Ahhhhh so it is finally here. Everyone has that day on the calendar that REALLY sticks out to them for whatever reason. For me the day that stays ingrained in my memory is April 6th, 2010. That is the last day that my little angel spent on this earth with her father. I remember the whole day as if it were yesterday... It's really weird because it is almost like everything was moving in slow motion and before I knew it everything had dramatically changed in my life. I am not sure anyone would confuse me for being the most spiritual person ever in life but I remember only asking God for two things. I wanted to have a little boy and a little girl. I remember the excitement that day in the doctor's office when I found out that she was coming. I was so excited I went ahead and scheduled my appointment to get "fixed" because I had gotten the two things that I had always wanted...

(Brief interruption: I know it is amazingly awkward to read something like this and not ask "Well what happened to the baby?" without feeling like a total rude person and I get that so without going into morbid detail she went to sleep that day before I went to work and never woke up. From everything I know the doctor told me she "passed" in the most peaceful way possible)

So here we are...it has been two years...

1. I don't think I have really gotten "over" her passing because she was literally my favorite thing in life...ever. Imagine NEVER asking for anything and then getting the one thing that you wanted more than everything else. There is an emptiness there in my soul. I miss her so so so so so very much. It's really weird to wake up and your children wake up with you and then one day one of them isn't there. That shit stings. It really does.

2. There have been some positive developments because I have been able to make her a special area in the house where any visitor would immediately know her presence and what she meant to everyone. I don't know if I have ever seen a baby that more people thought of and spoiled more in such a short period of time. Literally I have rarely seen such an outpouring of emotion towards someone so tiny...but I always knew that if I had a daughter she was going to be amazingly special.

3. I guess if anything REALLY positive has happened since then is that I have really placed a larger emphasis on how I treat other people. Everyday it's like I literally SEARCH for ways to uplift people. Nobody really knows WHY I do this but there is a reason and if I can even do one thing to make someone feel better in a way it helps to make me feel better. I make sure that when I get that chance I make bags of food to pass out to the homeless around Portland. We are throwing a huge huge huge fundraiser to promote SIDS awareness at the local Pizza Parlor and hopefully we are going to make a ton of money to donate to this charity...

So here I am. It's 7:22 am.
I got a doctors appointment in an hour and a half.
I have to go and get some pink flowers from the store.
I have to the cemetery.
This is the toughest day of the year.
I am ready for this day to be over.
Ugh.
I miss my Angel.
I miss my Kaylieghbear.
Daddy ALWAYS thinks of you. ALWAYS.

That is where I am with it.

Make Kony Famous in 2012!!!

Who is Joseph Kony?

Joseph Kony is the world’s worst war criminal. In 1987 he took over leadership of an existing rebel group and renamed it the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
The LRA has earned a reputation for its cruel and brutal tactics. When Joseph Kony found himself running out of fighters, he started abducting children to be soldiers in his army or “wives” for his officers. The LRA is encouraged to rape, mutilate, and kill civilians–often with blunt weapons.
The LRA is no longer active in northern Uganda (where it originated) but it continues its campaign of violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. In its 26-year history, the LRA has abducted more than 30,000 children and displaced at least 2.1 million people.

What is the goal of KONY 2012?

Invisible Children has been working for 9 years to end Africa’s longest-running armed conflict. U.S. military advisers are currently deployed in Central Africa on a “time-limited” mission to stop Kony and disarm the LRA. If Kony isn’t captured this year, the window will be gone.

We are taking action to ensure these two things:

1) That Joseph Kony is known as the World’s Worst War Criminal.
2) That the U.S. military advisers support the Ugandan Army until Kony has been captured and the LRA has been completely disarmed. They need to follow through all the way and finish what they have started.

Why are we making Joseph Kony "famous"?

Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 campaign aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. In this case, notoriety translates to public support. If people know about the crimes that Kony has been committing for 26 years, they will unite to stop him.

Secondly, we want Kony to be famous so that when he is stopped, he will be a visible, concrete example of international justice. Then other war criminals will know that their mass atrocities will not go unnoticed or unpunished.

When being "friends" suddenly gets hard...

So this is not going to be one of those nice conversations.
There will be some bad words used.
Some old wounds torn open.
But I have to let my words speak for my heart and what is going on in it...

What the fuck man? Why is being "friends" so hard now? I swear in Middle and High School the shit was mad simple but now as a 27 year old adult this shit is borderline maddening...but perhaps I should explain myself a little better...

So I am sitting here the other day just basically taking a mental inventory of my friendships the other day and just examining if you will where I stood with the people that are most important to me...

And then something stuck out...some of my friendships were solid as the day they were forged and some of them have so many conditions on them you would wonder if you were observing whether or not we were even friends. Confused yet? I will give you examples.

One of my best friends is still living in the tiny town near our school. I am not sure if I could ever do her justice by describing her. Like I knew from the moment I met her that we were always going to be cool. The only problem? I didn't realize that she was one of my very best friends until I had moved 6000 miles away...and now it hurts just a little inside because we had all the time in the world (2 years) to really work on being awesome friends (which we were to a degree) but we never did...blame our relationships...social life...schoolwork...jobs...whatever...but the opportunity was forever wasted and it is so hard to forgive myself for that. Like to this day she has been one of only 3 or 4 people that I can talk  to about anything...and I mean anything...and I totally fucked up by not being the friend that I could have been.

Then there is my other friend who...well we just didn't get off to the best start. We will just say that. You ever have a situation where you have a chance to make an impression but you fuck it completely to shit? This is what went down. So without a full rehash of the story we didn't talk to each other for years...and then we just got back in contact and we get along really well...and this is someone I could talk to about almost anything...except...I still have issues concerning this person. So it is one of those situations where I just have a bunch of shit to say and I just haven't been able to...and texting or whatever won't cut it for what I need to say and every time I bury that shit something pops up and just makes it bad all over again. The really sad part? I can't even blame anyone because again...I had my chances to make the shit right and I didn't.

So the third and fourth friends will be forever intertwined together...and is wrong part of me wishes that shit never happened. Imagine two of YOUR bestfriends getting together. That is either going to go really well or turn into a fucking disaster. I will give you a wild guess what happened. So I went from being super close to both of them to things just being odd because they just turned into oil and water overnight (unless they are separated and then things go ok...until they try to mix again and then we are back to square one). I love them separately but together it is just...a fucking chaotic mess.

So we are halfway through this note and the four of my best friends from college all are close to me still...but not the way I want for various issues...and this has me BORDERLINE psycho...but wait I am not even done...

So here I am way out here in Portland Oregon...and I am trying to bring new folks into my life and start new friendships and things are nuts out here lol...

The person who is probably my best friend out here isn't really eligible to be any closer to me than she is. Is that her fault? Absolutely not. She loves sports, always is reliable, and has honestly never let me down. Ahhhh but there is a catch. She is the best friend to the Ms. So I can't talk to her about anything too serious or even anything too crazy cause I don't wanna put her in a bad position and I don't want to worry about her repeating anything I say you know....? So there is another one lol...

There are some other people I have gotten close to lately but I just dunno...everytime I reach out it's one thing or the other. Like I am just starting to wonder if maybe it's me. There are some REALLY wonderful people that I am starting to talk about on a regular basis but after all of the chaos listed above I just am scared I guess to even try anymore for fear or someone being fake towards me or me just screwing up.

Here is what I think I want in a friend...

I want cool people that I can be myself around...
Without having to edit every word that I say...
That actually are willing to listen for as much as they are willing to talk...
Can be reliable when it counts...
and are consistent with how they act...
and are not rude and obnoxious (to me at least lol) for no reason.

Is this too much to ask for???

I dunno. When did friendship get so hard...?

SN: There are some folks I left out. It was not intentional and don't take it that way. I just wrote about what I thought about tonight....

That weird thing called friendship...the bad, the great, and unexpected

Sooooooooo....friendship is a weird thing.

You have some that last...(the great ones)
You have some that don't...(the bad)
And then you have some that are just...unexpected (everything in between)

The bad.


I met a young lady through a mutual friend a couple of months ago and I REALLY thought that we could be really great friends. Everything was going along awesomely and then it's like a switch flipped and it just became unimportant for her to be my friend. It hurt so damn bad too because I am the type of person that really puts a lot of themselves into people they care about so to say that these last few months and the way things came to a close would be disappointing to say the least. I mean but what do you know? When someone makes it clear that you aren't important what are you supposed to do at that point? That shit hurt though.

The great...

There aren't many people I love. I just don't think I am a really emotionally attached person but there are a couple of people that I have met that just have such perfect timing as far as when we talk to each other...

Anna (my lady A). For some strange reason we get each other. I don't know why exactly but we totally just...get each other. She is like a sweet southern belle and I am like the worst, most inappropriate guy ever but no matter how shitty things go in our lives when we talk you just kinda know that somewhere we were always meant to be friends. I think the thing that makes me appreciate her is that I don't have to waste time asking the things that I want to know. We just dive into the deep end and that is what it is...

Minnellis ("minnie" and she would murder me on sight for calling her that). Who knew? I mean I love this woman. She has always and will always be one of my favorite people because we are very alike in certain ways and very different in others. I can't even find words to describe why we "click" but we do. I think I live vicariously through her. When I need REAL advice. When I want to talk about the ugly side of relationships or things that I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking of to anyone else for fear of judgment she is the first name to come to my mind.

The unexpected...

There have been some recent people that I have begun to get closer to and it's really fun because they are so dramatically different from each other...

Julia...Like I have no idea why she is single. It is really cool cause she can always hang out and come to all my UFC events at BWW but she is like so sweet! We get along so well because she loves fashion (like seriously she has shopping issues lol) and REALLY love sports so we will always get along. Plus she might be the most reliable person on earth.

Victoria (the elf princess): I just love Victoria. I don't even really know why we get along so well, but I just love that woman lol...



And there are so many other folks that I am getting to know like Cloud, Brandi, Drea, Kimberly and Elizabeth and more so I am curious to see how things shake out you know? Anyway...I am tired of typing!

Hmmm?

This morning I wondered this...

Do you think God gets mad at people who only seem to mention him at random times? Like when someone wins an award at a show? Or when someone is going through a hard time? Like I wonder if folks realize the big guy knows when you are being disingenuous? It's weird when you see someone like super spiritual when something happens, but like the other 99.8 percent of the time you would NEVER know they were...I guess it's just weird when I see celebrities (and even weirder with FB friends) giving God "shout outs" but ONLY when they need/want/after something happens but never on a consistent "just to say I love him" basis...

Truth be told I am not sure I believe my idea of God matches other people I know...I think he's non-exclusionary, loves everyone, and so much more than anyone or a single religion could EVER truly understand or comprehend (but that's just me, I am not super religious)

Guarding your heart...

One thing that I have accepted as a universal truth is that nobody wants to be hurt. We may be one of those people that love the idea of someone being in love or we could be one of the folks that thinks the very idea of love or being in love with someone is a completely assinine or illogical concept. Here’s what I do know. There is almost NOTHING worse than that feeling when “love” goes horribly wrong. Maybe you have been lucky, maybe you have never known that feeling (and kudos to you) but the rest of us remember that time, that place, that person that caused us to question what we thought we knew, that incident that was so disappointing where you can’t even began to see how it is fair that you went through it. The pain that comes when things go wrong, holy shit it hurts. Dammit that shit hurts…
So what happens next?
How do we respond?
I think people do a number of things. I think when you have a bad relationship or maybe even just a bad experience there is a reaction. Some people chalk it up to “they weren’t meant for me,” they recover and then in the appropriate time (or in some cases way too early) they want to jump back in to the deep end and are ready to experience their ideal relationship (everyone doesn’t look forward to getting married and having kids people, there are other situations that people look forward to, i.e. moving in together, having a kid and not be married, having a partner, whatever).
The people that cause me concern are the ones (and I am DEFINITELY including myself in this category) are the people that have an adverse reaction to love gone wrong. What exactly are you supposed to do when you are with someone that puts you through some crazy shit and you move on (or try to) to someone else? People give these cliche ridden answers that they got on Oprah or some book they read but you know what? I think all that mess is some crap. You explain to someone that believes in, or loves, or even really cares about someone else why they should have to feel like crap because someone wanted to be an idiot or a selfish bastard. Truth be told I have been on BOTH sides of this equation so I think I am more than qualified to say that. So after all that you are left with questions that require hard answers…
1. Someone is married to someone else that doesn’t love them the same way and wants out…(yeah it might be easy to judge them in your head but do YOU have to go explain to your parents and loved ones that you chose badly and that you are going to leave this person, who gets custody, where you are going to live, so on and so forth and you see how something that seemed as simple as “I don’t want this anymore” Just became complicated as crap)?
2. Someone gets into the next relationship after the last one ends on a bad note. You have this new person you are with and they seem nice, but you just are still a little pissed at how things went last time and they are on DEFCON 5 alert for the first signs or hint that this new person could bring drama to the table…(yeah it is super easy to say get over your ex, or maybe you should wait until you are ready, or just don’t be so paranoid, and just like my last example that is great advice when it is not your situation we are talking about or if the new person has a lot of potential as someone you could be with or hell, maybe they just put the damn thing down in bed, but my whole point is that it isn’t as simple as a simple piece of advice)…
Anyway I could list scenarios all day but it seems to me that guarding your heart is a lot more complicated than anybody really gives it credit for. I have friends who I really care for that are dealing with a “guarded heart” in one way or the other and I find myself sad sometimes when we speak because more often than not I have been where they are (emotionally) and there is nothing simple about it. There isn’t a specific way to deal with the issues that come up. The only thing that lends me encouragement is that I know that it’s possible to work your way through almost anything because I have had to do it. I think the human heart is capable of working through a great number of emotions and feelings but at some point there has to be a choice of whether or not we want to let it. I think everyone makes a decision as to what they want to do…but I just think if we aren’t careful we can find out one day that maybe we didn’t have to suffer quite as much, hurts as long as we did, maybe there was potential to move on and experience all that we could have missed, but we spent so much time with our heart guarded that we never found out…

My thoughts on religion, sex, and love (7/7/2011)

(Religion)
So finally today the top of my brain has exploded from having so many thoughts in it and now I feel like I just need to pour my inner thinking out and here it goes:
I don’t understand Christianity. There are so many things that I love about the religion in general, but there are a couple of things that really trouble me. One of the biggest issues that I have is the seemingly overwhelming disdain for anybody that is not in a “traditional” relationship. Specifically this problem with gay marriage. Seriously I really do not get it. Why are gay people so threatening to this religion. I don’t understand how you can say “Love thy neighbor” and “Judge not lest ye be judged,” and then turn around and tell someone oh by the way you are going to hell AND your marriage (partnership or however you choose to define it) should not be officially recognized the way you choose to recognize it. Now I don’t want to pigeonhole EVERY Christian because I know some really progressive and smart ones but as a general rule this seems to be the prevailing feeling from the majority that I know and it really really really bothers me. If the gay marriage thing wasn’t enough to bother me, I don’t like the mentality that everyone who doesn’t believe in what you do must be wrong. I find myself wondering everyday what would happen if you died tomorrow and realized that “religion” and a “higher power” was really a combination of so many things. What if you find out that all of the people that believe in higher powers but just not under the guise of Christianity were all right? I think God is so much bigger and so much more multi-faceted than anyone could have ever imagined. I am not sure about “organized religion” because I feel like any belief that you have is a personal relationship that you have. I am not really sure going to a church or a certain school makes much of a difference because I think it’s more about what is in your heart and your personal relationship. Finally, I can see how a lot of people who don’t live in this country can foster such a hatred for the term “Christians” because when they look back at history there have been more wars, more killing, more bad things that have happened under the heading of someone who was supposed to be a “Christian.”
So all that being said, I said that these were going to be my thoughts on religion and I just started with Christianity because it probably is the most dominant religion on the planet, but as far as every other religion there are a lot of things that I like about other belief systems, I like certain tenets of Buddhism and so many other ones my hand would hurt naming them. I think there are a lot of positive things that you can pull from all of the religious systems that people believe in. I think that in some way they all might be right in certain ways. I really do believe in God, but I just think he is more all encompassing of everyone and certainly more loving, more accepting, and honestly I just don’t feel like the big guy can be confined to just one set of beliefs. I think everyone is certainly entitled to their opinions but today I felt like putting mine out there :)

(Sex)
Sex.
Sex.
Sex.
Pretty much the most interesting, debated, hated, misunderstood, confused, and talked about three letter word (outside God) in the world. Sex is something that literally dominates my thought process as a male and it seems to dominate the thought process of a lot of other people as well (considering the last three commercials that I saw on tv as I wrote this were either for male enhancement or something that involved having a beautiful woman pitch a product). Sex is a topic that has the potential to be a much more talked about topic but people seem to shy away from it so much and push it under the rug that one day it seems to just creep up on them and then they are forced to deal with it (whether they are prepared to deal with it or not). I just don’t understand why sex is such a taboo subject? Why are people so darn repressed when it comes to sex? I wish people talked about it more because I love learning what people think when it comes down to it (sex). You know its funny, I went to two universities (so far) for college and they were “Christian Colleges” and really I almost want to go back in retrospect and rename them “Orgy towns.” Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I thought and found it hilarious because I thought these would be the last places in earth for all these crazy things, but then again should I have really been surprised? You know what they say about pastor’s kids lol…
I think a lot of problems that people run into in terms of relationships would be averted if they had spent more time getting to know the things that they like and or curious about sexually. Now am I saying you need to sleep with everyone in sight? That probably is not going to turn out to be the best idea, but then again it probably is a good idea to at least put yourself out there and learn about the things that are going on so you can maybe avoid some pitfalls and heartache later. If I had a wish for EVERYONE it is that at some point in your life you go and have some MIND BLOWING, EARTH SHATTERING, TOE TINGLING, GOOD ASS (no pun intended) SEX. It’s ok, enjoy yourself, but hey it’s just my opinion…

(Love)
Love.
Raise your hand if you have a firm understanding on what the heck that word means. Ok I know three of my friends who immediately raised their hands (and they know who they are), now for the REST OF US who don’t have a firm understanding on this crazy ass emotion I just want you to know you aren’t the only one. I am a grown man and I feel like maybe after 26 years I am having the very beginnings of an what the word might mean, but a true grasp of the concept? No earthly idea. I have never really seen a healthy loving relationship that lasted in my short time on this planet so far. I kind of equate my feelings on God to my feelings on love. I think people take a concept, a feeling if you will and try to condense a broad, overreaching concept and give it a simplistic definition and just try to run with it. The only thing I feel like I know about love is that the definition of it could just as well be “irrational” and I would be cool with it. I don’t think there is an easy way to encompass all of what love is (and all of what it can be in a simple definition). I don’t think loves follows rules, I don’t think relationships (being in one, not being in one) dictate it and I don’t really think you can control. I think love is like water. It can simply mold itself to fit any number of circumstances and it can bring life and it can destructive enough to shatter one and leave it in pieces…so there you have it. Today…that’s what I think about love.