Certainties Of Life

Death is one of the certainties of life that cannot be avoided no matter how hard you try and no matter what precautions you take. A friend of mine told me one time that when you get to be middle age, life becomes more about loss and how you deal with loss than it is anything. The positives of life at middle age are few and far between. A very close family member is facing a life and death surgery next week and I am afraid. Very afraid. There is no way that you can prepare yourself for the outcome, good or bad. I try to take a humorous look at my life but nothing that has happened to me in 2019 has been funny and there is no humor in it at all. Now, me and my family are facing the toughest test of them all. All I can do now is allow the universe to do its thing and I will have to accept the verdict.

Numbers

Numbers make sense to me. People don't. Most days I feel like the character Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. Numbers I can deal with but people I am having a harder time with. I cannot understand how people can be so vindictive and vengeful when whatever they are seeking to accomplish will mean absolutely nothing in the end.

Death Of A Friend

I had to say goodbye to an old friend the other day and I can only hope that I was as good of a friend to you as you were to me. I made many mistakes along the way and I hope you forgave me as I was able to forgive you. I was always in your corner and stood behind you when you may not have even known I was there. I will miss you old friend and I have shed many tears and I will shed many more every time I think of you and the good times we had. They will be tears of joy thinking about me and you and tears of sadness because you are no longer here. You were gone way too soon as we had many more years to go. I loved you as only one friend can love another and I hope you loved me too. Goodbye old friend, I will see you on the other side as my time is drawing near.

Music Hath Charms

Late 17th century poet William Congreve wrote "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak." These words still apply in today's society and you can go into just about any coffee shop or microbrewery and see someone performing some live music. On Thursday night, December 27, 2018 I had the opportunity to witness a young musician, Jake Taylor, play the acoustic guitar at the Poe House in Hendersonville, NC and I came away totally impressed. Jake is a young musician that hails from Narrows, VA. He has an eclectic selection of musical influences from Ed Shearin to Allen Stone to Eminem. Jake played a combination of cover tunes and some of his own songs and he played all of them with heart and soul to an appreciative audience. He encouraged crowd interaction and had a nice exchange with those in attendance. Some of my favorites were his cover of Allen Stone's "The Bed That I Made" to one of his own songs "Happy." Jake has his own YouTube Channel and it can be found at ReDDmusic88. It is well worth checking out. You will not be disappointed.

Happy

My happiness has been on my mind a lot lately. My happiness has also been under attack. I don't think I realized what happiness was until happiness actually came into my life in the form of my wife. I honestly never thought marriage would bring me any happiness but it has and the happiness is in great abundance. It is also not the fact that I got married but it is who I married. She and I are a great fit for each other. Relationships take some work and some effort, a fact I am sometimes made painfully aware of. Most people have their detractors and I have my share of mine. People can say what they want but they interfere to the point where it is starting to affect my happiness, then it is time for me to speak up. It is a world seemingly based on the social media now and it is easy to hide behind a computer screen and be bold and brave. People think they can say what they want without fear of repercussions or reprisals. No matter what you say you are not going to bring me down. I posted on Facebook the other day that people "need to go find themselves some happiness." I stand by that statement. A persons "happy place" is usually different from anyone else's. If you are one of those types that is only happy when you are miserable or your happy place is trying to make someone else miserable, then you may need to rethink exactly what or where your happy place is. Please go find yourself some happiness but do not do it at the expense of others.