A Checkered Past

Good very early morning my friends. Top of the Morning to you if you prefer. It's Wednesday. Hump Day. We're half way through the traditional work week. Just a friendly public service reminder; Father's Day is approaching my friends. I know Father's Day rarely gets the publicity and fanfare Mother's Day gets but be sure to let your Father's know they're appreciated. Father's Day is not necessarily the topic of this futile attempt to communicate by blogging, I just tend to get distracted and way off course on a very frequent basis.

I'm sitting here at work at 2am and for someone reason I've spent the last hour or so mentally scanning through my life. A reflection of times past if you will. I do this occasionally and sometimes it's healthy and sometimes probably not so much. Tonight however I became a bit overwhelmed with some fairly heavy and morose thoughts. I'll try to give you a slight peek into a moment of your friendly writer's head without rambling too long to do it.

As I daydreamed and reflected I began to think back of many of the people who I became close with in my life. I thought of past lovers, past friends and drinking buddies and past co-workers. I began to wonder how many of these folks I impacted in such a negative way along my pathway of life. I've done a lot of crazy and selfish things in my life. I've blatantly taken advantage of the good graces of many. I wondered how many people's lives I changed negatively? I spent a large part of my life telling lies and cheating and stealing. I've had people who once loved me curse me. I've manipulated and schemed and scammed to convince people to care. For many years of my life I drifted around the Midwest, from town to city to countryside to town, never once leaving one place in favorable terms. Throughout the years many people invested time and money and emotions on my potential, only for me to crush any hope they possessed of a positive return. I've sucked the dreams of life, the hope of better tomorrows and the joy of living out of many people. I've left a trail of emotional scars in the wake of my destruction.

These days I'm blessed to live a much different life than I once did. I like to think I'm a completely different man today than the one described in the preceding paragraphs, and for the most part I am. I do my best each day to be of service to my fellow man. I attempt to be a bright spot in the daily lives of my loved ones. I attempt to frequently think of others before I think of myself. I'm still far from perfect and many days I fall short of being the angelic man I imagine myself to be. Still I wonder will I be able to do enough in my life to erase all the negativity of my checkered past?

An Amish man (you know those bearded guys that drive horses and buggies and don't have cell phones or computers!) once described life to me as being as simple as a wagon wheel. He said you rolled a wagon wheel down a hill and each time you did something bad it weighted one side of the wheel. Likewise each good deed you performed weighted the other side. The bearded gent went on to say that hopefully when the wagon wheel lost it's momentum at the bottom of the hill that one would have done enough good things in life for the wheel to fall in that direction. This my friends is one of the best descriptions of life I've ever heard.

How very heavily weighted to the "bad" side my wheel must still be. Sometimes in moments like tonight in my life I wonder if it's even worth it sometimes to attempt to correct all the wrong I've done. It sometimes seems like such an overwhelming and impossible task. I've screwed up so much in my life. I've burned so many bridges and I've fumbled so many golden opportunities. Yes my friends I've got quite the checkered past.

I'm going to keep smiling at folks though. I'm going to keep shaking hands and patting the shoulders of those that seem to need a morale boost. I'm going to continue to pray and ask to be a blessing to others each day. I'm going to continue to look for ways to be of service to my fellow man. I'm not going to lose the hope that somehow I can make a difference in my community. I'm not going to shut the door on my past because today I can see how my life experiences can benefit others. I'm going to do all I can to someday become the man I was meant to be. I will continue to open my heart and learn to be more full of love each day. I'm going to attempt to keep stacking "good" weights on my wagon wheel. If that wheel should lose momentum and begin to fall anytime soon I will have done my best these past few years to have balanced the good and bad in my life.

All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore.
None can reënter there,--
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Past"

I can't change the things I've done and neither can you my friends. The only thing I can do is live in today and hopefully make the world a slightly better place because of it.