I feel like I have exposed myself. I have limited myself. However I feel liberated from secrets too.

I wrote it but I feel uncomfortable reading it.

I feel I should explain a million things to my wife, the WIL, her husband. People I know, people I don’t know. My kids. My friends.

All this while I am trying to figure out life direction

I am writing this blog and making the posts public for anyone to see. I am not advertising it or promoting it but I am not hiding it.

Yesterday someone liked one of my blogposts. I wasn’t sure what to feel.

I am sharing what I consider my deepest feelings. I am sharing the dark part of me. At least dark like the dark side of the moon. The part no one ever sees.

On one hand want to be exposed and not hide anything. On the other I will feel uncomfortable with people knowing the things I never share with them.

On one hand I don’t want to alienate those that know the contrived me. On the other hand, by being honest I could meet more people that relate to me.

I really struggle not to use the words embarrassed and ashamed to describe the things I want to hide or not admit.

By assigning those words to my experience I categorize people that live a certain way and never tried to hide it as bad. If there is any guilt shame or embarrassment to be had it is because from my narrow standpoint I chose to view them that way. They are not empirically true labels.

I feel uncomfortable writing this one but feel I must. I mentioned earlier in the blogs about hooking up with women and guys. This makes me sound bisexual. I guess it centers around what sexuality is. Does it mean who you are willing to get naked with or does it involve emotional connection?

If it is simply a matter of willingness to be sexual then yes, that would make me bisexual. If it is a matter of emotional connection then I am heterosexual.

Being with guys felt weird at first. And that feeling made it even more alluring. Like my brain was short circuiting. As I did it more the less weird it felt and the less the payoff.

Guys are about immediate satisfaction. There is no emotions. Not even exchanging of names or phone gunners. No expectations to call or talk afterwards. It can be a moment and then the moment is done.

With women, no matter what there is a emotional connection. There is expectations both for me and from me. That made it harder to just hook up, be in the moment and move one.

I was a user and it was easier to use and be used with guys.

I won’t check my email or texts until 8am. To pass the time I read Henri Nouwen books. His work is very simple yet genuine.

When I was younger the meal our family shared was breakfast. And we would take five minutes before my brother and I went to school and my parents to work to Dona family devotion. We would take turns reading the daily devotion from a book called Daily Guideposts. This is Norm Vincent Peales outfit. So when I think of spirituality and even writing I think in terms of 365/366 entries. One for each day.

I like Nouwen. It is just comforting to read his work. Like a warm blanket for the mind. Usually when I am done I can’t even tell you what I read or what it was about. But I know how it makes me feel and it feels good.

The debate rages in my mind to make this blog private. I am sharing highly personal stuff.

I am not good at communicating with people. I am lax in reaching out to family, friends (even co workers and supervisors)

This behavior has caused me to delve inward. I have no outlet for connection. Ergo I look for it in stupid places like hook up sites. This journal has created a connection. A couple of people follow this now. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. But we are connected. That is such a welcome relief from the disappointing results of my past.

My personality may be introverted, I can’t change that. My initial remedy was flawed. That I can change.

The phone call went fine. Nothing too deep. The position doesn’t pay much and I would have to move to Phoenix. I applied for the position that one of the corporate recruiters mentioned two weeks ago.

I feel like there is a lot of opportunity in the universe right now. I have to be disciplined with my cash flow and make a choice based on fit. Money is important but another short term job would be detrimental in many ways.

I am not checking my emails texts or news yet. But it is my routine! I am excited to think about what I can do and look forward to at 5pm

Back to that theme. I have been in Southern California nine years. I started my tenth year the end of last week. I am looking for my tenth job in that span of time. I lament things that are negative or that I am not. I look like a fool that can’t keep a job. I have no stability and jeopardize the place my daughter calls home. I chastise myself for the personality traits, thoughts and emotions that have led me to this perception I believe others have of me and the circumstances I have put those that rely on me in.

But I am resilient. I get back up every time I am knocked down. I figure it out.

I believe in myself and my abilities. Nothing scares me. There is not a situation that I haven’t seems from multiple angles.

I am intrigued by the possibility that my next position my have more responsibility, a better title and a larger income.

I might stay or I might move. I might travel to multiple sites. I thrive on the adventure and the unknown.

In the end I am what I am and I ain’t what I ain’t

The chorus to the song “Dear Abby” by John Prine goes:

(A different name for each) You have no complaint.

You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.

So listen up buster and listen up good

Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.”

Like so many John Prine songs what sounds like a simple almost childish rhyme has layers of context.

Much of what Prine espouses in his lyrics in the Midwestern sensibility of anger, sadness and frustration stems from trying to control what you can’t control or change why can’t be changed.

Trying to become better or more evolved is a valuable endeavor. Focusing so much on what you are NOT is a painfully futile past time.

That song has been going through my head today. I woke up and realized how much my personal sense of image has changed since November. I was the boss. I was running a 10 million dollar a year business. Controlling all aspects. I felt strong and driven. Two months later I feel small and lost. My circumstances changed but I don’t need to change. I am just as much November Mike as I am today. I have been in a syrupy blue funk. Those places I have been interviewing with need me as much as I need them. I am the boss.

I usually check my email, texts and the newspapers after I have walked and exercised in the morning. I then check them again, and again, and again repeatedly during the day.

My days have a rhythm. Wake up early (3:42am this morning) go for an hour walk up the hill, do body weight or resistance training. Watch the news or late show monologues from the previous night then check my phone.

I go for another walk, head out, and start the job securing process. After lunch and a nap I start to fade at 2pm. Afternoons are hardest for me. I can’t th inn if anything to do except eat fast food, candy and desserts. If I don’t do that i drink alcohol and get drunk.

If I want to connect with people I don’t reach out to family or friends, I check out hook up sites.

Last night I went to bed at 6:30pm. I wasn’t hungry because I ate a big lunch. I had some desserts and candy and watched a show on Netflix. I am going to change my routine so my energy is more spaced out during the day.