Easy Discouragement.

It can be hard to stay optimistic in the face of a job loss, and I've been struggling with that since it happened. But quite frankly, I need to get over myself. I'm human, so I'm allowed to feel self doubt. But the true test is in how well I implement my own life philosophy.

"Shit happens. There's no reason. But the true test of self is in how you handle it."

Some say that everything happens for a reason. I don't believe that, but I don't argue about it with those who do. I just believe that life is random, and that there's no reason behind things that happen. Some look back at things that have happened, and see a good thing that comes as a result of those things happening, but I see them as separate where some see them as the reason those things happened to begin with. Not me. It's random, shit will always happen, and the true test of self is how you handle it.

So now I'm being tested. As a human it's ok to feel some self doubt right now. In fact, I'd worry if I didn't. I'm a human, and I have a ton of insecurities and a ton of self doubt that I deal with.

Last night, dispute telling myself that I was going to be ok, I couldn't escape the feeling that I'd failed. I even had Laura re-affirm what I'd said, which is that in just a few short months I was able to prepare myself financially for a job loss, and now that it's happened, I'm ok for a bit thanks to steps I've taken. I still felt like my goals were out of reach though, but as a human, I'm going to have those moments. That's ok. The future is uncertain right now, but then again, isn't it always? Now it's time for me to knuckle down and really focus on getting my life on the path I want it to be on. Now is not a time to fuck around. But allowing myself the chance to feel what I'm naturally going to feel is also essential, as I don't wanna be the guy who bottles anything up anymore.

I bottled up mom's passing for a decade. It tore me up. I bottled up a lot of things through the years, and they always tore me up. I'm 31, and trying to reprogram my brain to stop doing that. So it's ok to feel self doubt, and it's ok to feel the fear of uncertainty. But they can't rule me.

So to put a positive spin on it all, I was able to make things easier this time around thanks to the steps I put into place. That's a lesson that I need to learn, which states that what I'm doing is working. This means that I was on the right path to financial security, and when my income stabilizes again I need to keep those things in place. Ultimately, this means that I can reach my 5 year goal, and that I shouldn't get disheartened and give up.

So on I fight.

What I wanna do with my property.

I rent at my current dwelling in Marion Ohio, but I do own 1/3 of a property in Sciotoville Ohio. The property was left to me and my two sisters Tracy and Kristina as a part of mom's estate after she passed away. Currently parked there is a trailer, which is where I was born and grew up. I lived there til I was around 4, then moved in with my grandparents as moms ALS became worse and I became more difficult to discipline. I moved back in at age 5, accompanied by my grandmother, who moved in to help care for mom during the last 4 years of her life (the ages when I moved away and moved back are approximate.)

When mom died, I was 9 years old. We moved out of that trailer into a house my grandfather had built accross the street. That trailer sat there not doing anything, so my grandparents rented it out to generate an additional revenue stream. However, the tenants were undesirable, and trashed the place. At one point garbage was boarded up into the closet of the bedroom that I grew up in.

I moved back into that trailer at age 19, and lived there til I was 21. I lived with my sister Kristina, and watched as she brought drugs into the house. We were living rent free, and she also owned 1/3 of the property, so I couldn't kick her out. However, after my musical equipment started getting stolen (a few guitar pedals, and then my Jackson PS-4), I decided that I'd had enough of her shit and moved out of the trailer. I moved to Columbus, and she hasn't been a part of my life since.

Unfortunatley, the drug part of that story is very typical of Scioto County right now, but that's a different blog.

Now, the trailer sits there, delapidated and looking like it's about to cave in.



I recieved pressure from my dad at one point to sell the property and get rid of the asset, but I guess I'm old fashioned. I saw no point in getting rid of the asset since it was only costing us property tax every year. I don't want to lose the asset just because it's an eyesore. It's still land, and even though the trailer is currently dilapidated and unkept, it doesn't always have to be that way.

Here's what I have in mind.

I may not plan to live there in my life as I currently evaluate it, but you never know when that may change. If I unload the asset now, I lose that forever. What I'd like to do is hold on to it and try to make it worth something again. It's in shambles now, and the trailer that sits there should be torched and sold for scrap metal, but the land can be a blank canvas.

I picture cleaning up the land and removing the trailer from it, then several possibilities could happen. One could be that the property is rented out by someone who wants a place to park a trailer. I'd take the lot rent they pay each month and apply that to the land taxes each year, then put the remainder into a high yield savings account. The land is paid for, so there's no mortgage. This high interest savings account could be an asset to my two sisters and I who are currently equal owners.

Another possible use would be for my sister Tracy to live on. She bought a mobile home in the area, and is currently paying lot rent (i think). This would be up to her obviously, but it's her property too, and I could see the financial benefit of moving her home to this property and living without having a lot rent bill.

Finally, there's the long term. I've got a vision in my head of putting a permanent home there one day. Nothing elaborate, just a cozy dwelling. This would be a great place for my family top gather at holidays, to live in if we needed to, or to pass on to future generations of the family. And if I ever decided to live there one day, in the far reaches of the future, I'd have it available to move into.

I'm still undecided on all of this, but that's where my train of thought is. I may decide eventually to sell, and maybe that'll help provide some money to go toward retirement or savings or the studio. At this time though, I've decided that I want that trailer gone this year. The land, I'm keeping, but the trailer is a delpidated eyesore that needs gone a.s.a.p. Once it's gone, we can figure out the land situation then.

I'll update when action is taken, whatever it may be.

The symbolism of dates on a calendar.

2011 is now a not so distant memory, and honestly I feel amazing after having turned to a new chapter in December. I'm starting to finally recognize myself again. It's been a long fight, filled with lots of whining emo moments and lots of bitching and moaning. Laura thinks I was depressed, in more than an "I'm Sad" sense, and I think she's right. But fortunately for me, I think that's well behind me at this point. I'm starting to feel like after crossing the threshold into 2012, I've wiped the slate clean and am starting a new year fresh and clean with lots of my old unwavering optimism. For the first time since 2010, I feel consistently good about the future.

What's weird though is how passing a date on a calendar can do that to a person like me. Laura thinks I fixate on dates based on events from my life, and again she's right. When I was a teen, every April 26th was the worst day of the year for me, cause that was another anniversary of mom's death. Being with Sarah for 12 years, dates on a calendar were a huge deal. Every year, the holidays were highly anticipated, as were birthdays and anniversaries.

But who cares?! It's a date on a calendar. A Calendar is a time management platform developed by man. Just because you pass the anniversary of something terrible doesn't mean that the terrible thing is going to happen again. It's just another day in the grand scheme of things. So why get all hung up on the date?

But I do. And now that I've passed into 2012, I feel almost new. I feel like it's all officially in the past and I can move on with my life and not let my past rule me.

It's a good feeling.

Reflections

Meet Kelsey Webb.



I met Kelsey when I worked at Clear Channel as WTVN's traffic Producer. I was the guy who answered the traffic tip line during the afternoon drive when it was first instituted. Then I moved away from Columbus, left my job at Clear Channel, and lost touch with most of the people I knew there. If it weren't for twitter and Facebook, I'd have lost touch completely.

A couple of years ago, I saw that Kelsey had joined Dave and Jimmy. While I was proud of her move up, I was a little jealous. She was getting where she wanted to be, and moving up the ranks. I left media to follow a relationship to a different state, and was now working in grocery. Jealousy was a natural reaction in that situation, but I was also proud of her.

I just saw that Kelsey changed her Facebook status to Engaged. I'm again proud of her, and happy for her good news, but seeing this caused me to reflect a little. She stayed in and worked up the ranks to get where she is, and I'm happy to see that from her, but what about me?

Well, I'm no longer jealous of it. Jealousy is a childish emotion, and i try not to allow myself to be ruled by childish ways. I'm 30, it's beyond time to be past that. Besides, truth be told, even though I don't believe in fate or karma, I kinda feel like the way that things played out for me in life lit a fire in me which cemented my dedication to get what I want out of life once and for all, and on my terms. And now, after the crumbling of a 12 year relationship and a virtual pressing of the reset button of my life in 2011, it's almost like things fell into place for me. I wish I'd never left radio, but at the same time I feel like if things had just worked out for me and I'd never had to work shitty assembly line and grocery jobs, I'd not have been as dedicated to start my own businesses and fight as hard as I now find myself fighting to get my life where I want it to be.

As for things working out for Kelsey's career during her 20's, and me just gaining a career footing as an entrepreneur at 30…….it's like I always used to tell Sarah. It's not a contest. Things happen to people at different times in life, and for me I can say that rather than being consumed by career in my 20's, I was able to live a relaxed decade in relative comfort and not much despair. I can honestly say that I hope Kelsey never has to see some of the personal pitfalls I faced this year, but I can also honestly say that my drive and dedication would not be what it is right now if not for those pitfalls.

So yeah, it would've been nice to have had my career ambitions go a little more smoothly when I was in my 20's. It would've also been lovely for my mom not to die when I was 9, or for my father to have paid attention to the first 28 years of my existence, but those things didn't happen……and i wouldn't change it. It would've been great to not go through the pain and tribulations of life, but having gone through those things I feel like I'm a better person for it. I feel like the kind of person I am today was etched in by those tribulations, and that life experience is not something I'd trade…..ever.

So Kelsey, congrats on the engagement and the career. I wish you the best for a bright future. I'll be anxiously awaiting your wedding photos on Facebook!

Who I never want to be

I was raised by a man that was not my father. The man who raised me, I refer to as Dad, cause that's what he is. He was there for me as a kid, taught me to play catch, yada yada yada.....

My father, I met for the first time when I was 15. We met over pizza and discussed the family that I'd never met. Then he vanished from my life again.

I made a few attempts to meet with him, and nothing really came to fruition. So eventually, after one last attempt before moving to Colorado, I gave up. I figured I'd given it a shot, and the ball would forever be in his court.

He picked it up when I was turning 28. He contacted me and apologized for bis absence, and after a few weeks of thought, I responded. We've been talking since. I eventually forgave him, although truth be told I still harbor some resentment, but that's my burden to bear. You can forgive, but it's hard to forget.

Fast forward.

My father always talks about what he wants to do. He always talks about what he wants to see before he dies, cause he's never seen much of the country. He always talks about ambitions and goals that he wants to undertake.............then he sits on his ass and smokes his cigarettes.

Recently, he severed ties with a relationship, and when the ship was going down, I offered him a temporary place to hang his hat while he picked up the pieces. He actually made an agreement with me to move in for a few weeks, so I cleared out the room that was the band lounge at my studio and set it up for him.....

....While having this conversation, he discussed his desire to make this be his chance to do what he wanted in life finally, and go move to the ocean.....

....two days later he posted on facebook that he was moving to Marietta. He never called, he never wrote, he never texted......real dick move.

So this pissed me off, for obvious reasons. The least he could've done was to let me know.............actually, that's wrong. The least he could do was what he did, and not bother with me.

When I asked him why he was going back to Marietta, and not following his lifes dream of moving to the ocean, he implied that it was the safer road and made excuses.

So not only am I pissed about his lack of consideration for me after telling me that he'd move in, but I'm also kinda seeing him finally as a fucking coward. This is a shame, because I wanted to know him. I'm not writing him off, but at this point, he's put in zero effort in his role to me as a father. I've forgiven the past wrongs done, and although the scars are still there, that's my cross to bear now.

But the simple fact that he was so easily willing to just give up and move back to Marietta instead of following his dream......I never want to be that. You only get one fucking shot in this world, and you can't let anything hold you back. I learned that early on, when mom died. It could go away at any time, and nothing is ever certain, so why the fuck would you waste your time playing it safe in life when it's all up in the air ultimately anyway?! It makes no sense.

So maybe that's a valuable lesson that he did give me. It's a cliche', but maybe my father showed me who I never want to be. So for that, I say thank you. And to my dad, who fought to be there for me even when it wasn't favorable, thank you for always being there.

I am the 99%

I was born in poverty. My mother had a terminal illness diagnosed around my birth, and was unable to work to provide for my sisters and I. My grandparents had to support all of us on their retirement income, and when mom died, my grandparents continued to raise us on their meager income.

When evidence of a heart attack that forced my grandfather into retirement 20 years earlier could not be found, his benefits were taken away and he had to deliver newspapers to keep food on the table for his wife and grandchildren. He was in his 80's.

I've never had money, but I've been working like crazy to make ends meet. I attained a degree in 2004, and got a job that summer, but left it for personal reasons to move to a different state. Then the economy collapsed, and I was never able to find work in that field. I gave up, went back to school to study business, and am now an entreprenuer determined to claw my way out of the trenches.

But I'm also a full time student (working on degree #2) with a full time job. Most entrepreneurs don't earn a dime for the first two years, so I can't rely on my business to pay the bills yet. Unable to afford to just go to school, and unable to make ends meet yet with my business ventures, I have to pull full time hours to keep the lights on. That job is a temp job, which is all I've been able to find over the last 18 months.

That job had a massive layoff over the summer, and I was let go. At 30 years old with no savings, I found myself on unemployment and dumpster diving for scrap metal to make ends meet. My temp job asked me to come back at the end of the summer, and I accepted, but the downtime put a major dent in my ability to save for the future.

Determined to make a serious change, I shifted my focus and started saving. In just a few months, I had $600 in the bank. But then medical issues, and a lack of health insurance, derailed the savings I had built up and caused me to miss work.....which put me further in the hole. Now I'm back to square one.

Life should not be a constant struggle to keep your bills paid. Health issues should not derail the finances of you or your family, as they have done so often in my life.

I am overworked
I am overstressed
I am going deeper into debt to change my life on the gamble that it'll pay off.
I'm underpaid and struggling.

I am the 99%.

Cancer?

Well this is going swimmingly…..

Ok, this is my uncensored, unfiltered rant. I'm not sure if I'm pissed off, but I'm not happy. I just got back from a gastroenterologist.

A month ago, I was in the ER with chest pains. They determined that it was likely not a heart issue, and advised me to have my acid reflux checked to see what damage it was doing. I put that off, cause I can't afford a doctor and have no insurance.

Two days ago, I was at my day job. I had eaten lunch a few hours earlier. I start feeling the sensation of hot rocks moving through my intestines in the left side of my abdomen. Laura suspects it could be an ulcer, as she's been through that pleasantness before. So I called off work yesterday to go see a doctor. I wasn't happy about losing a days pay, or how it would make me look the day after they assign me a new task at my day job, but health is more important than all of those things, so I did what I had to do.

Yesterday, they talk to me about my acid reflux, informing me that it can lead to esophageal cancer, which evidently is one of the worst kinds. So the doctor recommended that I see a gastroenterologist to have a scope done so they could see what's going on, just in case.

I went to the gastroenterologist this morning, under the impression that i was going to have a procedure done. They informed me that it would actually be scheduled another time, today was just the preliminary to see if it was needed.

So in essence, I paid $50 down to one doctor yesterday and $100 down to a doctor today to have them tell me that it's not going to happen today, but they want me to come back next week and pay $400 down to have it done……..

That's $550………..down…………and I only have managed to save $600.

Well, thanks to the corporate structure of American medicine, I've now in effect wiped out my savings. That won't even begin to touch the amount that it will cost my uninsured ass to pay for these procedures in the end, it'll just cover the down payments!

But what then? What if they find esophageal cancer? I'm going to be sitting here for a week worrying about the validity of these tests, and how pissed I'll be if everything's ok because of how much all of this is costing me (all so they can tell me to keep taking prilosec and get checked regularly……….) But quite frankly, what if? What if it turns out that I have something wrong with me that needs addressed?! I can't afford to get that shit treated! Period! I don't wanna end up like my friend Derek, but quite frankly - DEREK LIVED IN CANADA! I don't know the ins and outs of what he had to pay and didn't have to pay, but I'm sure that something like this would bankrupt me in the US and not bankrupt me in Canada.

And what if I do have cancer? I have no insurance! Good luck getting insurance with a pre-existing condition! There ought be some sort of law in this country……oh wait, wasn't that in Obama's health bill that so many people are ignorantly challenging?

I wonder how my mom felt 30 years ago, hearing the news that she was going to die. I wonder how she felt knowing there was no treatment, and that if there were a treatment she likely couldn't afford it anyway. I wonder if I'll end up like her, dead by 36?

I'm in sticker shock somewhat. How in the hell can you expect a normal working class individual to afford medical bills in this economy if they were not lucky enough to have insurance? How in the hell can you put a price tag on my life? How in the hell can you think that it's ok to intimidate people into not getting treatment because they know they can't afford it, and they can't leave their families with that sort of debt?

Now I understand why Walter White (Breaking Bad) does it…..not that I didn't understand before, it just hits home now.

I left the gastroenterologists office, with $150 less in cash, after missing two days of pay at work, feeling scared about what's going to happen to me. I'm scared the "what if's". What if I have cancer? What if I can't come up with the money to pay for all of this. What if I drain my measly $600 from my savings and use it to pay the down payments, then get laid off again in a week? What if all this does is put me into debt, and I'm fine? I've had 3 reactions to all of this since leaving the gastroneterologist.

1 - I wanted to cry. I know I can't afford ANY of this. But I'm almost forced into it. Sure, there are payment arrangements and plans, but the fact remains that I'm still going to have paid $550 by next week just in down payments alone, and the income assistance will not really cover enough of it for me. I felt scared and wanted to cry.

2 - I wanted to get shit faced. I thought to myself "Is 10am too early to get a bottle of jack daniels and drink myself to an oblivion?"

3 - I'm currently venting and trying to take my mind off of it all. I'm sort of in "recall mode" right now, and am avoiding actually thinking about these things and what they mean to me for fear of going off the deep end. I'm numbingly recalling what I've felt and what my frustrations are, so that I can write this blog, but if I stop to think about it for a second I start getting that tightness in my throat.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna go get a bottle of Jack and go to town. I'm in no shape for doing homework, and I can't focus on mixing right now. I'll see you from cloud 9.

The 4th of July is finally upon us……

These are my unfiltered thoughts.

Well, today is a first for me. My first 4th of July in which I'll likely not see nor even speak to Sarah since July 4th, 1999!

I anticipated that today would be a tough day for me. That is why I was planning a road trip over the 4th of July so that I could make my first 4th after the "divorce" into a grand event and make a whole new batch of memories surrounding this date. But then I got laid off………and that road trip was history.

So instead, I was planning to have a huge BYOB bash at my house in Marion today. But the problem is, as I've posted many times here, that I live in FUCKING MARION! I have no friends in this town, and I'm 50 miles from the friends I do have. I only had two people interested in coming up, and 1 of them was under 18. Not that there's anything wrong with him, but inviting a minor to a BYOB party could open a huge can of legal worms if anything went wrong, and I don't really want to spend the 4th of July in Jail. So there's no party today.

Instead I'm sitting in my house, drinking beer, and mixing Enemy By Mourning's CD.

I got a call earlier that I didn't see come in. It was from Sarah. She left a voicemail wishing me a happy 4th of July, and said she hopes I get to see some fireworks. What she doesn't understand is that for a while, my plan was to either run from this day or pretend it didn't exist. I can do neither. It's like the Grinch on Christmas when he found out Christmas morning that Christmas still came, even though he tried to get rid of it. The 4th of July is here, and today would have been my official 12 year anniversary with Sarah had she not left me in February.

I'm trying not to get down about it. The fact is that most of the time I no longer am mourning the loss of the relationship, today included. I hope and believe that I'm over it, it'll have been 5 months tomorrow since she moved out! But then again, how long does it take to get over nearly 12 years of being happy and spending every day with one person, then losing that person? It's like I suffered a death in the family in some ways, and I mourned my mother's death for 10 years before I let it go! I don't think this will take that long, but who's to say that it should or should not take a certain amount of time? People try to put calendars on things like this, but there's no way to know how long it will take a person to get over something. Only time will tell.

If I mourn anything still from the relationship, it's me mourning the magnitude of the losses I've suffered. She left, I moved on, but it was a major loss to endure that flipped my entire life upside down and threw it around for a while. It's not been pretty at times.

I know that I mourn something, because I can feel it in the back of my throat. My throat is a little tight when I think of today being the 4th of July. I refuse to allow myself to reminisce because I don't know how I'll handle that. Needless to say, for some reason, I can feel that I'm on the razors edge today. I try to ignore it, but I know I'm there.

So now here I am. it's the 4th of July 2011. I'm trying to decide what to do with my day. I was going to avoid Red White And Boom anyway Friday night, but lucky for me I had a migraine anyway that kicked my ass for 16 hours. I've been ignoring fireworks or any mention of the 4th of July because I'm afraid of what it might bring up. Is the best course of action to ignore and bury? Doubtful. Likely the best course of action is to forage on into what I fear and try to get past it. But do I have the strength to do that today?! Would it be smarter to just let the 4th go past me and ignore it, knowing that it would be another year before I'd have to deal with it again and I'd likely be ok by then?!

I don't know what I'll do. But I know one thing. I never thought I'd be where I am now.

Happy 4th of July.

18 years ago today.

Rest in peace mom.