Bottled Emotions

Everyone needs a good cry sometimes.

It has been a good while since my last good cry and I am not sure why.

I would like to believe it is because I am happy but I think I have become unable to express my feelings.

Being a man you are told you must restrain yourself and act like things don't bother you.

Things do bother me and I get sad and I want to cry but at last no tears.

Has the well gone dry or have I just over tightened the spigots?

Now I am afraid if I try to loosen them because I may never be able to shut them off.

I yearn to set myself free..............

Letter to my son....

I decided recently to start a journal of letters to my 10 month old son that I will give to him when he gets older. Here is the first entry....

January 26, 2005

Alex,

Well today you are 10 months old and you are the apple of my eye to say the least. As I rocked you to sleep tonight I decided that I wanted to give you something special so I decided to keep this journal for you. I am going to come here and write to you occasionally over your childhood and when you get older I am going to share this with you.

As I held you close to my chest tonight and sang lullabys in your ear I tried to lock that memory in my head for eternity. You have grown so quickly the last ten months and you are getting so big. A couple of weeks ago you were 25 pounds and 30 inches tall. You have come a long way since being in intensive care.

You are crawling like a crazy baby and can pull up on everything. You love to open the cabinets in the kitchen and play with the pots and pans. You are beginning to like the Teletubbies which I was hoping you wouldn't. You are just so full of energy. You have a little temper but it is still very cute. We play a lot and you love when I do the "body slam" on you. You giggle and laugh all the time. The talking is coming along with some dada's, mama's and baba's. You really want to walk but you have mastered the speed crawl.

After I get home from work every night we play and then I get to bath you. After your bath I read to you and give you a bottle and rock you to sleep. This is the best part of my day and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Soon we will be playing catch and riding bikes together but for now I will soak up every second of getting to snuggle you.

If over time I don't say it enough to you, I love you Alex.

Love,

Dad

Fear

As we go through life wandering the one thing that hinders us is our fears. It causes us to not take chances on things that we are not sure about. It pushes us into corners and acts as a bully towards progression. A man without fear is percieved as extreme while a man with to much fear is a coward. Our caculated risks are what we hope to determine if we can avoid leaning one way or the other. Maybe the fact is, fear is our mind's way of telling us where the line is drawn for each of us. Fear could be what truly defines us in the end! So I would say fear not, the story always ends the same way anyways.

Loneliness

I used to think that you had to be alone to feel lonely, I was wrong. I am surrounded by people but I am without a friend. I used to crave solitude, now I dread it. I always wanted more but I missed out on what I had.