Afterlife

What happened could not be helped.

You wasn't the cause of the problem, but unfortunately You were part of the solution. You killed a man in the name of the law. Not alone. You had help. But bullets from your weapon killed that man. A man you never knew.

Just part of the job, or so you thought.

Sometimes, it takes awhile for your emotions to derail rational thought. You can tell yourself over and over that what you did was the right thing, the thing you were trained to do. It was all o.k. because you wore the badge, and the bastard was trying to kill you, among other people, that day. But you and your brothers in blue stopped him. You stopped him from killing his pregnant girlfriend, from taking hostages inside that antique store, and from sticking that big butcher knife into you or your partner that day. Some called you a hero. Some called you evil. Neither title fits.

Two years and a few months. That's how long it took. That's the anniversary of the merging of your emotions and rationalizations. Not really a merge, more of a collision. The others in blue don't understand. If they do, they pretend nothing like this has ever happened to a cop before, it won't happen to them, and you must be imagining it. Doesn't matter, really. Just one more day, and you would have snapped.

So what did you do? You quit. Resigned. Without notice and with a flimsy excuse of a better job. All so they didn't see you come to the end of the rope. You turned your back on your calling, God's job for you, so THEY didn't see your weakness. Weakness isn't tolerated in the thin, blue line.

Now, months later, the so-called better job is history. You've been "treated" for what they call PTSD - "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." It's something you've heard of, but never really expected to experience. Too bad. And, the thin, blue line has become a thick, black wall. They don't want you back. At least, their LEADERS don't want you back. They need cops, you were a damn good cop, and they STILL don't want you.

You hate cop shows on T.V. They're so, well, "pat." Everything is neatly settled inside a half hour or hour long episode. What a bunch of crap. You hear the sirens and wonder where they're going, what they're doing - your friends. They're still your friends, you hope.

But life is different now. Another department is politely interested, but they're dragging their feet hiring you. No excuse, they're just going really slow. No proof, but you can guess why. Should you even try to go back? Can you handle it anymore? Is it still God's call on your life? Or has God changed his mind?

There is no answer. God's not talking.

Random Thoughts

This is what's running through my brain today:

What does it say about our new president when he has to take the oath of office TWICE because he screwed it up the first time? Not to mention, why can't the CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES not read the oath correctly off of a sheet of paper right in front of his face? He must have went to the same law school as the new president...

Do we REALLY care about NATURAL MALE ENHANCEMENT? The commercials are really starting to piss me off, not to mention my dogs. They howl at Smilin' Bob when the whistling starts.

Do you think us men are prematurely aging because the commercials for Viagra, Just For Men Hair Coloring, Extenze, etc., are showing younger and younger men as their users? Talk about the power of suggestion. Suckers.

If the "Digital Deadline" came and we lost ALL television, there would be chaos in the streets, I guarantee it. Unfortunately, the people that will lose their T.V. signal are the ones that don't really care about T.V. in the first place. Too bad it's not the other way around. I'd buy tickets to watch the anarchy.

You, me, and everyone else on this planet, ARE GOING TO DIE. We just don't know when or how. Get over it.

Hug your kids while you can. There will come a time when they could care less about hugging you.

You know you're a middle aged man when dietary fiber becomes VERY IMPORTANT.

I don't want an MP3 player that holds 15,000 songs. I don't know 15,000 songs. Do you?

It takes practcally no brains to write a screenplay full of violence. It takes brilliance to write a good comedy, though.

We lost the "War On Drugs". When are we going to get the message?

4,870 Americans have died in the War in the Middle East. Oh, did you forget we're a nation at war?

All the National News Anchors make me want to puke. You too, Oprah.

Boys wear their pants with their underwear showing. Men pull up their pants, put on a belt, and act like men.

Midland, Texas is not the ugliest place in the world. But it's close.

In Between Opportunities

It's been a month now. One month ago, I walked into my boss's office and gave him my two weeks notice. I wanted to return to law enforcement, I said. The oilfield wasn't for me, I explained. He seemed very understanding. We set my last day to work at December 19th.

And so it was. December 19th, six days before Christmas, I left my steady paycheck behind. I can just imagine what you're thinking.

The amount of knowledge I've gained about cable TV in the last month staggers the imagination. For instance, they repeat the same commercial an average of four times per hour. The same, exact commercial. Some hours, it's the same four or five commercials at every break, with just the order they run in rearranged. Yep. I'm paying attention. And watching waaaaayyy tooooo muuuchh Television. I've read a few books, but if you know me, you know that reading a book takes a day, maybe two for me. So books don't fill the idle time as effectively as TV. My English teachers are rolling in their graves.

The anticipation of being welcomed back into my old police job with open arms was foiled by a Chief of Police who, frankly, is so tight-assed, you can see it on his face. Literally, the man looks like he's got a really itchy hemmorhoid or something. And that's when he's happy. Anyway, it's a Department policy that if an officer resigns, he or she must give 30 days notice to be re-hirable (is that even a word?) Needless to say, the new Chief is "by the book, no exceptions."

So, I didn't get "re-hired." I didn't give the required notice, because I was in the throes of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I had to get away from there right-this-minute-before-I-exploded. Seriously, if you've never had PTSD or been very close to someone with PTSD, you won't understand, so you can stop reading now.

Being the CYA type of person that I am, I had applied at a neighboring Police Department. I am "in the process" of being hired now, contingent upon the usual battery of a background check, lie detector, physical, psychological exam (that'll be fun...) and of course, the interview board. Being "in the process" takes alot longer than I thought it would. It takes at least a month, apparently. And this particular Department needs officers, as they are short handed. But that doesn't speed up "the process."

Ergo, lots of time in front of the T.V. and wondering where the money for next month's bills will come from.

Monster.com and Hotjobs have become my online friends. I am a member of an internet executive search (aim high, I always say). I have faxed, emailed, mailed, and taken resume' after resume' to just about every job posting that sounds remotely interesting. Always, always, always have a Plan B. Even if you hope it never happens. I've even given thought to "GASP" - returning to college and finishing the Bachelor's. Funny what too much time to think will do to your mind...

I didn't realize until just now that writing about it helps decrease the stress. Hmmmm.

Well, at least I'll have something to fill the time.

Mind Yourself, Now

It's all in the mind.

The recipe for chocolate chip cookies, how to walk, talk, and drive a car. Secrets kept since childhood and the secret of the atomic bomb.

All of it. Everything you were, are, and are to be is tucked neatly away in an organ that weighs about 8 pounds and looks like a wrinkled football. The mind fits inside that brain neatly and perfectly. It is neither completely neglected nor fully used at any one time.

If the mind is never fully used, even in the most brilliant people, imagine the power contained within its potential. Imagine if one could bring their full mental powers - conscious and unconcious - to bear on a given problem. Imagine that happening once, and then multiply it by 6 billion people.

Our brains (in which the mind dwells) are so complex, their method of function is still not fully understood by mankind. And if how the mind works is not fully understood, neither is the mind's power.

What if we could tap into previously unused and unseen parts of our own minds, and use these parts? What if we could heal ourselves of every type of disease and malady by sheer focus of our own will to do so? Do you believe it's possible? I do.

I know, this all sounds a bit like The Matrix, but it's not a movie. The potential of the human mind has evidenced itself throughout history in people like Leonardo DiVinci, who could paint "The Last Supper" and using the same imagination, engineer war machines. Think of the Wright Brothers. They were bicycle shop owners. They'd never even worked on a newfangled automobile at the time they built and flew their airplane. There are a million more examples. But, there should be BILLIONS more examples.

We harness the human mind with everything from the laws of physics to the law of the land. We control ourselves by believing the majority of our fellow humans are right on any given matter. A great many believed the sound barrier could not be broken, until it was. Thank God that Chuck Yeager didn't believe what the majority thought. We should all examine our own minds, find and eliminate doubt, fear, and negative thought, and in doing so, throw off the harnesses that have schackled us for as long as we have lived.

Who says you cannot do something great, something you have always dreamed of doing? In the end, it's not your fellow man that squelches your potential. It is you.