It’s Just a Car

I have not posted in a while due to a bit of writer’s block or just laziness, I’m not exactly sure which it has been, maybe both? With the holidays upon us for 2024 and another year coming to a quick end, time just got past me, I guess. The number of people reading the blog has steadily gone down over the year, so I also have been curious if this has run its course. I typically get a bit melancholy around this time of year, and I also start looking ahead to the next year while trying to determine how I did in the present day. I hope you find this somewhat interesting and worth the time you spend on it. It’s a challenge to me to know what and how much “personal stuff” to share but I also hope someone finds it helpful.

I recently had the great honor and privilege to lead a Tres Dias weekend around the end of October. Planning and training for it was my main focus for most of this past year. It kept my mind occupied and gave me a direction and a goal for my time and efforts. Similar to getting ready for Christmas, once it finally got here it was over in a flash. I was exhausted when it was over and spent the following few days resting up and reflecting back over the weekend. I got to give the last of 15 talks on the weekend and mine had a large focus on my journey over the past three years subsequent to Michelle’s passing in 2021. My theme for the weekend was “Walk Humbly with Your God” based on Micah 6:8. It is not very enjoyable to be humbled in life but if it is put in an eternal perspective some meaning comes from it and I thought it had value to share that with my friends and fellow travelers on the weekend. It was very emotional to stir all of that back up but necessary if the story was to be told. As I sat reflecting in my house, the question came to my mind…. What’s next?

I found that to be a healthy question. I seemed to have moved on from all of the “WHY?” questions and felt like I was finally ready to start moving forward with my life. The last three years of grieving and mourning has been hard and brought many new experiences to me. It has challenged my mental health, my faith, my physical health, my appearance, my friendships, my diet, my work, my family, my desires, and my outlook on life and how I fit into it now after all of these changes. This was odd because three years ago I felt like I had a pretty good handle on all of this and then within a few weeks it was blown to hell.

I made a commitment to myself to work through this in the “best” way right after it happened. I was BIG MAD at God, but I started at the beginning and started reading my Bible and praying in ways I had never prayed before. I was searching for answers, and none came for quite a while. Little by little I was chipping away at the large boulder I felt like I was carrying around. I would go to church but refused to sing and the whole thing was like going to the home of someone you loved but not wanting to engage while you were there and then just getting up and leaving.

I retired from work a few years earlier than I had planned because I just couldn’t focus anymore. I tried retail therapy and that didn’t work. I threw myself into home projects and that didn’t work. I started hiking and I think I covered most of North Georgia until I got bored with it. I have been dealing with insomnia on an Olympic level because I can’t shut off my brain to go to sleep, even for a few hours. I’ve traveled a good bit, but while fun it felt like I was running away if even for a small period of time. So, getting to a point where the questions have moved from Why to What’s Next is actually pretty healthy for me (I guess those Psych classes in college are paying off!).

Leaning on my gifts as an encourager I started working on myself by giving personal pep talks and having some “difficult conversations” with myself. I've got to move on but how does that work. I’ve got to reinvent myself but how does that work now. This has been more than the pep talk I give myself every year to change my ways at the end of the year and make a vow to be kinder, eat better, exercise more, read my Bible more, etc. This was more like telling myself that if I don’t do something soon, this is the way my life will stay. That was not an option for me but how do I climb out of this deep hole and get back into the game? I felt like I probably have worn out my friends and family and I don’t want to be a bother to anyone, so it was time to look in the mirror and kick my own rear end.

Today’s blog will be about the “Next Steps” I am trying and how selling a car has been a catalyst to picking myself off the mat and finding the way back. Yes, It’s Just a Car, or is it?

But First…A Joke:

Q: What’s the difference between ignorance, apathy, and ambivalence?

A: I don’t know, and I don’t care one way or the other.

Bonus Dad Joke:

Kid: Dad, make me a sandwich.

Dad: Poof, you’re a sandwich!

A Verse to Contemplate:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3: 1 - 8 (NIV)

Have I Told You This One?

So, the Ohio State vs. Michigan game was played recently. This is the highlight of the football season for me. The 11 games played prior to that game are practice games in my mind and while the season is great it is just the opening act for THE GAME. People have asked over the years if all the hype about that game is true or just hyperbole. Michelle used to give me the look when I started yelling at the TV during the game and “try” to remind that “It’s Only a Game.” I quickly reminded her that ALL of the other games are “Just A Game”, but THE GAME is clearly not. She would roll her eyes and mumble to herself as she was leaving the room.

That’s great Markus, why are you telling us this you weirdo? I’m glad you asked.

I submit that there are things in everyone’s life that mean much more than others because of some (possibly) misplaced inflated value they may place on them. It may not make a lot of sense to others but nonetheless perception is definitely reality.

For me, I couldn’t bring myself to sell Michelle’s two seat convertible after she passed. I didn’t need the car, I didn’t really enjoy driving it, and it was costing me money to insure and maintain it. My financial advisor would encourage me to sell it, but he knew that it was going to take me some time to get to that point. I mentally compromised and looked at it as my “fun car” or my “backup car” and kept it around. In honesty, I just kept it around because it felt like it was my last link to her, and I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye. My mind drifted back thinking of her and I could hear her looking at me with the “are you kidding me look” on her face and saying, “It’s Just a Car!”

Once I got home from the weekend, I got this overwhelming sense that I should sell the car. Not because “It’s Just a Car!” but because it was time. It was very symbolic to me that doing this would be a great final step of hanging on to my anger and disappointment and moving toward a much healthier place in my life and a catalyst to reinvent myself from a retired widower to What’s Next. So, I did it. I sold the car and had one more drive around with the top down to feel the wind in my hair (Stop Laughing!) or what is left of it.

When I was a kid growing up, I looked up to different people and thought about how cool it would be to be them. I thought Joe Namath was great. He was brash and cocky, and I loved that. I thought I would strive to be him for a while. Then I went through my “tough guy” phase and thought Dick Butkus was who I would be. I loved his quote “I wanted them to know who tackled them without having to look.” Then I started getting into music and I decided that I wanted to be Robin Zander, lead singer of Cheap Trick. He was my teenage bromance. How great would it be to be the lead singer of a cool rock band? Then I thought about being a titan of industry and finance and thought about being Lee Iacocca. Then I thought about being a pastor and speaker and focused on Billy Graham and others. You get the point.

So now I am at another phase in my life where I have to decide What’s Next? I haven’t dated since the 1970s but I’m ready to give that another go. That is really scary! I want to do something significant with the time I am blessed with. I want to volunteer and make an impact on my community. I’ve got some ideas and I’m moving in that direction, finally. I know that I won’t be golfing or fishing. That is just not me. I also plan to travel A LOT and hope to find a partner to do that with.

Back in 2021 people told me not to be in a hurry and that it might be several years before I would feel like moving forward. I guess they were right. Stay tuned. I appreciate your time and thanks for listening to my stream of consciousness.

A Prayer:

Lord, I humbly seek Your wisdom and direction as I move into this next phase of my life so that I can serve You in alignment with Your plan. Teach me Your ways as I step out in faith into a new day so that I may walk in them all the days of the rest of my life.

Book Recommendation:

From Success to Significance (When the Pursuit of Success Isn’t Enough) by Lloyd Reeb (2004)

Music Recommendation:

Day for Night by Spock’s Beard (1999)

Quote of the Day:

“We’re all a little weird, and life’s a little weird. And when we find someone, whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” - Dr. Seuss