Life has been life. We go through our daily motions and traditions and try to not get too consumed with the world to focus our attention with our intent of where we want to go with our life along with where we want our kids to go with theirs. We have an image of what we want them to experience and be exposed to. How we want them to act or what we want them to get involved in. We certainly can't control the choices and decisions, but we can certainly lead by example and what we allow them to take in as input in a world that is so overloaded with input. We can only do our best and give our best effort with all the love that God graces us to give. As such in life in general...all we can do is try. Whether it's with raising kids, paying bills, going to work and relationships. It's all essentially the same in the sense, it's gonna be what it's gonna be and all we can do is give our best effort and stand tall knowing that we walked the walk and did it trying. So with all that said, here is where I stand as of day 276 of this journey.
My boys are my boys! My flesh. My blood. The true innocence of love without condition. They are my world. Anything else that I seem to love, invest into, touch or talk to in general, unfortunately has conditions to it. Eight years ago I said yes. I got married to the woman of my dreams who was a mother of two girls who I accepted into my life as my own. To love for better or for worse, to lay down my life for, to protect with all my might. Life takes it turns and has its ups and downs as we all travel in a roller coaster of growth and emotion and choices. As hard as it might be, I choose love! It doesn't always look like love with how I act but in my heart and intent. I seek peace, I seek love! I took in, innocence with having step daughters who also take their own ride. They accepted me as dad all while knowing their biological fathers. A love existed that wasn't stormed with years of inabilities and wedges. Walls that calloused to a degree of nothing but condition. No longer am I dad to them, no longer am I seemingly a friend either. Blocked from social media and reduced to nothing more than just being an outsider that gets third party updates of what is going on in their lives. I try. It's certainly hard to love and show the affection as what once was when there is such condition to everything. I invest, try at a level I can. I support as a father does and provide the essence of what comes from a parental figure I suppose. I try and participate in their activities and be a part of it. I certainly can't speak wisdom, discipline or mold the fabric of the younger ones life because of the heart wounds and or the inability to seek out grace as God gives us for our own shortcomings. When those learning opportunities present themselves, I only push myself further away because it's coming from me and not someone else. I certainly get it. I have a step father and I felt the same towards him as they do I. I couldn't label a harder task in my life than that of being a step father with its challenges. It's honestly the hardest and toughest thing that I walk every day of my life. To deal with physical, emotional pains that one would find debilitating and exhausting doesn't honestly compare to the struggles of being a step father because of that feeling of rejection. To love with all your heart. To make that personal sacrifice of saying, I would do anything to protect you. To jump in front of a bullet for or spare with the sacrifice of your own life to know that it's only dealt with constant rejection and unforgiveness. It absolutely sucks!!! Let me tell you...it is so so hard that words truly cannot describe its struggle. It wasn't until that I truly forgave my own step father and accepted him for who he was, what his strengths were along with what his weaknesses were.
This I do know, he said yes! Just as I did on the shores of Oahu with God, and all the nearest and dearest present to witness the union, the vows. My step father said yes to a widowed woman with four young children. No experience. No manual on how it's done. He certainly didn't have a clue, yet I see that he tried. Most importantly, he didn't quit. He said yes to all of us and did the best he could with what he had to work with. He tried. Today, I love him more now than I ever have or could have ever imagined loving one that I absolutely abhorred when I was younger. He was the easy target for all my own inadequacies and faults. I blamed him for it all. A stubbed toe would have his name spoken in vain. I get it! I am that same man that gets blamed for current life choices. I'm to blame for the weather it seems like. I can do no right and bask in a world of wrong. I can only hope that there is a maturing that takes place where they grow and move past their past. To honestly let go and let God. As cheesy as it may be to some that hear catch phrases, it's true! To turn over those pains, give them to God and let him do a healing that only God can do to our hearts is the only way that we truly experience his love and the joy and peace that goes along with it. Yeah it won't change the things that took place. I certainly will never forget the physicality of abuse and overall hurt that took place in my childhood though the chains have been broken and I am certainly free from it with the forgiveness that has taken place from it. It's easier said than done and the picture may differ from that of another set of eyes in the experiences of my life, yet that is the one from my set of eyes, my feelings. Authentic and real they are to me, my heart, my spirit. With all that said, in my defense to this story, to my journey is that all I can simply say is that I am trying and my only advice that I could give to one that encounters any sort of struggle in their life. If it exists with another person, place or thing and you see the God authenticity of the essence of trying in that person, place or thing. Give them that forgiveness. That God love and grace given to us. Only then we can experience his peace and through that we experience a freedom that leaves us joyous and loving like we have never loved before.
I am in no way, no shape or form seeing myself as perfect. I am only trying, hence the earlier title of intention being, "The Grind".
I have continued to crew haul through the seasons simply because of its convenience. It is such a difficult job market these days. I literally must have put close to a 1000 or more applications out there over the past year. No joke, I've saved emails and know that I've applied at hundreds of them within the railroad industry alone. I couldn't find a job that would offset the cost of child care through the day so I settled in with the financial struggle of the joke of a salary that my job provided so I could work nights and still be home for the kids throughout the day so Peggy could go to work when she needed to. I always wasn't present and the physical pain endured through sleep deprivation is something else. To go so long without sleep or only encounter moments of sleep that counted from 1 to 3 hours at a time simply didn't suffice. I'd ultimately pass out dead on the couch at moments or when a window of sleep took place I was essentially unavailable for a day because I was literally in a coma like state where disorientations took place because I was so tired. It was rough trying to do so I ultimately had to cut back my hours so I could get some real sleep and feel like I was a functioning part of my home again. I took some additional hours during the day helping my parents out with their business which was convenient because I could bring my little one with me as well. Peggy is massaging but I know she isn't happy with her current role in her work and I know it is physically more taxing to be massaging her clients in a mobile setting instead of having them travel to an office. It certainly saves from all the overhead that takes place with having a storefront with employees and l know the profit margins greatly increase because of its absence but I also know that she isn't happy and if she isn't happy that doesn't have me happy as well. I want her to be happy yet I also want to do what makes sense. What is to come in the near future with that chapter, I do not know but I do know that I don't want her to struggle any longer and have always wanted to be the bread winner. To walk in the doors knowing that feeling of being a champion to them in their hearts. I so long for that and hated to have to come home from Montana with my tail between my legs with the furlough status from BNSF.
Now onto the next chapter. All aboard! I have been hired from Amtrak and day 276 is the final day that I will be furloughed from the railroad. I will spend the next 10 weeks in Delaware training to be a conductor for Amtrak and once I'm done with training on the east coast, I come back to Seattle where I will continue on the job training. My trips will either take me to Spokane, Portland or Vancouver BC. I had several other testing opportunities come up in other cities but luckily was offered a position at home. In Seattle, working out of the King St. station. I actually had a testing opportunity at the same time in DC as I was going through the process in Seattle. I had a couple shots in Michigan and once in Denver. I guess everything just works out for a reason because I was pretty close to going out to Detroit for that opportunity but the timing just didn't work out to get there when I need to be there. It worked out and I passed the tests and interviewed with four employees and a week or so later, I got the offer! It was actually offered prematurely and a day later Amtrak put out an official notice to freeze all positions hiring for train crew due to lower fuel costs and a forecasted decrease in their ridership, thinking that Americans will opt to drive instead of taking the train because gas has gone down so much because crude prices took a nose dive while I was out in Montana. I was pretty nervous there for the next week waiting for the additional approval needed for the official offer could be put out there to me. I thought to myself, what would be the odds of getting another train position taken from me due to the fuel costs in America. After another nail biting week, I got the offer and was officially an Amtrak employee pending background and medical. Passed and passed I am Delaware bound for a career with Amtrak. I'm officially still furloughed from the BNSF in Montana, but not from the railroad. I'll again be able to provide for my family. Medical will be reinstated and no longer will I need to be on obamacare which wasn't all that bad from what people's impression were of it, though it is counting against us as we file our taxes for this year.
Class starts on Monday the 21st and look forward to all the exciting experience to be had when I travel east and look forward to meeting new people as well. I will try to blog and document the process as I walk it. Here are some pictures of some of the moments in my life as of late. Here are also a couple pictures of Amtrak trains as well. None of the train pictures are mine, but I googled a few so I could update my profile on Facebook.
In conclusion, a huge thank you!!! To those out there that follow and support this journey. Thank you. You know who you are as I've thanked you personally through this journey. You are all so important to me that I feel a duty to continue this blog and share with you the successes and blessings that come theoughout this remarkable walk. Never in a million years did I ever think as a trainer with the Y a decade ago, I'd see myself going through a firefighting academy or even see myself on the head end of a 31 million pound train loaded with oil or grain. It's been a crazy ride and I appreciate all the love. All the likes and comments have helped. All the support has been great and inspires me to continue the sharing. So thank you, each and every one of you. My friends, family, my beautiful kids and most importantly my wonderful wife. None of this journey would even be possible without her, supporting and sacrificing on her end as I'm out here doing my thing. It's a ride and I love her more than the world, to the moon and back. Thank you Peggy Sue, I love you!!!
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