still going on

[VAC]

Hello,

Again had the experience of typing a long post and it disappeared when I submitted it.

When that happens I assume there was something someone did not need to read.

I have been doing well enough....learnt the hard way I can't push myself as I once did even though it suits me to do so.

I realize how distant I can be with people I truly care about. I also need to control my tongue, which I do a rather good job of. My adult children get on my nerves, even though I love them dearly.

My drifting thoughts lately have not been settled on the here and now, and this bothers me deeply. I sometimes go and look at myself in the mirror, just to remind me it is all said and done, and I am no longer the man I remember.

I know that children have a sense of destiny and purpose. I know that because I did. Recently I have had to deal with a great deal of resentment and bitterness concerning the mindless opposition I received from my family concerning my moving on educationally when I was young. It was never even really about money, just stubbornness from my dad and small mindedness from my grandmother.

So much that happened to me in my teen years would have been circumvented, but then this is how the past emerges so often. I was a gifted swimmer as a child. As a toddler, I dove and swam like a fish. My mother was encouraged in the strongest possible way to provide professional training for me: this would have entailed a move to our state capital. Mother found a much better job, found a better job for my dad, and a house. He would not move.

That is only one of a cycle of things......

They tried to send me to a military school at 13, as I had gone on the offensive with my dad and my mom was afraid I would kill him. I laughed at both of them. I told them they knew I was crazy, and that if they tried to get rid of me, I would find a can of gasoline and burn the place down. That was the end of that.

A short time later, in the 8th grade, a voice spoke to me twice when I was in class. I had a 100 average in that particular class. That voice told me twice to go home and tell my parents I wanted them to send me to a Christian boarding school on the other side of the country as far away from this city as possible. They both got real excited when I told them, and we were looking at schools. My grandmother took me aside and shamed me for forcing such an expense on them. Actually it was rescue for us all. I did not go.

I held it together for about a year.

I had a breakdown in the 9th grade and was nearly institutionalized, which would have been a good thing at the time.

I had scored at the top of all the standardized tests.

I could have left high school for college at 15, but then my dad stubbornly opposed anything I wanted to study, which I had known from a child what I wanted to do. I should have had more determination.

That is when I just sort of disappeared into drugs and promiscuity. I have remembered more lately, shocking for a sixty-something grandpa. Any accomplishment I achieved in school, my dad would give me some side ways compliment, then laugh at me and tell me I was not like him.

I begged for music lessons which I never got, but pursued what was available in school. I am not boasting when I say this: when I was young, I could sing anything. I used to go to chorales that were taking auditions in university music departments. This is what I had wanted to do since I was a toddler. They would tell me I had to be a music major and read music. I would smile and say, "Let me sing for you."

That was the end of the story. I would travel and sing. Call a cab and to a bar and get loaded before performance and sing like an angel.

My dad never heard me sing. He never attended a concert. He never watched me sing on local television.

At his funeral, his family did not want to sit near me---I called them all vultures at the funeral home. I had taken on a trio to sing a song at the funeral that meant something to me, "Arise my love, arise my love, death no longer has a hold on you, no more death's sting, no more suffering, arise, arise, arise"

The tenor cancelled at the last minute.

The alto and baritone were there: I told them I would sing the part. It was really impossible for me to sing that part due to months of sleeplessness caring for him, and really my voice was not what it used to be.

Impossibly, much to my wife's surprise and mine, I was able to sing the part perfectly and even flourish at the end.

God did that for me.

My dad got to hear me sing one time.

I still sing and I am still alive, and I can educate myself now if I wish. I am thankful for the education I received, even though it was only to pacify my poor mom. Much of it was wasted on my part.

My voice is not as showy and strong as it once was. My wife sings and plays beautifully. We often sing together, which is a great delight to me: this is really how we re-met in our adulthood.

She is an excellent pianist. She is one of two people I know who broke strings on a concert grand. She is kind, and gentle, and innocent of heart. I often stare at her in amazement, wondering how the likes of her can love the likes of me, but she does. Her name mean's, "God's gracious gift". I have changed so much since all this came to light...

She did not sign up for me and all of this.

Just this week, I hugged her and told her we would run away together one day soon.

That is not just mincing words and making nice.

I have reached a decision in which I refuse to be crippled and enfeebled with my back. I am seeking options, asking God for His deliverance.

My heart, my inner man, bothers me more than my back. I have known writhing agony for years which comes and goes. The pain of my heart was greater, but it is stronger and lighter now.

I saw a guy the other day who is a runway model at 81.....not my desire, but I think I can pull some semblance of a man back together again.

By the way, thanks for letting me come on here and run my mouth.

VAC




My dad never heard me sing.

[Fleur]

Hello VAC

Your introspection is inspirational

Really sad that your Dad refused to hear your singing voice

As you say, how very different life could have been with the various options, choices

May you follow your dreams

And yes, losing posts is quite annoying
Sometimes, like you, I think oh well, that mustn't have been necessary
Other times, it just plain irks me

Wishing you a beautiful day

[VAC]

Fleur,

Thanks....you are a kind and thoughtful lady.

VAC

[VAC]

Hello,

Thanks for all the encouragement that flows on this site.

I am dealing with detachment and isolation. My wife is very patient with me. She often asks me what is going on that mind of yours? Or she sees me and asks me what is wrong.

I tell her I think my face got stuck a few years ago and ask her to remind me. I know she will never leave me, but if she did, I would not blame her.

I am rather outspoken, not mean, but I have limits of aggravation concerning common expectations that are not unreasonable when it comes to dealing with people (honesty, being patronized or talked down to like I am stupid, rudeness, people with an attitude and a 100 word one syllable vocabulary that mostly end in "k").

She is afraid of what I will say, afraid I will alienate our children: I know how they were raised, and I have lived too long to be run over ever again by someone who is supposed to love me.....I do not mean to imply my children are difficult. They are grown now, thankfully, and survived to adulthood, and I am not in prison. Parenting is a great challenge.

I visited an old friend in hospice (which I hate: I call them the angels of death). I don't mean to be offensive, but it is like sending someone to camp to die.

He is a noble and dignified man who has suffered greatly for many years: he does not want to die, but doctors say he is too weak to help medically, but we shall see. I can not bear to see man or animal suffer, but seem to be geared to tend to those who are leaving this part of life....

I am rambling, and hope my rambling does not hurt anyone else....

I want to be on the road again and get antsy when I am at home.....

Stubborn man here.

Blessed man, here.

Thankful man....
V.

[Sheep]

Hello VAC,

Did you mean you are detaching and isolating from your wife or just from people in general? To me, it is such a mystery that two people can weather this storm of healing and still support one another and be together! My partner of less than a year just asked me an introspective question last night. He said, 'You talk about God and Him being forgiving. I'm sure He has forgiven you for 'that choice'. Why can't you forgive yourself?' I told him, 'It is a hard thing to do.' He said, 'Only you can do it.' To which I replied: 'I don't know how.'

Years ago when I first started on this healing journey and separated from my children's dad, my daughter had said that about me in a session with her counselor: 'My mom is very outspoken.' She and I used to be close but now years later we have a strained relationship - very distant. This saddens me to the point of tears this morning, but there is hope within me. My daughter texted me and we will be meeting at a restaurant in a few hours. Her husband is getting out of the military, and they are moving back 'home' to the state where they were both raised. I feel that at this place in my recovery journey, I am not feeling safe to travel back there where my main abusers live. I missed my daughter's wedding 4 yrs ago (partly due to all three male abusers being invited and present at their wedding ceremony/reception). I'm just now being able to forgive myself and hopefully arrive at a point of acceptance rather that self-hate. I have alienated my son from me now. He is 21 yrs old and lives about 30 miles from me with his cousins. My daughter will be visiting him first on her way driving home. All this rambling of my own just to agree with you: Parenting is a great challenge.

A former roommate of mine has worked in hospice care for several years. It takes special people to walk through that with others. They are, in a sense, angels. I'm sad to hear that your old friend is suffering. Your compassion for people in general seems to radiate throughout your post.

I needed to read your rambling post this morning

Thank you for being a part of our community you stubborn, blessed, thankful man!

Sheep

[there]

I wasn't really OK with the hospice care my mum got in the nursing home. It was a different organization from the nursing home, which had amazingly been so good to her. The team of 2 my brother and I talked with were pretty cavalier.

Then the hospice care people for my dad who passed away at a different (abuser) brother's home, had such a nice crew coming to visit him and really taking great care of him. Have been grieving so much lately for Dad , who made me his priority the last 15 years of his life.

I've never known anyone who went to an actual hospice place. I can see why you might have an aversion to them, though I've never heard anything bAd about them. Then again, clients can't complain if they aren't living.

Sorry about your friend. I have been grieving for my Dad 1and a half years; it isn't as sharply painful, but I have been pretty sad for the past 6 weeks.

[VAC]

Hello,

We helped bury my friend today....I am not glad he is dead, but thankful he is free.

The detachment and wandering I experience is lifelong: I remember it when I was a small child. It is pretty much all inclusive, and I tend to anger when someone invades the "quiet" until I catch myself. I actually am compassionate, but blunt and work at holding my tongue.

I am patient with others, but expect more from people I am close to: even then i have to temper myself to maintain relationships.

I am sorry for the losses you have known.

I had a rather startling experience after the funeral today.....I was approached by a minister today who asked me if his name meant anything to me. It did not.

Amazing to me how life plays out....I have been pretty much of a wreck since then.

His grandmother was one of the nannies my parents hired to tend me. I did not remember her name. He asked me if I had ever asked her to forgive me. I was a very disturbed child. He told me she never forgot me.

He told me that one of the things i did was lock her out of the house while I was inside. I remembered that.

It is a key. I feel hideous. I remembered a great fugue of images.

He said she talked about me alot and that she always prayed for me.

I was not yet four when she kept me. My folks had trouble finding someone who could bear me. I imagine I was very troubling to a Godly older woman who had only kept normal children.

I gave this man my phone number and told him I would like to talk to him. I asked him to forgive me for anything I did to or said to his grandmother, and told him I was a messed up child. He told me he knew that and that he knew all about me.

He told me his grandmother had taught him to pray for me.

All this happened in about five minutes......eternity in five minutes.

Another chapter begins....

My God it comes....I am thankful.

[Harmony]

Dear VAC,
You and I are in the same season of life. I too buried a friend yesterday.

So sorry for your loss. So grateful you loved this human.

Love is what matters,
Harmony

[VAC]

Harmony,

I am sorry for your loss as well....we have known this man and his wife since before they married and we were all in our twenties.

Life is short.

She stood and spoke at the funeral. She is such a beautiful and dignified woman, and she cared for him for nearly a decade.

I think often of you and yours.

VAC

[there]

Thinking of you, VAC