A lost Star tries to find its way back home

It’s been awhile since i’ve posted anything here. I’ve been doing well with the podcast, episode 17 will be posting this week. Which is a great feeling. It was just over 17 weeks ago that the plunge was taken to start the podcast and get it into the world. A podcast that started with a blog in mind. It turns out the writing side is harder to do. Which isn’t hard to imagine as I’ve read most of my life about how hard it is to sit down and write. I believe the quote is “If it were easy everyone would do it”. When you think of the famous and great writers in history that have found their way to a gun, a bottle, drugs, both or all, there could be some truth to that statement. Though, to be fair, there are more that have not. Doesn’t mean it’s easy, just that it doesn’t have to end staring down the barrel of a gun. There’s a podcast called #amwriting that talks about the process of writing and getting published. It’s been a great listen for over a year. It talks about how hard it can be to write. To find the time. To make the effort. To do the research. Then, when you find the time, do the writing, how hard the next of it is. Where do you want to take it. What do you hope to accomplish with your work? Reach one person or a billion? Reach none? Is it for you or them? Both? Questions that must be answered. I heard on a podcast recently that if the work is good, if you keep at it, keep producing, then people will find you. That rings untrue. There must be thousands, hundreds at least, existing in the ether or the internet that are producing great work that is seen by none too few. Yet, they continue to do it. They continue to fill the empty star in their chest. Their words move from their mind (heart?), to their fingers, to the page. The star you ask? Oh, let me tell you about the star in your chest. Life took a turn in the 8th grade. That’s when it was learned that my step-father cheated on my mother. How this was learned is pretty shitty. On me, not on my parents. Though, in retrospect my parents were taking care of themselves more than us at the time. At least, that’s how it’s being remembered, although it may not be fair to think of it (remember it) that way. There was crying coming from my mother’s bedroom in our house on Degroff St. It was hard to make out what she was saying. She was talking low and crying hard. As a bratty brother I had mastered the art of picking up the kitchen phone and muting it without my sister or whomever she was speaking with noticing. Wanting to know what had upset my mother so, this same tactic was applied. It was then the voice of Uncle Randy was heard. The words are lost to the brain of a small boy that didn’t want to hear what he was hearing. Though learning what had happened has been with me ever since. My step-father had cheated on my mother and they were getting a divorce. The bike, whatever it was then, moved through the rain that mixed with tears. The path being taken was automatic. Legs moved quickly through town, heading toward the comic book store my best friend worked at: Fantasy Road. It was a Sunday and was never busy. Normally we would play video games, talk and or read comics, then wait till we could lock up and go to someone’s house and continue doing what we had already been doing. This Sunday was different. Chris’ face turned with a smile to see me come in. Then immediately the smile went away as he saw tears streaming down my face. The only thing i managed to say was, “My parents are getting a divorce”. Now, whether the star had always lived in my chest, or formed that day, i’ll never know. How the star came to be describe was that there is a star that lives in my chest. There is a circle in the middle and five points sticking out of from there. When things are good and life is good, then the star is full. When it’s not, a point or two is missing. When that point is missing, it needs to be filled. For me to continue to move forward, to live, to breath, to exist, to function, that star needs to be filled. When part of that star is missing it’s real part, it gets filled with whatever can be found to cram in there. The problem is, when that point isn’t being filled with what truly belongs there, it becomes a blackhole. It sucks up whatever is being thrown in. Yet, if you don’t throw something in, then the depression kicks in and we start to lose focus on staying alive. In the past I have used sex (copious amounts of sex) to fill the hole. This had lead to broken promises, lost loves and hurt people. There are more stories to tell here, but not for now. Material possessions have been throw into the hole. I’ve used DVD’s. Comics. Books. You name it. Things that could slightly be justified, but money lost to time and nonsense nones-the-less. Once, it became a goal to eBay my way to the best The Flash collection in the world. Whatever random thing found on eBay, it was purchased. Then it was stored. Now, years later, it’s being eBay’d back to the masses. Totally worth it. That’s the summary of the star. The piece of me left empty. Un-whole. Missing, but still here. It’s a thought or theory to be built on and talked about in the future. As for the writing part, where this comes from is the website Meetup.com. There is a writing group on there called Shut-Up and Write. Wanting to add content to the blog or start writing in general more, today it was given a try. There is still about 10 minutes left in the hour time frame set-up for the writing. It seems to have been successful. I looked at my iPhone once when using the bathroom. I looked at it a second time to take a picture of the coffee shop to post with this blog post. Sent a text to my sister that was inspired by what i wrote here. Otherwise, this time has been focused only on the writing. So, that seems pretty successful. Another thing to come out of this, is wanting to start linking the “abetterfather” podcast and site to parenting sites, facebook accounts, twitter, etc. That seems like a big step. That’s going to start exposing this to the masses. Putting it out to the masses means it could be seen by those i’ve been keeping it from. That’s the risk, I guess. The fear is having it used against me. The world we live in is “here i am” “fuck, you know where i am and i’ve said to much”. I have to quote, but go big or go home, i guess. It amazing, trying to fill those last few minutes, what it took to put what was put on the page out there. It feels like there could be more added to this, but that took a lot of out of me. I was just getting ready to delete that last line, but i’ll leave in it and take the last few minutes to post this. I hope to make this a regular thing. Thank you for visiting. Picture is from the coffee shop Cafe&Co in Urbana, IL