How long?

How long will it take?

How long before my thoughts become permanently clear? How long until the doubts disappear?

I recognize I have used, no, abused this forum to exorcise my past demons. I acknowledge reading about the toll of my illness gets tiresome. I realize I should come up with fresh material.

Then it comes back.

The doubts, the shame, the remorse and the regret. The loathing is the worst. The self hate. The feeling of knowing I’m not good enough comes screaming back faster than I can imagine.

I have a good life.

I have a job, I have a few bucks.

I have a woman I adore and who actually loves me. My lady’s kids may as well be mine. They love me almost as much as I care for them. Digger, the mutt? Well, he’s Digger the mutt.

I have so many blessings I cannot count. I have a few friends, I can make people chuckle. I can make people feel valued.

I’m told I’m not a bad guy.

But.

When will it end? I take the meds. I see the counsellors. I attend the meetings. I do many of the ‘right’ things. But, I get so very tired of being second best, if only in my own mind. I get really tired of despising the face in the mirror. Of being such a disappointment to myself and my family.

I have just read the previous paragraphs. “I”, “I”, “I”…. Wow, how selfish could this be?

Usually at this point in a blog I’ve turned a corner, found the moral and summed up. This time, I’ve noticed how selfish and self centered this has come across. How absolutely……… How very whiny I seem.

I guess I had to see it for myself. At this point, maybe it’s time to “suck it up, buttercup” and move on. Time to cowboy up and be a man. To reclaim my mantle as a ‘tough guy’.

John Wayne and Elvis never would have spent as much time whining about these things. Maybe it’s time I just got tough again. Things were much less confusing when I was tougher.

Maybe I’ll just take the opportunity to be thankful for all I have and stop bitching about what I’ll never be.

Lest We Forget

Life is tough. Ask anyone, life can be very difficult. We’ve all had our challenges.

No one I know has ever had life so tough that portions of their city had blown up while they slept. Well, almost no one. It happened to my Mom during World War II in Scotland.

No one I know waited four years to meet their second born. Well, almost no one. My grandfather had to wait until the end of WWII to meet my father.

No one I know left high school and enlisted in the Forces underaged. Well, almost no one. My cousin left high school and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy in the late 1950’s and retired a Captain after a long, distinguished career that kept him away from his family for months on end.

The majority of the people I know haven’t had to witness the horrific actions people perpetrate on each other.

My lady’s brother endured the hell of Bosnia, Croatia, Afghanistan, and a number of others in his 29 years as a Canadian soldier.

My childhood ‘best friend’ is a Captain whose role is a front line medic. Pulling his wounded brothers to safety and going back for more.

The list goes on. It is for these brave people I wear a poppy. On the Eleventh of November I will stop for the moment of silence and reflect upon my blessings provided by these brave men and women.

The Canadian peacekeepers provide the blanket of freedom we, all to often, take for granted. They do a job many of us are unwilling to do. They go places most of us could almost imagine in our worst nightmares. We Canadians have been blessed to have had no military action on our soil in two hundred years. I believe this has lead to a complacency regarding our Forces.

We haven’t had to rely on them for daily protection. We’ve watched them march, fly or sail to pick up other’s fight. To defend the defenceless. But, they’ve always been there for us.

Guarding us, protecting us. For damn little pay. We, as a society, seem to value a dude slapping a puck around more than military personnel who march into Hell itself. (But that’s for another blog).

I choose to honour those who gave all, I honour those who continue to stand watch and I honour those who choose to become defenders. I got flack a while back for stating “One need not support military action, but it is mandatory to support the troops”. I stand behind that comment. For what has been given and may yet be given our gratitude must be expressed.

For these reasons and more, I vow to never forget.

My mate said it better than I ever could;

“Pray for peace, prepare for war”