Do you remember when you were younger and felt invincible?

I do.

In the meantime, life just does what it does; it throws curve balls, spit balls and the occasional wild pitch. Yet somehow we continue to get up to home plate and go to bat.

Meanwhile, the brain does what it does; it thinks. Endlessly and for good and bad.

My challenge seems to be trying to feel like I belong in spite of the strike-outs, the games forfeited and falling for the trap of screw balls and dead heats. My mind, and I apologize for mixing my metaphors, continues to race as if my life was The Indy 500.

So now I find myself in this awkward phase. I am probably at my best when I strike out a few times and get into a slump. I accept that is OK and that to be good at something you also have to be very bad at the very same thing.

I have survived some challenges; often settling for a draw or pulling out the best and being triumphant in triple overtime, The process of accepting, identifying, processing and draining. I am getting too old, too unfit for that.

Is it time to retire? Is this world wanting to put me out to pasture?

Moo!

I have been living with kidney disease for three years now. There is a whole story behind that, but I think it’s one of those things that you “had to be there” to appreciate the unusual spaces my busy mind has been parking itself to cope.

For the last three years, I was the guy on dialysis, talking about how the quality of my life often feels like it is less than zero. I have been in and out of the hospital more than I can count on my withered hands. Kidney disease became my life and didn’t leave space for much else.

I am just surviving.

Barely.

I am not good company.

I guess I am not too old and I guess my thoughts won’t get the better of me. I have shifted from giving up to giving in.

I am not the guy with kidney disease, I still believe that I am the guy that survives, that is always learning, always challenging traditional beliefs. I am the guy who has some inexplicable crush on Mariah Carey. I am weird and that is what makes me feel like I am somewhere in the spectrum of nowhere and that I do belong.

We all belong.

Somewhere.

Alas, it is time to stop ruminating about my phosphorous and potassium counts. I am not quite yet down, so why should I be counting.

I have felt a shift over the last few weeks and am tapping into the wisdom one gains from life experience.

I am the guy that survived kidney disease and although my life is about as far away as possible to what I planned it to be (oh yeah, and there’s this thing called COVID which is royally limiting me as I move forward) a life worth living is not beyond reach.

I may simply be a best laid plan, yet I think there is more.

I am a survivor and that is how I would like to present myself. I choose to be someone that will continue to look forward with hope rather than look back with regret and melancholy – mind you, that’s not always an easy task. I feel like I have been just surviving and nothing more. I am ready to rebuild my life, not as I expected it to be but what it can be and I am doing it slowly, systematically and realistically and I still believe that I will live a life that has purpose, meaning and connects with a sense of community. Perhaps there is still time to find romantic love. Perhaps there is time to undo some of the things I have done and do some things I haven’t done.

I spent the last three years thinking that things couldn’t get any worse. I am ready to round the corner and acknowledge that better is still an option and perhaps the next three years may be better than my afore mentioned best laid plans.

Hello, my name is Harlon and I have some ideas and I have some realistic and achievable goals and the best I can do is to TRY.