My story...

This is a blog I found while getting started on this Wordpress journey of sorts. Taylor Ocean is his name and there is an eerie familiarity between his life stories and mine... Sans the drugs, SWAT raid and crazy car wrecks... For my modest amount of readers, I suggest you check out his blog, and maybe even check out his book on Amazon.

His stories will more than likely offend many, and literary structure nazis would have a heyday with his prose. Personally, I think he's got some real balls for doing what he did, telling his story as candidly as possible. I read half his book already tonight and pressed with the fact that I'm due to be up for work in a handful of hours, I'm going to save the last half for a well planned night with a few fingers of whiskey by my side. Kudos to you, man.

So this brings me back to some realizations I have about my life. I need some better stories... Well, ones that I can tell on this open forum. I've held thirty something jobs since I was thirteen years old, passed up an opportunity to go to the Naval Academy, passed up college after high school, passed up enjoying my twenties... Got my (then) girlfriend pregnant... (Actually, during post break up sex), got hooked up with a girl eight years older than me, bought a house with her, almost became dad number three to her kids... Spent years working my ass off for her and sacrificing so many opportunities of really good income... I left her cheating, alcoholic ass. Managed a pizza parlor, became a garbage man, then joined the Army at the age of twenty four. Went to Airborne School after basic training, (insert a ton of Army stories here), got deployed twice, (insert more Army stories here), got out, rushed home for reasons I still can't accept, opened a restaurant from scratch... Ran it, grew it, loved it, hated it, sold it... Became a truck driver, then became a tree worker, onto becoming a tree climber at times... Oh, and I lived on a sailboat for a few years... Then flight school... Got my commercial pilot license free and clear using the GI Bill, learned all about the new age of how entitled kids are nowadays, finished flight school, enjoyed the sailboat before I finally sold it, drove trucks again for a few months then moved to California. Decided to continue using my GI Bill benefits to attend a joke of a school. Name is withheld until I finish this session. All in all, that's where I'm at... There's a lot of people in between all of that who have made their way into my heart and I will never be able to get them out. Others I wish I could go back in time and 'un-meet.' This can't be it for me... It's not my time to begin writing my story. I've lived my life for myself and I'm ashamed of that.

I've been pondering more than people can ever imagine about what to do with my life right now. I'm thirty three years old and feel like I'm twenty at times. To say the world is my oyster is an understatement right now. I'm trying to live a life of normalcy for a while to help finish the affairs of a lifestyle I chose to live and quite honestly despise. Debts are to be paid, demons are surely waiting to knock on my door again real soon, and life will probably kick my ass beyond recognition real soon.

Here's my dream... Finish this shit life I'm in. Save up some money, open another restaurant. Make it damn good... Better than I had before. Open another... And another... I want to employ people and give back to people who support me along the way. I want the feeling I've gotten a few times in my life where I actually want to get up in the morning. I want to go beyond a simple restaurant. I want to build something to inspire people. I want to live a transparent enough life where I don't have to pretend in front of anyone. And when someone asks 'who the hell are you?', I can say 'I'm Dave-Motherfuckin-Smyth.' Hah, well, maybe not in that context all the time, but the passion will be there.

My reality seems to be as far from that dream as ever right now. I spend my days hoping and praying that I don't get that call that brings me to my knees. Yet, I also wait for the other call that brings me to my knees for another reason. I've been acting too long. I've been trying to wear this facade in hopes that it's good enough to carry me through so I can jump in the deep end sooner than later. I fear if I truly let it all hang out, I'll lose it all... Or maybe that's the best thing I can do right now...