Listen to your BARK!

Hence the name of our boy band “Freedom tour”, life was throwing me signs and signals that it was time for some respite. Funny….here we are an Myrtle Beach South Carolina and come across this gem of a camper to pose in front of. Credit to my buddy Darren for finding it within the state park campground that we are at so that we could actually get a photo in front of it…but it is a perfect photo…me and my boy, and a little Freedom in life.

I’ve had a few friends comment about me “running away”, and I really want to stress to all that I am not running away from anything…I am preparing for what’s ahead of me. But in the condition I was in…I lacked the ability to prepare for said future, so I am calling this more of a reset. Time to sit in quiet, put my thoughts into action without distraction and yes…learn to focus. I focus on Freedom a good part of the time, but he also likes to nap…no…he LOVES to nap! this was him yesterday afternoon not 5 minutes from coming back to our camper:

We slept in today for the first time…I mean, the first time in a very very long time. I don’t think I was up to make my coffee until 8:30 or so today…this hasn’t happened for far too long, and it’s taken three weeks out of work and nearly two weeks on the road to get here. The boy didn’t even bother me to get out and go pee…he was feeling it to. We are in this together and he tends to me just as much as I do to him I guess.

We can’t always go out and quit our jobs, buy a camper and go on a walkabout…so what do you to balance life and stay clear of breaking points? What do you do when you get to your breaking points? Most importantly…what are the signs and signals that life throws you when you get too close to the edge? I think that’s the most important part…identifying the signs, and choosing to do something about it before it does something to you that you can’t erase. I was close….it’s still right there in the rear view mirror as a reminder, but I’m on the right path.

Work, as important as it is in my life can wait till tomorrow (or a specified time that I set aside for it)…it doesn’t need to supersede in a way that subtracts positive things going on around me. I can not tell you how much fun, and how peaceful it was to walk this morning all by ourselves on the beach….this kid is loving the beach:

It’s a shame that I waited this long in life to lay these boundaries down…the time I missed with my own girls growing up I will never get back, and I will forever feel guilty about. How I ended up with the best daughters anyone could ever imagine is beyond me:

Life has given me some very wonderful things, and it’s time to dust them all off and pull them form the shelf to enjoy… I think what was bothering me was that I had been in some sort of a “Collection Mode”…working hard for my life trinkets, instead of a “Enjoyment Mode” where I could allot the respective time and energy to really soak it all in. I am a blessed and fortunate man…My girls…my wife, my mother and my dog…this is all a man needs:

While it may be all a person needs…I am also fortunate to have a LOT of great friends…they support me, they entertain me…and they certainly like to drink with me lol. MORE ON THAT LATER, cause there are A LOT of photos of those shenanigan’s.

For tonight…if you read this…just take a moment to look at what is going on around you in life. Are you missing the good stuff? Do you know YOUR signs when life is taking over? Do you have a plan in place for your own reset’s when they are needed? If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a thousand times over the years…”If I can’t be my own number 1, then I can’t be the man I want to be for you”. Time for me to stop talking and start taking my own advise.

Nite nite folks…campfire and smores are on deck…photos at 11! Lol…who I am kidding, photos when I get to it!