Am I Blue

I went for a drive down memory lane, I went to the old neighborhood that I can first remember as being mine. Like everyone taking this trip the hills aren’t as big, the street not as long, the schools not as spacious as remembered in the minds eye. But the memories are still bigger than life and still cause as much remembered pain as they once did. Remembered is a much different and colorful landscape than the drab appearance of the one before me. I can understand what make me the unique individual I am now, I can see where I got it from. I could see my history unfold before me, see my life pass before me as I drove the streets I once walked as a child.

I can see my parent as the people they were with all their flaws and imperfection intact, with all their hopes and dreams and their disappointments too. In the end we are just people trying to do the best we can for ourselves and for our children. But a real life hangs in the balance of the reality of the two adults, a budding reality. Life doesn’t often turn out the way we want but the way it will. A child moves through these reality’s buffeted by the environment around that child.

I could give you all the gory details of love deigned by a father in name only or a mother with too much zeal for a better life. But why bother it’s a life that’s not unique in the least. What is unique is the way(s) I responded to the challenges of my reality. I became a chameleon changing colors or temperaments as required depending on the prevailing emotional winds. I was raised to be a polite child to do unto to other as I would like them to do unto me. Needless to say I was raised a Catholic and I’m still trying to recover. Although never abused by the church I was never the less inflicted by their own realities. I went to church and confession regularly and had so few sins I had to borrow from my classmates. Early on I learn the rules and what the caveats were, a sin was only a sin if you enjoyed yourself. Or that the lay teachers could be deranged as anyone with their punishments. In grade five I found out that heaven was only for Catholics, there was no saving a good Jew or Baptist. Or that punishment held it’s effectiveness only if you let it, if I was going to be punished for any infractions anyway’s why do the punishment at all. There was always the library and the wonderful books that led me to a world I could escape into.
That was also the year my parents decided to divorce and I had to leave school anyway, you couldn’t be the son of a fallen woman. But I didn’t realize any of that I just knew that it meant a new school and new friends and a new library to explore. Coincidentally it meant that my grade would improve because I was challenged to learn more and was given much greater latitude in that learning. In the new school I also fell in love for the first time and my warped little mind was so confused that I couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t the last time either I’m pleased to say there were many times I couldn’t think straight as I grew into me.

I’ve always loved women and all the different facets of them. As a child I was always the friend, the best buddy to whom they could speak to as an equal. Not the leading man but the supporting actor who could be relied upon for that support and understanding. As much as I resented it as a young male I also learned to treasure my special relationship with the female gender. I learned from my experiences the intricacies of the female mind and their thought processes. Though hardly an expert I cultivated my role and approached the more interesting females around me and that led me naturally into photography. Notice I said the more interesting and not the most beautiful or sought after but the most unique females I could find. Girls who had a personality that intrigued me that challenged me to find out more about them and how they saw the world around them. And for better or worse that’s part of what makes Me.

The point to all of this it that this marks three years since I was released from the hospital after my stroke. My stroke has cause me to do a lot of introspection, examinations of my life for purpose and history. To see where all the skeletons are buried and to exhume them and find peace with them..., or try to. It’s passed time for this introspection, for this too shall pass moment in my life. I am really grateful for the life given to me and I hold it precious. While I wish my history were better and me a better person I’m content to be where I am now. I look forward to facing the challenges that face me, that face us all in these economic times. Here’s to the future, may it be as bright as our dreams.