Tag: life

Sitting in the dark

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Empty LakeA month or so ago, I posted a picture to Facebook with the caption: “in over my head.” I think it sounded like I was lost, or any number of things other than what I intended, without the context of the pictures I posted before (which I suspect slipped past many folks). We were on a camping trip, visiting a place that goes much of the way back to me and Cheryl’s childhood. The first time we visited this large state park, out in the middle of North Florida Nowhere, we were students at UF. It was one of the few places I could go with Cheryl and just sit, relaxing.

She’s not one for sitting around, that one.

This recent trip was nostalgic – and incredibly sad. What made the park a wonder was the interaction between the land and water, the contradictions that make Florida ecology a delicious, but acquired taste.

In spots, relatively high land can look dry and tortured – both by the semi-arid conditions and the periodic fires which sweep through. But hike a quarter mile down and you might find yourself stepping carefully down into a ravine, the temperature just slightly cooler… the air just slightly more humid… and the land MUCH more green and lush. Coming to an abrupt end, clear water trickles from spots in a steep, shaded hillside, which has eroded backwards over the years, and accumulates into a clear stream at the bottom. As simple and unassuming a place it is, few places on Earth look (or make me feel) more alive. Follow this stream a couple miles into the park and you find the lake in the picture below.

Well, there was a time you could.

So here’s what I was trying to say with this picture: I was standing in what was once a lake bed, and (almost) twenty years ago I would have been in water over my head.

Pretty deep, I know.

Sorry.

As is my way, there were a bunch of things I was saying silently to myself. No amount of context would have dipped you into that stream of consciousness. I’ll get to my inner dialog in a second, but if you would first indulge a little cathartic swearing… fuck me. Take a look at this picture, taken in roughly the same direction, from what was then (in 1998) the lake shore:

Full Lake

Yep, there’s a lot less water flowing over the surface of northern Florida. The morning was filled with scenes like this (the first picture, not the one with all of the water), and I was in mourning. As the sun rose over a much drier Florida than I remembered, my mood felt darker – though not just because of that morning. I think it’s something that’s grown steadily worse for about the last seven years – though it got MUCH worse this last year… and Jesu Fucking Cristo, God help me worse in the last couple of months.

Go back and ask the November 2008 Edition of Me about the state of things, and I would have been really worried about the economic rubble strewn around me, but I couldn’t have been much more optimistic about the state of society as a whole. Heck, I was thinking about going back to church – and did, for a little while. A black man had been elected President and I thought human kindness had turned a corner.

The November 2016 Edition of Me felt like human kindness had been tortured, humiliated, and tossed into a dumpster fire.

I’d hoped to write more than this, but that’s about all I can take right now. I’m gonna go hide for the rest of the evening/night, and see how I feel tomorrow – JK

Thinking thoughts while tired

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Where do I begin?

Life is a kick in the ass. Sometimes it’s a kick you need or in hindsight, maybe even wanted. Other times it’s just a fucking kick.

Above all, life is exactly what your parents tell you it is: not fair. Some of us are kicked down, hard and often. Some of us get the kick we need, over and over, and never get the message. Some are fortunate not to need a kick of any kind. Others… well, it’s all we can do not to give them a kick ourselves.

You might want to give me one now, to see if it would shake some sense out of me or into this little post.

There are moments in life I desperately wish I could describe, something I think is a product of all that kicking – or being kicked. The best my feeble mind can come up with is emotional overload, though that’s not quite it either. It makes it sound bad, yet in many ways it’s the opposite. There’s the moment when you’ve spent 36 hours in the hospital with a loved one, watching them suffer, knowing there’s nothing you can really do – then your child is born. Once in a great while, there’s a moment towards the end of a special story when an author brings you to this place through the experience of his or her characters.

At these times I’m moved to tears which flow freely. For a brief moment I think I may understand the range and complexity of human emotion, in ways I thought I had before, but really only scratched the surface.

It passes but it leaves something behind. I feel raw but richer.

Adam saw me this evening after such a moment and I wasn’t sure what to say. I tried to reassure him nothing was wrong. I tried to explain some of what I’m telling you now. Two things occurred to me. One, that I’m not doing a very good job of describing anything; and two, that he may not be ready. He may not be ready for many years.

He needs to be kicked around more… live more life, wander the experience of others, and exercise those emotional muscles, hopefully building a strong sense of empathy.

Then, some years down the road, maybe I’ll be able to look back and know I have done my job as a parent right.

Maybe I’ll have another one of those tearful moments for myself.

When in life

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I was really excited this morning. I surfed the web for images and maps of campus. I gave Beth ten answers for every question she asked. Maybe one in ten were pertinent to the question. I found a picture of a room from the dorm she’ll be staying in at UF. Countless pictures of my dorm came to mind. There was so much excitement and nostalgia floating around it’s hard to imagine a better high.

Some may think I’m an unhappy person but I hope Beth has even a fraction of my good fortune.

Cheryl and Beth backed out the driveway and quickly disappeared. Cheryl will be back tomorrow, Beth next week. But it’s not hard to imagine this morning was a glimpse of the future… a future that’s sprinting to the present, where weeks become semesters and semesters become a new life.

I hope we’ll be ready.

Beth left with a grin, maybe even as excited as me. I hope she returns with a bigger one, with memories of her own and an itch to create a lot more.

This is where I live

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Here’s a little something someone threw together to show off life in Dunedin (shot downtown). Half the video is devoted to credits, so don’t be intimidated by the length.

It’s nice to know there are a few quirky places in Florida (like my home town)… that it’s not just beaches, strip-malls, swamps, and theme parks.

Note Casa Tina at about 1:30 in – one of our favorite places to eat (on those rare occasions we eat out :-)

Life and cream soda

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My Lightning lost game seven to the team of my youth.

I’d like to introduce Chara’s long stick to his large intestine as much as the next Lightning fan, because Florida is my home now. When I say I’m going home, I’m always referring to Dunedin, not Boston or Billerica.

It took a long time for this place to become home. We moved from a neighborhood of young families and friends to a less than half developed, walled in compound in a remote corner of God’s waiting room. (In case you were wondering, compound is a term of affection, referring to the suburban subdivision.) It was lonely until a young family built a house across the street and a strange hybrid of friend/bully moved to the neighborhood. It was me, him, my younger sisters, and the retired people. When I think back on it, I think my relationship with the kid across the street had more in common with the fear of being alone and recurring domestic violence than a friendship.

My crowning achievement occurred after I earned the freedom to venture into adjacent compounds. It was when I received a well deserved beat-down from a girl my age (about ten if I recall). That’s all I have to say about that.

Life ebbed and flowed from there. My family went through the stuff any normal family goes through: broken bones, beloved pets dying, a mother having a mental breakdown in front of her kids, complete with paranoid hallucinations, and a sister with a rare blood disorder requiring her to miss a year of school.

We also had our good times: boating on the lakes and out in the Gulf, anchoring off pristine beaches inaccessible by any other means. We went hiking through the numerous county parks, learning the surprising diversity of life and ecosystems for such a small, flat peninsula on the coast of west-central Florida.

High school was such a social disaster I don’t want to talk about it. Two redeeming consequences of high school were I met my future wife, and it got me into UF. But despite all of this living and education, I was still as dumb as a rock who decides to take a swim in deep water. Then I got married, got my first job, got married, left my first job on good terms and got my second job, had a child, had several heartbreaking children who never made it into this world, and finally had Adam. (Not many folks know this: he started out as a twin but his little sibling didn’t make it to term.)

A Facebook friend from my high school years recently mentioned my intelligence back in the day (referring to my daughter’s academic success). It’s funny how differently we see ourselves. I still don’t feel like the smart guy in the room, but I see a world of difference between then and now. I wish I had half the confidence I do now. I wish I had a fraction of the experience to lean on.

Yep, in many ways I bet I’m just like you.

Sometime during all of this, Florida became my home. I don’t know when it happened, but I know why. This is where I became me. It was this place that pinched, stretched, and shaped the wet clay of my young soul.

I am at home now, finally feeling up to writing after a rough patch which included a spell of forgotten medication and a dip into the deep end of depression. It’s been one of those ordinary weekends that make up most weekends, where I try to make a little magic from the mundane. I made a trip to a favorite market with Adam after a pair of haircuts. I made a snap decision wandering the isles. It was time to introduce him to one of my childhood favorites: cream soda bottled in glass. He had to know precisely when the bottles would be cold enough to drink/enjoy after we got home. It was an afternoon of giddy anticipation. When dinnertime rolled around we got out our little-used bottle opener and popped a couple tops. The sound of pressure, released suddenly… the liberated gas seemingly visible as it made its escape… the sudden, light smell of soda wafting towards my sensitive nose… it all seemed to transport me in time, if only for a flash of a moment. Grasping the neck, Adam and I took a generous sip and signaled our approval with a satisfied “ahhhh.”

It was a good day to be a dad at home with his kid.

Plans change

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Seventeen years ago today, on another Saturday afternoon, Cheryl and I got married. Unfortunately, I got sick the night after our wedding and we spent our honeymoon in the ER. I spent it doing unmentionable things with the contents of my stomach.

Today, all these years later, we spent the day in a familiar spot – a hospital – this time with Adam as he had his ailing appendix out.

I’d say the day is cursed, but I’d be exaggerating.

Me? Exaggerate? I know!

We’ve had many wonderful years in between, and we have no reason to believe we won’t have many more wonderful years to come.

Adam is in great spirits after his surgery, pointing out all the cool stuff he has in his room, and plugged into his body explaining to me what they all do. Cheryl and I are happy.

Who needs a grand celebration when we have a great life to live?

Success or failure?

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It may seem I’ve been gone for a while, but it’s not true. I’ve been here and there. I’ve just been invisible for a while. You would think I was agonizing over a feature article for the newspaper. I have two or three posts in the queue (not counting countless, abandoned ones) that are “mostly done” but I can’t bring myself to finish/post. You’ve already heard me moan about one of them so I’ll move on.

It brings me to another subject I think about from time to time: what is success? I’m thinking in terms of a whole life lived rather than individual events, a single aspect of someone’s life, or a few blog posts sitting unfinished.

How much of success (so far as it can be defined, measured, or evaluated) is subjective? If we assume much of it is subjective – and I would posit it most assuredly is, how much can we attribute other people’s perceptions placed upon us and our own, independent conclusions? Like most things, I think it’s a combination. We have the capacity to think for ourselves, but our values and beliefs are inevitably shaped by those close to us, particularly when we’re young.

There’s a problem lurking in there, preying on the joy in our lives, and part of it is the concept of potential. You know the equation: if life minus potential is greater then zero then you’re a success! Congratulations! Potential is a quality we’re sure exists, in varying quantities, pertaining to multiple qualities, but is it really only a guess? I don’t mean to argue there’s no such thing, or it’s a creation of someone’s imagination or wishful thinking. Sometimes part of it is based on measurable attributes. Sometimes it’s an educated guess based on a great deal of experience. However, sometimes a guess is still just a guess. If the perception of our potential is propped up my such a guess, it’s a guess that has a profound impact on our perception of success, our feelings of self-worth, and often our mental health.

We live our lives, some of us meeting or exceeding these expectations created by the perception of potential, and some of us not. But either way, do we feel successful? If we merely meet our potential aren’t we just meeting expectations? We’re a culture of “more.” Enough never is. Excess is our culture’s idea of enough. If we merely meet, or heaven forbid – fall short of these expectations – is it possible we sometimes (perhaps even often) suffer disappointment at the hands of a guess that was wrong?

We can’t forget the 800 pound gorilla in the room – the one I left behind the closed door of potential a while back: what is success? Hell, what goes in the recipe? Money, marriage, fertility, social status, professional status… they all weigh heavily on the scale. But what of happiness? Where does happiness go on the shopping list? Can we use a substitute, as if we’re swapping margarine for butter?

Happiness is at the top of my list. I accept no substitutes. I was brought up that way and it stuck (damn nurture). For a long time potential was not part of the equation. I saw myself as an average student, if not a bit slow during my early years in school. I didn’t see potential in myself (which I’ll admit is a sorry state), and a couple fourth grade teachers agreed with me. Eventually standardized testing, my mother’s advocacy, a guidance counselor, other teachers, grades – and the grand-daddy of them all: other people’s perceptions and expectations, tried to cure me of my feelings of inferiority.

But an odd thing happened on the road to having potential: rather than feeling liberated, believing the world truly was my oyster, I felt burdened by a yoke. I tried to hang on to happiness but I put pressure on myself. How exactly was I going to use this potential? Where did I start, let alone end up? What would be my major in college? What would I do for a career? Would it earn me a living? I thought about all of the financial responsibilities my father had, about the day to day expenses: food, shelter, the various forms of insurance, auto loans, and on and on. I though about the huge responsibilities of being a parent, both social and financial. Potential brought possibilities, but those possibilities also brought responsibilities. I felt crushed by it all, and with the benefit of hindsight I see it was the impetus for one of my early bouts with major depression.

I was in seventh grade. I was a fucked up, lazy seventh grader. Some might even say I’m still a little lazy, if not fucked up.

My buddy potential drifted down with me into depression a few times before I graduated from college. However, it turned out potential wasn’t an imaginary friend, and instead of being a burden it was a blessing. I found a job after three months of looking in a bad economy and only two serious interviews (plus one follow-up interview with the director where I was hired). I didn’t look back. My boss told me I was the best counselor or case manager she’d ever hired when I left. She was the kind of boss who never praised anyone for anything the entire time I was there. Of course it could have been inconsequential BS as I was heading out the door, but she did give me a REALLY good reference.

Since then I’ve worked in government, where I’ve received several awards sponsored by a conservative, government watch-dog group (Florida Tax Watch), for things I’ve done which have increased productivity in my department statewide. I’ve been actively recruited to work in the state capital. I’ve been encouraged to go to law school by various folks (including some in the court system) because my knowledge, arguments, and attention to details were superior to some seasoned attorneys. I’ve been asked countless times to apply* for promotions to management. Several times I’ve given them serious consideration, but they didn’t pass my test. Will I be happy, and by extension, will it make my family happier?

(*Many promotions are not selected by management or human resources personnel in Florida government like other organizations. They’re applied for like a new hire off the street, in a process not unlike a standardized test, where the people doing the “picking” don’t always get who they want. However, I’ve gotten every promotion I’ve applied/competed for.)

Some would say I turned them down because I fear change. I can’t deny it without reservation, but I do know my job has changed radically several times without causing any fear or anxiety. In fact, I’ve usually been the calm, reassuring member of the group.

In many ways, including the one most important to me, I’ve been a success on the career front. You rarely hear me complain about work. You may hear me complain about politics, and decisions made by politicians regarding government in general, and my department in particular at times, but almost never about my job or its effect on me. I like what I do. It gives me a sense of purpose, and I’m pretty good at it and all of its nuances. I have a drawer and an overhead cabinet full of awards and certificates that tell me so.

You know there HAS to be a but in here. I don’t usually discuss psychology without a little personal application, and I certainly don’t promote myself without reservation. One might even say all of this sounds a little like I’m compensating.

Here’s where it all boils down. Finally, you’re saying to yourself.

I feel like I made a deal with Cheryl when we were married. It wasn’t explicit like a marriage vow, or even something we discussed. She knew me as a senior in high school, coasting through my last year with an acceptance letter from UF. She dated me as a college student, the guy who she never saw studying, who always had time to ride his bike across north-central Florida… who always got straight As. If there was a measure for potential, some of my measurements looked pretty good. This was the guy she married.

I was by no means perfect. I was still spectacularly shy. I took all of those long bike rides alone. She nurtured me through one of those bouts of major depression. She also knew what gene pool I swam in: really sharp father (perhaps brilliant and at the top of his field), and really odd mother (to put it politely). Still, she married a guy with potential.

This is where my guilt resides. I feel like I didn’t hold up my end of the deal. If you compare potential with the current product, I’ve failed by many (if not most) tangible measures. She makes more money than me, but she deserves it – though I’d argue at least part of it’s because society values law enforcement more than social services. What does that say about us? We value punishment and retribution thinly veiled as “justice” over helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

But I digress.

So here I am. Success or failure? Is the distinction important? Is happiness enough? I’ve been depressed so often the last few years I’m not even especially happy, though it may not have anything to do with success or failure in life. It may be a heaping helping of nature dragging me down to depression’s door. You know what? It’s not fair. Things I do at work bring me genuine joy. (As if there’s another kind.) My kids and my family do the same. At times my heart overflows with the rewards of the life I’ve made for myself. At other times it feels like a heavy cloak masking everything that brings joy, more like something heavy inflicting blunt trauma. However, then it feels more generalized, without a specific cause. No, that’s not completely true. There is one common thread – one specific cause for turmoil. I feel like I’ve failed my wife. I feel like my wife deserves better, like I tricked her by dangling potential in front of her eyes, pulling a bait and switch.

If success is subjective and tailored to our own specific needs and wants, then maybe I’m asking the wrong question or concentrating on the wrong pattern of facts. Maybe all of this suggests the real problem lies in the fact that I feel the need to ask a question at all. No, that can’t be it. Shouldn’t there always be room for questions?

God, I wish I knew. If you’re listening, I don’t even really need to know. If I could just step off the merry-go-round of dumb questions I think I might be able to figure the rest out.

The ah ha moment

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This is one of those posts that sounded profound and original one night at 3am… and a little less so as time passed – that, and less coherent.

– – –

People told me what to expect before, but I always humored them. I’m not stupid. I’d see this thing coming way before it happened to me. I wouldn’t be so easily fooled.

Then a few nights ago it happened to me. We were sitting in a restaurant, me and Adam on one side of the table, Beth and Cheryl on the other. As I looked across the table I was struck dumb by what I saw – two heads – one level.

One minute I’m thinking: yeah, she’s in middle school, but I’ve got plenty of time. She’s still a tiny thing. Then in the blink of an eye:

Insta-funk.

There are five years left of what society deems “childhood.” Am I foolish enough to think she’ll disappear in a ball of smoke at the stroke of midnight on that last day? Well, no. But I also realize my child is already gone. In her place is this awkward, child/adult hybrid.

Parents tell stories about events in their childs’ lives and we automatically say, “oh, I can’t imagine.” On some, abstract level we know we can’t. The fun is in learning we really can’t – or couldn’t.

I realized parenthood isn’t just an exclusive club. You know how we are: “you can never imagine what it’s like to have a child until you do.” But we have cliques too. The empty nesters. The multi-birthers (some prefer the hormonaly challenged). The all girl team. The all boy team. The uni-child. The zip code. The pre-teeners. The teeners. The post-teeners (also known as the lingerers). The mix-teeners.

And so on.

Then the larger, simpler truth hit me. It was right there all along, looking me in the face. Why is it the simple truths sometimes seem harder to grasp? Is it just me? What am I getting at? What is the saying about walking a mile in someone’s shoes?

Sometimes it’s hard to understand someone’s life until you’ve lived it. Parenthood happens to be a good tool for bringing a lot of people together. A lot of people share the general experience. But as we put on one pair of shoes, when our first child is born, and we take another off, do our paths irreversibly diverge from the herd?

Do we know less than we think we do about both lives: the one we left behind as well as the one we joined – in the way I took for granted Beth’s growing up? Are we no better authority of the lifestyle of the childless, at our age, than those without kids can be of ours? I’ll wager they’re not the same shoes we wore ten or twenty years ago. They changed – just like parenting changes as our kids grow, maybe with as many “cliques” (or more) as we merry parents.

Now I wonder if/how this “toe in the shoe” phenomenon plays out in the wider human experience.

Was it present when that asshole was smoking behind Cheryl at a Gator game (many moons, two kids, and one wedding ago), prompting a mild asthma attack.

“Ah… I’ve coughed before. It can’t be that bad.”

Perhaps that’s an extreme example – with a lot of willful ignorance, and more than a touch of jack-assery thrown in.

But I wonder how often this kind of thing leads us to draw the wrong conclusions about life.

– – –

I’m sorry. This post probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d talked it out with someone. I should try that sometime.

Mutiny on the pitch

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It didn’t take long. Adam just had his first soccer practice, and already the parents are planning the coach’s ouster. From what I hear it might be deserved, but I’ve never coached little kids so what do I know?

First, there was the last minute way it was organized… as in: nine o’clock the night before we got a call from the coach – complete with a shopping list of what Adam would need.

I suspect she’s a stay at home mom – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

When the kids showed up the next evening our coach organized a game of tag. Meanwhile, the other team (from the same age group) was led through some basic drills, and went over some basic rules – like not using your hands. Our coach’s son was playing catch.

When she did decide to run some drills, her son practiced his kicking on the cones she was setting up (when he wasn’t making a break for the parking lot). The chorus rang out: “If you can’t control your son, how will you control a team?”

When the parents asked if she wanted some help she replied, “I don’t know.” When one of the parents offered to help set up a drill, or go over some of the basics she replied, “Oh no, that’s ok. I thought the kids would just play this time. You know, get to know each other.” The chorus rang out: “Can my kid play for that other team?”

When she finally got a drill set up the kids had spent an hour playing tag. The chorus rang out: “The kids have to go home now.”

The other night we got a clandestine call from one of the parents, planning to go rouge on drills. “I figure we need to set up three drilling stations. I’ve got one parent who’s agreed to run one of them. Will you run the other? The kids should learn at least a little soccer.”

Their first game is this Saturday. It’ll be fun to see how well tag translates to soccer. It’ll be almost as fun as explaining to Adam why adults can be just as bad as the kids.

They say sports can teach you a lot about life, but I wonder if we’re headed for understatement country.

Being the other end

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They have my number, so they call me.

Nothing about my job is life or death, but it’s not insignificant either. Parents, children, and court orders fill my day. The parents call me because they don’t know who else to call and I usually have an answer. They don’t always like the answer and I’m not naive enough to believe they always accept it (or act on it), but some do, and the course of lives change. It may not always be a big change. In fact it’s probably always a small one, but I like to think it’s a nudge in the right direction, making a few lives a little easier than they would have been. And they add up.

Other times, when I’m not on the phone, I’m a cog in the government machine, spinning out my little piece the best I can.

Or I’m a shot of oil, trying to help the cogs around me spin a little easier.

Or I’m a mechanic, putting a cog back in place if it needs a little help.

My job lets me do lot of different things, but in the end they’re all about helping someone else. Most of the time you’d never know. As long as I’m doing it right you wouldn’t, and that’s ok with me. I’m one of those people who’s uncomfortable with attention, even if it’s to recognize a job well done. My preferred reward is a calm, reassured voice on the other end of the phone, a coworker who’s a little more confident, or a service to the public that runs a little more smoothly with the odd line or two of code.

What bothers me… what I think might fuel my depression… I think you hate me. Well, maybe not you, but the public taken as a whole.

From my perspective, Republicans have spent the last forty years getting elected on the idea that government is THE problem (is there an antonym for panacea?), and doing a bang up job of making it true. It strikes me as a bit odd, to say the least… like hiring a manager for a sporting goods store who hates sports. But many of us keep electing these people, and the rhetoric seems to get harsher and angrier as the years pass.

Contrary to what some of you may think, we’re not issued a copy of the Communist Manifesto on our first day. We don’t observe a moment of silence on May Day, mourning the fall of the evil empire. We don’t spend our lunch hours thinking of ways to make your children gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that). We don’t attend secret meetings plotting new ways to subvert the constitution. Well, not since Bush left office anyway.

But what do I know? I’m just one person. Maybe most of my fellow civil servants don’t care. Maybe they don’t welcome accountability or relish the opportunity to serve. It may not mean much, but most of the people I work with care – and it’s a privilege to work with every one of them. At times we skip lunch, clutching a snack in one hand and pecking at a keyboard with the other, or work long days, like many of you do. To some extent, we even accept the stigma many of you associate with government work. These days we’re grateful just to be employed, and particularly mindful of our obligation to help those who need us that much more.

I believe government does good. I believe it does certain things for us the private sector can’t, won’t, or is ill-equipped to provide. I believe unregulated capitalism gives us ample reason to believe it doesn’t always produce the greater good, in the short term or long term.

It hurts when we’re treated like the enemy. It felt that way when our former governor stood on the steps of the capitol and waxed poetic about the day the government offices around him would be empty. It felt that way when the news showed scores of people shouting about taking their country back – as if we were all trying to take it away from you.

Boo-hoo, right? I understand I work for something that, as a whole, has a great deal of power. We should be watched carefully AND treated with a healthy dose of skepticism/wariness. I recognize not everything should be regulated. Government power should not be omnipresent or unchecked. But I also believe there’s a role for government – a necessary one – and we do ourselves a disservice when we demonize it, and everyone who works for it. I believe when you habitually treat the word “bureaucrat” as an epithet, you only succeed in driving away those of us who do care. I believe you create the thing you fear.

I believe attitudes have swung way too far to the extreme. Rather than working towards building an apparatus which serves us all, under those circumstances where it’s uniquely positioned to do so, we’ve become an angry mob… not just willing, but eager to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I’m not a soldier, but I am out there every day working to make your lives better; and every day I turn on the news I feel like someone’s spitting on me. The easy answer is to turn off the news, but that doesn’t solve anything. Not really. This post won’t solve anything either, but I hope it’s better than just sticking my head in the sand – or worse – quitting.

Maybe it was just the depression talking, but the other day I was talking to Cheryl and I asked her if it seemed like people (in general) grow more cynical with age. Maybe there’s good cause. Wouldn’t (doesn’t) that make a hell of a cycle?