The People You Meet Online

I almost wrote about a zoo keeper chasing a monkey and decided if I was going to do a proper job of walking the line I had to go a different direction

Twenty years ago this month I began a new journey that changed the course of my life.

That is not hyperbole or an exaggeration of any sort. It is the fact and the reality. It is not just something I mention on videos no one watches or in places no one reads.

It was when I got involved with online message boards that eventually led me back to writing in a way that I had given up.

That’s not something I was conscious of then, I was so busy as a young father I hadn’t recognized that I had let something go.

It was only after something was said to me online that I began to remember I had some ability to use writing tools to craft something that someone was interested in reading.

Twenty years later and life is very different in multiple ways and it is all because of the people you meet online.

Sunsets In Grapevine

Sometimes I look at the pictures I took from various apartments and places I lived in here in Texas and shake my head.

Shake my head because there are some stunning photos and stories tied to them.

Shake my head because I am a native of a place that has stunning sunsets and because I have had the good fortune to travel all over and witness a beauty you can’t see online.

I have learned so much and grown in ways I might not have because of the online world and those I have met. Not just because of brand sponsorships and or trips I have been sent on.

But because of conversations with people that might not have ever otherwise taken place.

Some have told me that it is foolish to be excited about such things and suggested the online world is just fantasy. They have said there is nothing more to it than dreams and I have shaken my head.

Haven’t tried to convince those who know nothing of things they can’t understand because they haven’t felt, tasted and or experienced some of the sweetest fruit life has to offer.

Sometimes you are granted a gift of the sweetest air you could ever breathe and learned that life without it can feel a bit like choking.

If you haven’t had those experiences and or found your north star you can’t understand or appreciate it. You might think you can but you are missing something.

It is why you don’t understand what happens when the north star you used to see in the sky disappears and you begin to wonder if the planet moved or if perhaps it was just a comet.

Regardless of the how and why when you find it again you thank your lucky telescopes and make a point to mark such a thing on a map.

Because should the planet move or a volcanic eruption cloud your vision you have another tool and resource to rely upon.

But the real thing to remember is that life is beautiful and sometimes you go through experiences that challenge your ability to see, feel, hear, touch and taste it.

Sometimes you just need one moment, one kiss of sunlight to remember what you have forgotten. That warmth restores flames that might have become warm embers.

Twenty Years

When they ask what the cost is for some things I smile and say twenty years for this, thirty something for that and a bit more for something else.

It is hard to believe it is twenty years and to see how much has happened.

Sometimes I look at it and wonder if I made the right investment because there have been moments where I think I was foolish.

But then there are moments where I know without question it was absolutely the right thing to do. Some things in life require faith because you can’t quantify them in simple terms.

They aren’t bank accounts, 401ks or anything that is so easily measured.

They have a cost and wealth attached to them that is far different and that is ok.

Life is one hell of a ride sometimes, who could have imagined.

I’ll answer that, me, I could and did imagine some of it. Not all, but some and now I want to see what the rest of the long and winding road has to show.

It is what makes life interesting.