When posting harassing and threatening comments to a blog, don’t do it from your work computer, especially if you work for the government. Government IT guys are real quick to respond to complaints.

I’m facing a difficult decision.

There are certain things about my life I have never blogged about. A few people that read this and actually know me know part of the story. A couple may know almost all of it. But I am not sure anyone really knows the whole thing. But I need to kind of write this out to help me think through something.

First, I have to explain something. If you read my blog you may have noticed sometimes I refer to my dad and others to my father. That is intentional and it references two separate people. My father is my biological father. My dad is the man my mother married me who adopted me when I was 9. One of the two was with me most of my childhood. The other basically disowned me so he wouldn’t have to pay child support.

For a long time I kind of avoided dealing with a lot of realities about my father. What little I remember of the time he was married to my mother is not good. Don’t get me wrong. Like most children I loved my father. But that doesn’t mean that love was deserved. I was crushed when they divorced even though I was a very small child. I remember distinctly crying my eyes out because I could not understand why he wasn’t there. But, looking back, I also remember a big part of why they divorced. And I also remember what it was like the brief period after the divorce where he actually had me visit him.

Basically, about the time things got screwy in my life, and I divorced for the first time, I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted from a relationship with my father. Yes, even though he disowned me and asked my step-father to adopt me he had wanted to be in my life, pretty much on his terms. As a kid you just adapt to that, mostly because you do not want to face the fact that your father doesn’t really want to be your father. I don’t even know how to describe what role he wanted to play in my life but it certainly wasn’t parental.

And I also faced the reality that every single psychologist I met with reached the same conclusion about things I had blocked out of my memory, and that I may never be sure of everything, but there is something there.

So I decided I did not want this man in my life. When I had spoken to him about what I did remember he denied he had ever done anything wrong and said he had no idea what I was talking about. Given the fact that there are more than a few people who remember some pretty bad shit, it’s obvious that he’s either in denial or too big a coward to own up to his past. Either way, this is not a man I want in my life. He is a big reason why my address and phone number are not easy to find. I don’t want so much as a birthday card from this man.

When all of this happened I received a card from my step-brother. Keep in mind he is not my father’s biological son. But his mother is married to my father, so they are in touch. The card talked a great deal about forgiveness. But this isn’t a matter of forgiveness. Even if I forgive the man I am not going to have him in my life. The memories are bad enough without dealing with a man who pretends nothing ever happened. So, as a result of his decision to act as an intermediary between my father and me, I made the choice to cut my step-brother out of my life as well. Frankly, anyone that close to my father is not someone I want around me.

Now, several years later my step-brother has reached out to me again. This time he did not reach out to me on behalf of my father, but for himself. But I have to be honest. I am not sure what to do. The reality is that he is still close to his mother, and anything I say to him is likely to get back to her. I guarantee anything she hears will get to my father. I do not want him involved in my life even tangentially. I don’t want him to know what I am doing in my life. I don’t want any back-channel communication from him. I want to do as much as I can to be insulated from him.

So now I have to decide how to handle this situation. I could just send my brother a message explaining why I am doing what I am doing, but I am afraid that even that will end up getting my father, or possibly my step-mother, to again start their efforts to find me.  While I want to believe I can communicate with my brother without any of it getting back to my father, I am not sure that is even possible.

I have enough going on in my life without dealing with that man again, and I really have to decide if the risk is worth it.

I haven’t written for a while. For the longest time it was because I didn’t feel I had anything to say. Well, that’s not quite accurate. I didn’t feel anything I had to say was worth reading. Maybe I’m being obnoxious, but blogs that assume the day to day activities of the average person are worth reading really kind of annoy me. While I am sure friends and family, well some friends and family might find it amusing, but I have always tried to get people reading who don’t know me and won’t ever know me. In fact, I’d rather have readers who don’t know me because while I am 100% open and honest with my closest friends, I am not one who collects friends like baseball cards. And I am also not one to tell every detail of my life to every person I know. It’s easier to be completely open with total strangers you will never meet.

(No, Facebook friends don’t count. Add one ap and all of the sudden you freaking need 2,000 “friends”.)

But for the last few weeks I have been mulling over something I need to say. For those who read this blog back when it was good, you know that is a little hard to believe. I used to write every night, and sometimes during the day as well. I always had something to say or a story to tell, and that always flowed out of me with no problem. This time I don’t have a story to tell, I have something important to say.

Ok, I kind of have a story to tell, but only to explain the real point of this post.

A few weeks ago I was driving my son back to his mother’s and they announced a giveaway on the radio. The prize was concert tickets and a “meet and great” plus acoustic performances from Anberlin, Taking Back Sunday, Shinedown and Blue October. I told my son I wish my phone wasn’t stuck in my pocket because I’d love to win that prize. I figured that by the time I got the phone fished out of my pocket, while driving, it would be too late. But after a few seconds I decided to try anyway. So I managed to fish out the phone and, just as I was about to give up, the phone started actually ringing instead of telling me all circuits were busy. And when they answered I was the lucky winner.

Now this could be the part where I try to tell a touching father son story about how I not only got to take my son to his first real concert, but he got to hear acoustic sets from 4 of the acts and actually meet the bands. I could talk about the other acts we met, including the guys from Aranda, one of whom actually picked my son up so he could sit next to them on the autograph table for the picture. But, if you read much of what I write, you know I don’t do touching very well, and generally assume other people will find stories about my child boring, so I’m not going to go in to any more detail on that score.

Instead I am going to talk about a moment that really hit me, hard.

When Shinedown was performing Brent Smith told the story of writing the song Second Chance. He had the lyrics in his mind for a long time, but he never wrote the song or shared them with anyone. He was worried about how people would take the song. He had to decide between worrying about the feelings of other people, worrying about how people would take the lyrics and being honest with himself. I’d say it’s pretty obvious which way he went.

Brent Smith is a very intense individual, and when he told the story he was very emotional. He also said something after telling the story that really struck me. He went on to talk about not holding back in general. If there is something you want in life you need to take a chance and go for it. The words, and the emotion behind them, hit me hard. I was actually shaken by it for several days after the fact.

See, I’ve been holding back.

If you think of life like a play, my adult life has been pretty much by the book from a literary standpoint. I had a clearly defined first act consisting of my first marriage. That came to an end when I had a dramatic personal event nobody else could possibly understand. The second act was primarily made up of a series of interesting, often dark and twisted, stories. In most 3 act plays the second act is dark, and mine was no different. It certainly made for decent reading if you’re in to that kind of thing, and there was about a 5 year span that gave me more material than the other 33 years of my life by far.

Then something happened. I had had enough. The bullshit that went along with that “second act” was simply too much. When my second marriage ended I briefly dated an ex that I will always care about, but that ended badly. (See what happens when I don’t follow my own rules?) I also got laid off and ended up in an entirely different career at a time that isn’t exactly ideal to be in said career. Life has become a chore. And it was starting to seem like the third act to my life was going to be very anticlimactic.

Then I listened to Brent.

Now I have a choice. I can either ignore the fact that, no matter how you cut it, there is a lot more to me than what is in my life right now. I am not happy not utilizing all of this. I’d say the odds of a career where I can use all of my skills and loves are pretty unlikely, and I’m OK with that. But I have to find some way to put my skills, my experiences and my desires to use. I may not be young anymore, but I am too young to imagine living the rest of my life without making a run at something. I have yet to decide exactly what I am going to do, but it will be something.

I am quite certain one thing I will be doing is a lot more writing, although probably not here. I plan on doing some more substantial writing. I’ve primarily written short stories, poems and even essays, but it’s time to try something bigger. I have had a few ideas for some time, and I think I know which one I am going to try first. Heck, knowing me, I’ll probably have a couple going at once and go back and forth depending on my inspiration and mood. Regardless, I have to try. I do not want to get any further in this life wondering “what if”. I have no delusions of becoming rich and famous, or even published. I am going to get this put of me though, even if it’s just for me.

It happened again.

If you’ve read my blog much you will know what I am talking about. I yet again attracted a woman that just screams drama. Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog for long you’ve noticed that there have not been many “crazy chick” posts lately, and that those I have shared have been more of the “So I said hell no” variety than the drawn out tales that, while they often involved some great sex, more often than not were the result of a series of very bad decisions on my part.

Now, I’m not saying this was an isolated event, because it’s not. In fact, off the top of my head, I can think of two other times recently a woman’s behavior set off warning signs and I turned tail and ran. And I am not the least bit ashamed of running away. I have been in serious self-preservation mode for some time. I’m not up for the drama anymore.

This time a woman on a certain social networking site kept flirting with me. After a while I decided I’d add her as a friend just so I can get some idea what she is all about. A few things jumped out pretty quick. First, her profile pic, which was the only one I had seen, was clearly the best picture ever taken of her. There’s nothing wrong with that really, but once I saw more pics, I will be honest that I wasn’t attracted.

Another thing jumped out at me: she lives about 1,500 miles away. Again, this is one of the details you wouldn’t know until seeing her profile. This wasn’t that big of a deal really because I assumed she just liked to flirt and, as I am single, I don’t see anything wrong with that.

But then she immediately started a chat with me. Within 5 minutes I was told she was married, her marriage wasn’t working out, they weren’t having sex, she really wants to have sex and, of course, she’s in to anal. Now think about that for a second. Within 5 minutes of even having the ability to relay anything outside of canned, mostly innocuous, flirtations, I knew more about this woman than I know about many women I have known much longer.

I actually considered cutting off the conversation pretty fast but, as soon as it started, I mentioned to a friend what it looked like was happening. We were kind of curious about which way this was going to go. The question my friend had, and that I was wondering a little myself, was exactly what this woman was looking for. Did she see me as being safe since I was so far away, or was she looking for a man to save her from whatever is making her unhappy?

Given the fact that she was wondering if I’d be willing to travel to her home state, and even talked about coming to Texas, it became pretty clear that she probably wasn’t in the “sees me as safe” category.

That brought up a very big reality of my life. I am no longer in the saving business. I do not know what it is about me that somehow I naturally attract some women who think they need some guy to save them, but that simply isn’t me anymore. I will be the first to admit I did it before. At first I thought it was something I needed to do to make up for what I had done in my past. Having been a total asshole for so long had me believing I have some kind of karmic deficit I needed to make up for. And by the time Heather came around I figured I deserved any of the pain and drama that goes along with that,

But now I am past that. I am not saying I’m never going to help anyone again, but if you are looking for salvation you need to look somewhere else. I am out of the salvation business, and I can’t imagine ever going back. No matter how bad my karma has been, there’s no way it’s worth all that.