As we journey into the mortal world we are given certain gifts to help us better walk our life path here. I remember when I was a very young boy my mother used to read stories from the Bible to me. I really enjoyed listening to them. As she read the story of Solomon and his renowned wisdom I decided that wisdom was the gift I wanted most, so I sought after wisdom.
You all know the saying “Be careful what you wish for.” Yeah… I’m thinking that I should have taken that advice back when I was young and just passed through life fat, dumb and happy. You see, you cannot appreciate true happiness, unless you have known true sadness. You cannot know true beauty, unless you have known that which is ugly. You cannot enjoy true peace if you haven’t experienced true conflict. The list goes on.
I don’t know if I ever attained wisdom, but what I have gained is experience and it started when I was eleven years old. My mother married someone who had been released from prison and was on parole. Up till then, meaning from the time I was actually aware of my surroundings, I lived with my mother, my grandmother and my two brothers. On the night my mother went with this man to marry him my brothers and I stayed home. We were so excited that we could not sleep. We were going to have a new dad.
Our new father was a hard core individual and very heavy handed. He mostly hit me with a razor strap (a wide strip of leather used to hone the edge of a straight razor). He also hit me with his fist. It was during those times that I learned to be afraid. I remember that nearly every single day he told me I was stupid and that I would never amount to anything.
He would promise us things and never give them to us, saying that it was because we did something wrong, or didn’t do something he told us to do. Sometimes he would give us give us wonderful things, like he once gave me a philly colt to raise to be my horse. Then, one day, when I came home from work I found out that he had sold my young horse saying we needed the money. All these things happened often
I had to quit school when I was fifteen years old and help support the family. The work was hard and there were many days that I came home, sat on my bed and cried, because I was so exhausted. Eventually my step father stopped working and we lived on the wages my brother and I earned. Although life was very hard for me, in all fairness, it made me strong and gave me the ability to face life’s challenges head on. I just didn’t know it then. Back then it was an extremely heavy load to carry.
Life goes on and like so many abuse victims I married someone who was much like my stepfather. She even called me names and told me I was stupid. Early on in my marriage I asked her why she didn’t like me. She had no answer for that. When I married her she had four children who needed a father figure in their life and I had two born to me. I cannot describe the treasure that was mine, so I stayed. I thought to myself “I was born of kings and I can endure this.” Yeah… I was wrong. It was so difficult that I had affairs with three other women. I just wanted someone to tell me I was okay. There is no joy in doing wrong things, no matter the intent and there is a terrible price to pay for such wrongdoing.
Life, in that period was nearly impossible to endure. There was the abuse from my stepfather, my then wife, not to mention the guilt I carried for the wrongs I had done. Depression is like being in a room with no doors and no windows. You cannot see a way out and that is where I found myself. One day, while I was home alone and the weight of life was just too much to bear I got my gun, sat on the couch and decided to take my life.
Once I made that decision a warm peaceful feeling came over me. I knew that I could end all the pain that was my life, so I put the gun to my head and started pulling on the trigger. Before I actually pulled the trigger I heard a voice on the television saying “If you want to be happy you have to choose to be happy, no matter the circumstance you find yourself in.” It was like someone slapped me in the face and told me to wake up. “Bam” It hit me. I could be happy, if I chose to be happy. It was like a light miraculously turned on in my head. Suddenly there was hope, so I put away my gun and embarked on a journey to find happiness.
I would like to say that life suddenly became rosy and bright and that things were right in the world again, but that was not the case. Life was still very difficult to bear. It was I who had changed. I was no longer the kitten acquiescing under the pressures of life. I was now the Lion, king of beasts, strong and unyielding. It was here that I began my journey towards a happy peaceful existence.
It is this part of life’s journey for which I created this blog. I will share with you, the reader, my experiences in this adventure called life and as I said, I want this to be a conversation, so I would like you to comment on the things I write and share some of your own experiences. In this conversation I expect to gain new insights and, perhaps, to inspire others, by the things I have learned in my sojourn here.
Life is good. This is not an impossible task. You can do it. We can do it together. Never give up.