Tag Archives: Family

Teaching my son, that learns like me…

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When I was in junior high, I hated school. I dealt with bullies; my grades sucked and whenever I mentioned the bullies to my father, he’d side-step, “how are your grades?”

What I recently realized through watching my son struggle with school is that I may have a learning disability.

He has issues with focus, I do too, but mine isn’t as pronounced as his.

This realization came to when we got his grades and how hard school is for him.

My wife doesn’t understand it because she learns the way teachers teach. I always hated those kids.

School for me was hard. I sat in front of the room, couldn’t have distractions and my son, he’s the the same way.

Now that I’m aware of this, I have to remember how I learned and teach him to learn.

Some teachers don’t care what your issues are; they’re in the classroom to teach those who don’t have the learning issues, this was obvious to me many times in school.

When I had a problem or didn’t’ understand something and asked for help, they acted put out by it, “Why can’t you just learn this?”

I know this is why I read so much as a kid, and still do. It’s the main reason I hide out to get my word count for whatever WiP(Work in Progress) is befuddling me.

Books were my escape from reality; video games are his. It’s his way to escape from the world and problems he’s dealing with, and I guess my wife and I didn’t understand why until now.

I think I wanted him to be more like my wife and get the grades and not struggle, but that’s not the case, and he needs that extra attention.

Do your kids learn like you or your partner?

Two Years Later

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Two years ago I had the closest thing to a mental breakdown.

At the time, my grandfather had passed away and I went to Utah for the service.

For most of the previous 15 years, or so one side of my family had abandoned me based on what my biological father had told them about me.

This left me and my wife alone to be ourselves and it is probably the reason I’m more of an extrovert than before those 15 years.

When I went to the service, my aunt who I hadn’t talked to in years offered a place for me to sleep and I took her up on it, though it was hard being around people who had treated me so badly for so long.

I went to the viewing, though there were a few moments I went outside because I saw all the people that I felt had abandoned me, including my sisters, and being in the same room with people who’d done that to me was the hardest thing I’d done.

I walked within five feet of my biological father, but neither of us looked at each other.

For the following month, I slept a lot, missed work and eventually got shingles from all the stress I was feeling as well as the depression.

My family and I went to my aunt’s though my wife was uncomfortable and so was I for the simple reason that my biological father had turned my wife and I into these villains, mostly my wife.

In the months that followed, my spiral swirled to the point in the middle of the following March that I stood on the ledge at the hotel I worked at in Las Vegas and stared at the ground.

I wanted it to be over. I didn’t want to hurt anymore, I didn’t want my wife and kids to see me suffer and most of all I thought the world would be better.

I stepped off the ledge that day, called my wife and told her I needed help, but didn’t tell her about the ledge until later.

A couple of weeks later, I started Transcendental Meditation.

TM helped me deal with things, it isn’t a cure-all, but I’m able to deal with life better since beginning TM.

Today, and mostly this time of the year, I have bouts of depression. I think about who I am and what I’ve done in the last two years, and I’m happy about getting my wife and kids out of Vegas.

I’m excited about my writing and I love myself, though that comes in and goes sometimes.

I’m mostly happy.

We all deal with depression and I’ve lost family to suicide.

Please if yo need help, ask someone, talk to someone and find help. I almost jumped and would have lost the last two years of my life.

Suicide prevention hotline

1-800-273-8255

Creating…

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pablo (22)

Today, while I sat, reading Neil Gaiman’s new nonfictiony book, sitting next to my wife, who was multi-tasking, an ever-present sketchbook next to her, I watched a conversation.

Our daughter clambered between us to watch my wife’s colored pencils perform.

I don’t often see the interaction of teacher and student, of which I often think of them as.

I’m either reading a new book or writing something of my own.

The rarity of the occasion was more pronounced by the effort our daughter took to watch her mom create, color then create and fill the sketch with more colors.

I love the creativity in our house and the way in which our kids absorb creating through us.

My son crafted a lovely story a while ago. It’s one that I’ve asked him to expand upon and last night, he brought me cover sketches for it.

I told him, “Worry about the story, the cover will come later. If you need help, I’m here.”

I hope it helped him.

I wonder how why some kids don’t create things and I’m reminded of my childhood and having to hide stories I’d written, then I know.

 

The Course Isn’t Set

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pablo (21)

A matter of course.

The matter, of course, is the way in which our lives move through the world and the way we see things in the world.

Each course is the culmination in the way the way see the world and the truth of who we are.

The course we pass through is indifferent, and the reality of how we move through the world is indicavit of our choices as we move.

Our movement, though possibly slow is the only way we know how to get into the lives we’ve worked hard enough to enjoy.

Our enjoyment of these lives is the truth, not the reality.

The reality isn’t the way we want it to be, but in the course of our life, it creates, thrives and moves about the world how we couldn’t dream, much less allow ourselves to be.

We allow ourselves to be comfortable in the false reality and neglect the course. We fit ourselves into the world we don’t understand and enable the course to move us instead of the other way around.

Within the course of our lives, we’re the master, but we oftentimes neglect things because we’re unable to separate who we are from who need to be, the course is set and we must follow.

Time to be thankful…

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pablo (17)

I bartend weddings, graduations, and corporate events to pay for my writing habit.

You learn a lot from people who are starting out, ending or are somewhere in between. The constant at all of these is time.

At all of these events, regardless of the event’s purpose, time is brought up in some form. Whether it’s the time they’ve been with their company, the time they’ll be spending with their new spouse or the end of their journey in the corporate world.

We think of time only when it passes us by or when it’s coming towards in our looks to the future.

We rarely look at time as something to savor or something that we need to harness.

Taking the time to structure our lives in the best possible way to harness the time we have left, because honestly, we never know when we’re out of time.

There is a constant with all of these moments I’ve worked, not just time. Thankfulness.

Thankful to be honored, thankful for family who’s supported them and the rare, thankful for being able to keep going through the hard times.

I make decent money with the events, but it’s the stories people tell about their lives that make the events worth it.

I have coworkers who talk to each other during the speeches while I’m listening intently to them. I cherish the speeches because the time you spend listening is your time, not theirs. You’re using your time to focus on someone else instead of wasting it with idle chatter.