Willingness in Incongruency
After living to learn and know, hah…that a favorable outcome does not always follow my originally designed do-good desire, I remain steadfast on intention, damn the result. Now and again however, the aftermath of my positively-positioned proactive procedures are downright horrifically destructive.
In my teens, I legitimately contributed to a beautiful human life being senselessly lost. He would have never died that day if I had not done what I did, absolutely no way never. I thought to be doing the right thing, but Johnny Powell died right there in front of my eyes, as I stood fear-filled frozen and aghast. To a degree I have processed Johnny’s death, yet also I believe to owe the world paybacks on an entirely unachievable level…alas this my weighted rucksack I carry, my unsteady pack filled with rocks of Life As I Have Lived It.
By other people’s measure, I am an oversharer. Additionally, as my global sisters and brothers openly proclaim…I am reckless, accident prone, such a fucking girl (meaning overly-emotional), operating above my pay grade, pathetic, and more. Well, verifiably at times, I am all of that because they believe so, by their measure.
Just before my seventh birthday, I majorly contributed to one of my mother’s final psychotic episodes before she was restrained in a lock-down Maryland Spring Grove state mental hospital ward, for years. Our mother bird never returned home afterward, and it was then the father bird’s job to raise us four little nestlings by his lonesome. When vacation camping in Florida, one dark night when my mother’s back was turned, I hitchhiked down that Okefenokee Swamp road trying to find my father as he worked on a broken-down car, but rather I went astray and remained missing for hours. Of course I did not cause my mother’s poor mental health, but I helped to push her over the edge and into the cuckoo’s cage. Much later after her release, I tried to help my bag-lady bat-shit-crazy homeless mother…tried to help her however be it the best I could with some slight life comforts, just as the hard rain of paranoid schizophrenia dumped buckets upon her head.
My orientation originates from my proprietary operating system…I believe not to be unique in this regard. We all carry our own shit, and carry it in our individual sorts of ways. My chances taken and maneuvers attempted do not occur without prior calculation of risk versus outcome, regardless of what others might think. Throughout much of my life, stale stagnation equated to another Russian roulette trigger being pulled, and another…and another…aka if I sit around too long, I believed I would die.
At 16, I thought my life path of selling pot downer-pills and cocaine was paramount to all else, so I dropped out of school. Rebounding slightly, my pallet of intrinsic nature worked hard while on the clock, hoping to get the hell away from those dark scary homegrown elements trying to harm me. Later and thankfully, Dave Butler hired me to be a store General Manager then District Sales Manager for Performance Bicycle Shops, my first big-business job. Graciously, Bob Myers then hired me at Trek, and to follow Joyce Keehn and John Burke promoted me into regional sales manager and global director roles. I stayed at the Wisconsin bicycle company for 20 years, managing multiple businesses simultaneously, leading hundreds of people, and first-person responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars. Now as I try to find even a simple manager job somewhere, ha-ha…I am omitted as a non-viable candidate because I lack a four-year degree. But no-bother-no-better…I try not to judge, blame, or assume. I do not know people’s story, and much because of from where I came, I try to treat all people all the same, and I attempt to place others squarely in line for praise, afront of myself.
Somewhere amid my 18th and 19th years of life, twice I toppled over unconscious, after shoving one too many drug-filled needles in my arms. My self-shame blame and disgust reigned supreme for two decades, and it’s no surprise the junkie overdoses resulted. Initially, my intention was to numb my achy heart. Until matters grew horribly self-abusive, my drug addiction provided great comfort and escape from the frights I ran from. Laughingly, while consuming every street drug in existence at the time, including heroin meth and flakes aka PCP, I was just trying to survive and not allow the dark sinistrous demons of my subconscious to carry me off.
Many of my wagers have also paid dividends. My 13 years of substance addiction taught me limitless tenacity, which proved positive when I turned pro on the mountainbike, then speeding off to leave the dastardly drugs behind. On the bike my network developed and led to executive jobs, and a livelihood I would have never been afforded otherwise. The race and work travel introduced me to breathtaking locations of the world, hundreds of new friends, and found truthful parts deep inside myself to help me remain and live vivaciously.
Across the years 1997 to 2017, I tried to do right in love, marriage, husbandry, and fatherhood. My attempt was to provide, serve, and protect my one after another pair of wife birds, and my baby bird brood. Alas at times I was a shitbird husband and father…working too hard, travelling too much, and not home enough. How then did the damage land upon both of my now ex-wives and my two darling children, I do not know. I am not them, thus unaware of their suffrage. Safe to say I desire some of those circumstances not to have gone as they did.
I try to do everything right, I really try.
I am sorry…I am sorry for my gambled missteps…I am sorry to my kids for the resulting household upheaval, twice. I am sorry to my ex-wives for not giving them what they wanted or needed to remain happy in our marriages. I am sorry to those of you my friend family who desire a copy of my book but alas I cannot afford the $70 each to print any more than I already have. I am actively querying multiple literary agents, trying to see if I can get the book out into the world for all of you who want it, but my effort has not yet yielded any interest. I finally constructed a book donation fund here on my website, for those of you pushing to provide support with the book project, regardless of getting a copy yourselves.
Even now…even now as I settle-up and pay the poker table cashier from my bets placed over the last three years while writing, even now things have not panned out favorably. Despite attempts to regroup financially just as my memoir volume number one hits the streets, I am unable to remain where I desire, hence I must fly away from my home nest and tragically, away from my kids. Maybe the detailed story of from where I came will arrive judiciously upon my beloved children one day, or with their kiddos my grandbirds, or hah, even their children’s children…maybe, maybe not. Maybe my books are utilized as nothing more than the most excellent four-pound dusty doorstops ever, I don’t know.
I’d rather…I’d rather try than not try. I’d rather fall down and learn than remain safely stationary. I’d rather crash than remain stuck where I do not desire to stay. I’d rather overshare than undershare, because I know all too well how the emotional quicksand of preclusion expertly sucks the very life from me.
I write…I write because I have something to say. I write to share, instead of withhold.
In conclusion I say somewhat cockily…notwithstanding the needle and the damage done, I choose intention.
Love you, love you all.
~ Bird out.
