It has been such a long time since I have written anything that I would deem worthy or thoughtful here in the blog. In looking back over the events of my life this last few months I feel that I haven’t felt inspirited and that nothing was happening in my life to record. I do have a lot of things to write down; wonderful things that have happened with my family over the past few weeks but I couldn’t get to the point where I felt like I absolutely had to write. It wasn’t until this past Christmas day that I found something that caused me to feel emotions that were milestones and noteworthy. I have referenced music many times in my writings and described the epiphanies that accompanied as a song awoke in me a sense of something that wasn’t there OR gave written description to something I had been feeling. This past Monday in the calm of a peaceful drive I found myself listening to a song that had been there many times before but one to which I never paid attention to the lyrics. That day was a peaceful one; Amie and I were alone and chose to travel to the hills and enjoy a day of skiing together. There have been many battles waging inside of me and the underlying theme in all of them is that I am not prepared for what growing old entails and how to come to terms with the hard decisions that must be made. On our drive I had one of my battles take lyrical form. Here it is:
“Stop This Train”
Written by John Mayer:
No I'm not color blind
I know the world is black and white
try to keep an opened mind I just can't sleep on this tonight
Stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can
but honestly will someone stop this train
Don't know how else to say it, don't want to see my parents go
one generation's length away from fighting life out on my own
Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can but honestly won't someone stop this train
So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
so I play the numbers game to find away to say that life has just begun
had a talk with my old man
said “help me understand”
he said “turn 68 you'll renegotiate
don't stop this train, don't for a minute change the place you're in
I don't think I couldn’t ever understand, I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train.”
Once in a while when it's good
it'll feel like it should
when we're all still around
and you're still safe and sound
and you don't miss a thing so you cry when you're driving away in the dark
singing
“Stop this train
I want to get out and go home again
I can't take this speed it's moving in
I know I can
cause I now I see I'll never stop this train.”
To tie into the words of the song my life at its core has been very unpredictable lately. The past month was wonderful and terribly upsetting all at the same time. I was able to have my children here with me for a full two weeks (AWESOME) and then send them back to their mother two days before Christmas (LAME). One of those weeks we took Jane and Dorian to Disneyland and had a great time in southern California (AWESOME). I have been working with my bishop toward rebaptism and have been faced with yet another delay that has nothing to do with the day to day decisions that I make to life the gospel (SUPER LAME). Because of the details of what is happening I honestly do not have any clue when I will be allowed back into the Lord’s church and it must be stated that it has NOTHING to do with me not living the gospel. (I have not come to a point where I can write about what is really happening and not use this blog as a place to vent anger, hurt and misunderstanding.) Not disguising my lead-in; things with my former spouse have continued to be unhealthy for both ourselves and the children. As I write I feel a sense of anxious tension as I feel the desire to write details that albeit true are hurtful and mean. To that I say NEXT SUBJECT.
Disneyland was a great experience. The kids had such a great time and it was a blessing as a parent to be able to give that to them. Catherine wasn’t able to come with us this time; but Jane and Dorian had great times. I felt it a special time to spend some time with my daughter and build on my relationship with her. I have written it before but I have always felt a special kinship with her. She was so animated and excited for everything that I found myself in the solidarity of each moment becoming teary with emotion thinking about how much I love that child. Along with all of those moments there were three times in particular I wanted to record that made me smile. The first involved the princess’s at Disneyland. Jane wanted to meet them so bad and the only place that we were guaranteed to see them was a restaurant that we weren’t able to get a reservation for. It came to be that the only place we were able to let her get a glimpse of them was at the evening parade. At the parade when the princess came by Jane stood up and was waving and yelling “Hi Belle!!! Hi Cinderella!! Hi Sleeping Beauty!!! It was very cute and completely unexpected. The second was the last night that we were there. In order to walk back to our hotel room we had to walk through a strip mall called Downtown Disney. We were walking by the stores, seeing all the things that were there and Jane blurts out, “I LOVE this place!!!” Also very cute and completely unexpected… The third was we took the kids to Sea World the day before we left California and if you have ever been you know that there are a few roller coasters as well as the animal attractions. There is a ride called “Journey to Atlantis” and it was pretty crazy for adults, let alone kids (on top of that it had water that splashed you and the day was a moderately chilly one considering it was December). Jane really wanted to ride the ride and so we did, just the two of us. There is a part where you start at the top of a very steep embankment and then barrel down to a pool of water that splashes around you. Jane was holding on for dear life during that fall and was laughing and smiling ear to ear when it was over. We got done and there was no one waiting to ride so the attendant asked if we wanted to go again. Jane was so bummed that I said no, so I caved and we went again. Same result, Jane was giddy about the roller coaster. It was awesome. When we were walking about after the second time we passed a booth that had taken pictures of us during the fall and the picture of Jane and I was priceless; she was holding on to my arm with her mouth wide open and smiling ear to ear. She is so fearless… I love it.
My folks are here at the moment; they traveled in to town the day after Christmas and are staying until the weekend. It is really nice to have them around and I will be sure to write again here in the next few days about some of the other details of my life.
….and scene…
