Lies I told my brother #12: Light bulbs

Like most big brothers, I was mean to my younger brothers. I guess it was for a variety of reasons, my sisters were mean to me so I was mean in turn to them, or maybe it was because I was bullied at school so I needed someone in turn to bully, but probably it was because I was a jerk when I was younger.

Some simple background here, I have two older sisters and two younger brothers. One of my brothers, lets call him G, is only 3 years younger than I, while the youngest, lets call him D, is 8 years younger.

G was an even tempered kid growing up and didn't get into trouble a lot. D, on the other hand, was always into mischief. He felt it necessary to cause as much destruction as possible, all the time. One time he fed all of my Transformer Constructicons to our dog who promptly chewed them all to pieces. So with that example in mind, please do not judge what G and I did. We told D lies. We told him such outlandish lies to curtail his destruction that looking back on it, I almost feel bad. Then I remember my Constructicons and feelings of regret disappear.

In our garage, our dad had fluorescent light fixtures with those large pole-looking fluorescent light bulbs. They were constantly going bad, and being replaced, but he never threw the bad ones away, just put them up on a rack in the garage. Well one summer after he had collected about six or seven bad ones, he finally decided to discard them. He had one of my older sisters put them in the trash can in the backyard. Bad idea.

D found them pretty quickly and went and got G and I to grab them out of the trashcan. D said they looked like lightsabers and he wanted to try having a lightsaber battle with them. Well, I honestly do not remember who said it first, but we quickly elaborated on it once the idea was brought to fruition. I believe the conversation went something like this...

Either G or myself: "D, we can't have a lightsaber battle with them."

D: "Why not?"

Either G or myself: "Because, if we fight with them, they will break, and glass will get all over."

D: "So?"

Either G or myself: "So we will get in trouble and then have to clean it up."

D: "So?"

Either G or myself: "D, we can't break them because they are full of poison gas."

The other one of us: "Yeah, if we fight with them and they break, then the gas will escape and it will melt all the flesh off our bones!"

D: "What?!?"

Either G or myself: "Yeah, all lightbulbs are full of this gas. It is horrible, but this is the only gas that lights up properly, so they have to use it."

D: "Even the small lightbulbs?"

Either G or myself: "Yeah, don't break any lightbulbs unless you want your flesh to dissolve."

I know. We're horrible brothers to D. In our defense, at the time, it was all perfectly logical to us - tell a lie and prevent D from breaking more things. No big deal to us. I believe we even elaborated the lie further by saying it was a greenish gas and it stank real bad.

I am unsure how long this lie stuck with him, although when asked recently he said he does no longer believe it. Needless to say, the lie we told was successful. I do not believe D ever broke a lightbulb while growing up.

Dancing in the rain

On the internet earlier, I read something that caught my eye. "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain." Honestly I dismissed it at first as one of those goofy proverb things like "Love, Live, Laugh". But then I started thinking about what it really means, and how it applies to my life.

Scarily enough, after some introspection, I realized how much it does apply to my life.

I wrote an entry a while back about unfinished business and how I have so much of it in my life. This sign perfectly captures how I feel about that unfinished business.

But before I delve into my unfinished business, there are two things in my life that I believe I got right. I hope I don't come across as preachy, but I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs - I think I got that right. I married a fantastic woman, who is not only my best friend, but a wonderful, loving, and caring wife - I know I got that one right.

I do have many things that are unfinished, or were off track, but I think I have most of them back headed in the right direction. I have struggled with my weight due to lack of willpower (working at fast food places for years did not help any), but now I have learned to control my food portions, am eating healthier, and am steadily losing weight. I am working on many of the unfinished projects I have around my home and bringing them to completion. I am also helping my parents remodel their bathrooms and kitchen.

What I am most proud of, however, is the changes that I am making in my career/job path. My wife and I really examined what is holding me back from getting a career, rather than having low-skilled low-paying job after job. I needed a college degree, so two years ago, I went back to school. Yeah - I went back to school when I was 33. 15 years after I graduated High School, I started college. It has been an adventure. I finalized my degree recently - I'm shooting for a double major: Computer Science and Information Systems Management along with a certificate in Project Management for IT Professionals.

I would like to think I have turned my life around and fixed it. I needed a purpose in my life to motivate me to change. I found a purpose. I should correct that statement, I did not find a purpose, I rediscovered my purpose. See, my purpose to get my life back on track is the most important person in my life. Amanda, my wife. I kinda forgot that for a while, but I rediscovered it and I am improving my life for her.

The action of changing your life, to switch it from the path you are heading down to another, different, better track is hard to start. I knew I needed to change, and once I rediscovered the purpose in my life, I had to find the strength to make the transition. I marshaled my resources, namely my family's approval and promise of support and my wife's encouragement. I identified the new destination I needed in my life and the path I had to take to get there. And...

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain.

I've been waiting for too long.

I'm gonna go dance in the rain.

Perhaps I will dance the Macarena.