The Great Escape

I have to admit that I started writing this post before May 25th.  I really didn't think I would be in any state to write on this particular day.  I've been down that road before.  When the river of emotion rises and rages there isn't much point in doing anything other than hang on to something that floats and ride it out.  But I feel like I have something to say so I thought I would try to get it out before the storm hits.  Even as I'm typing I have no idea what it is.  That's part of the reason for having a blog, once you let the thoughts start flowing they kinda pull out all of the other stuff buried deep in your brain or in your heart and it spews it out all raw and fresh and sometimes what ends up here surprises me more than anyone.  It's true, I don't plan this stuff (as I'm sure you can tell), it just sorta happens.  Enough preamble, let's get on with it. So one year ago I married the most beautiful woman in the world.  I know, eve...

Any of you who follow me on any social media site know that I've been quite focused on Sarah McLachlan lately.  I had the good fortune to be able to travel to Toronto this past week to see Sarah perform at a small club and had the chance to meet her after the show.  For any Sarah McLachlan fan this would be a big deal but I wouldn't consider myself a die hard Sarah McLachlan fan... well maybe I would now but before this past week I would have considered myself to be a casual fan.  There is more to this story than just being able to meet a Canadian music icon.  The truth is this obsession could have been something completely different and triggered in any number of ways but in this particular case Sarah happened to be the catalyst to elicit emotion.  I have a feeling she's quite good at doing that. For the past four months I have been dealing with the grief brought about by the sudden loss of the love of my life .  Dealing with intense grief I found that...

It's Mother's Day so what better time to share a secret with everyone (if you read to the end, you will understand why this is the perfect day to share this particular secret).  This is something that only K.B. knew but I figured that since I've been baring my soul on the Internet for some time now I might as well share this with the rest of the world too. The picture you see to the left is my first tattoo.  It's not a great picture but it's good enough for the purposes of this blog post.  It's very difficult to take a decent picture of a tattoo on your own arm. There are three components to this tattoo: the moon, the celtic knot and the tribal braces.  Trust me, this does relate to Mother's Day.  I'll try to explain my thoughts that went into this tattoo and the connection should become clear. The Moon: Just before I had this tattoo done I had been studying a number of different religions and cultures.  I was on some sort of personal spiritual j...

I really suck at keeping up with things like my recent foray into the #100HappyDays challenge.  OK, so maybe "foray" is not the best way to describe it.  If it were, I wouldn't be writing this particular blog post.  Several people have commented that they are concerned that maybe I'm not happy because my 100 Happy Days posts seemed to have stopped abruptly but so did almost all of my other online activity.  So I decided to get everyone caught up on the happy things in each day since my last Happy Days post on April 3rd. April 4th, 2014 - Day 24: I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.  Why would this make me happy?  Because my doctor is awesome and he caught it early enough that I don't need medication or insulin injections and I just need to change my diet and and take an a healthier lifestyle.  If nothing else this is good motivation to do just that.  I guess KB was right in the dream I had about her several weeks before.  She said I was ...

Just when I start to think, "I've got this.  Things are getting better." something surprises me and makes me re-think that budding confidence in my ability to cope.  Today it is three months since I said goodbye to KB.  Yes, I know that she died on January 9th but it was just minutes before midnight and I stayed until everyone else had gone home and I said goodbye one more time not because I needed to be alone but because I just couldn't let go.  It's still difficult.  This morning, when I woke up and realized that this was three months since I said goodbye, everything I was feeling that night returned and I wasn't prepared for the flood of emotion.  They did warn me about this in my grief support group but I still wasn't prepared. I know that everyone at the hospital did their best to help us all through this and at the time I wasn't immediately aware of some of the things that the doctor had asked me and maybe I wasn't fully aware of everything...

Many years ago I took a business trip to San Diego.  The client I was visiting had arranged reservations at a hotel close to their facility about 15 miles from the beach.  After renting a mustang convertible at the airport and driving less than a quarter mile past the beach with the top down I knew I had to stop before heading to the hotel. I ended up at Pacific Beach and had time to change into something more beach appropriate and walk in the sand.  I found a pub on the beach and went inside to grab a pint.  I decided that the reservations at the hotel inland had to be cancelled and this is where I would be staying... not the pub but somewhere on the beach. Lucky for me, I didn't have to sleep in the sand.  That probably would have been fine if I wasn't there to have meetings with a client but I managed to find a room at the Surfer Beach Hotel.  This was several stars below the quality of the hotel I had been booked into but the sunset was incredible...

I was called a Cyberbully on facebook by John Edward or one of his representatives.  After making a couple of comments on a John Edward event page this was posted at the top of the page.  The comments made by some people on John's cyberbully name and shame post were really quite interesting and the fact that there was no context around the Cyberbully claim just goes to show that people will mindlessly follow anyone and judge you based on a simple comment like this. So, first of all, for those of you who are reading this, you would probably like some context. I responded to a post from a friend on Mr. Edward's event page for my city.  My comment simply suggested that my wife, who passed away in January, would not be pleased if I ever attended such an event.  My friend made a comment that he would do readings outside for half the price John was charging and I said I would get him to do my reading since he already seemed to be channeling my deceased wife (she was ve...