Rick Beeman

  I had a really nice day today. It was an encouragement for the last couple of days where I was a bit down.  I realize I just have to suck it up during the bad days and survive.  This is my new normal.  I just have to consider the days with the children as bonus days.  They always lift my spirits.  It started yesterday.  Because I didn’t have my kids I got to go see a movie.  I love going to movies and actually prefer seeing them on my own.  I splurged a bit on myself and joined AMC’s movies A-list where for $23 a month I can see up to 3 movies a week.(not a paid endorser for AMC but I should be).  To make this work financially I need to see at least 1.5 movies a week.  I’ve been able to do that for the most part.  I do have a lot more time on my hands being alone.  So yesterday I was able to see a Norwegian movie, Sisu 2.  I didn’t feel like I had to pay for it since It’s a part of my package.  So I’m able to s...

  It was another downer day. Nothing specific happened to make it such a day.  I think it’s just the process that I have to go through.  I’m learning as I’m trying not to over-react when I get in down and lonely moods.  The holidays are obviously a bit tough.   My girls are so excited for Christmas and I just can’t share in their excitement.  I don’t want to be a debbie downer around them so I’m forcing on a happy face.  It’s a fake it, till you make it kind of thing.  My eldest is really wanting a live Christmas tree which we’ve never had before.  So I’ll probably go and choose one with her.  I have zero Christmas decorations.  So everything will have to be from scratch this year.   So I made a conscious choice just to endure the down day.  I tried to do things that help my mood.  I went to see a Norwegian movie after school and had lunch. I just love watching foreign films.  The ones that come over and hit...

I learned something about myself today that might seem obvious to most of you.  Maybe it should seem obvious to me but I'm a slow learner.  Yesterday was a down day for me.  I couldn't really explain it because nothing inconsequential happened or at least nothing really bad happened.  So why was I down.  Upon reflection today I think I figured it out.  I had a really great week last week.  I just strung together a bunch of good to great days and I rode that wave of emotional elation as long as I could.  Yet I fell off the board yesterday and I couldn't figure out why.  I was just down.  But then it hit me.  I think I might have fooled myself a bit.  Thinking that I had seven great days in a row maybe I thought I was over my pain/loneliness and it would mostly be rainbows, puppy dogs and sunshine from here on out.  Oh, I was a bit wrong.  While I am an eternal optimist I now realize how inaccurate those feelings of min...

  Im a bit down today. Not really too sure why, but then again I wasn’t really sure why I was up for the last couple of weeks.  Maybe the grief and joy comes in waves.  One small explanation is that I am a bit disappointed.  I made a scheduling error with a doctor appointment which meant I wouldn’t get to see my youngest today.  I was really looking forward to it.  Her smile just lights up my day.  She’s at the age where she is just so happy just to be with me even though we aren’t doing anything.  I think I might have gotten a bit spoiled seeing my children nearly every day for the past week.  I had grown accustomed to that.  But now that it isn’t presenting itself just for 1 day it has put me in a funk.  So what did I do wrong?  Did I just come to rely upon the daily interaction to give me a false sense of hope and family?   I’m not too sure.  I really have been treasuring each moment that I have with them.  An...

  I”m out of routine right now but all for good reasons. There are a few different things I am trying to habitually do to keep myself healthy.  I’ve admitted on this blog that I have an addictive personality (including Love addiction which I’m learning a lot about right now) I think I have it because of ADD and other factors.  So to combat this I am trying to get addicted to healthy things.  Usually this is good for me.  So some of the things I’m trying to do every day:  Daily Bible reading, prayer on my way to work in my car, Lots of praise/worship throughout the day, exercise 5-6 days a week, meeting with men that will lift me up and strengthen my spiritual walk and sobriety and writing in this blog/journaling, So I have been out of routine when I have my girls.  I drop all my single habits and focus on maximizing my time with my children.  So when they are around I usually skip the gym. It has been a couple of days since I’ve gone and exercised...

  HOPE, a seemingly simple four letter word that is just as important as oxygen for us to live. Where would be without Hope.  I know I’ve spent the majority of the last year without hope.  Seemingly my life as I knew it ceased to exist and there didn’t seem like much hope for the future.  Without Hope, I simply felt despair.  But I have the unique vantage point of experience.  I have been through this type of desolation before, even worse probably in some aspects not as bad in others.  There was a time in 2009 in the midst of my divorce that I seriously considered that I would NEVER be happy ever again.  I rationalized that my new normal would be filled with pain, loneliness and solitude.  I would simply have to learn to live with the emotional and psychological hell on earth.  The moments I went through some 20 years ago give me a chill when I think about it.  If I were to recount some of the horrific details you would shudder....

  The more and more time that passes the more I am accepting of my reality that this is my new normal. Does that mean I’m happy about it?  Heck No!  But with acceptance that I cannot change my reality comes peace.  Perhaps I’m over the grieving phase of my loss moving directly into the acceptance phase.  The five stages of grief if I need to remind you (I had to remind myself): The five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I went through the first four kicking and screaming.  Now I’m rounding into acceptance and I was tested on it today.  I had a great week.  Even a fabulous week.  Did I win the lottery, reconcile? Or get a promotion?  No, what made it a fabulous week was simply my attitude.  Something that was entirely in my control.  Event wise it was a fairly non-chalant week.  I did have my daughters to look forward to this weekend so that always helps.  But the weekend did not quite go a...

  I have really been on a roll lately.  It’s getting to the point where it’s getting more and more difficult to remember when I had my last bad day.  I’m going to ride this wave as long as I can.  It’s not just stringing together good days, it’s stringing together great to fabulous days.  I’m cheating a bit because I’ve been extremely happy this past weekend but it’s been circumstantial.  I think every once in awhile that’s ok especially when it’s back up with peace and joy.    I have my girls this weekend and that always brings me so much joy.  Ideally I’d love my entire family back but I’ll take what I can get.  I mentioned a couple of days ago my change in perspective.  I think that has been the major reversal with my point of view.  I might not like the current circumstances of my living alone but I don’t have a choice in it.  So instead I’m learning how to accept it embrace it even.  I’m learning how to make the ...

  Throughout this whole solitude thing I’ve had a lot of time for self-reflection and a whole lot of time in therapy. I’ve grown through the angst.  I have also come up with a lot of realizations about myself.  For those that know me best it’s quite obvious.  Amongst many other things is that I have an addictive personality.  That means it’s really easy for me to get hooked on processes as I search for a dopamine rush for a dopamine deficiency.  According to our friends at Chat GPT this is the definition of Dopamine: Dopamine is a neurotransmitter —a chemical messenger in the brain—that helps regulate movement, motivation, reward, and mood .  When something feels enjoyable or motivating, dopamine is one of the key chemicals involved. It also plays important roles in learning, attention, and controlling voluntary movement. I have a predisposition for addictive behavior because of my ADD.  My running joke is that I used to have ADHD but I got too o...

  Something unique happened to me today that I don’t remember ever happening before. I was thinking about my day around mid-day.  I determined that it had been a pretty good day thus far.  Then a thought popped into my head.  What if I made it a great day?  And just like that I determined that I would try to make it a great day.  And guess what…it worked.  Now nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary happened.  Instead I willfully tried to change my perception of the events that had unfolded/were unfolding/were about to unfold.  For some reason my good day became a great day.   Is life that easy that you can willfully change your perception/perspective like a superpower? By the power of thought can you really transform your day from bad to good or good to great?  I don’t know.  In all of my 57 years I had never tried this before. My day/week/month/year was either good, bad or neutral and I was powerless to do anything about i...

  It’s another good day.  This is starting to be the trend.  Again, nothing out of the ordinary happened to me today.  But nothing bad happened today either.  I think it is just a matter of me accepting my reality of being alone.  I can’t do anything in my power to change anything at the moment.  The only thing I can control is how I respond to it.  At first the grief, despair and solitude were quite overwhelming.  Those emotions are still there but I’m responding differently.  I believe it has largely to do with my faith.  I’m just trusting God through all of this.  I know it sounds cliche but I can’t look at 8 months from now and wonder what is going to happen.  I can only look at tomorrow.  I have no idea what the future will hold.  I continue to pray but God doesn’t always answer my prayers in the manner in which I ask.  It’s either Yes, No, or not yet.  It’s the “not yet” that is the hard part....

  4 out of 5 therapists recommend 4 out 5 great days for their patients as opposed to stinking lousy, miserable lonely days.  So that’s a cool way of saying I had another great day.  BTW, the whole “ Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum”, I want to meet that 5th dentist. What was he/she/they thinking? I was actually very happy today because my circumstances dictated as much.  To back that up with peace and joy, it was fabulous all around.  I had the day off for Veteran’s Day.  Thank you Veteran’s.  I had several uncles in World War II (Uncle Bob, Tom, Jack (I think) on my father’s side.  My father was in the ill-fated Bay of Pigs.  I think he was a cook.  I don’t remember him ever cooking at home, but he did man pretty good grill.  He ALWAYS undercooked the steaks because that’s how he liked them. My mother always made him go back to cook them some more.   I did a special vi...

  It was bound to happen eventually.  I knew I couldn’t keep my remarkable (for me) streak of three great days in a row going.  But there is a silver lining.  This still was a pretty good day.  Nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary happened.  Although I’m looking forward to a bonus Veteran’s Day holiday off tomorrow.  So what makes me hopeful and optimistic, is I’m hoping this level is my new normal.  I’m filled with peace and joy today even though nothing really good or great happened.  If I did indeed turn a corner and this is my reality, then I can learn to accept that.  Things of course will get better in the future when circumstances can help dictate happiness. And when I can combine happiness with the foundation of peace and joy….man that is really living.    But If I can keep this baseline of Peace and Joy when nothing is happening, I’ll take that as a win. It sure seems better than the alternative. Being down in the...

  I felt several weeks ago that I turned a corner. That didn’t mean that everything was suddenly OK.  Instead the tide turned as far as I think Ive been through the worst of it.  So what does that mean?  Will things not get any worse?  Oh, I think things might get worse but I can now confidently say I can control what I can control even if things don’t go the way I’m praying.  I’ve picked up some skills along the way, the most important of which are spiritual skills.  I have learned to rely upon my faith wholeheartedly even during the dark times.  I know whatever happens will ultimately happen for my good because I’m doing my part.  I just have to trust for everything else.   I’m so blessed because I just finished out with 3 great days in a row.  I know that might not sound like much but I’d probably have to go back to 2024 to find three consecutive great days.  I’ll take it.  I was anticipating a great weekend and I ...