Thursday, March 24, 2011

Rearranged Memories

 Something happened to someone who is very special to me. There was a time that she was more important than anything else on earth. It was Sweet Emotion. Time has traveled by and we changed into who we are, today. She is married to a great guy, I know this because she has deserved to have a great guy. I'm a great guy, but not the great guy we were talking about a little bit ago. So, now let us talk about this other great guy. I have a woman that is a very important part of my life and means more to me than words. Let us put the two great guys, aside, for a moment. I found out that the memories of a past love were temporarily re-assigned. How can this be? It was the result of an accident causing a concussion, which is why the memories were temporarily re-assigned. A concussion is when, as the result of a fall, the brain got wiggled back an forth, therefore, returning that brain to a time gone by. If the brain is wiggled too much it can produce a fatal basil skull fracture resulting in death. That was not the outcome of this particular concussion, Thank God. But what did happen is very intriguing, indeed. Our memories are strange enough by themselves. To have them temporarily re-assigned, I wish that I had the patent on that one. One moment my friend is living in 2011 and Bam! it is the early 1980's. Her rock-star son is in his preschool age. She does not recognize her husband and is worrying about her babies, A one-hundred forty pound chow and her son named Wayne. She has been involved in a terrible car accident in Ft. Smith Arkansas .Let me be specific, these memories were given life as a result of the fall, a few days ago. While my friend lay in the hospital she is worried about her toddler son and her pet. Unfortunately, the pet did not survive the vehicle accident. My friend is seeing people that she does not know until her Mother arrived at the hospital. Afraid that her son was injured she asked her Mom to tell her the truth. Her Mom told her the truth, except it was the truth at another time. She told her that her son was okay and was getting some x-rays done.That was a hell of a smart move because it gave my friend some peace. Her 16 year old daughter came into her room and she was asked to leave. She did not know this person. Imagine having all the people that you care about trying to see and talk to you and you do not know why. You do not know these people. The person that you were married to has been dead twenty-two years, but you do not know that.The family that you thought you were a part of is not coming to see if you are okay. All you see are strangers. How do you process that information? You are told that the man you were married to is dead but he has never left your side. You are forced to grieve for those that you have already grieved for. Your life has been changed. Then a miracle happens. The man that you did not know has become someone that you know and love. You realize that you had asked your daughter to leave has returned and is someone that is more than a face. Slowly the memories return and are bitter sweet. Those that mean more to you are back. Sadly, some will never be back. Some you can hold onto and know that they will never leave.
  My friend slowly got her memory back. For a time, she was in another place at another time. Welcome home.                                         theblogmeister

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The Footsteps Were Very Faint

  Something woke me up. I sat up in bed and listened for several minutes. Then I heard them, footsteps. I reached over to see if my wife was still in bed with me, she was. My heart began pounding almost too loud. Then I heard them, again. It seemed that whoever was in my house was not moving very fast. A few steps at a time. Where they were going, I could not tell. There, I heard them, again. They were coming from the front room. My senses were heightened threefold. I waited. I was afraid that whoever it was could hear my heartbeat. I listened intently. There they were. Where were they going? There is a front room and a bedroom up there. He or it had to be in the front room because if he were in the bedroom I would not be able to hear him. What the fuck is he doing here? I do not have that much to steal. I know it is not a burglar. I know exactly what it is. It is the Colonel. I hear them, again. It seems like that he has walked over to my bookshelf where I keep a lot of pictures. He pauses. I can almost bet you that he is looking at my pictures. I have not even got out of bed, yet. I have not heard them for several minutes so, I get up, quietly, and put my pants on with my hearing maxed out to hear him over the light noise that I am making, myself. I hear a couple sliding paces, that's all. I walk, gingerly to my door hoping my dog does not bark at me. My dog is pissed at me for kicking his ass out the house the other day for pissing in the floor after I asked him if he needed to go potty. I opened the door and he decided to piss in my kitchen. He sleeps at the foot of our bed and he did not give me away, lucky bastard. I made it to my door when I heard the front bedroom door open. Thank God for squeaky hinges. The bastard, not the dog, is playing with me. I do not know what he would go into the bed room for. I stop and question my own sanity and wonder if all of this shit is in my head. It will make you question your own self. I have been dealing with this bastard, not the dog, for over thirty years. The shit he has put me through or is it me. I am not insane so, it has to be him. I hear the door close behind him. What the fuck? There is no other way out of that room. Well, humanly possible. I step out of my bedroom, my wife's slow steady breathing, sounds inviting. I almost talk myself into joining her back in that warm bed. No, I have to see what the Colonel has for me. I very slowly walk towards the front bedroom. I gotta tell you, I am scared, shitless. I should be used to this. It has been going along for so long. He has just recently entered my world. I used to be only dream state. He has not physically entered my realm for a short of time. I make my way through the kitchen, I am twenty feet from the bedroom door. I can see the door in the moon light. As I make my way out of the kitchen I can see a light coming from underneath the door. Let me remind you, once again, that I'm scared shitless. No, shitful. Because if something happened real quick, I'd probably shit my  pants. I walk across the front room I can hear a monitor. One that sounds like a patient that is hooked up to a heart monitor. I slowly and gingerly grab the door knob and start to turn it, praying that nothing comes running out of that room, because that is when the shit falls. I open the door and it is not my bedroom. It is room 225 at Eglin regional hospital. The door opens all the way and the Colonel, in his bed, tells me, "Damn glad to see you, Riley. I was wondering when you were coming back?" I close the door and look at the inside of my house trying to get my shit together. What the fuck is happening. This is impossible. The time space continuum has just been blown apart. I open the door and walk in. "What's with you? Get too much pussy out on the beach?" followed by laughter. I walked into his bathroom and looked at a twenty year old me in the mirror. I am wigging, now. I just want to get the fuck back home and the Colonel;s ass out of my house. I came out of the bathroom and he said, "Hold on a minute, what is wrong with you, Riley?" I looked him dead in the eye and told him that he better get the fuck out of my house, right this minute, or I was gonna beat the fuck out of him to make sure that you died twice. He looked at me like I was crazy, then began an evil laugh that got so deafening, the lights went dark. I fumbled for the light switch, turned it on and it was my bedroom. I walked back to check on my wife and she was sound asleep and I could only weep. Why the fuck is this happening. It is not all  in my head. This shit really happened. I know it defies all laws of physics but what can I say. No One would believe me. I can't explain it and I am almost sure that I will hear from him, again.                             theblogmeister

Monday, March 21, 2011

Why Does The Other World Speak To Me?

  That is a question I have asked myself a million times. What is so special about me? I am no different than the average male. I love to be around people. I am no different than they. In my junior year of high school while running for student council parliamentarian, which, by the way, I have no idea what a parliamentarian does. The only reason that I ran for that office is I had a surprise for the whole student body. When the candidates made their boring speeches on why they should be voted in. I had a special presentation. While the school was seated in the gym listening to the boring speeches, I made a grand entrance. I was in a wheel chair, had four suits dressed as my body guards, with another pushing my wheelchair adorned withe the flags of the USA on one handle and the Alabama flag on the other. I had a student charge me from the audience, it was all pre-planned, with my body guards taking him down on my way to the stage to give my speech on why I should be their next parliamentarian. I won in a landslide. The office had some percs, though. I sure did get to miss a lot of classes for 'official business'. I was the class clown. I was not, by any means, special. I graduated without ever taking a book home. As I said before, school was a blast. I remember there was an all male beauty pageant and I let two girls talk me into entering. I had long hair in school with a white spot in the front, that is where the nickname 'Spot' came from. Hardly anyone knew my real name. Even in the yearbook under my picture was the name Spot Riley. It was a birthmark I had had all my life. As I got older the spot spread and I was white-headed by the time I was 22 years old.
  After the fun of high school I was in love with a girl I met when I was 16 years old. I was madly in love with her. Her name was S.M., she knows who she is. I carried that feeling with me to the military, in which I joined in 1977. After I was released with an honorable discharge and a deep emotional and physical bonding of a man that manipulated me into taking his life. When I entered the Air Force I had a strong commitment to the medical field. I felt it was where I belonged at first. Then after the situation with the colonel my life became an emotional wreck. Later it was diagnosed as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD. My life spiraled out of control after that. It was a life of trying to treat myself with the only thing that worked, drugs. I will tell you that they worked. I did not ever lose my love to the woman of my youth. She ended up marrying my brother. Wow! That was a minuscule part of my emotional self. It was not because that I lost my love for her but she was way down on the list of my emotional problems. But I never lost that love for her. However, I was dealing with such traumatic nightmares I cannot put them all on paper. I had created a demon that was ruining my life. The havoc this created was insurmountable. I went through in patient treatment at the VA in Tuscaloosa, home of the Crimson Tide, Hospital. I was being treated with medication for the nightmares. The were horrific. Go back to some of my earlier post to read about them. My current wife, Lorri, has held me through fits of tears, calmed me and brought me out of the hell I was in. She is a tremendously loyal, understanding, and a hell of a woman to stay in with me. She missed out on the times that I was incarcerated. I made parole in Nov. 2002, met her in Dec. 2002, then talked her into quitting her job at the Anniston Army Depot and taking driver training and we went through the class hitting the road a short time, later. She is a wonderful woman but I sometimes wonder what life with Sheila would have been like. Thoughts of her are still with me, today. Life is crazy, when going through what I have gone through the past 30 something years. I have no answer to the strange things that have happened to me. I cannot explain the night my brother died I was awakened by him and he told me to tell my parents that he was okay and for them not to worry. It was not a dream. I know that for fact. I cannot explain it, but it was real. He stood before, me not in his mangled body he sustained from a head-on collision, but in a body I used to see him all the time. There are several instances of strange things that have happened in my life. The LIFE OF RILEY, you old-timers remember that show on TV. I do not know what else to say but hello Sheila. I will get back to you. Later,  theblogmeister