April 16 in Old

I was very attached to my beard and I had to think much about cutting it off. I realized I had grown it to not see my face as it was in the past: clean shaven. But it’s OK. My face is constantly changing so it is never The face from my past. It took less than five minutes to cut the beard off. My new hobby is shaving.

I do not believe that my bird max recognizes me now. She will not sit on my shoulder or cuddle as she once did when I had the beard. But she used to do it when I was clean-shaven before. She’ll get used to it.

I have changed so much in the past three years. I have let myself grow as a person and genuinely blossomed as the person I truly am but was not able to express for so many decades. Or maybe it’s just because I’m using all I learned in my life to be a good person.

With every interaction with any person, I watch myself and ask myself if I am being good to that other if I am being patient and kind. How am I reacting if that other human is trying to be cruel to me or insulting? I do not play that game. I wish as a fun imagining I could go back with the mind. I have now into my teenage self and not be involved in conflict or to face it when it came at me. To be as calm as I am these days. But I’m sure my parents would not like me questioning them and how they were back then. I would be an alien to them and everyone else.

It’s a good thing. I’ve been doing watching myself as I interact with people. Watching myself as I get irritated or angry, and then addressing that so it does not grow larger and that it dissipates and nobody gets hurt.

I ask myself if my smile and joking and caring is helping someone around me. It would’ve been good if I could’ve been that way long ago, but I had to grow to be this way.

It’s amusing to me now how for decades? I had such low self-esteem and thought I was a bit on the freak side mentally ill. But now I see the person I am now is far more sane and mature than so many people in high places, such as entertainers or politicians. Rhetorically, I ask such people in my imagination, how the hell can anybody support such a piece of shit as you that does no good for anyone except yourself? Yes, I am still that crude son of a bitch😄

It will be interesting if people will treat me differently because I have changed my appearance again. I think they will. No more hiding behind the beard. Totally open face, but not weak and not to be pushed around like I once was.

Because I’ve been watching global warming grow over the past decades since I first learned it in high school 50 years ago, I am fascinated by freshwater for humans. For all life. Mexico City Mexico is running out of water. So is Bogota Colombia. The aquifers in the USA and other places are beginning to run dry. It is a very sick thing that one of the richest men in China became that way by extracting water from American aquifers bottling it and selling it around the world. Other companies do the same. It makes me more grateful and mindful of the water, nice clean water that flows from the faucets in my house. Because I know about how water is disappearing in so many places drinking water now becomes like a religious experience with every cup, even though there is no scarcity here now.

I have been pushing myself to be more active. Three days in a row, I walked on my treadmill, had a good pace that kept me panting at times. It is still a fascinating experience or even more so at this age then in my youth to feel my heart beating thundering in my chest. How wonderful it does not stop. How wonderful my lungs continue to function. People complain about so many things I consider so petty and stupid and then I take a drink of water. I feel my heartbeat. I take a breath of air and I think to myself what a rich son of a bitch I am.

I feel I am a wealthy man.
I can pay the rent by groceries pay for all my utilities. I have this phone and Internet. Two wonderful feathered companions. The only people in my life now are good people. I can walk I have all my limbs and I have no addictions anymore. I am not a refugee. I am not scarred from war. I am a very wealthy man. I am not broken inside I can love. I can embrace people and smile and feel good about their being in this world with me.

I have started intermittent fasting again, and strangely perhaps it feels good to hear my insides, grumbling, and an emptiness in my stomach. Amusing to me is that I am doing the fasting to lose weight and feel better and at the same time I’ve been drinking kombucha which recent study show may very well have the same effect on weight as fasting. Double punch. Even the loss of 3 pounds makes me feel better.

Last updated April 16, 2024