Egos and Images

[Larry]

It's been an odd and interesting past few days. New experiences and new perspectives.

 I  received a compliment the other day and it kind of shook my world. 
As I told it's author, I was probably a foot or two shorter than I am now the last time I'd heard something like that.

For her it may have been simply a kind gesture, or a simple observation of my potential.
Something vastly disproportionate  from the reaction it elicited. 

For me, it wasn't a  simple "golly gee thanks, glad you like my work".

It literally knocked the wind out my "sorry" sails and allowed me to see horizons unseen for a great many years.

I stopped writing. I even signed out of my rare and cherished free Internet connection.
I went outside, paced, chain smoked, and ruminated.

But, this was a new experience for me.
They were happy ruminations. 
Swirling thoughts of hope, encouragements, and childish glee that brought forth waves of happy memories I could feel but not see.
They were ruminations of my potential.

I've spent way too much of my life focused on simply surviving, believing that having evaded homelessness, starvation, or incarceration  equaled  success.
Change is is long overdue and imminent in it's arrival. 
I am grateful for that little act of kindness.

It has reminded me of a truth I learned while working with soldiers returning from combat.
That a sympathetic look, or just a few words of encouragement can make a big difference in someone's life...if even for just that moment.
 It might be that it saves a life altogether, such as the possibility was in dealing with returning soldiers struggling to comprehend the violence they had experienced overseas.

Anyway, I went home that night exhausted, a little bewildered, but with a "sneak-thief" grin on my face. :)
I thank the author again.

The other experience I had actually happened before these revels and revelations.

I had drug my less than gracefully aging laptop to the library last weekend to upload some of my images.
I was kind of excited to share them as they are MDD inspired and might be better understood.
The images are not of "ELL"(electric Larry land), but of the real world as seen through its tarnished glass.
The colors faded to monochrome against the brilliant colors of my daydreams, the eerily beautiful world too frightening and lonely to experience with my own eyes.
....or they're random shots I photoshopped the crap out of......whatever.

Anyway I get home after posting these images and start digging through the hundreds of other images I made while in a like mind and......I hate Border Lions.

My loving daughter deemed it necessary to delete all but a handful the images in an attempt to speed up the computer so she could "Facebook" her friends... about what? Gossip and fingernail polish? It was a heart breaking shot to the jewels. Thoughtless and mean.
So many of my private thoughts, so many secret feelings and longings to reach out to the world.
All gone.

I was angry. But the temper was in check so I managed not to make a complete a** of myself, though there was a little barnyard braying involved.

Both my daughter and my wife are Border Lions. And each would test this new emotional reserve with the very best their disorder has to offer.

They came into my man cave(my personal space and garage), each in their turn, my wife in defense of her daughter, to scream denials, absurdly nonsensical excuses and even more absurdly nonsensical accusations.
Each worked tirelessly to invalidate my feelings. My hurt, my loss.

I don't hate them. The can't make me do that to myself. If anyone would ask, they are dear to my heart and the pillars in which I stand. I will I love them with all my being.
No, not this time. I'm not going to enveloped into their web of spiteful lunacy.

If there is anyone out there reading this, thinking that lowering ones standards in matters of the heart is an attractive alternative to loneliness please remember this story.

The band "Three Dog Night" sang:  ".....two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one....."

Anywhoo, as can be seen, that little aforementioned moral boost came unexpectedly when I needed it the most. I made a profound difference.

It appears that the little "butt monkey" that I have the privilege to work along side has slipped into a pair of " cranky pants" while I've been writing this, so even though I've  got a lot more to say, I'll  cut it off here before she whacks me a good one.  :)