Free At Last Free At Last Thank God Almighty She Is Free At Last

Torture.  Trama.  Physical abuse.  Mental and emotional abuse.  Injury.  Financial hardship.  Emotional hardship. Loneliness.  Aloneness.  Despair.  Deletion.  Promise.  Promises.  Elation.  Depletion.  Desertion.  Accusation.  Humiliation.  Frustration.  Exhaustion.  Expansion.  Sadness.  Melancholy.    Mishaps.  Crack-ups.  Cracks.  Cracked.  Medication.  Exhilaration.  Exasperation.  Imagination.  Good sensations.  Bad sensation.  No sensation.  Relief.  Elation.  Disbelief.  Depression.

This could go on forever, and has.  No one deserves any of this, let alone all of this and more.  At some point everyone's time should come to bask, even for just a moment in the sun.

I am so glad her time has come.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

Anatomy of a Decision

There have been so many decisions that have been made over the course of 46 years and 357 days, that it is hard to look at just one and say "that is the one."  I would like to say that I do not regret any decisions I have ever made, but at present I cannot do that because frankly I have not looked at each one to no whether or not regret is a factor.  I definitely know that some that I could regret, or perhaps even should regret, some that family and friends regret me making are not decisions that I do in fact regret, nor will I ever, but there is one that I had almost forgotten about because the dominoes since have fallen so fast, and so intensely that for a moment I had forgotten what the first domino was.

Almost exactly seven years ago I was standing in the parking lot of Steamboat Springs High School looking at the gorgeous day, and looking up at the mountain that I had been considering calling home for some time, and trying to make a decision.  I had, at that time, just been offered a job teaching math, coaching football and lacrosse, in Steamboat.  The job paid pretty well, especially to do something that I enjoy doing, and something that some people would say I was born to do.  The job also included a flexible schedule such that ten days a month I would be in snow every afternoon.

Seven years ago I was fairly fit, I was coming off two very successful years coaching football and lacrosse, and I was not yet fat and ugly.  Seven years ago I had a knee that was still very solid and very capable of skiing anything.  Seven years ago my view of life was very different than it is now.

This was a very difficult decision for me, but the consensus seemed to be if you have a chance to coach college ball then you coach college ball.  I am glad I can now say that I coached college football, and I do not think I will ever forget that experience.  I am glad that I have had the chance to coach lacrosse at the college level as a head coach and now know that I could have been, am now, good at that, but I have to wonder how happy I would have been living in that community, a community I had felt a part of for a long time prior to the offer.  I have to wonder if I had been in that community for the past seven years would I had found someone that I wanted to spend my life with, or t the very least significant time with.  I have to wonder if I would be a happier, more at peace person today if I had simply stayed there.

It is hard to explain exactly how I felt in that moment, but I can say that there have not been a lot of moments since, if any, that have felt that good.  For those few moments, standing outside that school, looking up at unmistakable beauty, knowing that someone, a group of someones, wanted me to be a part of something they were doing, thought that I could contribute, to be valued in that moment and at peace.  To say that every moment since has been a step down, or a step backward would be such a gross understatement that it would not be doing it justice.  At the same time, at least I had that moment, and having remembered that time, that moment, and knowing some people never even get that, I guess that memory will have to be enough.

I could have done without the seven year free-fall however.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.