Thursday, August 13, 2015

Something to Believe in

"Do not let them win," my wife says sitting on the bed full of emotion and determination.

Indignation of "them" immediately wells up inside and I grind my teeth but don't say anything.

Grinding my teeth is a trick I learned in meetings gone bad and I don't want to jump on a table screaming at the idiot across from me or grab the Olympic Torch hanging on the wall and beat the Hell out of them.

Grinding my teeth slowly lets the rage out and keeps my mouth shut.

I'm mellower than I once was, more accepting of what life throws at me because it's thrown me a lot.

"No man could have survived the things you have," Herb McKenzie tells me one day as we're dealing with the next round of bad things.

He's referring to my trusted CFO misappropriating $1.3 Million on purpose, the wife who decides that's the best time to ask for a divorce and leave, a coalition making a move to take me down after a major effort to reform mental health services very publically fails so my own staff deserts me fearful of losing their jobs and I have a man with a major Napoleon complex as the Chairman of the Board.

Talk about shitty times!

"I couldn't have done it," Herb says.

Then he went away too.

Somehow I survive.

I don't know how.

It makes me believe in God.

It makes me believe in Sarah.

Life's a funny thing ... so many things are perfect right now ... so many things are not ... looming doom awaits with the next phone call ... my wife and little girls make my heart wildly jump over rainbows.

So I say these things and others reply ... "I can't believe you say these things ... it's where I am in my life ... who knew your life is just like mine?"

That's good ... I guess.

I tell you this though ... I still believe in the things I believe in.