Rick Beeman

  Certain days I’m confident and full of hope.  Other days I’m not.  I really have no idea what my life will look like in five years.  I can see a number of different scenarios playing out.  Sometimes this uncertainty drives me bananas.  I don’t like being out of control.  Yet at this moment the only thing I can control is how I respond to things I can’t control.  Sound confusing?  Welcome to my life.  I do know this.  My hope is not in anyone or any job.  My hope is solely in the Lord at this moment. Now if I would have had this mindset all along I could have saved myself a lot grief and heartache.  It’s a shame that I had to lose everything nearly hitting rock bottom emotionally and psychologically for me to resolidify my spiritual walk. My spiritual walk goes in stages similar to the cycles where the children of Israel went through when they were wandering around in the desert.     I’m happy that God finally g...

  Going to the dentist just made my day great. I know that seems a bit weird but hear me out.  My wife called me earlier today to ask if I could take our oldest to a Dentist appointment.  I quickly agreed.  I had been planning on going to the gym but this certainly took priority. I was due for a rest day anyway.    This was an excuse/bonus to see my daughter again.  I am starting to appreciate all the little things I either took for granted or discounted before.  I know I should have cherished this time before but life and complacency got in the way.  Now each moment I get to spend with my kids is a blessing because of the disparity of visitation.   I don’t want to lose this point of view again. It’s kind of like when you are enjoying a bowlful of popcorn or candy. Once you get to the last few remaining pieces you start to savor them more instead of just shoveling them in your mouth.  Why is that?   I think because you know the...

  I feel like I’m on an emotional pendulum.  Today was a good day.  I had hope.  It was totally opposite of yesterday.  I think that I might not be stable with all the swings going back and forth with my psyche.  The good thing is that I’m internalizing this.  The only place I’m sharing my feelings is through this forum and with my therapists. Yes that is plural. I’m reaching out to many people wiser than me as I navigate the treacherous waters of despair, hope and joy.    I’m writing this blog for a couple of reasons.  1. Most importantly it’s good therapy for me.  I enjoy being able to write and be creative.  This gives me the most fulfillment.  That is why I wanted to become a writer in the first place. Other than my family and my faith, the greatest joy I I get in life is inspiring others through my creativity.    Yet it is so difficult to make a living as an artist thus I’m a teacher as my day job and I...

  Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I wasn’t really looking forward to the holidays.  In fact I was kind of dreading it.  I’m not a big fan of winter, especially this year.  Winter to me always symbolized cold and death.  I know that’s pretty dark.  Even in the old days for the cold days, I used to be able to look forward to cuddling up on the couch in front of the fire staying warm.  The cold symbolized an excuse to get cozy with a loved one in a romantic sense. That was the main thing I liked about the winter holidays.  That option is off the table for me right now.  Right now the cold is a reminder to me that I’m alone.  That said, I’m walking through this season with hope and faith that God has a plan.  My hope is in the Lord.   I’ve had a really nice couple of days.  I feel hope again.  Not that anything changed but I know that life has good things to offer.  My youngest son from my first marriage came to sp...

  I was getting tired of writing about downer days.  I’m sure you were probably tired of reading about them as well.  I had like three bad days in a row.  Now nothing overtly negative happened to me those days.  It’s just that my “Hope” meter was on empty.  I know intellectually that my Hope comes from the Lord and that He is always faithful but that doesn’t help with the immediate loneliness and despair that periodically hits. The enemy knows this and is trying to keep me down.    Hope comes in waves and I was bereft of any sort of tide coming my way.  I know what I need to do.  Just like I did last night, put my head down and get through it.  I used to be a distance runner.  I was never fast, in fact I was pretty slow with short legs/strides, but I could run for miles.  It was the endurance that I was good at.  (I’m paying the price for that today with no cartilage in my arthritic knees but at least I have four mara...

  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...

  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....