Today is moving day, or at least packing up the truck day. Movers are coming to pack up a truck tonight and tomorrow it’ll be delivered to the new house. I can’t guarantee consistency in my work for the next couple weeks, least of all because the house won’t have internet, but I’ll be busy. I’ve been busy, and I’m still sick. My wife and I rested as much as we could, rotating packing, caring for the baby, and resting. We’re getting it done though, looks like the plan should work well. The wife and baby leave today on their own journey, I’ll leave with the truck tomorrow escorting the dog, and the cats have been dropped off at my sister in law’s. Moving has to be one of the worst things for an adult to do because it takes so much to coordinate. I say adult because from about ages 17-30 I was living in a new place every year and the Army had me living out of a bag; in truth it was two duffle bags and a ruck sack. Laying down roots make it painful to pull them up though without the ability to lay roots a creature doesn’t begin to live. Our modern world with short attention spans ignores depth, people think more information is good and they don’t discriminate on what that information is, instead thinking truth is good and more truth is better. Focus on one thing, let it grow roots, that is becoming one with your environment, then the individual and the environment begin to shape each other. People are afraid to loose themselves to the whole, they stay grounded, never learning to fly. There is more out there than anyone can tell you, it’s painful knowledge to acquire.
14 February 2024
I’m still dealing with a cold so this might be short, I also found out this morning that the new house might not have internet for a month so I’m trying to think of what I will have to do to adjust around that when I don’t have energy for it. I guess I’ll go rest after this, nothing else is going on so I can lay down thinking how miserable I am. I see signs of depression in people and people thinking it can be fixed and goes away. I can be happy for a long time and when something bad happens, no matter how small, it can put me in the hole. The hole is always a second away, it doesn’t matter if it’s been years since I’ve seen it, I carry it with me. Another reason I stay on top of people to maintain a positive mindset is because their attitude can easily shift mine. I hope my attitude help lift others, but there’s no shortage of negativity in this world, many an industry is built on it. Keep moving on, that’s all there is to do, tomorrow is another day, the sun will shine again and I can dance in the rain. Being sick is hard to mentally overcome.
2 February 2024
We closed on the house and the baby is feeling better, I am relieved. When it rains it pours, important events always seem to stack on top of each other. Yesterday the baby wasn’t eating and that’s incredibly stressful, like watching a timebomb count down, thankfully today she’s been better. This morning she was snacking then she ate all of her lunch and milk before going down for a nap, I hope she sleeps well. Long time readers might remember when I became a king, now I control a collective of almost 10 acres. I’m still half an acre short of 10, but we have to work with what we’ve got. On both sides of the new house are 12 acre lots and down the street they’ve got 40 acres, so I’ve got a lot of conquering to do. The one neighbor has a horse farm, that will be good for building my cavalry. I’ve always enjoyed archery and I have a feeling my daughter is going to be able to fire a bow while riding a horse, strange how the apple can fall so far from the tree while remaining close. Looking forward in the week, I’ve the second recording of the Wrecking and Rapping podcast on Thursday and the movers are scheduled for next Monday. My throat is saying I might be getting sick, I’ll rest as much as I can. Hopefully most of my life will be waiting until next Monday and of course keeping the baby satisfied, there won’t be much energy for anything else. We’re doing it though, keeping the dream alive, not sure whose dream. On one hand I must be living my dream, though on the other hand these dreams are new to me and this is not how I imagined my life at all, I’ll say it came about by continuing to fight. I will continue.
12 Febraury 2024
What a weekend, I got the podcast online at spotify and youtube, the links will be at the bottom. Yesterday and today have been rough, it seems like the baby has some sort of stomach bug and she struggling to eat. Last night she threw up in her bed and now the whole rooms smells, I did my best to air it out this morning, wash everything, and spray lots of air freshener. We’re supposed to close on the house this afternoon which will be a relief to be done with though we’re not exactly celebrating with a sick kid. This morning I was walking around around the yard, still clearing out fallen tree branches when I realized there’s no reason to do that anymore. This time next week we’ll be packing the house onto a truck saying goodbye. Bittersweet is the best word I have for the situation, I don’t really know what part is bitter and what is sweet at this point, I know there’s a whole lot of emotions going on. Staying calm is the best I can do, but the baby is my weakness. I’m always saying, “No free lunches” and I expected this to be the same. Keep my head low, push through and tend to the baby, this too shall pass. Soon it will be Spring, we’ll be enjoying our lives again looking for new challenges because what else can a person do? If you don’t seek out struggle, it will find you, at least continuing to challenge myself makes me stronger though I do look forward to a long rest someday to regain my strength. I was doing sets of push ups this morning and life was gettings stressful, so that can wait until some other time. Please check out the podcast and let us know what you think.
9 February 2024
A great pressure has been released, we got started on creating a podcast. I’d like to say the hardest part is over and while starting is one of the hardest parts, with any journey it will get harder the longer we continue down the path. Progressive overload is what we practice, lift heavy, get stronger, lift heavier, of course I’m speaking about life in general. Next comes editing and uploading to various social medias. There are worlds within worlds on the various apps that I’ve yet to explore, we set sail into the uncharted internet. Which is bigger and scarier, the ocean or the internet? Tough to answer, but it’s easier to avoid the ocean. A person that never goes online would be interesting except there’s no way I would meet them unless they stumbled onto my property. Even avoiding the ocean and internet, a person likely depends on both in ways like shipping and food. The world is a connected web where a person can’t really say they don’t do such and such, maybe not directly but when looking closely I’m sure a connection can be found. My belief is that anything can be found anywhere because on looking for something we begin to manifest it in the real world. Time is the equalizer, here today gone tomorrow and vice versa. Now that I’ve started this new adventure I will let time work its magic for a bit before I go looking towards what my next move will be, something will reveal itself, having faith is important.
8 February 2024
Today is the day, I finally will start recording my new podcast. Last night I got online with my brother to test out our equipment, he’s got something going on with his headphones that I’m sure we’ll sort out quickly. On the recorded side of things it sounds good, yesterday made me feel comfortable in what we’re about to do because I know I can talk forever about nothing and my brother can do the same. When we add the third partner in crime we’ll have a purpose to stay on track. Recording with my brother will be transformative, I shared a room with him for longer than probably anyone in my life and after we were done talking last night my brain began to wander on what that means. Almost 20 years have passed since I left for the Army, at that time I was regularly hanging out with my brother Alex, he’s going to use his name on the show anyway. I left home and left who I was at that time, he didn’t, even though so much time has passed the familiarity built by all the time we spent together is still there. He’s loyal and maybe knowing he would be there meant I didn’t put effort into maintaining things, maybe I can make right on that. That’s not to say I think I did anything wrong, I needed to grow up and my path took me around the world. What I wanted to accomplish is done, but those were childish dreams that had little detail, now I’m understanding a different meaning to being strong. Part of being strong is taking care of those around you or at least making sure they can stand on their own. I believe the bois have a lot of potential and together we will see new heights.
7 February 2024
The days are looking pretty repetitive right now, I’m getting into the nitty gritty of clean up and packing. Knowing that things are in a good place I’ve started exercising again, after taking time off I’ll have to take time to get back into the swing of things. More push ups, on the quest for 100 consecutive push ups, last week I started with 10. On Monday I was doing 20 consecutive push ups, that was my old average and I want my new average to be 35. My thinking is as simple as make number go up, if that happens great and if not then I still did more than zero. With my brain being so scattered, circling around numbers is a form of rest. My mind is also in a weird place with starting to record the new podcast tomorrow, it has it’s own check list to keep track of. There are topics that I want to talk about with the bois that I have to keep myself from exploring on my own, and I had made the decision to refer to my cohosts as the bois since it’s ambiguous and gender neutral. All is waiting for now, waiting and working, hurry up and wait of course is a favorite past time. These next couple weeks will probably feel like time slows down as my house gets stripped of all furniture and carpets, the walls have been bare. Walking around the property I get a funny feeling as it used to be mine, it still is in ownership but not in my spirit, I’ve got a new mess to deal with in another state. Someone else will call the work I’ve done theirs and might even dislike. I often think how all the trees I’ve planted could be cut down in an afternoon. They belong to the world now.
6 February 2024
Today is my real weekend, the baby is at daycare today, that’s my opportunity to get work done or rest. Everything is in a good place, so I’ll take some rest, there’s no telling how crazy life will get when the pace picks up again. A rule I like to follow is that if there is chance to take something, either work or rest, do it. Using rest for example, the baby may spike a fever and get sent home meaning if I don’t rest now I may not be able to in a couple hours. Accounting for the mentality that “all is flux”, planning has to have wiggle room. When I was first trying to get my life in order I made a schedule for my day, something like 8-8:15 is breakfast and 8:15-11 is work, the problem with such tight scheduling is it’s unrealistic. Having an extra glass of water could throw me off schedule. The other problem when I was making that schedule was in the beginning I didn’t know how long my routine actually takes, as I was making the routines for the first time I had to guess what I could do and how long it would take. Now I have experience that tells me to assume twice as much time as expected and I have half as much energy as I think. All that is said before entering a baby into the equation, with baby planning is more like hold on and focus on getting through the day. Loose plans can be made with the baby now that I know what I’m doing, but I know a lot of people never get themselves on a schedule before kids and never get their kids on a schedule. And everyone needs a bed time, when the clock strikes put the phone down, eyes closed and begin deep breathing.
5 February 2024
No matter how hard we try the weekend never lasts forever. Time off was good, I think I got some rest somewhere. Honestly, it’s hard to think, my brain is constantly running through lists of what needs to be done next. Everything that absolutely needed to get done has been done for a couple of weeks, now it’s about securing our possessions, minimizing mess, and maximizing appeal of the old house. When we leave in two weeks the hope is that we don’t have to come back to the old house again, we’ll play that by ear. Then I have to re-establish myself in a new location, I have to walk the parameter of the property with the dog regularly until he learns what the boundaries are. A friend once said, “you’re never done unpacking, you just stop” and it stuck with me. There is stuff that has never been unpacked in my current house and I’ve always said if I moved and moved again without unpacking something, it’s trash. This week will also mark the first recording I’ll be doing of my new podcast. My initial plan was to record with the guys for awhile without ever releasing anything, but I’m not going to do that because releasing an episode is a technology that also has to be learned. The process will be more like a soft opening soon and a grand opening towards the end of the year, we should have all our kinks out by then. I’ve put a lot on my plate and I feel good about it all, there are moments when I’m able to step back to look at everything and it feels intimidating. One step at a time, I don’t need to see everything at once, it’s information overload.
2 February 2024
The end of the week, house repairs are nearly finished, and we received the missing document to close on the new house. The current chapter of my life is coming to an end. Today there was warmth in the air, that air gives me strength and I’m going to need it. The new place will be more work, it never ends, but we reap what we sow. When a chapter on my life closes, I’m usually happy since the previous one has run it’s course, there isn’t as much room to grow here as I originally thought. My time here has taught me a lot, most importantly taught me how little I knew getting into this. My body has changed from working the land, same with the baby, I’m happy with who I’ve become. When we first moved out here a baby wasn’t even on the table, I was looking to answer the lock downs with open land. Once things got quiet, we needed a little chaos and here we are again. Awhile ago I stopped planning my life and started letting it happen. When I first thought up the idea I saw it as I was skydiving without a parachute, that I can either worry about everything or enjoy my time, the end is the same. Now my metaphor is more like I’m living out God’s plan, I don’t know what’s in store beyond “toil the soil”, but I’m taken care of.
Chris' Morning Pages 