TIME FOR ANOTHER REALITY BASED ERUPTION: I´ve been fully present in my own life for over 68 years (well, often I´ve been fully present)

It´s time for a taste of reality

It´s come to this.  Actually, it already came to this (well, not exactly as pictured but I GET the picture) over the last couple of years.  To tell the truth it started with retirement at age 62 and I stopped going regularly (daily) to the gym.  I was simply too tired.  It´s how it really was...one morning I could NOT get out of bed (it was never easy for me at 5:00 A.M. anyway but I forced myself because the physical/cosmetic rewards were great and in the last years I had a trainer every morning at 6:00 when the gym opened to keep me on point). 

I was burned out at 62 and I thought that I needed to rest myself instead of driving myself as I had for a lifetime of trying to ¨look good¨ and work hard and be somebody and trying NOT to drop through the cracks in my own life (lots of ups and downs and lots of solid and wholesome/unwholesome adventures too) along the way.  After decades of sobriety and NOT touching the booze and living in the REAL world of happiness, grief, fear, glee and huge globs of face-it-as-you-can character revelations -- both good and bad...I was/am tired.  I´d danced as fast as I could even when the music stopped playing.   I surrendered, I was pooped-out I grabbed a chair before there wasn´t one for me to sit down in...maybe there wouldn´t be enough chairs for resting?

I´ve stayed current.  I´ve stayed in the day.  I´ve been given new friendships and fine companions and I´ve kept many old friends and have lots of dogs, birds and fish too.  I´ve been creative.  My Art has progressed.  It´s been rewarding to dedicate much more time to painting in my retirement.  I faced scares.  I´ve had five, count em, five, eye surgeries in recent years.  Well, maybe I didn´t face the scary part too well as I´ve stayed a bit closer to home and I´m afraid to drive at night even though my vision corrects just fine I do tend to bump into things...my body does, not my car.  I do enjoy entertaining.  I like to cook and even have a maid! 

I´ve been fully present in my own life for most of the years that led up to the 68th year of age that I have right now.  I´m been blessed on so many levels of life and I KNOW that I´ve been privileged and downright lucky and even authentically graced with a great miracle (even though I was drunk, slightly blury, when the burning bush appeared, age 35, in my living room during my one-on-one/try-to-pass-out cocktail party in the middle of a weeknight when God lifted active alcoholism from me).

My life is filled with great bursts of energy, great personal success and some great failures too
in my little pond of trying-to-be-a-big-frog croaking.  Alas, mostly I´m just a regular human being who has always appreciated being a real live pollywog who has survived sharks, snakes and predators of many stripes (it´s just a little test, sometimes deadly sometimes not, afterall, ¨it gets better¨).  But I´ve always felt God (completely unrehersed) and tried as hard as I could to shower myself with the best of the world ¨intentions¨ as they appealed to the authentic me (I even once had a little business The Best of the New World). Most of the World does, it really does, appeal to me (even with the poisoness reptile wrestling).  There is so much to take in, verdad?  Even the less colorful takes on special meaning when viewed up close. I´m passionate about the world around us and every glimmer of good in humanity (both known and not) but, I loathe injustice and I actually find little love in my aging heart for those who harm/abuse others.  The Bigots have almost worn me out...almost, that is, as I think they may become enlightened before my curtain comes down  (Lord, hear my prayer).  

Yet, still, my compassion seems to me almost on empty for those who I view as demonziers of innocents and marginalizers of our sister and brother human beings.  I have BIG resentments as the ¨haters¨ prattle on and on about ¨sexual¨ circumstances in others of which they fear or know nothing/little. Everyday sociopaths, con artists and greedsters get my goat. My patience has faltered and my tolerance seems like a dishonest jesture to me.  I sometimes worry about the ¨business¨ of others. Outside acts of which I have no need, or wish (mostly), to control!  Imagine! Pass the Brownies please. Fret, fret!

I know that TRUST, letting go, forgiveness and understanding are the paths to becoming a healthier me...in all my affairs.  Acceptance too.

Then some action: I´ve become a ¨Plant Based¨ eater (as my friends Tom and Elizabeth and David Charles Walker introduced to me).  I joined a online 12 Step ¨eating¨ dilemma group -- very nifty folks online there (wherever there happens to be). After two months I feel so much better and my blood pressure and my heart agree that plants are good for me.  Onward I go (to the Gym too) and thank you for being here and for visiting me.  I intend to keep ¨being¨, albeit with less ¨striving¨  the person that God created me to be...a more ¨rightsized¨ version of me in several ways. 

As my Mom always said ¨We shall see what we shall see.¨

Leonardo Ricardo/Leonard Richard/Len
Guatemala, Central America