My History (Part 1)

Preface this to say, I don't know if there will be a part two or three or a few more words .....

I've made it through 68 and a half years of life, never with much of a plan.

Got married at 24, divorced a few years later and since have lived mostly day to day.

I went through my 30's and 40's waiting for a call from my ex that never came.

No real goals. Just survival. 

It seemed like everyone else around me, siblings, friends, co-workers, etc., had goals and lives.

I worked, came home, played a little basketball, listened to records afterwards .... that was my life.

Never went on exciting trips and adventures.

Never remarried or had children.

Besides my employment with one company for fifty years now, I also worked 20-25 years in youth sports programs. 

If people really have 'callings' in life, I felt like this was mine. 

It felt like I was doing something important. Like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

It felt like I was making a difference in others' lives.

I received words of thanks and had random encounters along the way with parents and kids that I had worked with as coach, teacher, mentor, helper, listener and who had now grown up .... I'd often walk away in near tears.

I eventually reached an age where I wondered if I was young enough to still be relevant.

I'd have likely continued a little longer though had it not been for budget cuts resulting in youth programs and activities being eliminated. 

I always wondered how I could ever walk away, and suddenly it was done for me.

When I was much younger, I'd worry about how I was going to survive each year financially.

One day years later, I looked around and realized .... "Hey, I made it through all those years of uncertainty. Things worked out. I'm ok. I'll continue to be ok."

I really though had no idea of anything outside of about a fifty-mile radius from my home.

At age 44, I flew for the first time to visit a friend in Louisiana. 

Ten years later, I took the train to Couer d'Alene, Idaho to visit a high school classmate. 

A month later, I flew again to visit a friend for Christmas in Tennessee.

Broke my heart to be sitting in the Houston Texas airport and listening to a phone call from my 6-year-old niece asking if I'd be coming over for Christmas.

That's my experience as a world traveler. 

I have places I want to see, mostly historical like Gettysburg or Little Big Horn or vinyl record hunting destinations but am too chicken shit to follow through.

Then one day, it was forty years later.

(Time sure did fly.)

All those lost years waiting for my ex to call and then suddenly one day she sent a message.

After our split, she had eventually moved nearly 3000 miles away but had moved back to the area.

"Could we meet?"

We met a few days later and talked for six or seven hours.

She told me that she was sorry ..... that leaving me was the biggest mistake she ever made.

We're friends now (I think).

This may or may not be, the end to this journal entry. I'm not certain even as I type, if I'm going to actually post it. So, continuing and filling in details between the lines is even more of an uncertainty.

Why does this grammar checker always want to add a comma after I start a sentence with the word, "So"? It doesn't feel right or needed to me but I follow along with the suggestion. 

I was listening to the song, 'Ordinary Joe' by Terry Callier before going off on this journey through the past. I guess I'll go listen to the Neil Young song, 'Journey Through the Past' next. 

See what music does to me?