there doesn't seem to be an end to this in sight. Yet, there have been spots in this turmoil where I have met friends, partners and lovers, that have made life bearable.

During those times of darkness and when the doubt and despair creep in, I need to take the time to reflect and make time stand still. I need to look back at my life and see the whole thing. See the bigger picture.  See, it isn't where I am at that is important. No, it was the journey that brought me here.  It is what has molded me, crafted me and made me into the person I am today.  When I look at all I have done, been and accomplished my life doesn't seem so bleak at all.  As a matter of fact my life starts looking to like a plot to a movie or a great fast paced book.  I have had such a colorful past, many interesting friends and have been into so many things and through so much drama that you would think that I couldn't have possibly lived like that.  Trust me, anyone that knows me can tell you that I have had a very blessed and magical life.  So,  when I take the time to actually reflect and see the entire picture the story doesn't seem so hopeless or tragic, on the contrary it starts to look pretty darn good.

In our darkest times and we are stuck without light I believe that there comes a point just before the light crests the horizon that we come to terms with whatever it is that we are going through and just at the perfect precise moment that all things seem possible to us.  Like life is renewing itself and everything starts to seem right again in the world.  Now, you might be wonder what in the world am I talking about.  If you remember back to an article I wrote in 2012 I told you that there are no perfect moments in our lives, that time waits for no one and we have to create those special moments by doing little things to make those moments memorable forever.  It is my belief that during our trials, tribulations and pain, there comes a single moment when we have made a decision to change and have started to take steps on that new path that a moment of clarity comes to us and we know that what we are doing is possible.

This is just another point in my discussion that strengthens my argument that out of darkness comes life.  That the strife that we face in life (darkness) is the catalyst for change. During our journey through that time of darkness there comes a moment in our thought process where we begin to look for answers and an escape from the trouble that is hounding us.  I believe that when we sit back and reflect on our lives, and see the journey and the destinations we have had along the way we make time still and our mind calms and we can see all the possible solutions to our situation.

Just keep this in mind that everything changes, and you have to too in order to evolve. Nothing last forever, and in the darkness everything seems possible at some points.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Catalyst for change!

Someone told me last week that out of darkness comes life, and I have been thinking on that all week. I had been sick and I am sorry that I haven't been able to write, but I am starting to feel a little better with the antibiotics.  Anyhow we were talking about life coming from darkness.  The Bible tells us in the beginning there was darkness and God spoke and there was light, then He created the earth.

Have you ever noticed when your life is turned upside down and you can't seem to figure out which way to turn, let alone figure out what to do and how to solve the issue or the problem that your life seems to take on a new direction and path that you have no idea where it is going to lead you?  Well, I have several times and at these moments my life totally changed and went in a different direction and brought me to a new destination.  I believe that these dark times or trouble times are way points on the road of life.  They make us re-evaluate our entire situation, and though it may seem bleak and you feel desperate and alone you are not.  God is with you!

I know it is difficult sometimes to just let go and leave it up to God, Fate, or whatever you believe.  But, the saying that my grandmother used to say to me all the time, this too shall pass.  Trust me everything has it's time and season.  Nothing last forever and even though our problems don't always go away when we want them too or get resolve exactly as we thought they should.  They are resolved exactly as the should.  Fate takes us to where we need to be.

So, what exactly do I mean catalyst for change?  It is my opinion and belief that we, mankind, only learn our lessons through pain.  Follow me on this, there is a certain amount of grief and pain we feel whenever we hit the dark spots in our lives.  They always say it's "always darkest before the dawn" and I believe that to be true.  What do I exactly mean by this, well for each trial we go through a lesson is learned and I bet there was either physical or emotional pain involved in this life changing event.

Like this month, I ended up running short on money because of some very poor management of my funds. I thought I was going to have to struggle and that I wouldn't have enough food to eat for the rest of the month or gas to get to the appointments that I have.  I was worried, upset at myself for the frivolous spending and full of regret.  However, I left the situation in God's hands, was completely honest with myself that I was foolish to purchase what I did. However the damage, was done and I was eagerly awaiting the UPS to deliver what I had order.  I think most people go through something like this whenever they make a big purchase, I call it buyers remorse, guilt over buying something that you wanted.  It would be different if what you purchased was needed. But this item was a want and a must have.

Needless to say this was a bit of a dark period for me.  Just a minor storm on the sea of life and just a little example.  A bigger example would be the point when in August I went to the imaging center to have an MRI of my back.  I could hardly get up from the bed let alone do much of anything else because my back hurt so bad.  But, I drove to the center, got in the door and was in a wheelchair and in less than an hour I was in the hospital to stay till November.  It was a long hard journey, I was told I would never walk again that my life would be forever altered because I would need to have extra aid in walking and getting around.  But, I did as I always do, I prayed and I plodded on, did what I could and let go of the rest. Here I am now out of the hospital and I still have pain in my back but nothing like I did when I went to the hospital.  I have trouble coughing or yawning because my rib cage is partially compressed which doesn't allow my lungs to fully expand.

Because of that infection and the damage done to my spine, my life will forever be changed. I will not be able to lift heavy objects, fully expand my lungs and I will have to stay on some form of pain pills or substance to keep me going.  I have had to change my lifestyle quite a bit to make the concessions this new body is requiring.  Now I have to depend on other people for help grocery shopping, carrying items too and from my car, doing my laundry and anything requiring me to stand for any length of time.  The pain becomes so great then my legs stop working, I have loss of strength on the left side of my body still and my leg still gives out whenever it wants too.

I made it through. I kept remember that everything has an expiration date, and moves on with time. No matter the trouble you are going through, someone else out there is going through something worse.  If you try and keep that in mind your mountain might not seem to be as high as it was a first glance.  Humans have a tendency to over-react to situations, they panic, and worry especially me. I am the worrier, I have a vivid imagination and every possible bad thing seems to run through my mind before I have even analyzed the problem correctly. So my molehill becomes a giant mountain and I don't know how to climb it, scale its sides or make it around.  These are the things that I call darkness in our lives.  Another, could be the loss of a loved one, the repossession of a house or car. Any disaster that hits our lives head on without any warning.

Pain causes us to change our course.  We either have to climb and scale the mountain or go around somehow.  We aren't perfect and we make bad choices and decisions and we have to live with the consequences.  So when is it that we make this life altering changes?  Not in the average every day problem. But those disasters that derail us from our goals.  They rob us of our breathe and cause us great anxiety or suffer some huge loss.  My friend lost her mother, and her brother within seven months of each other, and while she was planning the funeral for her brother, still mourning her mother's passing, her house was repossessed and she was given a court order to abandon the family home within 3 days.  Now, that is a disaster, a life changing event.  It was a dark time for her, and even now 9 months later she is still reeling from that disaster, but she did what she had to do and stayed true to herself and her faith.

I was trying to figure out the amount of pain it takes to make us change our ways, habits, lifestyles.  I would say it takes and earth shattering, mind blowing, rock bottom place before we change and make a new path for ourselves to walk upon.  I recently lost my best friend and partner, he decided to leave and fulfill other obligations.  But, because of his decision and lack of communication it caused a great deal of hurt, pain and eventually loss.  Not to mention right after that I got the infection in my back and started the downward  spiral in my health.  This loss caused me to re-evaluate my needs and desires.  I went from a 2 bedroom to a one bedroom and started to minimize my possessions. I took and fulfilled my needs and not my wants.

So, darkness, light, pain, trouble. are these the catalyst for change?  Yes and no.  Trouble and pain are found in the darkness, and when they are exposed to the light the change occurs.  So in a way light at the end of the tunnel is a sign that change is coming to you. That you have journey over the mountain or made your way around it.  Keep in mind that anything done in the darkness eventually comes to light.  Meaning whatever you have done in secret or in a hurtful manner will eventually be exposed.  Things that flourish in darkness such as despair, loneliness, depression, anxiety all of these things fade when expose to the light because the light cannot tolerate them, happiness, truth, and change are things of the light and they can't survive long in darkness.

Putting out positive bring you positive back.  No one can make you change anything except you.  You have to hit the absolute rock bottom, see no way out, no future, have no hope and even then if you don't have the desire to change you won't. All you will do is wallow in your self-pity, indulge your sense of despair and hopeless. You will wander around in the darkness and suffer until you make the change.  Your tolerance for pain, humiliation and degradation are great and I have myself wallowed in self-pity and been on self-destructive paths, so I know what I am talking about.  Take a chance, walk out in faith and grab the light, for in it you will excel and you will see that your issue, problem, addiction or whatever the issue is cannot keep you down forever.  Remember, everything in this life has and expiration date and that means it isn't permanent and won't last forever, you can and will come through it.  Whether or not it changed you is totally up to you.

Change comes in many forms, and the road of life is not a straight shot, it is rocky, got lots of potholes, obstacles and way point along the way.  It is this journey that makes us into the people we are today.  Keep an open mind be flexible and not afraid of change.  Keep moving forward and do the best that you can do and learn from every obstacle you hit.  Because if you aren't learning you aren't actually living you are just surviving. You could be lost or stuck in a rut but you will never get out if you aren't open to change.  You don't have to continually endure the pain, there is a way out, you just have to find it.

As always my hope and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

The central nervous system and back pain aren't a joke

For those of you who have never experienced any type of back pain, you are very lucky.  I will never again think that people who complain about their back hurting aren't in some serious pain. Because back pain is the worst kind of pain that you can experience.  My mother when I was growing up would always complain that her back hurt, that it was always going out.  Honestly, back then I didn't know anything about it, and I sort of just shrugged it off.  She is now 68 years young and almost 2 years ago now she was going into a store. It was cold out they had just had a hard freeze where she lives.  As she was entering the store she slid on a patch of ice and went down.  She wasn't able to get back up and an ambulance had to be called.  That was the last time my mother was able to feel her leg, feet, ankles or anything else from the waist down.  She like many other people in the nation had developed an infection in her back.  She was actually in the hospital for almost a month before they did an MRI and what they found surprised everyone.  They found a huge mass in her back that was threatening her spinal cord.  They decided to go in and do a biopsy, but this was not a mass or a tumor in the traditional sense.  This turned out to be an abscess a huge collection of fluid that was weighing down and pressing on her spinal cord.  When the doctors went in to do a biopsy the abscess actually ruptured and my mother body was exposed to the fluid and puss that drained from that abscess.  Try as they may the doctors worked feverishly to was this fluid from her body.  The process is call assuage and it is very dangerous.  What ended up happening is that her leg nerve cluster was nicked in the process and she lost control of her legs.  This wasn't even found out till she was in a rehabilitation center for almost 3 months without any type of improvement.  So the doctors opted to go back in and see what was wrong and why she wasn't healing as planned.  Long story short they should have left the situation alone, because as they went in this second time they ended up damaging her spinal cord and now she has no feeling from the waist down and is now confined to a wheelchair.

No one knows or understand why an abscess formed in a closed cavity like that when there had been no recent trauma or invasive procedure. It was just something that happened and now after being in a nursing/rehab center for over 9 months she is finally home.  Coping as well as she can with her new found limitations.  She still suffers from pain in her feet, legs and back.  I speak with her everyday and even time hasn't lessened the pain she has been suffering.  With the damage done, a permanence to the situation has occurred and other things are starting to suffer because of it.  Her feet, since they are not used regularly are weakening and the ligaments and tendons are starting to shrink causing the tremendous amounts of pain she is feeling in her extremities.  It will also make it impossible for her to recover and walk like a normal person.  Even if she opted for some type of surgery at this point it would be ineffective due to her movement limitations.  This is a situation that may have been prevented if years ago I had paid attention to the pain that she had been feeling when I was in high school.  I remember an incident that happened when I was in my senior year, she had fallen on the bathroom floor in her room and couldn't get up.  She refused to let anyone call my father or an ambulance and stayed laying on the floor for several days till she could get back up on her own.  Hindsight they tell me is 20/20 and that might have been the first time that her spinal cord was impacted and had she gone immediately to the doctors then what has happened to her might not have occurred but again that is just idle speculation at this point and something that cannot be changed.

You maybe wondering why I am writing about this and what happened to my mother, and what if anything it may have to do with you.  Well, see this incident is just one example of what can happen. For my mother there is nothing that can be done.  No amount of time and healing will change the fact that she has lost her independence and can no longer walk more than a few feet without some type of assistance, and she will never be able to drive again.  Further, if it wasn't for the wheel chair and leg braces and some other types of assistive devices she wouldn't be able to sit in a regular chair or get out of bed on her own. I am bringing this to your attention for several reasons.  What we often take for granted are actually signs that something is wrong. They are symptoms of a larger problem and if we ignore them we run the risk of them cropping up later and causing much more damage than if they were treated at the onset.  Modern medicine has a habit of treating the symptoms and not getting to the root cause and stop the symptoms.  It wasn't like that in my grandmothers time and people were getting healthier and living longer.  Today it is so much more easy to see a symptom and throw a pill at it and never look for what is causing the problem.  I know from first hand experience and I too will have to live the rest of my life with mistakes that were made not only in the past but some that just happened recently.  We will get into that in just a moment.

The reason why I am bringing all of this to you attention is because you never know what could happen to you.  Now, back in May I started having a slight pain in the middle of my back. I immediately went to the hospital.  X-rays were taken and I was seen by the ER doctor and sent home.  I was told that I had a back strain and given some pain medication and sent home.  My back instead of getting better started getting worse. I hurt all the time and stayed in bed a lot.  I went a total of 19 times from May till September when I was finally admitted to the hospital.  What was going on was not a minor sprain, I had a bacterial infection that was attacking my spinal column, vertebrae and my spinal cord.  I came very close to spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair.  I am angry with current medical establishment why throw pills and more pills at symptoms and never try and find the root cause of the issue?  Had they dug just a little deeper into my situation I might have saved myself countless hours in the hospital, nursing home and ER visits.  Not, to mention all the money that I had to pay out for all of these different things. Luckily my back is starting to heal itself to a certain degree. I will forever have this hump on my back but i think the pain will start to subside as the broken vertebrae start to fuse together.  I will also lose some of my maneuverability, but I am still alive, and though the odds were against me walking again. I vowed to myself that I would not stay in that chair and I forced myself to learn how to walk again, and within a short amount of time I was walking with a walker and now today I use a cane.

Because of how the bones started squeezing my spinal cord, I have lost strength in my left side, I started stumbling and started having convulsions and seizures.  Had the doctors taken the time to dig into my symptoms and searched for what was actually causing my pain the permanent damage that has been done to my body could have been avoided  Another, example I have for you is my best friends mother is having a lot of pain, problems speaking, as well as walking and getting around, her strength is sapped doing the smallest thing.  She went to a big local hospital and instead of going into detail testing they did an MRI and some neurological test and came back to her and told her they were sorry she has ALS or Lou Gherig's disease.  Boy, the back really isn't anything to play with. Come to find out she went to a chiropractor, who looked at her x-rays and told her that he thought that she had a extreme case of scoliosis and that was causing pressure on her spinal cord and that was what was causing her problems. For the past 2 month she has been getting chiropractic treatment and her body is responding well.

For all of medical science it is sad that they didn't look beyond the usual suspects and really do their job.  Now that she has been participating in chiropractic treatments she is starting to feel better and her motor skills seem to be improving.  Above all things I want you to walk away from this article with the wherewithal to challenge the doctors and nurses when they tell you that there is nothing wrong with you. Make them really look at you, listen to you and above else explore every option.   You know yourself better than anyone else. Do not be deterred make them look, listen and respond to your needs.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

On my mind

You walked out the door once again with no words on your lips.  You lied to my face and disappeared without a trace.  I have called and text but to no avail. Where did you go and why did you run?  I have helped and worked, cheered and supported.  Did what no one else was willing to do, yet how do you repay?  With disappearing without a trace.

I worked and did all that I can to get you free from your past and still you turn around and go back again.  You said to trust you and yet again you have let me down.  Actions speak louder than words you say, and here you go disappearing without a trace.

You say you love me and have asked me not to leave, but don't you see I am not the one who leaves.  I am the rock, the fixture that is always here when you disappear without a trace.

I have begged and pleaded for you to stay, but once again you just walk away.

You have broken my heart and my spirit and I don't want to live this way.

I love you still but I can be no more, you are the one that shut that door.

Can't you see that you have lost me, the one you said was the best thing you had

Why have you hurt me so bad?

Sometimes love is just not enough

So here I am calling your bluff.

I don't want to walk away

But with you I cannot stay

You made it this way!

How do you react?

How would you react if someone told you something about yourself or your partner that just plain hurt you?  You don't know the whole situation or story, and the person might be lashing out at you or your partner because they have been hurt by your actions?  Would you confront the person and try to get to the bottom of why they were telling you this information?  Or would you wait to talk to your partner and see if any or all of it might be true?  What if you are already having doubts and insecurities about yourself and the relationship?  How would you react then?  See something was said to me the other night that has been bothering me and I don't know what to do, or how to handle the situation.  See, a part of me knows from the past that what was told to me could be true, but me and my partner have an agreement that situations like what was described to me wouldn't happen.  Now, I know that the person who brought this up, was hurt by something that my partner did and so I am not sure if they weren't just lashing out and trying to hurt him.  All I know for sure is that what was said was something that hurt me.  Then to make matters worse, I haven't been able to talk to my partner about any of this.  For the past two days he hasn't taken any of my calls, and when he finally did call, I asked him if he was some place private where he could talk, he told me that he would call me right back and then hung up.

All of these factors have me guessing as to what is really happening, and since my relationship is already strained because of the distance apart we are and the length of time we have been away from each other, it just makes all of this so much harder.  Plus, there are a few other things that have been bothering me since before my birthday that I have been waiting to talk to him about.  Unfortunately, I am a very social person and I don't do well on my own.  I like being able to talk to him about my problems and issues, which is awesome that I have found someone that I can do that with.  However, there are times like today when I wanted to talk to him, it seemed like it was an inconvenience and he had to go right away, and here I sit waiting for him to call back.  I try my best to be patient, and also as supportive and understanding as I can be. However, he sometimes pushes me to the extreme limit of my endurance, which makes it doubly hard. We have tried to make sure that our relationship is solid enough that we can talk to each other about anything, and discuss it.  We have never had a fight, and as far as I know there have been no secrets that we have kept from one another.  When we first started dating we made a couple of promises to ourselves that we have worked hard to keep in place. Those would be, that we would never go to bed mad at one another, that we wouldn't like to one another, that we would always be upfront and frank about our intentions and discuss things that might be contrary to our normal relationship.

I can tell you that this year has put this to the test in many ways, and I think that he has done a pretty good job of living up to those promises.  I also know that he would tell you that I have beyond a shadow of a doubt. I keep nothing secret from him and no matter how hurt I am, or how hurt he might be from a topic I eventually bring it too him.  As far as I can tell he has been truthful with me about what he has been doing and who he has been hanging out with.  It is hard because we are on opposite sides of the country, but we are doing our best to make it work. When I find it hard to cope with certain situations or when I don't have the ability to talk with him about things I come to you and talk to you guys about it.  This sort of clears my mind and gives me a direction to go in.  So it is rough and hurtful when someone inadvertently or even intentionally upsets that delicate balance.  Now like I stated above, I know from our past, certain activities and things that he has been known to do and participate in, so what was said to me isn't outside the realm of possibilities.  But, on the other side we have discussed these things and he has told me that he wasn't doing them, and that he felt guilty when he tried because I wasn't there with him.  So you can see my concern and confusion.  I love him so very much and I trust him, but the way the statements were delivered to me have given me pause and I would like to find out first hand from him exactly what he has been up too and put my fears and insecurities to rest.

I hope that he finds the time and energy to call me back so that I can finally put my mind to rest on this issue. Because let me tell you the past two days have been rough and all sorts of thoughts have been flying around in my head.  My head tells me that he wouldn't hurt me intentionally like that, but my heart is telling me that it is possible, because it is certainly a way for him to make some money for him to come and see me while I am in California.  But as I sit here and think about this, it really doesn't matter to me, because honestly there is nothing I can do about the situation from where I am at.  It just hurts me that he didn't feel comfortable enough to confide in me in detail his plans so that I wouldn't be caught off guard and hurt like I was.  Like I said the person who told me the details was hurt by something that he had done, and might have been lashing out trying to hurt him and I got caught in the crossfire.

Above all else I want him to know that I am here for him, that I care about him, and that I want him to tell me what he has going on so situations like this don't keep happening.  It is when I am blindsided that I feel like an idiot and are hurt by the words of others.  It is not like he is doing something wrong, however in a relationship those things should be discussed before they happen so that both parties are aware of the situation prior and can fend off the hurtful words and attacks by others.

I hope that he understands that no matter the outcome, my feelings aren't going to change about him, but I want him to confide in me, talk to me and tell me what his plans are before he does them.  I am not one of those people that believes that you should beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. I would rather you give me the option to voice my concerns and opinions before the deed is actually done, versus being dismissed out of hand without any say in the situation until it is over and done with.

Remember that all relationships depend on and need open lines of communication, that there has to be a balance that is maintained and that you are absolutely honest with one another no matter the pain that is associated with it.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,


Uncle B