We are three months away from my 30th birthday (in three hours).  It is closing in like a speeding locomotive.  I have decided that I am not going to dread it or fear it but I will embrace it with open arms.  It will be a turning point in my life and the end of the first half of my life and the beginning of the second half.   I have been doing a lot of thinking these last few months.  Thinking about the past.  Thinking about the future.  Deciding what changes should be made because well quite frankly the way that I have gone the first thirty years mostly isn’t working for me.

I don’t have much left in the tank.  I will freely admit that the hatred, the anger and the need for justice this past year has aged me 20 to 25 years at least.  I’m getting too old for this shit.  I had to remove JC Bailey from the shit list because I couldn’t handle that much hate anymore.  Well truth be told, I need to drop just about everybody from the shit list.  I don’t think I have the strength left in me to have it more than five people long.  Therefore, I am freeing everyone from the shit list that occupy spots lower than the top 5.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to lower it to 3.  I’m mellowing out and I beginning to realize that the quest for happiness can’t be reached with anger and hate holding me back.  Ray, Fusion, Sox, Ian, Mickie – pick yourselves up off the floor.  You all were privy to the meltdown earlier this year and how close I came to going off the deep end.  Hell people watching the DVD could see it and started referring to it as my “Falling Down” moment and thought that I had lost it and was about to go on a killing spree.  The anger and animosity and torture that I went through over that shit as I said took years off my life.  I have to make it until James Christopher is at least 18 and do it without being behind bars so I need to chill and calm down or else I won’t make it till he’s 10.

Since I’m talking about getting rid of hatred and anger, it got me to thinking about the onset of all that anger and hatred.  It got me thinking about in the immortal words of many a Ric Flair promo “what’s causing all this?”  There is one event that can be pointed to as the start of it all.  My dad’s accident.  It made me hate the world that something like that can happen to someone.  It cost me my childhood.  I didn’t have a normal life.  It caused kids at school to pick on me since we didn’t have money to buy the “cool” clothes.  They told shitty jokes about my dad being in a wheelchair.  They alienated me cause I was different.  The anti-social hating everybody attitude took shape in the years following his accident.  Its been me vs. the world and everyone in it ever since.  In high school while the other kids were partying and hanging out and being kids, I was home by 9 to help my dad get ready for bed or to take care of my dying mother and being old before my time.  But I guess in hindsight, everyone can have their own sob story and not everyone turned out like me.  Here is a picture of the newspaper article that the Morris paper did on my dad’s accident…I won’t type out the article but it talked about the hardships my mom and I had in addition to all the hardsphips he had to endure with rehab and adjusting to life in a wheelchair and how unprepared the entire town was to be accessible for people in a wheelchair.

images gone 🙁

Mostly though, I want to change because I want to be a good role model for James Christopher.  I tell John Calvin all the time that I don’t want the baby to be cussing people out and disrespectful as a kid so to watch his mouth.  Well I don’t want James Christopher to grow up to be angry and depressed and negative and hating everybody either.  I want to pass along my better traits.  Good in school.  Honest.  Loyal.  Being the best friend that someone can ask for.

I have three months to work on it and refine and attempt to accomplish it.  I have no hope of obtaining the ultimate goal that would achieve happiness by 30 but this one I think can happen…as long as no one does anything stupid and screws up and does something to get added on the shit list.

I am sure that I will do more of these entries where I talk about events from my past and what I’m looking forward to in the future.

I will leave with these lyrics from Tim McGraw’s “My Next 30 Years”

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doing here
In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family and hang out with my wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here ,In my next thirty years

In my next thirty years