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,

My lovely old ship

Dear Bloggers.

You’d love nothing more than to forget all about the time that broke your heart. Yet, whenever she crosses your mind, you forget all she did wrong. You try thinking about revenge to quell those fluttery feelings in your stomach, but that’s easier said than done, and your heart has its own ideas. Don’t freak out, though listen here’s how to cope: When you decide to leave the salty waters.

She might be worth a second chance. OK, so you don’t have to get back to sailing again, but if you still feel this strongly, it might be one of those rare occasions to hop on board as a passenger Maybe you left the ship over something silly like not able to cope with the harsh rhythm of a sailor. If your body wasn’t able anymore tot deal with the pain even being a tough guy, I never consider trying again.
She could’ve been your first real love. First love sticks with you, even years later. It’s not so much that you still want to go back to sea, but you remember the pure joy of that first innocent loving feeling for your new job and it gives you butterflies again as soon you step on board. Of course, you might feel this way over any ex ship that you truly loved.

Stay away at all costs. Stay away from your old ship when you had any bad experiences. It could just be that you’re feeling lonely and you’re remembering the times together. There’s nothing wrong with that, but hooking up here could just cause you to get hurt all over again.

Figure out how to move on Take your butterflies and feelings as a sign that you need to move on. You might’ve thought it was over, but until you don’t feel any attraction to the life at sea anymore, it’s not over. Go out with old sailor friends, focus on a new job or even a hobby and throw out any reminders of your old job.
I did make a point of ensuring someone else was always around when I was there and my memories were drifting off again. It didn't keep me from saying anything unrealistic like “please I want to go back” or “damn, you’re my most beautiful memory.” Tears ran down my cheeks my stomach felt sick.Eventually, I got over it and our life went back to normal.

Start something new. It doesn’t have to be anything serious, but shift your focus to another job. Show yourself there are other jobs out there. My new job as a commuter bus driver is also fantastic and I enjoy it really. It is a total difference than my former job. A different level of being responsible for your passengers. Besides the city I drive has many beautiful student's, sexy distractions are always a great way to make the butterflies go away and the pain is getting less.Once you figure out what it is, it’s easier to ignore.

Think about what went wrong before. Give yourself a cold mental shower. There’s always a reason why you had to give up. What was it? Nothing kills you faster than thinking about all the days life has screwed you over, and not in the fun sweaty way. Fibromyalgia ended my life and career at sea. If this happens, it could just be part of your moving on process. If you tend to form strong connections quickly, this happens fairly often you will find something that suits you. Just avoid the temptation to get back to your old job and know that these funny feelings they’ll disappear soon.

Accepting it is the difficult part and you know you’ll be replaced soon by a new member of staff. Sometimes we just have to accept that at least a small part of us still wants to go back sailing again, but I always remind myself that I’ll be replaced soon and I’ll have the same kind of feelings for something new.

Enjoy the memories, but don’t forget the bad times. Tears and emotions aren’t always a bad thing. Sometimes they’re just your mind’s way of reminding you of good memories. Obviously, there were good times in your old ship. It’s okay to remember those and smile at the memories. Just don’t forget about the bad times. They’ll keep you in check and prevent you from going back to your former life



The Old Sailor,

when falling in love is a strange part of life

Dear Bloggers,

In my younger years I haven't been the greatest Casanova. I was not a very quiet person and I can be funny sometimes but as soon it came to the feelings thing something made me insecure and yes I spoke my mind and not always in the best way. Some moments I was pretty drunk and other moments I could be shy or absolutely not being focused on the signals. Somehow I managed to miss out a lot of these occasions and yes some them were really pretty. Anyway I ended up in a couple of relationships and with all these girls I was absolutely serious. I simply could not stop that particular loving feeling and my whole world got different on those moments. It feels like your brain is spinning and I could not get enough of it.

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to feel so relieved. When you got your heart broken for the first time, you can’t imagine loving someone else again or having someone else loving you. You worry about your ex girlfriend finding love before you do, and of course they did. You worried about the fact that you will end up being damaged goods. And then it happens. Someone else loves you and you can sleep well again at night.

The second time you fall in love with someone, it’s going to feel different. The first time felt like a dream almost. You were untouched, untainted by anyone. You accepted love with wide open arms and desperation. “Love me, love me, love me!” So you did. And then it fell apart and left you shocked to the core. You realized that people could be cruel and break your heart into a million peaces. You realized that people could stop meaning the sweet things they said to you just yesterday. So when you go into it again, you’re going to keep in mind everything that you’ve learned. You’re going to say, “Love me, love me, love me…until you don’t. In which case, I would like some advance warning. Thanks!”

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to compare it to your first love. That’s okay. That’s natural. You’re going to be studying the new love with judgement and awareness. “My ex never liked fast food. Why the hell does this one eat so much fries and burgers?!” Discovering that you have the ability to love multiple people who are different and feel different is initially very shocking. Loving an unfamiliar body will leave you disoriented and make you feel the need of a map. That’s okay too. That’s to be expected. Just ask the new love for directions. Otherwise you might do somethings wrong and get lost in a frustrating swamp of emotional trouble.

The second or even a third time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to suffer from a truckload of amnesia. You’re going to poke and prod at your lover’s body and be like, “Wait, how do I do this again? How do I love you? What is happening to my brain it's getting totally into the mixed up mode again. I think it starts with us having a moment together in some pub or cafe having a coffee or tea, right?” It’s going to feel scary at first. Falling in love is sort of like riding a horse though. You never really forget.

This second time you’ll be a more sane person. Your first love is when you get all of your insanity out. You behave like an insane monster because your mind is freaking out about all these new powerful feelings. These bloody hormones are gearing up in your body and the butterflies in your stomach are untamable.
By the second time, however, you have an idea of what works and what doesn’t. It’s by no means perfect. The insanity will make a comeback at some point. “Peek a boo. I’m here! Hope you didn’t forget about me!” But you can usually shoo it away after a while. At least that is what you're hoping for. 

At the third time you should be a trained professional and your heart has some scars from former loves and you are wearing the medals of this battlefield called love. When you fall in love with someone, you will learn on the way and with a second or third lover you hopefully have better sex. This is pure my opinion so do not pin me down on this.

Anyway no matter if it is the first, second or third one that you fall in love with someone it will still be exciting and new, you might even talk about moving in together or marriage. At a certain moment it will start feeling more “adult.” You have no idea what adult love actually is but you think it involves making a cup of tea for each other in the morning and giving her breakfast in bed as it feels like something romantic. maybe even getting a place of our own with a dog and some cats. 

This is how you start of making a happy family home. I got settled with the fourth person I fell in love with, the other three left me with a broken heart and mixed feelings about if it would be all worth it, because that’s what you do! The first person I was in love with would never have stayed with me as she never ever really fell in love with me.

The fourth time will not be the first time. The first time is an insane magical life gift that you can never reclaim. But that’s okay. The second time is more real anyway. The third time can involve some amazing love. And the fourth time is still going strong for already twenty three years in a row. It is the best one I ever had and I am still in love the flame is still burning.

The Old Sailor,

Looking for the "One" is useless

Dear Bloggers,

My life had many ups and downs and also my love live has been all over the place. Every break up is different and from all of them I've learned something. I gave up love for a while as I was so heartbroken and did not believe in relationships anymore. I cried my heart out and could not se the future at that point and fully out of the blue, I met my lovely wife. And yes we are still beautiful people eventhough we aged and got wrinkles our hearts are still bouncing. I am still madly in love and she is the best I have. let's hope that it will last forever.

 
The feeling of being in love is the best. When you meet someone and have that instant spark. You hit it off right from the start and get butterflies in your stomach every time you see them. When hours of being together feel like minutes. When you can get an hour of sleep and still feel high on life the next day. Not to mention the blissful feeling of certainty when we feel like you’ve met “the one” (finally!). You start fantasizing about the future together and are convinced that the other person is on the same page you are. It went on for weeks and in your opinion life couldn't get any better.
And then it ended.

And you were not only heartbroken, but shocked because it seemed so right and you don’t understand what went wrong.
Contrary to what romantic comedies made us believe, this is actually fairly common and not necessarily a bad thing.

I know that is not comforting if you are in the pain of a break-up, but stay with me because understanding why the one you thought was going to be forever ended may offer you some relief.

What I have seen over and over again with friends is that they meet someone who has all the qualities that they have dreamed about, and they are so happy when they are with that person. And then the relationship ends often in a very abrupt way or because of uncontrollable or unchangeable circumstances. It almost feels like the person is literally being taken away. Well they kind of are – and for a good reason, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Why does a relationship that feels so right end? So that you can truly see what is so amazingly “right” about you.

I’ll explain…

Just as people are here to teach us where we have judgments and unresolved issues, they are also here to illuminate what is so amazing about ourselves that we are not acknowledging, owning and experiencing. If you have been with someone you thought was the one, you probably found certain qualities about him or her incredibly attractive. You also may have said, “She brought out the best in me!” Exactly. He or she did bring out the best of you, but it’s your job to keep it going. They fulfilled their spiritual agreement with you by attracting you with their awesome qualities to reflect to you what you are not seeing about yourself. And by triggering the best inside of you so you could have the experience of your awesomeness. But it wasn’t their job to stay.

When she was around I felt beautiful and confident. She consistently told me that and she did things that made me feel that way. I loved her so much and treated her with love, respect and kindness. Now that she was gone, my confidence has tumbled to it's lowest point ever. and I was desperately attempting to figure out what I did wrong.
She did not do anything wrong (and neither did you if you were can relate to any part of her story). Sometimes the Universe sometimes “reassigns” a person to support you in fully integrating what they were reflecting inside of you, and to protect you from a co-dependent relationship. For example, if you were really attracted to their creativity or drive, one of their gifts to you was to inspire you to reconnect with your creativity or drive.

 
Or as in my case, before our relationship I never felt really beautiful and had very little self-confidence. I just filled a void that had been empty for nearly 5 years. In order for her to fully step into her own beauty and confidence she is now faced with the opportunity to fill the void herself.

We cannot see in another what we don’t have inside ourselves. If you feel like the person brought out a quality of yours like creativity, you are incorrect. They merely triggered what has been sleeping inside of you. No one else can make us do anything that we aren’t already. If the person were still there, you would not be as motivated to be the things you miss about them or the version of you that you were with them.

Remember no one is the “one” because everyone is the one. Every single person you have a relationship with (and I don’t just mean that romantically) is a soul mate because they are teaching you soul lessons. We all are mirrors and teachers for each other to learn our life and write new pages in our book of life.

I understand that nothing feels quite as devastating as not being able to be with the one you thought she or he was the “one.” What would be devastating is never truly integrating the amazing qualities you saw or experienced with or in that other person. You were not rejected, their future was just reassigned.

The purpose of any relationship is for our learning and to grow in love. Both for another and for ourselves. It is not necessarily to be together forever, as this is not realistic as some lose the love of their live due to an accident or a terrible disease. It should make us happy, or fulfill any void in our lives. I encourage you to move through the pain that you have and get to the purpose of your relationship. Begin to see how it served you and learn something from it.

Trust that although the physical presence of a person may not be there anymore, the qualities you loved about them belong to you. What you love about them is still inside of you.

You bring out the best in you. It’s there. Stop looking for it in the eyes or arms of another. And when you bring out the best in you then you will be able to share it with someone who brings out the best in themselves, too. 

No more wondering if someone else is the “one”. You are the one you have been looking for.



The Old Sailor,

I had no idea asthma could be fatal.

Dear Bloggers, 

I let my thoughts go when I think up a worst case scenario as my wife is diagnosed with the final stage of Asthma. Something that was told at the doctors office a couple of weeks ago. 

Somehow it is waiting untill things go terribly wrong. I imagine it like this.
At 7.50am, my wife left for work in her car as usual, dropping off our youngest at the day care centre on he way. I had to start earlier and do my rounds with the bus.

She texted me: “Can you take care of diner today?”she tapped.

I phoned her back and we chatted about the plans for that evening. We ended the ­conversation as always by saying: “Love you.”

A couple of minutes later, she was dead.

She’d driven into the side of a lorry after suffering a fatal asthma attack.
For us the rest of the family of four, her death came as a bolt from the blue. Shocking are the  statistics as they show that one person dies from asthma every eight hours.

But a new review, that will investigate the cause of asthma deaths, is hoping to reduce that number to two or three every year so that cases like my wife’s will become few and far between.

The review will ask GPs and ­hospital doctors for information to identify factors leading up to an asthma death, including the ­medication a patient was taking and whether a patient had any attacks in the run-up to their death.

On the morning she dropped our daughter at day care, nothing was out of the ordinary.
“She’d taken her inhalers the night before and in the morning and she didn’t seem unwell,” just an other day. “It was only when her boss at the telecom firm where she worked called me to say that she hadn’t turned up! I really started to worry.

“I knew something terrible had happened because she was if it comes to work she’s ­always punctual. I had a broken shift and I went home during the break, worried sick hoping to find her in bed or something similair.

I rang the police to see if they knew of any accidents but they couldn’t tell me anything. Then, at 10.10am, two police officers turned up at the door.

“They told me there had been a road traffic accident involving my wife. The officers had taken their hats off and said they were really sorry. I knew then she was dead. 

It was like the whole world stopped. I went into ­automatic gear, phoning her workplace to let them know what had happened, then I went to the school to tell the children their mum was dead. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

I never thought asthma would kill her.

She first developed the condition when he was 12 shortly after she went to another school it started being allergic to many things and she got some medication to stop it, when I met her she was 23 years old and her hands were a mess because she was reacting allergic to the Christmas tree. In Januari we bought a fake tree and I took her to her Phd. The evening before she had a severe Asthma attack and her lips turned blue due to the lack of oxygen. Her doctor was a bit hardheaded to admit that this would be asthma. So I pushed him verbally in a corner and he send us of to a specialist. A couple of weeks later she got a better life by having the right doses of medication.

 “We don’t know if this triggered her asthma but from then on she started to take Ventolin and Becotide inhalers,” the lungspecialist says.
As the years passed, She became increasingly prone to chest infections and I have to admit that after the breakdown after having our first child and several miscarriages, she began to smoke 15 cigarettes a day due to a lot of stress.

“She gave up for a while when we expected our second child and no I was not very supportive during those years but then she started smoking again. I was always nagging at her to take her inhalers when she was wheezy but she didn’t always listen.”

Her first wake-up call came in 2011 when she suffered a bout of pneumonia. She spent five days in bed where i still think she should have gone to the hospital. At the time she was taking a Ventolin inhaler and Seretide 250, a steroid preventer ­inhaler. Nothing really worked. After a Prednisolone treatment she recovered.

Her second bout came in February this year, when she had an attack of coughing syncope, a ­violent coughing ­episode which caused her to pass out.
A month later, she suffered a similar attack but this time he was behind the wheel of the car. It proved to be fatal.

“The postmortem showed a massive asthma attack, which means she probably passed out and drove into the lorry,” says the report. 
“She had all her inhalers with her in the car when she died.”

The lorry driver was totally blameless and it was an accidental death.

I am thinking back at our days that we met.  “It was a strange way to meet but we bumped into each other at the station and a few weeks later I took her out. We were both separated in a bad way in a former relationship. Eventhough I did not believe in love anymore after I was stood up again, creepy but after nearly five years of being single not wanting anything to do with women, I ­totally fell for her smile and a fair sense of humour.

“Asthma was always a problem for her and it did increasingly affect her day-to-day life. Simply running around with the children made her out of breath. But we thought her condition was under control and I still find it hard to believe that asthma could kill her.

 “Thank God we did many fun things together because we now treasure those memories if we would be losing her so unexpectedly. My point is even if your not that rich live life as best as you can. This is crucial and everyone must understand how deadly asthma can be.”

This story is just the freedom of my thoughs, It is still not too late for my wife as she is still around but this might be a realistic scenario. For her there might not be that many options left but it’s not too late for other asthma sufferers. 

“I want everyone to know that ­asthma can kill, because I didn’t know until it was told to me by a physician.

“I wish we’d known how deadly asthma can be because then, I would have made absolutely sure she took all her inhalers.” Here is a simple test: If you can breathe normal just put a straw in your mouth and try to breathe through it, don’t forget to block your nostrils as well. That is how many Asthma sufferers feel when they have an attack.

The Old Sailor,