From a phone booth in Cheyenne, I made a promise to Diane... February 19, 2023

When I first opened the camera today I was shocked a little about how old I looked and how I looked a bit like Popo - I guess I am Popo (number 2) now.  I suppose I should start living up to that.

I had a dream last night that I was older, sitting out here in my cave, sniffling and Tiffany brought me a tissue/Kleenex.  It was nice to dream as I don't very often and even nicer to dream about being older.  I don't even think that much about being older any more, I think about tomorrow sometimes (the next day, not like the theoretical tomorrow) and I think about today, but mostly, I think about nothing.  I let the politics of the day bother me too much and spend my time on trivial pursuits a lot: cleaning the kitchen, making food for the week, and shit like that.  I suppose that keeps me from thinking about the cancer as it does distract me.

I miss having passions about things.  I am slowly (and I mean slowly) trying to get myself back into the indoor gardening, but surgery is going to throw a wrench into that.  Maybe I will be able to move around some and get things done in the back room (albeit nothing heavy).  I was harvesting and tending the weed/tomatoes in less than a month after the first surgery (I have 9/29 trimmed bud to prove it - that means I harvested that bud at least on 9/22 - minimum).  So I was up and about pretty quickly.

As I get closer to surgery, I get more scared.  Not so much scared about the surgery itself, but more so the success and or failure there of.  I so desperately want to get back to being me, but I know that I have promised that "me" is going to change.  I am going to be more present, less focus on me, see my family more often, get this fucking house in order so we can have family over, etc...  There is so much I need to do for Tiffany still and the girls.  I have realized that working hard and getting money is such a small portion of what it takes to be a good father and I missed out on some of that.  Mostly I missed out in the last 10 years or so when I was trying to climb the stupid ass corporate ladder.  It was a profitable, yet silly mistake, to give all my time to work in the event to get promoted.  It was self-indulgent at best and out-right selfish.  I wasn't doing it for the family, I was doing to for me as I have never felt good enough.  I am not certain where that came from, but I have never felt like I have achieved my potential, like I am always chasing something and for some reason, never satisfied. I suppose some of it is just society and media telling me what I should have and what that looks like.  A lot of it was watching the leaders that used my work to prop themselves up having what seemed to be better lives than me, but that is never a given and we don't know what their lives are like at home (I just see there multiple houses and stuff).

I suppose I should look at my success and realize that I did well.  With bonuses, etc... I made it to a point where I made more than 200k a year.  I was one person below the CIO of a fortune 300 company and two people below the CEO.  That isn't bad for a guy that grew up like me and thought that at times the manager of a major department store was "making it".  

One of the things I realize is that when I look through the old pictures, I was around a lot, especially when the girls were young.  Like I said, it wasn't until the Corning work that I started to slip away a bit.  I suppose I am a bit hard on myself, but I always have been.  Also, the cancer and possible short time left in the world has made me realize how important those little times were and how unimportant the money was.  We live, we learn.  

However, we need the money now as Tiffany doesn't work, the girls are unstable, and we travel to NJ every two fucking weeks and are about to spend $7K on NYC again for surgery time.  Thank God for Tiffany's mom.  It is going to take some time to recover from this mess and that is why it is so important that I am able to beat this and continue on as I have to do my duties.  This is extremely important to me.

Well, I babbled a lot this morning (and I am not stoned - go figure).

I love you all!