Sitting quietly and look at the debris of my younger years

Dear Bloggers,

Doesn't a new start sound great? When life becomes difficult, you have failed several times, you have messed up a perfect relationship, and you are bored of your job, your house, your friends, and family; a new start sounds exciting when we find ourselves stuck in the mediocrities of life. We all have a past, and for some, it may be memorable, for others it may be horrible. Whatever the past looks like the enemy majors in causing us to indulge in what was. I am afforded the opportunity to have healthy discussions with many people from the young to old, mature and immature, strong and weak but what I recognize is from the least to the greatest the most common issues among them all is letting go of the past.

 I spent or should I say "Wasted" a lot of time and energy on what was, and what could have been. But I am grateful for the present and the bright future that I have in front of me and it's there for you too. I want to encourage you to take your time through this plan and to commit to stop looking back on all the negatives in your life. Our memory is not the enemy, but the way we use our memory will determine the damage. When I look back on life, it is for only moments of seeing what has happened and what it did to me and how I pickede it up how it has brought me through. As you are on the journey with me, I want you to understand that a new start is available to you no matter where you've been or what you have done. Maybe you should clean up the debris and give yourself a brand new start. There is always a moment for new beginnings, and now I look at every disappointment, hurt and pain as an opportunity to birth something new. We do ourselves a great injustice, when we keep looking back negatively.

 
In my life I faced many challenges that already started when I was still young and I lost the first one that I really loved. All of a sudden it struck me and a voice whispered that I should go home. In my head I knew that something has badly happened to someone. The closer I got to home the more I got the feeling that something was wrong with my girlfriend. I kept seeing images of an operation theatre and she called me. This wasn't a bad dream when I came home my mum was sitting at the table and she was crying. My dad was looking sad and said: Listen Son “I've got bad news to tell you.” I reacted I think I already know that she passed away. After the funeral I had to go back to school but nothing reached my brain as I was living in a bubble. I lived as someone who was heavily sedated. After I messed up my final exams I got a letter from the government to join the army.
 

In the beginning I did not like to be there. Ok, I did my best but not my utmost. Untill the moment I met the corporal that had served in Lebanon. He told me that this was just the simple live and out there you did not know what the next day would bring. Loosing buddies and being shot at. His story was fascinating me and it inspired me to be a better soldier. At an exercise in Germany, we had to load a bridge and we ran into a few supporters of Rote Armee Fraction, or at least so they claimed. I came face to face with one of these figures. My motto was to capture or kill him. But killing someone was not allowed in peacetime. in a blow with the butt of my rifle, I disarmed my opponent and went into a handbattle with him. I decided to silence the screaming and slapping bastard. I knocked him out and tied him up and hung him on the outside of the bridge. And then I chased his companion into the hands of the other guys. When my freund woke up he screamed like a lean suckling pig. We had to take them down and they were handed over to the local authorities. I was fined for my actions when we were back at base. I didn't care as I had the feeling that I did the right thing and no one got really hurt. Jus t another scar on my face and on my reputatioin. I was selected to go to Lebanon but the government stopped the project.

I was all of sudden being transferred to an other part of the country a bit closer to home. I needed to fit in the group of soldiers and go with them on excersises building bridges man the radio and securing the place. This was part of my life for the coming months not understanding wat the plan was untill the Sergeant Major called me in his office and told me to shut the door behind me. The only thing that crossed my mind was that I had done something silly again in the last cou;ple of days as I was bored like hell. He send me on a mission to Germany to do something for a special unit. I had to dress up like a regular Jake. I got some train tickets and some cash for my expences. In Germany I had to ring a number and I would get an address to go to meet an other guy who worked for the same network. I was surprised that no one really knew what this group was doing. The operation was strange and I had to take a British guy back with me as he was captured in the Eastern part of Germany which was still splitted up at that time.. I travelled back with the British guy called Rowan and we had to behave like tourists to get back to The Netherlands. Just at he first trainstation we got off the train and I dailed the number that I got from the German guy. Rowan was picked up by a British driver and they drove of. I called the number that and told them that the mission was completed and I could go home. Later I learned that this was a mission to bring servicemen and women back home.

After my Army days I had to fit in the normal life again I missed the militairy stuff in a way. On the other hand I was happy that I had survived everything that came on my path.I stated a job as a dishwasher in a local restaurant and had ambitions to grow in this business. And I did first of all in a local bar and a small disco. I rented myself out as a waiter and bartender and I had a lot of fun doing this. During the wintertime I worked in factories to keep the bills being paid. I had a few relationships during this times but they ended not from my side. Maybe they did not really love me.
 

At certain moment I met my wife and she could live with me and all my funny ways. Of course as in every relationship there are ups and downs. I started a job as a waiter on passengership but at first it was not succcesfull things from my past brought me on my knees. I had to stop and after a period of getting my life together. When I was ready again I took a job as a bartender on a small cruiseliner the crew was great and the food was crap. Heavily drinking after the shift solved a lot of the problems. 

After a while I moved back home and got a job on the DFDS ferries on the lines between Asterdam and Newcastle and Hamburg and Harwich. During this period I tripped and fell down the stairs at home and do the crash I lost my balance and speech for several months . Do to hard work and help from family and friends I recovered almost fully and after a few years I was back on board. I did many jobs during these years on board and ended up in the Guest Service Centre. when my health deteriorated and I was forced to look for another job according to my specialist, a reorganization had to take place and my job was at stake. After my discharge, I decided to become a bus driver in public transport after about six months. It changed my outlook on life. We are enjoying our moments together in our own way. I am sitting behind my computer writing my blog and my head is traveling down memory lane.

 
Not that bad I think for a regular guy who never got his high school diploma but learned a lot on the way to a regular life with a regular job. No I am nothing special to you but for the ones I love I am their special specalist who is happy most of the time. 

And it doesn't matter if it is dark out there we have to believe that there is always the Sun to come out. Every good day is called yesterday.

We were made to move forward, and it's time to stop looking back.

The Old Sailor,

Just another rainy day

Dear Bloggers,

When it was time to leave after working late hours, I rushed to my car and immediately drove home. On the highway, halfway home, the rain began a heavy downpour. It covered everything on my windshield. The heavy rain made it so hard for me to see anything in the road. My windshield wipers could hardly do the job. The radio played Bruce Springsteen's song Tougher than the rest... I dozed off into memory lane back to my younger days when I was a Teen and Cowboy movies came on television. Smoking and drinking were not seen as bad habits. In my younger days I smoked dark tobacco and yes I rolled my own cigarettes. Furthermore I worked as a bartender in a local club so drinking was a common thing as well. And trying some soft drugs was also part of my youth. Not being afraid of what this could cause to my health as we did not know anything about the risks because there was no education about smoking, drinking only about drugs we knew that the hard stuff like heroin could cause a lot of damage. 

I remember that we got to see the movie Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo the story of the teenager Christiane F. who got addicted to hard drugs. This made me realize that drugs could do more damage than what I was aware of. Still I kept on smoking and drinking for several years as the only thing that changed over the years is that I became a Sailor. And yes we all know how sailors are. Well that picture is wrong I can tell you as the work at sea became in the last decades a more dry environment. In the last years of my career at sea there was zero tolerance policy on the ship and that was simply risking your job when you had to come to the bridge for a breathalyser test. Only smoking was a hard to stop habit as crew members still could buy cheap smokes. Some steam engines must have been pretty jealous of me. My engine was running for many hours a day.

When I left the ship I was still smoking a lot but as timeshedules became tighter and it became stressful to find breaks to get a smoke. I decided to stop smoking and that was easier said than done. Somehow after a few fails, I succeeded. It is approx. Ten years now that I stopped and I still can enjoy the smell of smokers that are standing outside at the station. No my life did not become boring it just made many changes in a hard way due to my wife falling ill in that same period. It started all on the day when I slipped on the top of the staircase and ended up in hospital and they told me that I've been lucky that didn't break my neck. As my speech was shattered and I wasn't able to speak any of my foreign languages anymore. 

With some hard work of specialists and some dear friends I recovered and after a couple of years I was back on the ship again. Something in my mind had changed and I became a bit of different person and I took life a bit more serious. When I left the life at sea in 2009 I took my time to decide what to do next. I got my driving license for the bus and started the education for commuter buses in the spring of 2010. I still was a smoker but not that heavy as in my sailing days. Drinking I did only on Holidays and free weekends. 

 

And then I was after a few years one of the regular temps that worked for the same company but in a different town. I enjoy still every minute as this job is bringing as much joy as during my days at sea. I love to take the mickey out of people and yes I still give service whenever possible that's just part of who I am. But when the wind is howling around my bus and rain is smashing in my windshield, the old sailor in me is waking up and salty water is running through my vanes. My face is having that special smile towards passengers and comfort them with the feeling not to worry with me at the steering wheel. And yes bad weather on the road is sometimes as tough as bad weather at sea. You only miss the monstrous waves and the challenge of walking in a straight way. Handling the wheel of bus is different kind of discipline but still a challenge to stay on the narrow roads. 

The only thing is when I have to drive home in this kind of weather I am really being homesick and those days at sea will never return as slowly but surely I am reaching the days that I growing older and my kids are becoming the grown ups in this brand new world which didn't become a lot prettier. They have much more to worry about. Probably they could not life their lives like I did. As the heating in the car seat is doing it's job as a lower back pain reliever. I realize that those days are long gone and my trip down memory lane is the only thing that I have left. No one will take these memories from me. Everyday being home is also worth a lot. There will be some nights that I am driving home in severe weather and my heart is crying a little bit for not being a sailor anymore.

Even though the visibility through my windshield was poor due to the heavy rainfall, I still continued to drive, hoping that I didn't get into an accident on the road. I knew as soon as the rain would come down in a more normal way, it will increase my visibility and chances of getting home safe and sound. Just remember that speed isn't anything it's the matter of getting there.

The Old Sailor,