Considering

I stopped writing for awhile and cancelled my subscription because I wasn’t using the diary (even though years ago I was incessant writer).  But I just took this Writer’s Way class and in it I (sort of) got in the habit of doing these things called “Morning Pages.”  I honestly didn’t keep up with them every morning but I’m trying to because I saw how they helped me get over my writer’s block.  Thing is, they are supposed to be a few pages of dumping out everything on your brain in the morning into about three pages of garbage that nobody ever sees.  If I do that here then, of course, people see it.  On the other hand, this is a good place to keep the pages AND I feel as if it’s more motivating to keep them here, so I have to go back and forth on it.  Fortunately they have restarted my 30 days free thing so I can make a decision during that time.  So today I’m doing my August 16th morning pages. The problem with doing them in here is that I don’t want to get caught up reading a bunch of other diaries so if anybody does stop by, I don’t want hurt feelings cuz I’m not stopping back by them.  Just a head’s up.  We’ll see how it all works out over the next 30 days.

Before this, I’ve been keeping morning pages on my iPad in a little app that is like notecards but bigger.  It is actually kind of nice and I’ve truly dumped my mind out in them.  I suppose I can copy my entries here into that just to save them.  Again, I don’t know how this will all work out.

So, this morning I was thinking about my brother.  Before age 50 he was an incredibly business man.  He made over a million dollars, had a beautiful home in La Jolla, a lovely family, etc. etc.  Then at 50, he became a cocaine addict, even crack.  He was the VP of a prestigious musical instrument company at that time (as he had jumped from company to company “saving them” and earning lots of $$) and was in Tennessee “saving” this company and while he was there had gone into a strip club I guess.  He met this stripper and she introduced him to cocaine.  At any rate, he got addicted to cocaine but actually I think he got addicted to her.  The whole thing went on and on and he lost everything.  After a few years of that, he was on the street, homeless and lost and called me.  I sent him a Greyhound Bus Ticket to come to where I was and he came, went to my church where they were just leaving for a men’s retreat.  They took him and he got saved.

It wasn’t all clear sailing from there.  He relapsed a couple of times but he’s been clean for about 15 years so I think he’s going to be okay.  He still makes some bad judgement decisions. (Already has had a second failed marriage) but his finances are back into solid shape and at least he has some semblance of a relationship with his son even though his relationship with his daughter is not so great.

Anyway, he once told me that he had gotten the best insurance, a gated home, had the best nanny (live-in) for his children, etc. etc. – everything to keep out the “big bad wolf” from his home, never realizing that the big bad wolf “was me.”  I’ll never forget that and the impact it made on me.