Things remembered.

When I think back to when I broke my foot, I can still remember the horror I felt when I was told that I would most likely not be able to have the career in the Army that I have always wanted. I was shining my boot one night and the troop commander approached me and asked what I planned to do after my discharge. I looked at him and told him that my career wasn't over yet, I still wanted to fight and once my foot healed, I would be back in full gear and ready to give hell. We talked for a while and when we were done, I honestly believed that I would be back in my unit with the guys I had trained with, sweating out the days and patrolling whatever site we were assigned to. As my unit shipped out without me, I began to see the truth. Every time I would think my foot was healed and I would try to run on it to try to keep fit, it would break once again and I had to start the whole process all over. Finally, I was taken to the med board, they told me it was time to hang it up. I lost it, the idea of giving up my dreams of one day wearing the uniform of a warrant officer, feeling the honor of knowing that I had done my duty and served with the best people this nation could ask for, destroyed me. This was the most humbling experience I had ever encountered, going in thinking that I would work my way through the ranks and become the person I knew I should be, only to be told that a broken foot would end my career before it even began, stripped every bit of confidence I had.
In 1994, I lived in one of the not-so-great parts of Omaha. I used to ride my bike to a friend's a few blocks away to get a ride to school and would ride home with one of my teammates after practice. On a Wednesday in August, I was going to pick up my bike and was jumped en route. I was bad enough that I was hospitalized, I don't remember the day I was discharged but the one day I remember, a nurse was talking to me and telling me it was Friday. I tell this story because it relates back to my sister's comment about my "angry white boy" music. I can say with certainty that I was a pissed off teen for some time.
The first time I met my friend Brandon was on his birthday, it was in October 1994, just over a month since I was jumped, we were at a picnic our parents had dragged us to. The first thought through my mind when I saw him was that I wanted to kick his ass, I didn't know a thing about him, other than he wore all black and I didn't like him. Once I saw that he was there with a very good family friend who turned out to be his stepdad, I put the thought aside and tried to be sociable. We ended up being good friends and have been for 18 years, I don't know why he stuck around, if you ask him, he will tell you that I was an asshole. The next time I was to see him was my birthday in December 1994, the lucky day for me, I was being moved out of the neighborhood that I was raised in, to one that, in my mind, was full of people that didn't deserve to breathe. His lucky day because he got to help us move out of the POS house we lived in. I remember being in a crappy mood because I still had my black eye and I was moving out of there, even if it was a crappy house in a crappy neighborhood, I wasn't looking forward to moving to another area where I wouldn't be able to continue in the school that I really liked. This attitude continued for quite some time and ultimately led to me ruining any chance I would have of going to any of the military academy, which was one of the excuses I used to make it easier for me to hate that school and drop out.
I spent most of my time working and being a dumb teenager, not causing major trouble, but not being a model citizen. Brandon's mother was a bit smarter than me and tried to limit any time he spent with me, I think she saw me as a bad influence, she might have been right, if he had been a person with any less character. So, when I wasn't hanging out with him, I found other friends that liked to do stupid crap. Lucky for me, I didn't like to do as much stupid crap as them and started to separate from them.
Around this time is when I met my ex. Long story short on that-she got pregnant, we married, Kyle born in October 2000, 9/11 happened, I toyed with the idea of the military again and in 2003 joined the Army. Liking the idea of getting to play with all of the boom sticks, I joined as a Cavalry Scout, best MOS to start with if you ask me. Aaannd, we're back to me breaking my foot. Shortly after I got home, we bought a house and just a while later she was again pregnant. I got my CNA just after my daughter was born in 2005, I was working during the day M-F as a local truck driver and weekends as a CNA, in addition to going to school at night M-F, getting prereqs out of the way for nursing school. By December, I couldn't work that load anymore and started full time evenings at a nursing home. Things hadn't been going well for a long time, but in 2007, things started getting bad between us and in June, I decided to move out.
I started at a hospital in July, working on the cardiac floor. Thinking that I would like being single for a while, I was able to have my kids when I didn't have school or work and could have fun without the tension of the relationship around us. Things were going well, work was good, classes were interesting, and time with the kids was great. Apparently being single didn't work for me, in late September, early October, I met a girl named Rachel. I don't know how to explain it, but she hit something inside me that I hadn't felt before, and I couldn't resist the urge to spend time with her. Her twisted sense of humor, her absolutely beautiful eyes and smile all made me feel like a school kid chasing after the hot girl of the school. I won't lie here, no point since I have already told her, the first thing I noticed about her was her butt, and it is still my favorite. As  one might guess, her coming into my life created quite a bit of turmoil with the ex, I know that it wasn't long after I left her, but I can't help how things turned out, I was and will always be insane about Rach. She has been so much more than I could have asked for. She was a 23 year old single girl, living in her own one bedroom apartment with her cat. From the time she met the kids, she was doing all she could to help them adjust to their new situation and make sure that we all kept a strong bond. I owe her my life and I'll spend the rest of it trying repay my debt.
Rach and I were married in May 2011, not counting the births of my children, that was the best day of my life. Everything leading up to the wedding was chaos, like most are. The title of this post came to mind as I was looking at the wine box that I built for our wedding day, it has two wine glasses that we had engraved from the 'Things Remembered' store, we spent too much money in that place, most of the wedding party got their gifts from there as well. Minus the cakes, with the help of a few friends and family members we did all the coordination or construction of all things needed, but we worked on everything together, which I think made it all worth more than if we had paid someone for it all. We spent the night dancing, making rounds talking to everyone we could, a great friend of ours shared her beautiful voice and sang to us, our dance that we had been working on went great, and we had a great time with our friends and family. The honeymoon in Orlando was a mix of good and bad, her feet were hurting, the hotel was less than charming and we didn't do enough research before we went, so other than the parks, we had an adventure with nearly every outing. The good was the times we had at the parks, that we had a good time getting lost on our adventures (see: Biolab Road Florida) and spent time with some amazingly fun family of hers that live in Florida. That trip is the last time Rach remembers me being happy. Shortly after our return home, the pain started in my foot and has continued to increase its intensity.
To attempt to describe the climate of our house for the first 7 or 8 months would take too long, let's just say that I'm amazed she still wears her ring and has stuck with me through it all. Knowing Rach, having her by my side and pushing me along, and knowing that she is trying hard to keep my head above water, while also shouldering the burden of those things I can no longer do, has proven to me that I made the right choice when I proposed at my pinning ceremony (nurse rite of passage). If I didn't know Rach, I might still be wondering what the hell is wrong with my foot, her friend Dr. Pat York is a podiatrist and when I went to see him, he diagnosed me almost immediately based on symptoms we told him and his visual assessment, I can't thank that man enough. Through a mixture of meds and a learned ability to finally talk out some of our issues rather than turn them into a massive fight, the climate seems to have improved, but could still be better.
So, this turned into a long winded summary of some portions of the last 18 years of my life, it's amazing how this outlet can bring so much to mind. I know that we've all had our ups and downs, for some reason, I have always had a hard time pushing mine aside and moving on, I guess I am hoping that this blog does for me what I have not been able to do before. The nights of having the violent dreams, no sleep and waking up in pools of sweat would not be sorely missed if this does the job.  I told carrue that I would be posting links that have come from either my wife or Dr. Haynes-Henson, there are some hopeful treatments mentioned in some, please feel free to check them out. Good night all, or good day, have a wonderful day.