Forty-seven Days Until I Was To Be Sentenced

It’s been 318 days since September 1, 2014.

It is 47 days until September 1, 2015.

It is 91 days until October 15, 2015.

It’s time to reflect on the impetuous for this blog and to do a quick check in. September 1 last year was when I embarked on this daily blog journey. The catalyst was when I found myself so frustrated and sad and angry I thought that suicide would be the only answer. I apologized the next day for being so cavalier about it. But I continue to be glad that I spoke so publically about it in that suicide among the nation’s veterans continues to be such a problem and I’m hoping that my journey in some way can help, not only other veterans but others who have found themselves in a similar state of mind. I set out to find reason to want to live other than how it would injure others. September 1, 2015 was supposed to be when I “passed sentence” and if it was “thumbs down” that sentence was to be carried out on my 50th birthday on October 15. (I reckon on that 44 days in between I planned to just sell or give everything away and have one hell of a party.) But instead I decided to blog.

The blog’s always been sloppy. If I were trying to garner a lot of readers or create some unified body of literature, I would have approached it differently. If the project were to get a large readership, I’d probably give the blogs provocative and incendiary titles, go after right-wing politicians, or chime in on a bunch of controversial issues. I guess I cover my share of those but really what I’ve been trying to do here is save my life. Even if suicide has been taken off the table–

By the way, you know I’ve told y’all that I stopped allowing comments to the blog because I didn’t want y’all to have to read some of the hateful messages. I’ve now even stopped the email notifications so I don’t have to see them. But before I stopped them, I got quite a few and I’m pretty sure I figured out who was sending them. One of the messages earlier on in the process said something like, “This suicide crap is just a cry for help.” Well no shit! Can I please say that if suicide comes up as a viable option in your thought processes please do cry for help in whatever way your able. I can abide a lot of things in life– I’ve had to witness a lot of hard things– but if there is one thing in this life I cannot abide, it’s cruelty. I’ll never understand the people who stand below someone on a building’s ledge and yell, “Jump!” There is a hotter room in hell for those ass clowns. I especially can’t stand cruelty if I’m the one being cruel as I still am from time to time so I will leave it at that.

Hurt people hurt people; never forget that. If you are in distress and, even on some small level, become willing to speak about it– if someone ever says anything to you like “that’s only a cry for help,” get the hell away from that person! Go where the love is. There are people who care and who are sympathetic. There is help. There is hope.

I recently took a look back at the list of goals I had made for myself at the beginning of this “year to live;” there’s not much on that list that I would mind having still. But I can say that this whole process of self-examination, giving the emotional responsibility back to those who have hurt me (and yes, doing that publically), and taking a serious look at how I got to the place where I was has taught me a lot about what’s really important to me. I hope I do have residences in LA and NYC! Tonys and Oscars? Hell yeah, bring em on! I’d love to sit down and write those big fat tithe checks if I were to start bringing in cash at the level I listed on the goals lists BUT I do now know that the most important things in this life are not things at all but the people I am blessed to have in my life. I’m so very grateful for the home I do have and I have more stuff than I can use right now. That’s why I’m in the process of going through my clothes and boxes of things I haven’t looked at in a year and a half and giving a shit-ton of it away! Hoarding all that stuff just clogs the stream of abundance and threatens to help me forget that God is my source of everything I need. To live freer of all those possessions is to live freer across the board.

There is a scripture (Matthew 6:33) that says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Like most holy texts, this one is often interpreted in different ways. To me it means that if I’ll only keep the focus on my spiritual practice rather than on the list of things I want but don’t have in my life, all the things I do need will be right there when I need them. Does that mean I shouldn’t set goals? No, I don’t think so. I still intend to work toward my goals in the three categories I defined (career and finance, health and fitness, love and relationships) but I want to always keep the focus on gratitude for what I do have. The rest will work itself out if only I will suit up and show up on a daily bases and leave the rest to God.

See y’all tomorrow.