Being Me

Life is the thing we do while we're breathing. I once wrote a
thing for Facebook about my job as Pilot at Being Me. I actually did study and
learn to fly a plane, but where it came from was riding my Harley one day,
thinking about my life and all of that and all of the gear on my bike looking
like a cockpit. Enjoy.

Being Me hasn’t always been the easiest job in my life. It
has however easily been the best and I think I’m staying in for the long
haul. I have to, there's no retirement plan.

Sure, it started out simple enough. My only responsibilities really, were to make some crap in a diaper and then giggle ridiculously at the poor unfortunate soul who had to
clean it up; that and start screaming in the middle of the night to wake somebody up to come and try to figure out what I could possibly want. Simple enough for sure. I was employee of the day EVERY day back in those early years!

It started getting a little more difficult as I started to grasp the English language and could say what I wanted and learned the meaning of the word “no”.

I’ve had epoch failures, monumental losses, extreme emotional
and mental pain, some physical too, and a bunch of spiritual turmoil to boot.
There were sixteen virtually continuous, very dark years where the only light I
could see was literally about the size of a pinhead, way, way down the dark
corridor.

But I have also had incredible experiences, unbelievable successes, rapid recovery and adjustment from negatives and I have been blessed with so many people, places and things and experiences that in comparison, the bad times are really trivial.

I am the sum total of all of the people, places, things and experiences that I
have. If you are reading this, you know me one way or another, whether it be
family, work, however we met, if you are reading this, you are part of who I am, and I thank you for your contribution.

I’m far from a great person. I’m still under construction, similar to many highways around the great State of Wisconsin. I’m a new person every day. I feel for the most part, I am a better person each day. At least I try to be. Working on this Timeline business and going through the old photographs and things, I miss some of the old me’s.

I wonder if they are just right there where they were or if they
made other choices that lead down other paths. Some better than those I chose, perhaps some worse. That happens to be a spiritual concept that I learned from Richard Bach, and I won’t even begin to try to explain it. If you’re interested, find a book by Richard Bach. If you want to start short and sweet, get your hands on
Jonathon Livingston Seagull.

Regret’s? I’ve had a few. Apparently more than Ol’ Blue Eye’s, but I’ve learned to live with them and make peace with them as best as I am able. I can still get bent out of shape about them from time to time, but for the most part, I’m cool.

I’m known as a cranky person. 

Those who know me best know it’s an act most of the time. Why? I don’t know.
Twisted sense of humor I guess. My poor children have struggled for years to be
able to figure out if I was mad or pulling their leg. The downside of that is now I really have to put on some Oscar worthy chops to fool them because they know me to well. (**UPDATE** Since this was originally written I've become more
known as a happy person than a cranky person and my children have learned to
give it right back to me! Awesome little smartasses they're becoming!)


You don’t need to know every detail of my life and I don’t feel like telling you
anyway, but this job at Being Me has been an awesome experience when I weigh it
all out. It keeps getting better too from what I can tell.


I have the same up’s & downs as everyone else.

Stuff happens that crushes me, but I have developed, through everything
and with help from everybody, the ability to get up and get back to
work.

It probably wasn’t all that long ago that I didn’t feel as great
about Being Me as I do now. I’m not real happy about the getting older business, especially since it seems to happen faster every year, but it may have a lot to do with how I feel now.

How I feel now is grateful, blessed, loved, forgiven, understood,
lucky and most of all, pretty happy.

It’s taken 46 years, but I’m really starting to feel good about my career progress here at Being Me.

You may be looking at the picture attached to this particular job
and understandably wondering “WTF?”.

Well, it’s simple: Here at Being Me, I’m the pilot on this journey and that is my cockpit.

I’m writing this because the concept of it came to me when I was riding today. Looking in front of me it just struck me as being a cockpit with all the stuff you see
there.

Well, that bike means a hell of a lot to me and she’s also very responsible for who I am as well as the things I do.

When I ride, there is no greater sense of freedom.  And there is no better place to think.
 
And that’s what I do when I ride.

Idea’s happen in that cockpit. Solution’s to problems come to me there. Dream’s plant their seeds there, and they are also nurtured from that same cockpit.

Blessings are counted in my cockpit and as the miles and towns and beautiful sights pass by, as my nose is invaded by the smells of flowers, trees, rivers, and even
diesel and cow pie, the blessing count runs higher.

As I ride, I consider everything as it comes to mind. Some things I stay on for awhile, some pass fleetingly allowing the more consideration worthy to enter.

My life, my family, my friends, my job, my band, my abilities, my gizmo’s and tools
to get the job done, all the things that make me ME they pass back & forth
in my mind, my heart and my soul as I ride.

All these things AND I’m riding a Harley. Not just any Harley. MY Harley who did not exist as she does until I created her in the image I wanted.

We do indeed each have a little bit of God in us.

Working here at Being Me has given me something
I didn’t realize I had for a
long time.

When I page through the
memory album as I sit in my cockpit, to go from where I came from to where I am,
it is a stunning, awesome, incredible and indescribable feeling.

The
biggest realization from my cockpit?

I truly have a Rock Star
life.

Thanks for being a part of it!