Recognizing the Facade
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| Low water exposing what has been hidden |
Kind of a wakeup call, but I've come to understand that some people are and have always been presenting a "front". Some can't be seen without first being made up - or whatever. Others hide behind false pretense - simply put, a facade. I suppose up to this point I've only recognized it in the short term, but I've come to see that it can consume an entire lifetime - and I mean an entire life. It's made me stop and look more closely at myself, or should I say the fraud that I believe to be. Sure, I can visit the land of "make believe" from time to time. When I look at the long term picture it is not what I would like to think of myself. The world is full of quick gimmicks - GLp1's, cometic surgery, quick fixes without the effort. And then you realize that for so many people - people you may have admired, they have been propping themselves up all along. But then again, I've done a pretty good job of that myself.
Stacking up against others
I had the pleasure to ride with the "Legend" - Mr. LOTOJA, this past week. He is truly a great guy for so many reasons. He drove up here to take a ride in my "backyard". Having never ridden this place, we went up the old reliable where we could get a good look around. I seldom if ever ride with anyone else. I just hate the concept of indirectly being compared against other riders, even if we are just out on a friendly ride. It's not a fair conclusion, because most guys really don't care about this "comparison" - as it really doesn't happen. In my own mind, I know I'm more capable than I'll ever give myself credit. I remember when I first showed up to summer football two-a-days in college. I was so overwhelmed by the size and speed of the other 120-something other guys on that field. It wasn't until much later that I finally understood I was every bit as capable as the others. For the longest time after that I often wondered if I truly belonged there. Truth is, had I ever thought otherwise I'd have walked-off during two-a-days. And there were a lot of guys that did walk-off before we had our initial intersquad scrimmage the last Saturday of the camp. It was at that scrimmage that I first felt the charge of competition that I always knew was there all along. By the end of that roughly two week period I knew I had a place, but hadn't any reason to want to stick it out - or so I thought. I had let the emptiness of stupid life events distract me from my true "mission" - again, or so I thought. What I learned was I had it in me to stand toe-to-toe with anyone or anything when the right buttons were pushed.
Letting go........
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| A little snow on Ben |
Pretending that things could be somehow different than they turned out to be in the end......pure fantasy. There are questions that will never be answered - full stop! The years have a tendency to skew our memory and reality. What some people have become is what they have aspired to be. Like I've said too many times to remember; if you look at it long enough, you will become that of which you are constantly looking toward. With that comes the rationalization of how we have become that person that would otherwise have made our younger self just absolutely puke. At some point we have to let go of those things that haven't any chance of producing a positive result. As much as I would like to know why things happened, or better yet, what happened so many years ago, it will never be resolved. During that particular period my freshman year, I did come to a point of determined separation. One evening while in a mandatory underclassman study hall for we younger football players, I penned a letter that was my attempt toward letting go. I can't remember even part of what was written, but it was the point of which I basically turned my head toward what I knew to be not right. The first step in a journey that would define the rest of my life. I had turned away from the lonely emptiness that seemed to envelope me, to the first next best thing - that wasn't anywhere in the immediate field of view. By the time I found myself, the brakes had been burned off and there was no stopping the inevitable train wreck. Boy, did I prove a point. At some point every receipt will come due - give it time. Until then, be wise in the baggage you choose to carry.
