I have worn many hats in my short lifetime. I have worked on cars and become quite proficient in the auto-body trade. I left that career and entered into the pre-cast concrete field. To call a spade a spade, I was the caster of concrete statues, i.e. lawn ornaments (believe it or not, one can make a very respectable living making garden gnomes). After 18 years, I left that endeavor to pursue a degree in the medical field through the death of a dear friend and the prodding of my wife and another dear friend. That is much too bizarre a story to be told at this time but will be visited later ("Good-bye to a Friend").
While learning these new careers and striving to become proficient in them, I had many side interests and experiences. At one point I had the opportunity of leading a group of kids down the path of life for a few years which left a profound impact on my life. This was not the original group of my choosing. I was lured in by the invitation to be a part of a “more mature” group of adolescents. But in the final hour, my assignment was to a group of teens that no one really wanted to take the role of “leader” for: 7th, 8th, and 9th graders.
(now, step out and get a cup of coffee while contemplating this for a few minutes before continuing.)
was written during some of the years shortest days of sunlight. It's a time of year that many struggle with the positive side of life and become rather depressed. Many of life's changes and decisions are made during this time of year in an effort to make life...more desirable to live...
“Knowledge without execution leads to unfulfilled desire.” (Christopher A. Dilworth)
Nineteen years…she can’t get it out of her head. It seemed like only yesterday they moved into this God-forsaken home and yet it felt like such a total waste of a life. If only she would have seen it all coming to this…or perhaps she did. The counseling sessions. The violent discussions. None of it seemed to make any sense then but all those thoughts and contemplations of the mind flooded her brain like they just happened last week.
The counseling sessions turned out to be a special time. He insisted on them but she refused to go warranting him to leave if he was that unhappy. Little did she think he actually would. He came from wholesome stock…son of a preacher man. But he was not like his father. He guarded not his eyes nor set boundaries on his relationships. He was able to contemplate and even justify an extramarital relationship to fulfill that which his wife denied him. Unfortunately, for them, the only way he could have a relationship was for him to include sex. His wife wanted neither.
After discovering her desire was for her husband, she consented to counseling. And it wasn’t all that bad. He was more the mature professional that she had dreamed him to be when they first met. He dressed in casual, business attire. He drove a nicer car… hers. During the counseling sessions he mostly acted in a mature fashion admitting his guilt…mostly. And on the drive home, they ate at a nice restaurant that was dimly lit and “required” a “Gold” card and proper attire to enter.
They worked on their problems, their differences, their need-to-change areas but it became more like work and the sessions and dinner combo was beginning to tax their cash flow. Though the money came only from his pocket, her desire to stop going to counseling led her to luring him away by the nose ring of his wallet. Normally, money didn’t matter to him but he could see her point and her apparent commitment to making it work.
Little did they know that it was the counseling they so desperately needed. Sure they made it another sixteen years, but it could have been years together in harmony instead of years spent under one roof alone. Just because you are betrothed to another doesn’t mean you are not alone. Some of the loneliest people in the world are married. Counseling would have helped them to not only bring out their dilemmas but also learn to respect each other through their extra-planetary differences. Another cigarette down and another cup of coffee in and the phone remains on its stand as cold and alone as the owner beside it. Only thing different between the two is the phone lacks the cancer growing inside the brokenness of a heart that is too stubborn to concede to her true desires. And her ringer has been turned off so long that turning her on would take an act of God. A blanket is drawn to help to do what the empty fireplace is not. And a tissue is moistened and shapened to a more aerodynamic configuration of purpose.
Chapter 14, below, had just one such saying...
