Don't wanna talk about politics, refuse to talk about politics

I've been keeping up with and participating in an interesting debate going on here. It's a complex issue that deserves attention and I am encouraging people to get involved to help resolve a large problem in this country and throughout the world.

The cult of personality

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We are the champions

The college I went to for the first three semesters after high school holds a special place in my heart. I met all of my best friends there. All my boys in NYC lived within 75 feet of my dorm room freshman year. However, one of the main reasons I went there was that it is a well known, Division-III hockey school. I felt that I could play at that level and I felt that this school was close enough to home for my parents to come watch, but far enough away for me to be away from my parents!

Long story short, I wound up not playing hockey there. I never even tried out. I did know a bunch of people on the team and I went to many games, enjoying the atmosphere and reveling in the rivalries.

This past weekend, the Oswego State Lakers won their first D-III National Championship and I cannot describe how great it felt to hear about their triumph.

http://www.oswego.edu/athletics/news_story.html?id=2547_0_6_0_C

Last night I had the strangest dream...Part II

I woke up Wednesday morning feeling slightly ill that I had had that dream. Why? In an extremely unbelievable occurrence, BOTH of my parents were having surgery on Wednesday. My dad’s surgery was originally scheduled for Friday, but a cancellation moved him up and my mom wasn’t supposed to go for about three more weeks, but she decided to get it done sooner, rather than later. It turned out, everything just happened on the same day.

My parents are divorced, in case I’ve never mentioned that before. They live 500 miles apart and reside in two different states. They are on speaking terms, especially since my sister has given them a grandchild and they generally get along very well, so it’s not a point of stress in our lives. They’re also very young. Let’s just say they’re in their early 50’s and I’m 33, do the math and you’ll probably understand why they’re divorced.

Anyway, because they are so young, I think my sister and I have hard time dealing with their aches and pains and in this case, surgery. My anxieties came shining through in this dream.

The representations of different things in this dream were incredible. My grandparents’ house being a place where I felt safe; the family being together and being “normal”, in my view and the mowing of the lawn as being something familiar to me, a routine; but then the sudden moving out and subsequent immediate moving in of a new family, well, this has me slightly puzzled. I’m not sure what my subconscious was trying to tell me here, but I do have a theory. I think it was because the parents were my age, it was a different issue I’m having coming to light: that I’d like to find someone to settle down with and start a family.

In any event, the dream really shook me and I was very worried for the majority of the day until I heard everything was fine on both ends. I even spoke to my dad on IM that night. My mom was very groggy, so my sister called to let me know to call her Thursday. Dad is now back at work, Mom is resting somewhat comfortably on the couch for the next week or so and I am still looking to settle down and start a family. I think the last one might take a little bit more time.

Last night I had the strangest dream...Part I

My mom’s parents have been gone for a while. My grandmother has been gone for 10 years and my grandfather for almost seven. The house that I spent so much time in as a child, and even lived in for a couple of years as a man in my early twenties, was sold two years before either of them left us. Yet in this dream, it played a huge role in, well, something…

The dream began with a bunch of people, mostly family members, doing odd tasks; cooking, watching TV, chasing small kids around and having casual conversations with each other. None of this activity was really out of the ordinary for anytime that my family would get together.

As for myself, I was wandering around outside. I thought about how the garage used to lean to one side. Continuous years of snow piling onto its roof caused the structure to lean and became unstable. It was fixed long before we sold the house, but I always remember it that way.

Anyway, the dream skipped around randomly and then significant things began to take place. Again, I was wandering around the outside of the house looking at how much the grass had grown and how it needed to be cut. So I grabbed the lawnmower out of the garage, as I had so many times in my youth, and began to mow the lawn in the backyard. It was an odd-shaped yard and if you tried to keep the lines running completely straight, it looked funny, so it was better to just go with the natural flow created by the curvature of the driveway and shrubbery along the line that divides us between our neighbors. When I finished, the yard looked so nice and I was very proud of myself. I trimmed the edges of the lawn and it was really the most work I had ever done in the backyard (It’s in the BACK of the house, who is going to see that??).

Once I finished back there, I moved to the front lawn. The front was small and usually took about 10 minutes to mow, but the two large trees usually left broken sticks and twigs all over the place from the squirrels running through the trees. You had to be careful when mowing the front because the blades would shoot the debris out the back into your bare legs, sometimes cutting them up pretty good.

I’m way off my point here, so back I go.

I finished the lawn, but as I turned to head into the house, a large moving truck pulled up, then another. The first truck was to take everything away. The second one contained the belongings of the new family that was moving in – apparently immediately! Moments later, the family arrived in their minivan. A nice, young couple, probably my age, stepped out and opened the back doors to retrieve their children – two girls and a boy - ages six, four and 18 months.

My family came out to greet them and we exchanged pleasantries. However, in a matter of moments, something clicked inside of me and I began to weep. Moments later, I was really crying, the way I have only cried at family funerals. I ran to the other side of the moving trucks so no one else could see me and I sat on the curb and openly sobbed for what seemed like a very long time.

So what does this all mean? To be continued…

A year has passed since I wrote my note

Now that my birthday is officially over and I’ve spent the day reflecting, I’m ready to share my year in review, as somber as it may be.

Lows -

Dating: On my birthday last year, the girl I was dating and I broke up. I followed this same girl to Houston just over a year earlier because I was in love with her. She broke it off, but I am the one who was stupid.

A few months and dates later, I started dating someone new and over the course of a few dates, I knew I wanted to spend as much time as I could with this girl. 4 months later, I had to break it off because I didn’t have enough time to spend with her. This was not an easy decision, but I had to be fair to be both of us. The reason I didn’t have enough time was…

School: I was having a very difficult time with the particular class I was taking at the time. I spent an entire weekend sitting in front of the computer doing research. Fortunately, she was working that weekend, however, it made me realize that if she hadn’t, she would’ve wanted time with me and one of two things would’ve happened: 1) I would’ve let my schoolwork suffer; or 2) I wouldn’t see her and the relationship would’ve suffered. I felt it was fair decision for both of us. I couldn’t give her all of myself at the time and she deserved better than that. I knew that my classes were only going to get tougher, so if this was an indication of things to come, I felt that the sooner I broke it off, the less painful it would be for both of, but particularly for her.

Work: It sucked. I didn’t get a raise after my first year and I started looking for new jobs. I actually had a few interviews, a couple of the positions I was very interested in, but was passed up for each of them.

Money: I went into some serious debt this past year and struggled at many times to pay my bills and eat. I’m not sure how I managed to make it without missing payments and killing my credit.

Social life: For months after the first breakup, my social life was non-existent. I would spend almost every weekend inside my apartment, either doing schoolwork or just trying to catch up on, well, everything! It sucked, period. Think about this - it was now summertime and I was inside...all the time.

Pets: My new cat, Cowboy, was a little hellion for about 4 months. I actually almost took him back to the SPCA. He was just too wild and terrorized my older cat, Squeaky.

Highs -

Dating: I dated someone that I really enjoyed spending time with and had a great 4-month ride with her. I wish I didn’t have to end it, but it was the right decision, I’m sure of that.

School: I graduated with my 2-year degree (finally!) in November and I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was (can you say, “weight off my shoulders?”). Now I’m onto the 4-year degree and it’s kickin’ my ass!

Work: It’s much better now. I have received a significant upgrade in my responsibilities and I understand what my duties entail much more clearly. I am up for another review next month and I swear if I don’t get a raise, I might have to go postal (just kidding, I’m against guns!). A significant raise should be imminent, so I’m not worried.

Money: Somehow, through all of last year’s struggles, I made it and now I am paying off some of the debt I racked up last year. I’m actually paying it off at an alarmingly fast rate. I was able to scrape up enough money to buy myself a little vacation in NYC in November to see my friends and now I’m paying things off so quickly that I have money to do the things that I want to do this year as well – such as go on vacation with my friends in Cape Cod this summer.

Social life: It’s actually not much better, but I’m working on it.

Pets: It killed me to think what would happen to Cowboy if I took him back and someone else didn’t adopt him, so here he is now. He is still a little hellion sometimes, he doesn’t know his name, or the sound associated with his name, he bites, he scratches and he still attacks Squeak, but he is terribly cute and a little lover at night when I go to bed. He likes to snuggle and smush his nose into my chest while he purrs – how could I send that back? Squeak is still my little girl though and she knows it. She runs up into my lap when she is being chased because she knows I’m like home base. Once in a while, there is peace throughout the apartment, but not often.

Through all of the highs and lows of the past year, my emotional state has varied constantly as well. I think of myself as a very emotionally stable person, but this past year as been very trying on me. I won’t even begin to try to recap the whole year; I’ll just let you know where I’m at right now. Tired, frustrated, agitated, sad, lonely and stressed. However, after what I went through the past year, I know that I am on the upswing of these emotions and while I have a long way to go, I don’t feel as lost as I did just a few months ago.

If the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility

As I mentioned in the comments from my previous post, I wanted to talk about the sanctuary I found when I started sailing with my dad.

I’ve always loved the water. I think part of it is due to growing up so close to Lake Erie, part of it because I am drawn to its peacefulness and part of it just inherit in me because of I’m a Pisces. The serenity I feel when I’m on the boat is indescribable. All of my thoughts and worries disappear. However, it did not start out this way. When I was younger, whenever I was on the boat, I would get seasick. When I started racing, because I had responsibilities, my mind did not have time to worry about getting sick and I found that I rarely had that nauseous feeling.

Anyway, back to finding peace on the water. Every Wednesday, from the May through mid-September, we would race for about 2 hours, but it was the 30-45 minutes prior to the race when I would completely lose myself. During that time, while heading away from the dock, I would begin to set up the sails. We would head up the channel and slip by the people hanging out on the waterfront on a hot summer night. Once the sails were set and we only had time to kill, I would sit with my back against the mast, facing the bow, away from everyone else on the boat. It was there that I could lose everything in my head.

Staring out over the water, watching the other boats sail by, listening to the seagulls overhead and watching the people on the shore enjoy the summer night, I could let myself go. The troubles of the day, the troubles of life slipped overboard into the water.

It’s very difficult to describe how I would feel for that 30 minutes, other than it was very spiritual for me. These moments were the few times when I was at peace with myself and to tie this together with my comments, I found that my sanctuary was on the bow of that boat, leaning against the mast and soaking in the atmosphere.

Do you believe in God? Cos that's what I'm sellin

I've been meaning to pose this question for a week or so, but this article I read the other day finally reminded me to do so.

What if religion and all the belief that goes with it was proven a hoax; or even some of what we thought we knew was proven as false? What would happen to society - to the human race? For the millions of people who had put their faith in something that isn't real, they would be lost without their beliefs.

Or are we confusing religion with spirituality? Obviously, there are some hardcore religious people out there, who swear they "speak with God" or "know God", but I would be willing to bet that most people are more affected by the spirituality of religion, the feeling of belonging to something bigger than themselves, than the hardcore beliefs that most religious people claim to hold.

I know I have very spiritual moments. However, I don't attribute those moments to a "God" or anything else other than me being in a certain place and time in my life and that it feels special at that moment. Do I attribute this to religion, in the sense that we generally think of? Of course not, however, I do attribute it to a spirituality that I have inside me that keeps me at peace and gives me strength and hope. The difference is that I don’t base it on a far-fetched tale that was told 2,000 years ago to keep people in line.

Consequently, if we’re affected by spirituality more so than “religion”, I’m not sure anything would happen in the long term. The short term might be somewhat chaotic and people would be searching for answers that nobody would have, but I think eventually people could become at peace with who they are, what they believe in. The control that others had on people’s lives would be returned to the individual. Essentially, everyone would be free.

Unfortunately, some many people need guidance and I suppose the downside to this is that those people would be truly lost. What I think would happen to them, is the beginnings of the next, new cult. New leaders would emerge, with new philosophies and for the next however-many-years, people would begin to buy into these beliefs and all of a sudden, poof, we have “religion” again.

So the sad truth is this: despite my dislike for religion, it will not be going anywhere, anytime soon.