A Lesson Learned

It’s kinda strange. I took on all of these endeavors because I thought it would help get me motivated and off of my ass. Well it did that and threw me into a totally huge amount of chaos. Web building, not my thing. I am learning but it's tough and no basic web builder is gonna work for me. I had to customize mine and I am still doing it. Then there is AdWords, keywords and Search Engine Optimization. Hahaha. I can't really optimize my sock drawer. I'm not complaining. I am making fun of myself. It is my Superpower. I feel like if I spend time making fun of myself nobody else will have anything to make fun of me about. So I have a few subscribers here thank you for that. I will take all the friends I can get. It's lonely at the top. It's also lonely at the bottom.

I always say I have been married 3 times for somewhere in the realm of 25 years of marriage to 3 different women. I still love all 3 of them it is hard for me to hate a woman that gave me 8 or 10 years of their life. I have 4 kids. I have a 38 year old daughter with my first wife. I was hella young and so was my wife. She was 15 and I was 17. We were young and dumb and we decided to give her up for adoption. I don’t think I decided it but it was decided. I never wanted to live my life with regret. I have lived my life with regret. Go figure.

My first wife wasn't really my wife. I call her that because we had a child together. Again, we were young. I think we did what we thought was best for our baby. It wasn't best for me I ran to the hospital and held her in my arms everyday while she was there. The hospital kept her there for about a week due to a complications with her right eye. The more I held her the more I wanted to keep her. Here is the real deal. I always wanted to keep her it was pretty much decided for me. I don’t blame my ex there was some coercion on the part of my ex’s Mom. I mean, my gal was only 15. Times were definitely tough and it was tough on Michelle. I will use a fake name to protect the parties involved they didn't ask to be a part of this writing. I spent a lot of my time sobbing about it but I don't want to blame anybody. I could have always fought harder. When our daughter was born we ended up still living together for about 8 or 9 years. This always kept me questioning. I mean if we were gonna stay together and continue on, why couldn't we just be parents and keep Cali (another fictitious name). She was an absolute beautiful baby.

Cali is 38 now and has a family of her own.She is stubborn just like me and she doesn't talk to me. I thought and always told Michelle when she turns 18 she will find us. I said that knowing myself. I mean that's what I would have done. As it turned out she did find us. She has the help of an old friend of mine from school. She was older than 18 when she tracked me down. I am thinking for the moment she was 32. I was so excited and it was scary I didn't know what her voice was gonna sound like. We really hit it off the first day and talked for hours. We had many things in common. After the call I called my ex and told her. I was elated. I expected her to be elated to. She was she was just needing some time to process.

For the next two weeks we talked for hours and hours. I couldn't wait to hear her voice every day. After a few weeks something went wrong. I am not really sure to this day what it was but we got in an argument and it blew up fast. She wouldn't talk to me for 2 years. I’m not sure what I said or did to her

I am known to speak my mind and I gather she is too. The more she didn't talk to me the more angry I got about it and I didn't handle myself well. At first I blamed my ex and I blamed Cali and I said every mean thing I could think of. That of course went over like a fart in a spacesuit. This is a pretty long story but for now In a nutshell, my daughter finds me finally 32 years later and I am so stoked and I lost her again. She did say some rude things and hung up on me. I guess I should assume there could be some abandonment issues there or something. Bottom line, I didn't raise her. I should have. Adoption was the worst mistake of my life. I take 100 percent accountability for the fight between my daughter and I. I lost her the first time and I lost her again. This kind of thing has set the stage for my life. I can't really blame my daughter or my ex for my inability to just be wrong. I struggled with that kind of I can't be wrong approach my entire life. Eventually I learned I can be wrong and that's ok. Apologize sincerely and move on. When you learn how good it feels to say, “I was wrong and I apologize.” you look back at all the people you lost over the years and it's painful. I have always said, “You can be 100 percent right and still lose.” You can also be 100 percent wrong and win. I have never once in my life walked away from any kind of a battle win or lose and felt good about myself. I always believed winning a fight or an argument should feel great. Nawww, win or lose I feel like crap. After all, who said it was supposed to feel great causing pain to somebody. As a result, I have no problem saying I'm sorry today. I'm not willing to lose any more friends or family over my belligerence. What's the point.

A guidance counselor told me in highschool after I got kicked out of American Literature for questioning a Teacher, “Hey, don't you want to graduate? “ I said, “Of course I want to graduate.” He responded, “ Well go say you are sorry and get back to class.” Out of frustration I said, “Look Mr. Kotter (another fictitious name) I am not going to apologize, I didn't do anything wrong.” He said, “I didn't say anything about apologizing, I said go tell her you are sorry.” I lashed back,” I am not sorry either Mr. Kotter. I didn't do anything wrong.” Well Mr Kotter pulled up his pants and smiled, “You look pretty sorry to me. I mean aren't you sorry you are not gonna graduate?” I said, “ Yes I am but I can't say I’m sorry when I didn't do anything.” He looked puzzled that I was so wrapped up in my anger I missed the point. He looked at me and said,” Look, I didn't say to apologize, that means taking accountability. I said go tell her you are sorry, that simply means you are sorry that this incident occurred between the two of you. Aren't you sorry that this happened between you too.” The lightbulb turned on in my head. I said , Yes I am sorry about that.” He said great get back to class and say I'm sorry and don't say another word.

I went back to class and walked up to my teacher and said, “I'm sorry.” She said, “Thank you for that now take your chair.” I couldn't believe it. Eureka! There was a huge lesson learned in my life that day. I thought I won, she thought she won. Problem solved. I would use that tactical approach for the rest of my life. Today I realize it was Mr. Kotter who really one. He probably laughed all the way back to his office. Nevertheless, I got to graduate. I think of Mr. Kotter at least once a day, everyday for that tasty tidbit. It almost always settles a score quickly with very little fallout. I never got to Thank Mr. Kotter. What a great guy he really was. More on my beautiful daughter later. It is time for me to catch some sleep.