tribe

Coffee Time On A Way Too Early Saturday

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment
Heading Out To Bismarck Lake 2018

Hey, Y’all!

I am still waking up even if I have been up since 5:30 am.

Norman Greenbaum, Red Bone, The Eagles, and me. I love my music.

I have been thinking about changes and what it all means since last evening. You can feel resistance from those around you when you are in the middle of making changes or doing what you need to for self-care.

You must keep moving and keep changing regardless. Someone wise says you wish those people well, pray, and hope the best for them. God love them.

What I do love is the ones from your tribe show up. They remind you that you are on the right path. My friend showed up with a turkey we are going to thaw that baby out and cook it this next week. I am looking forward to that because I am going to bake the turkey with a keto stuffing recipe.

I went searching for a turkey recipe a couple of months ago and did come across it. I do want to be healthier. I am not always willing to put in the work for it, but somehow there is always a way out.

I do not have to entertain anyone else’s insanity today. My excuses for my choices are more than enough to deal with on most days. I must answer for me and me alone.

How we answer for ourselves comes in all forms. There are a lot of days my door is open too much. Believe me, Friday comes, and I want that door closed. I want to keep out as much nonsense as possible.

It looks like a lot of loneliness but not so much anymore. It is freedom. I have learned that if you stop stuff at your door then you only contend with what is inside of you. That is more than enough for me to contend with most days.

Have I mentioned the month is slipping by? This means the year is slipping by as well. I am not even close to all that I had hoped to accomplish this summer. Maybe surviving and stopping the insanity in part is what I was meant to accomplish. There is always more to do. There is always more revealed.

I am stronger emotionally, spiritually, and physically. A week ago, I thought it was about explaining that to others. This week I realize it is more about explaining that to myself. The fact is I still need others.

I cannot do this alone, but there are more things I can do without supervision.

I of course need guidance overall. To me, it is a mixture of many different things. Life is not at all the black and white solid force of nature. Life has a lot of grey areas. There are absolutes and I am still finding my way through both of those.

I am not the person to tell you, you are wrong. Your way may work for you. That does not mean your way works for me, nor my way works for you.

Saturday and Sunday both slipped by, so I am posting now on Monday.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

A Self Check With God-Consciousness Contact

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment
Photo by Josh Hild on Pexels.com

Hello Everybody,

I have been discussing with some in my circle about the need for me to change. I am not the best at taking direction. I hate phones in general especially with our modern technology that brings on dropped calls.

Let us move on past the phones. Once, I am in my groove people are okay but the hard shell of me does dislike people in general. I want to do things on my own. However, there is this connection to God I have and to survive in this world it takes each other.

By nature, God-given we are social creatures and have a need for human contact. This is where life does get messy.

What I realize is today is that I cannot do this life alone. No one is an island unto himself. As the cliché goes.

I need My God and the people around me. I need the Holy Spirit to move on my behalf as God sees fit. I need the program of action and not just a program of great ideas and thinking. That just gets me into a bunch of lists and no results.

It was only a few-short weeks ago I was asking God to grant me more time to straighten out and make some changes. I am still doing what I can to make changes. I told God I was not ready to go yet and carrying on like it was my last day.

Thank goodness for Gods Mercy and Grace that is all that I am here by. Because left to my own devices and left alone, the diagnosis would be my sentence to death. Other people have stepped in, and some by my asking, some because they were already in place and have stuck by my me and the journey I am on.

I have been spending a great deal of time both on my recovery and dealing with struggles and some of the junk I have done has no place in my life. But here it is, I am dealing with it. Sometimes playing with it like, fire.

My day must start with asking God for help otherwise, I am a complete mess and failure is a certainty. I must check in with people and be accountable. I must share my experience to gain strength so that I have hope for tomorrow and give that to someone else along the way.

My day must end with questions of my actions for the day and thanking God at night for another day. I admit I fail miserably sometimes. This is how the insanity comes in.

I never knew how close to eating and my drinking history were to each other regarding my recovery. There are even a few more elements included, but more will be revealed as I gain strength in those areas.

Some things are simply better said in private with those I am accountable to.

If this is the first time reading to get more background you must go back and read about my hospitalizations and the diagnosis of osteomyelitis found in the past two or three blog post entries.

My mama, my brother, high school friends, closed mouth friends, my tribe, and more including you readers are my biggest support.

I do practice the twelve-step way of recovery in my life, and as a spiritual basis based on my belief system.

I am changing the way I am eating. Sometimes what I am finding is that it is so close to my drinking history, that I have woke up from drunk dreams to think I have really gone out and drank.

I want to close with this part, saying my family I completely let go off the hook, for the problems that have been in my life. I ended up in their lives already defective, by the insanity I was born into.

No one warned them, they had no clue as to what they were in for, or how to be prepared. I affected each member of my family in a way usually lying, stealing, not being nice, angry would be key here.

I am 55 years old just realizing more so of my insanity in the early years. My family is my bonus family. I love them with all my heart, and I cannot change what I have done. I can only move forward and do my best to make amends and hope for the best.

I am doing my best to be the change today. The H.O.W. (Honesty, Open-mindedness, and Willingness).  I am not giving up.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

Taking Action to Make Changes Happen

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment
Photo by Vlad Cheu021ban on Pexels.com

Hi Everyone,

I really cannot say I have accomplished a lot in the way of moving forward to look for a new place to live. I also have done horrible staying in touch with people. But again, I will not give up. I can do better and vow to do so.

I did make a list with due dates for each task and a place to mark in my progress, until I have completed the list. I made such a list years ago to motivate myself to complete such tasks.

It already has motivated me to get rid of the piles of papers on my desk and put them in folders. One thing that was important for me was to get all my bills down to a zero balance. This has relieved a lot of stress and undue pressure on myself.

This last week I had a face-to-face therapy session. One of the great things about this session was to find and feel that spiritual connection again. It has stayed on my mind since last Friday.

It has been a long time to find the spiritual part under all the human brokenness in me. Its just junk that I have been carrying around. I do not always know how to let go or deal with it rationally.

It was as if God Himself, pushed all the junk aside and asked if I would meet him in the middle so I can be free. This getting ready to move is like the physical act of cleaning the junk out and taking responsibility for myself. I do want to be willing to let go of the crud and stop being afraid of everything.

When I feel halfway decent, it is like all the things are being put in place for me to keep busy and not be distracted. As I write this, I see how I finished one task completely. I have 11 more tasks on my list to complete by the end of the week.

The other thing I need to address is that I need to put in the work of showing care for all those in my tribe and doing my best to reply to people more promptly. This is especially true with those of you in my own tribe. I do value each and everyone of you who read what I have to say.

I guess all in all when we say we are ready to make a change we must take physical action. If we do not act, it makes it hard to show the seriousness in making the changes needed.

I guess as I reflect over my life right now, I see this as a moment I am choosing to want to make a change. In this moment I get to take the steps necessary to make this change.

Acting, gives me freedom to choose and not be forced into moving where I do not want to move. Real self-care begins when you take the forcefulness out of your life by doing the next right thing.

I am now really excited for this journey to continue.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out.

God Bless Y’all Everybody!

Let It Go, Don’t Shoot The Wounded

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment
Photo by Anthony on Pexels.com

Good Afternoon Everyone!

The past week has been working through things one day at a time.

A week or so ago, I left off with grace being my word for the year. Grace is a real need in my life and important for me to give grace to others. I have been one to always build these monumental images up in my head of how bad a situation can be. In other words, I must look at the fact that some situations just are not that bad.

When things are overwhelming, I seem to lose focus and have a distorted view of reality. Yes, I am saying sometimes my troubles are of my own making whether that is intentional or not. In many ways I can say, “What a relief… it is just my own head.”  I can take a deep breath and say a prayer to pause and ground myself for a moment.

Sometimes the mountain in my life is just tackling the stacks of papers on my desk. I have been grieving over so many I have known over the years just dying in big groups anymore, or so it seems. I have found I have no more words for those dying and I have finally resigned from taking their inventory or fault finding. I am no longer qualified to judge anyone, and the truth is I never was qualified to do so.

It is only in grace that I can even begin to start loving myself, believing the best and seeing the best in others. By grace I can breathe in and out. By grace I can finally admit that the war I have been fighting has been the war of self. I want better for myself.

I have friends who have yelled in a hushed whisper “Mike! Mike! Michael! Let it go!” I never wanted to let go of anything I thought was my cause.  No matter which group of friends I found next, they would all have the same chant. Was there a group all these same friends signed up for after they got to know me? Perhaps so.

In short, I have learned to let go and realize my dog is not in that fight. I still sometimes slip up and fall backwards. The great thing is it does get less and less.

Today most of my friends both present and those whom maybe we do not have a chance to talk, are some of my greatest heroes. I even count my family who I do not get to see, are my superheroes as well. Every single human has fought wars which we may know nothing about.

They say do not shoot the wounded. I was reading that the other day and there was another line after it. You might be the wounded next time. Oh man, it tugged at my heart because that is exactly what I was doing a lot of times. I do not want to be so selfish. Today I want my tribe and myself to be cheerleaders for each other. I believe most of us are exactly that. I am one of my mama’s biggest fans even and I try to show her that same love and care she has for me all these many years. I do not even come close to it in my own mind; however, it does not take much in the fact of my own energy as it takes grace for me to even do it.

Because of grace my mom and I have forgiveness for each other’s mistakes in the past present and future. Love covers a multitude of sins. I have read that before, and I believe it. I wish to walk with everyone I am with along this journey in that same way.

If you are reading this and thinking hogwash, do not give up on me.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blogpost entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!