I’m going to write this next one for everyone out there that was born for a reason. This is the 100th day that has passed since I began this blog. It is crazy to re-read the very first post that I made, and reflect on everything that has happened since. 100 days doesn’t seem all that long in the grand scheme of things, but when you compare where I was at in my life on Day 1 and where I am at now, you would’ve thought it would be hard pressed to cram all of that into one full year. The great unknown was what I was stepping into. Now here I stand with more clarity. Clarity on where I am at myself, and the situation around me. Change is always present in everyone’s life, all of the time, but I can honestly say that I’ve come out of these past 100 days a better person. The journey included so many physical miles, yet it was the experiences that occurred while traversing them that brought about the most movement. I will honest, if you had told me “hey man keep it together, you’ll get through this and your family has a real shot at making it out of this intact”, I would have been skeptical at best. Things just seemed so bleak at times. Here we are 100 days later though, and the scars from the road are a manifestation of wisdom brought on through suffering and the trials of putting my life’s path back together, brick by brick. I’m not into all of that hokey self-trumpeting bullshit, but I will say that I am glad I kept the faith and believed in myself, and always made sure I did the right thing. That is the only reason this got me to this point, no doubt. The reason it worked out this way, and not someone else’s perverse version of what should have been, is because if you are really that pathetic of a soul to dare fuck with the life and family of a man willing to fight for it, your’e going to get slapped down like a bitch every time. As it should be. For my daughter. For my wife. For my child on the way. And for my goddamn self, the journey goes on.
I really like where my friends live in Tallinn. They are in an apartment building in a neighborhood called Pelgulinn. Most of the structures in this part of the city are well over 100 years old. They have housed Estonians through 2 different occupations and 2 wars. I am sure at one point most of the buildings that suffered the most damage and disrepair sat unused, just being an eyesore within a very charming area. Rather than let this continue, the residents have transformed some of these buildings into shops, cafes, recording studios, and various other places of business and socializing. Its a great way to reuse ruins, while maintaining a rustic look that is authentic.
Sometimes things have a strange way of being tied together, through an uncanny set of circumstances or just by occurring on the same day. It depends on how you read in to such things. I’m sure everyone has their own stories of strange coincidences happening, day dreams about things or people that ended up coming true, stuff like that. There are two significant occurrences that have happened to me, one old and one new, that I can’t wrap my mind around as far as how and why things happened the way they did. One I would say is a matter of fate and things being meant to be, while the other I would call a shocking twist on a day that I have recently been reflecting on as being the worst day of my life. Which I guess makes me a hypocrite since I recently wrote that someone else is out there going through a much more awful situation then we are, no matter just how bad things seem. I’m getting ahead of myself. Allow me to explain, beginning with the much lighter of the two.
July 28th, 2012. The worst day of my life. The last few days I have been focusing on this date, unintentionally. I didn’t even know the exact date until last night. All I knew was that it was on this day that started my life down a river of pain and sadness. Probably the only day in my 30 years of life that I would go back and do over. I am not a person that thinks back into the past and says “Oh I would have done that differently or changed this”. I accept things and look at them as necessary events to grow into the person that I am now. But that day last July, should have shook out much differently. Through no fault of mine, while indirectly being all of my fault. A frustrating realization to come to grips with, which is why I am saying right now that I would have done things differently. Because now here I am thinking about it, tortured by it, and can’t get it out of my head seemingly. I was on a business trip to Savannah and I took my wife along. I had heard good things about the city, which is very old by American standards, plus it was close enough to Charleston that we could see both on the same trip. Also thrown in was the fact that there was a concert that weekend that I wanted to take my wife to. I had an old friend living in Charleston and she gave us plenty of good tips on what to see and do. And of course, where to get a good cup of coffee. I had hoped to meet up with her while we were there, she was someone that I really wanted my wife to meet. It didn’t work out though, and we headed back to Savannah to catch the show. Knowing what I know now, I wish we had said fuck it and stayed in Charleston. Or had all 4 tires blow out on the way home. ANYTHING to not have made it to that show. Because at that show, my wife introduced herself to the disgusting, awful person that she would end up betraying me with. So I inadvertently took her to the place where this happened, right in front of my face. I was right there. So I pretty much have to live with that fact every day. I looked at a bunch of old photos from that weekend yesterday because the start of this nightmare had been on my mind the last week. I debated deleting them all off of my Facebook and just destroying everything I could. I still might. At that point yesterday I still hadn’t even identified the exact date of that unfortunate day. Until I was walking home and was browsing Facebook. My friend in Charleston had posted something from her blog and it was sitting at the very top of my feed. No one had commented on it or liked it yet, but the title struck me as odd so I clicked the link and began to read. It was a very tough article to read because of what it was about, something that had happened to her a little over a year ago, my heart sank as I read through a horrifying situation for anyone to find themselves in. When I got to the part where she referenced the date of this sad story, my heart sank. A little over a year ago, I was there a little over a year ago. It couldn’t be…could it? I clicked back onto my Facebook and scrolled through the photos from Savannah and Charleston until I found the one of the concert tickets. July 28th. A coincidence. A date we both would remember forever now. Two thoughts have been on my mind since last night. What if we had stayed in Charleston and hung out with my friend instead of going to that show? Surely both of these horrible things that happened to us wouldn’t have occurred had we been together. It also made me think back to my own words. No matter how bad you think you have it, don’t for one second think you cannot handle it because someone out there is going through something even more tragic than what you are experiencing. I have focused so much on that fucked up night in my own thoughts, when this whole time I was unaware that someone that I cared about, that I was supposed to see that same day, had to go through something much, much worse than what I have been going through. Knowing what I know now, I am going to do my best to lay my demons to rest and move on mentally from July 28th. If the circumstances from that night rear their ugly face, I will deal with them without mercy, but for now I am going to try my best to focus on the present and future interests for my family and I. I will always remind myself to never take my friends, family, and health for granted because you never know what people around you are going through, even those you consider friends.
