Funny part of this blog is it's creation.  I made it by mistake while trying to post to my blog.  My MS addled mind couldn't understand what happened to all of my prior posts.  The truely sad part is it happened for two different periods.  Here is the regular blog,

http://thelifewelllived.blogspot.com/

The whole idea came from being asked if I had to title a biography of my life, what would I wish for a title.  My answer was "The Life Well Lived."  As I started blogging, I was first confronted by whether I meant my life or the life of my kids.  Over time, I've come to the conclussion this is another question which only has satisfactory answers.

Today has been my first full day on Guam in more than 3 years.  I'm surprised at how much remains the same as I remember.  24 hours is still a long time to fly.  The people are still friendly, and I would almost swear it is still the same lady calling me every time I walk by offering me (and any other male walking by) a massage for $40 with the option to pick another lady if I don't find the first one pretty.  Yuck...I thought she was talking about a massage the first time 4 years ago.

On the other hand, it has also been a lesson in how much I've aged.  Still, I ran 2 miles this morning which over the hills of Guam in this heat was harder than the three miles I ran at home.  I also found it is no longer a little feat to walk 4 miles round trip to the Hard Rock Cafe to buy a shirt for my wife.  I am officially old...and over weight.   I figure I will be able to look on  her in that shirt remembering I was able to walk 4 hilly miles in heat to get it after running earlier in the morning.  As for why it was difficult, what can one do save start/continue exercising again.  I will be damned, if I am to reach the 240lbs I was a decade ago with out making a serious effort to fight the lbs(currently 232lb.).  Even with weight gain as a common side effect of the drugs I take for MS, I hope much of that is because of the inability to exercise due to fatigue.  To this I go back to my saying I used as a sign off for a few message boards over the years:

"Do what you can when you can until you can't.  Then feel no regret.  To the extent I have been able to look at myself in the mirror at the end of the day feeling I have lived up to that ideal, I find I can feel some pride rather than disgust as I meet the haggard gaze staring back at me."

For those in Japan today after the earthquake, after shocks, tsunami, and nuclear reactor disaster all I can do is marvel at their society's calm and orderly reaction to the series of disasters with so little chaos.  There seems to be far more stories of the best of humanity rather than the lesser side of humanity which sometimes thrives on chaos.  For those who feel the world teeters on the edge, I can only point to how the best parts of humanity are so often seen in the worst situations.  My heart goes out to all of those in Japan along with my respect and well wishes.

As the years go by, it’s sometimes easy to forget how we got here. I hope many years from now, any reader of this would understand why I marvel at my wife’s vision. There’s a reason she is the beautiful dreamer in our relationship, and it’s one very good reason I’ve stayed for all these years. Because I wish everyone could see her in the light of my eyes, here’s a little perspective from my point of view.

On my first date with my wife, I asked her "What would your life look like 5 years from now if everything went the way you would like it to? Dream big, but be honest."Her answer was that she would like to foster medically fragile children. In 5 years, she wants to be taking care of kids society ignores for the most part, those who need parents badly. I asked what exactly that entails, and it was one of the conversations that made me feel some of my jokes with my roommate about marrying her, which I'd been making for more than a year before the date, might be more than jokes. I never had a problem with the thought of my genes not being passed on. Heck, much of my thoughts which shape how and what I see in the world come from my step dad. 10 seconds or 3 hours of fun in bed does not a parent make. Drives to soccer, reads a book, talking about the day, models behavior etc. are the things which make us parents.

So here we are more than 10 years later, and we’ve been fostering medically fragile kids for years and been lucky enough to adopt two.Taking care of sick kids is the most rewarding thing I've ever done. It's frequently exhausting, and so what? Even as I get tired, I really only have to look over at my wife or listen to her getting up in the middle of the night for the 4th time to know I have a very to match a high bar indeed if I am to try and match her effort to make the beautiful dream a reality rather than just another herculean test of fortitude and commitment.

I know I’m difficult, and I see our kids and the challenges they provide as well. Still, she’s there, usually with what ever we need. Sometimes, it’s a harsh word. Sometimes it’s with an encouragement. I’m not even going into the day to day grind of making sure everything is as it must be. Still occasionally, when I’m really lucky, with a stolen moment of passion she reminds me of when I first saw her and got hit for telling her sister, “Wow, your sister is hot.” I’d say I live for those moments, but the truth is I live for the entire dream, for the sense of purpose it’s given me. Through the years, I’ve taken the name of “The Life Well Lived” on quite a few message boards, and frequently it has meant many different things from it’s inception of how I would wish a biography of my life to be titled to what I would hope for my kids. On this Valentine’s Day, it’s for the Beautiful Dream, our dream. Thanks for letting me share.

two months in

Two months into the whole child raising gig

It’s hard to belive it’s been two months already. Another week passed, and this one was pretty good. It’s kind of odd how we track time. I mark the passage of time in my memory by big events passing, and as I get older the things I use to mark the passage of time get bigger but further apart. Things like being old enough to drink, graduating college, getting a promotion, getting married all count now. These are how my memory records the passing of time, and it’s a far cry from being “six and a half.” Maybe that’s just my mind’s way of pretending to not grow old.

I mention this because as I watch my daughter, I’m brought back to recording the small things. Now I’m back to remembering little things like when she could first tripod for 30 seconds a few weeks ago. A week now seems like a long time again when looked at and remembered in terms of progress made. Heck this week’s fun was me being able to take care of her for an entire day while my wife got to escape to Six Flags for day with a friend. I know that is small potatoes, but being able to do little things like pack her in the car and head to the mall by myself was fun. I laugh a little because she seems to love the mall and have a great time…a sign of things to come? Like I said, I only laugh a little. In any event, I take it as a good sign for when I have her for a week while J heads off to Seattle that we had a good time.

Things we work on now:
Laying on her tummy without crying
Looking up when laying on her tummy
Rolling over on her own
Building leg strength (I’m the dork lifting her like a jump when she finally puts pressure on her legs while I hold from the armpits…she loves it and it works well to put her in a good mood after tummy time).

I’m just happy with how much more energy she has. After the list above, I should probably note the hardest part for me will probably be me not responding to every cry. My wife was correct last night when she chided me for going to pick her up when she cries while playing the playstation. She said I should just give her a toy at least until she stops crying. Of course it worked…but it’s hard to not go for the immediate fix that I know is what she wants. But J is correct when she point out that spoiling her isn’t going to make anyone happy. Ah well, I just have to break the habit of trying to do what she wants just because she wants it all the time…now I just need a replacement strategy to get her to say “daddy” first J

After almost two years, we’ll finally head onto the base. Time to see if there is anything good at the flea market.
Catch you later.

the life well lived (part I)

To my Grandfather,
Hopefully, I still carry the torch.

I was recently asked what I would title a book about my life. In a moment of inflated ego and dreams, I answered what I would hope the title would be: The Life Well Lived. After a day or so to think about this, I’m not sure it means what it meant to me at the time I said it. A life well lived is not without tears nor is it one without hardship. For me a life well lived isn’t just one where I make a boatload of money. A life well lived should be one where… Heck, you can’t really think I had the meaning of life to hand out for a casual reader. I’m still looking for the answer to what is “A life well lived.”

It’s a question I think about every year around December 31st as I try to decide what I have liked most in the past year. As it stands now, my hope is that I can live a life such that when I’m old and grey, I will be able to look back with joy at fond memories of all those whose lives have intertwined with mine. I guess I look back more often now because my wife and I have a new little life in our home. As we foster a child we hope to adopt, I start to think about what we can hope to pass on to her. A long healthy happy life would be the normal thing most parents wish for, but as my wife and I entered into fostering sick children, I had to change that a little bit because I’m not sure that I want to measure our success or failure with her by how long and healthy her life is. Instead, I’d wish that she had a life well lived for as long as it may be.

To get back to the question in a round way about what a life well lived is, I think it all comes down to strategy and occasional tactics. I still remember my Grandfather teaching me to play chess and the difference between strategy and tactics. After teaching me how to play with each peace on the board, I remember him telling me the importance of having a good strategy to win the game. It was right about then that he beat me a few times in a row with the four move checkmate. For playing against a slow to learn 10 year old, this was a good strategy. However, I soon identified this as a good strategy, and I tried it myself. After losing my most important peace a few times, I finally began to grasp the importance of tactics when the best-laid plans fall apart.

I learned a lot of things playing chess against my Grandfather, and honestly, some of what I learned from playing him in chess is still the way I live. There are basic rules that when you don’t have a good strategy still work to put you in decent position for you to use tactics as you go. Move a strong peace to on of the center four squares when you can and support it. Does this usually win the game for you? Well I’m not good enough for it to win me many games outright. However, it’s a tried and true strategy that usually allows one enough power to take advantage of the openings on the board. Then it’s all about tactics. The hard part is finding the tried and true strategy for life.

I can’t say I found the strategy that seems to work best for me in any of the normal places or in the timeliest of fashions. Most people seem to find it in church or from parents or from schools. For me it was talking with my Grandfather again. At age 17, I was talking to him about a hard time I was having with a girlfriend at the time. I know I never told him how bad it was, and to this day I have no idea if he knew how bad it was. Still to this day, his words ring true as the best strategy I have come across: “You can’t control how other people act. In time, you may not even remember what they did to you. Regardless, you will have to answer for what you do, so control what you can, your actions. Why worry about what you can not change?” From the soccer field to professional life to life with my family, I can’t even count the number of times I wished I had heeded that advice. Seems most of the things I am least proud of after the fact start with the logic of “Well, he/she did this horrible thing so I…”

I have no illusions that our daughter will think in the same way I do. The whole bit about strategy and tactics is probably a bit much for a 10 month old. Still, childhood is the time where we start to pick up on the values of our close family. It’s when we see the joy simple things bring like a mommy making kissing sounds on the baby’s cheek and the smile it brings to all around. It’s also the time where we start trying to imitate that which we see around us. To that extent, I come back to how I would wish for a book about my life to be titled: A Life Well Lived.

Ah well, that’s all I have time for today.