When Life Worked
I was pleasantly surprised that Christianity was an awful that it’s turned out to be a positive thing. As a youngster going to church it was about sleeping during the sermon and getting out of there. But I think as a as an adult, probably around 2728 You know, going back to church wasn’t awful. It was actually a positive life experience.
Man, a lot of the people that I still know to this very day. Children that were not my own that played a big role in my life are probably the neighborhood kids in East Nashville like Jonathan Josh Casey Lorien. I’ve told the story of them jumping the fence. My home was an open home for kids almost 24/7 air hockey table, gym, study area rest area. It really was an interesting little experiment to do that as a single person be able to do a Dave couldn’t do and that’s keep the door open. 24/7 I’m sure there were pluses and minuses but it was a it was several years but compared to the rest of my life is a short amount of time.
Where I attempt to help someone only make things worse, while I think there’s the big one there. Gordon a Monique that I met that worked at McDonald’s and then Burger King. McDonald’s off Front Street and then Burger King. I think out on route 22 in Harrisburg definitely fell for her. I think I existed somewhere and some little pocket escape world that she created.
She claimed to be a domestic abuse victim. And I remember sending flowers once and apparently she had to explain them away because she was still living with her ex boyfriend and apparently me sending flowers just made things really bad. I didn’t know that at the time. I wanted to help her but that definitely was not a good move.
I might add 10 vacations or ventures they went on as a family. Yeah, no, there definitely are 10 My parents chose the destination and you know, the memories that stood out I think are outlined in Woodlock slash dealing with my mother and sisters passing piece that I wrote. So I don’t want to rehash them.
10 trips I took as an adult either alone or with others. What was the favorite part of each trip? Well, there’s the trip to bot con 94 The first transformers convention where I went to Columbus, Ohio and then Fort Wayne, Indiana. The best part was just successfully adulting to Columbus and then to Indianapolis. And then you know attending the Transformers convention booking room, all of that stuff. That was great.
The second transformers convention in Rochester, New York, drove from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Rochester, New York. I remember driving overnight, and sleeping through a lot the convention programming but I met the voice of Optimus Prime Peter Cullen and I managed to book a room. Something went wrong at the first hotel that I looked at so I looked at another one that happened to be the convention hotel so I got in at the convention rate and that was the accomplishment there.
Let’s see. There was all my adventures to California, from 2009 or 10 to 2012 ish. The Santa Monica Christmas adventures just staying at the Jolly Roger Marina del Rey favorite part of that was working with the homeless. That was a huge deal for me. So those are those are really, really kind of the three or four big ones right there.
My parenting style was authoritative, because my child was an at risk child. I say my methods I think I probably could have executed them differently. But I think the methods were necessary given that my kid was at risk I think I’ve I’ve been flexible and permissive it left me to be taken advantage of and that definitely wasn’t the right right play there. So definitely authoritative definitely not the soft touch parent because we’re we’re kind of friend of my don’t know, you would have to ask somebody else. I don’t know that anybody’s kind of friend.
And I’m fine for that. All offer advisement, when needed. I wouldn’t call it advice. I would call it advisor because it tends to be in the more professional realm. I know during the time my friend Greg was in Ukraine, rescuing Ukrainians. I would do calls over Facebook Messenger as I could video chats, just to try to encourage him as he risked his life to save Ukrainians.
My family went through a divorce together although I would argue it wasn’t together as everybody went their separate directions. My sister moved out my father just walked out and it was me and my mom. It also resulted in a financial struggle because we went from double business owner household to a single parent working household. So that was a challenge.
Loss affected me most of my adult life was probably the loss of my mother. That was a challenge the loss of my cat. A childhood cat and probably the loss of my mother affected me the most. Ultimately, it changed who I am it changed the whole premise of which my life runs and is based on I think ultimately it changed what happens Why wake up each morning. So that’s that’s definitely a big change.
I will have strong opinions I will tend to voice them if and when necessary. Definitely when it comes to something like cat rescue or immigration, or crazy aspects of religion I do know that we do an outreach at the shopping mall each week. There’s one particular pastor that they are inviting. I have very strong opinions about it. I think he’s a lewd I don’t know the leopard changes that spot spots like he claims to have. I’ve seen some stuff fairly recently that makes me think he hasn’t and I express my opinion but then they’re free to do what they want to do and I can not participate that particular reach I’ve participated you know every week for years.
Money affected my life in that when my parents divorced. I turned to money. Money made the pain go away. Buying things release the endorphins and combated the pain of divorce. I definitely did struggle as an adult with money. I’ve done a soft reset this year so I’m pretty okay now.
I think when you don’t have finances, when you don’t have margin you make different decisions. You make more desperate decisions. I think things have gotten better definitely over the last year. As out of most of my debt. My home is paid off and my cars are paid off. So I think it puts me in a different decision. A bit different position to make better decisions.
If I could live anywhere in the world in this time in my life, I would probably be California assuming I had the means and the finances. I’ve always wanted to move out there. Part of me still wants to move out there. I just know at this moment I’m not an idiot given the rents out in California right now. And the job opportunities are pretty minimal low paying out there. But still like to wake up and go beach.
I always thought that for those broke. I might as well be broke on the beach, but I don’t necessarily I mean now that you know I have my own home and my cars and everything’s paid off. I have a high mileage car and I have one waiting in the wings with 30,000 miles I drive once a week that can become my regular car after time. I don’t know that living as a poor beach from isn’t necessarily what I would want to do.
Because I can’t live better than living poor in Nashville or living poor in California. My paradigm used to be I’m going to live for I might as well do it in style. But I think at this point in my life I’m in a fairly decent position that could would either be living poor in California or living okay here and I found the numbers if I gave up everything and move back to New York City extra about five years all things considered even with a job. And this numbers probably are fairly similar for California to whereas if I stay here, I have a chance to make money and accumulate money, which I can do good things with.
My religious beliefs have developed drastically up to this point. I was raised Lutheran and then after my parents divorce, I was nothing and then I was invited. I was Church of Christ slash non denominational slash Baptists slash non denominational non denominations, pretty much where I stand now. I’ve toured 18 churches in the last 18 weeks I’ve definitely seen a lot and God definitely guides me or at least that I like to think that he does.
My relationship with food is that I liked my favorite foods. There’s no question, I like my favorite foods. I cooked Chicken Corn Soup. That’s Pennsylvania Dutch recipe I do that each week. Corn Soup Vietnamese for pizza and chicken noodle soup toe and a good McDonald’s burger and chicken mcnuggets you can forget those.
I didn’t grow up with chicken mcnuggets that was an adulthood thing. So I definitely enjoyed those as I didn’t enjoy Chicken McNuggets as a kid, because I wasn’t I didn’t have them.
Word Association The word is betrayal. I think my former Pastor Dave spring definitely comes to mind when I think of betrayal. We were running the movie company in inner city outreach and he just totally flaked. He had issues with drug addiction, solicited a prostitute.
I tend to think that that was a time in my life are firing on all four cylinders. That time I know my life never came back. And I always felt that if David just stayed on track and not succumb to temptation, I could still be living that life. Yeah, that betrayal was hard. Because I lost a lot through that process. And because my signature was on everything. I was on the hook for seven years or six years, actually six years for everything. That we did everything that we didn’t pay all the liabilities. Those are me.
