When The Bombs Fall

When I was a lad I really looked up to those in my family ... my awesome siblings and my incredible mom. My dad died when I was quite young, but I will call him incredible as well! Being the youngest, I had all sorts of examples to follow ... mostly good of course! Now, this doesn't mean that we didn't fight or have times when we didn't see eye to eye. I sure didn't see eye to eye with my older siblings as they tried to see if I would fit down the laundry chute. I definitely know my sister didn't see eye to eye with me when she came to know how I found out some of her nail polish was flammable! It was awesome! The bottom line though is that my family was my world. That's all I knew when I was young. When times were rough, I still had my family to hang on to .. to be my strength.

As the teenager years came, I began to surround myself with those that I felt comfortable with. That were friends and would be there for me when times were rough. My family was still there, but with my finite teenage understanding that looked through know it all glasses, my clarity of who really had my best interest in me at times was clear as mud. Thankfully I made it through the young teenage years.

With years passing getting me closer to adulthood, I had friends that were good solid people. I had my family to give me strength, but there came times that my friends gave me strength as well. Strength and support that I will never forget about. I throw credit their way for partially being who I am today. You can thank them or curse them.

As I began to embrace that mental illness was something I was going to deal with and fight with, I leaned so much on my wife ... my rock. I know how badly she wanted to help me, yet I knew if I was trying to figure out this whole mental illness thing, she was struggling just as much. That and is a struggle for me because I want to lean on her so much, which I can, but there are some things she just can't help me with and that's okay.

While fighting the feelings of not being good enough, not having any value, not being important enough, will never amount to anything and so much more, I tend to reach out to those that fight the same horror and lock arms with them. I lock arms with them to have more strength to fight the daily battles. Some of these friends are close and that I know and others are miles away and don't even know me, yet I gain strength from them seeing them fight the fight! Some days the fight goes well while other days I wonder if there is enough strength left. And then there are those days when the bombs fall. When I find myself on my hands and knees looking around dazed to see what the hell happened. I shake my head hoping I can figure things out while I look around in the fog around me looking for those that I had locked arms with. Like a surprise punch to the face I find that some of those that gave me strength are gone. They lost the fight. Too many bombs have been falling and too many people have been losing the fight. My heart bleeds for their close ones and their family. I feel selfish for focusing more of how it has impacted me. How I crawl around looking for someone to lock up arms with again and hope that the bombs will stop long enough for me to find the strength. Too many are losing the fight.