Thankful Thursday, Time to move on.

After a long thought process I have decided to leave “Blogworld.” It’s not because I haven’t enjoyed it or because I haven’t met some great people through blogging because I have. But there are other reasons that are pushing me to change directions and break away from blogging. The first and most obvious is the time involved. Back when I had more time to devote to blogging, I had a large following. I posted almost daily and I visited a number of your blogs just as frequently.

Over the past year, my life has gotten so hectic that I almost never have time to blog and when I do I am so hurried that I really don’t put the time into my posts to write anything solid. The last holdout was my Thankful Thursday posts which even though I enjoy doing, I don’t "feel" them like I used to. It’s not that I am not thankful because I am. In fact every Thursday now I wake up and the first thing on my mind is thinking of what I am thankful for. And I do have so much to be thankful for. And to those who stuck with me until the end I want to say thank you and I am sorry for giving up.

This past week and a half has been one of the worst times in my life. Although the events of this time didn’t directly lead me to quitting my blogging it did force me to meditate and take some “me-time” and that is how I can to this conclusion.

If you didn’t already know, my brother in law passed away on Sunday the 12th. It wasn’t totally unexpected but the end came quickly for him. About 5 years ago David was diagnosed with lung cancer and after the treatments he was left with only a half of lung. He was able to breathe though and function normally except that he couldn’t exert himself like before.

Over the past few months it became more difficult for him to breathe but he was still doing fairly well. Then about a week before he died, he began having more serious problems. They found something in his lung so they put him under in order to check it out. While he was under he passed away. I am so thankful that he left us in a condition of no pain. And I am 100% positive he knew it was his time to go and was ready.

The ironic thing about a death is that it brings out both the best and worst in people. And this death was no exception. I saw a side of people I never knew existed. I will leave it at that. It is kind of like being around someone who has been drinking. If you have ever heard someone say “you don’t want to be around so-in-so when they are drunk, I have news for you. Being drunk doesn’t make someone into a bad person. It just brings out what the person is normally suppressing. A bad drunk is a bad person. They just usually hide it well. I know. I come from a long line of alcoholics.

Right after he passed, I heard someone say; “Why did God let him die? We prayed for a miracle. Why didn’t God answer our prayers?” I think God letting him go was the miracle. He was ready, he had a full life and he was beginning to struggle just to breathe. He did more in his 55 years that some people do in 100. To me not making him hold on and suffer was a miracle and again I thank God for that. So when you pray for a miracle remember that you may not get exactly what you were asking for.

This past week I also got a virus on my computer. Talk about bad timing. We were supposed to go out of town and I needed to print out the hotel reservations. I also had to get directions and check the bank balance and send emails and check my facebook page and my work emails and and and….. And that’s when it hit me. This computer thing is running my life. I mean I have to be on it enough at work so why am I spending so much time on it at home? It just doesn’t make sense. And when I get a virus like this, I take it as a personal attack on my privacy. The government won’t do anything about these hackers.

In fact a lot of time they are hired by people like Microsoft after they destroy millions of computers just because they are so smart. If I were in charge I would have a different fate for them. Like I would see how well they write a virus program with their toes because they have no fingers. You know an eye for an eye kind of thing. Anyway that is water under the bridge. I will clean my computer and get some new memory. And that brought up my next thought; “memory?”

It seems anymore when we see the word “memory” we think of computer memory. And that stands to reason since most humans revolve around the computer instead of what really means something; Life itself. This past weekend I attended the wedding of one of my nieces. It was a wonderful wedding and reception and I enjoyed everything about it including those little scallops wrapped in bacon and prawns the size of little lobsters. Can you say yum!! On the way to the wedding there was an airplane doing some sky writing. We watched as he made a smiley face and then spelled out the words "Jesus Loves you." I thought that was pretty cool.
One of best parts of the wedding was seeing some old friends. “Richard and Susan”. They have stayed in contact with my sister and I knew them quite well “back in the day.” We attended the same church when I was very young and we went to the same church camp. I actually went to camp with Susan’s brother Paul and their father drove us. Wow that was over 40 years ago but I can remember it like it was yesterday. The wedding and reception were quite a ways apart so we rode there in a bus. I sat in front of Richard and Susan and we sang some old church camp songs. Now THAT is a memory.

I started out blogging as a method to draw people to my real estate website. When I quit selling real estate I continued to blog and write stories. I think I wrote some pretty genuine heartfelt stories back then and much of it was very therapeutic for me. But now I feel the need to spend more time with my family and create new memories. Unlike computer memories, real memories can’t be erased or hacked. And real memories are something that you can take with you no matter what.

So I am no longer going to blog, or facebook, or twitter and I am going to concentrate on meeting people face to face or calling them on the phone where I can hear their voice or see what is in their eyes. I think it is much more personal, much more real and the way it was meant to be. Now I don’t hold it against anyone who wants to blog or facebook or twitter, especially if you are separated by many miles. But it makes me wonder when I have lived in the same house for 30 years and had the same phone number for that long why some people have only contacted me via facebook. I do have a phone. I think it is a way to say, hey I am still out here, I know you are still out there, I want to say hi, or whatever but I don’t want direct contact so let’s just leave it at that.

Anyway, I still enjoy writing and may someday write that book that I always dreamed about. I will still be around so if you want to contact me, call or write and yes you can still email me. Well for now anyway. I may give that up someday as well.

And have a great day,
Greg