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There’s that 5 thing meme thing going around where if you leave a comment asking for subjects, I give you 5 things about which you will write.
These are the ones my wife gave me…

Epiphanies:
I have these fairly often. It’s just the way my brain works. A good percentage of the time if I can’t figure something out right away it just cooks in the back of my mind until an answer pops up.
Sometimes it takes decades like with that elephant joke.
Or, about 5 years after Back to the Future 3 came out I was sitting there and suddenly said “Wait, Doc Brown has the Delorian he arrived in still in the mine shaft. He could take the time travel parts from that to get to the future as long as he returns them for Marty to find in the 50’s.”
Or, getting ready for work one morning “if I make the hooks on the support at an angle opposed to the force of motion on them, I can have the removable and lock in place without additional hardware.”
There are times I’d like to move those things to the front to get them worked on, but I don’t know how to do it. There are times I just go off to work on other things in the hopes it will happen, and often it does.

Travel:
I am split on travel.
I very much like to see new places, do things, etc.
But, I don’t sleep well away from home. I don’t sleep well at home either. So, maybe it doesn’t matter.
I am also somewhat adverse to travel because of the way my mother does it.
When I was young, she was addicted to bus tours. We went to San Antonio in 1975 and we went on 2 bus tours a day for 4 days.
I am much more of a poke around and look for cool things. Or, follow a guide book for the things that interest me.
Each of those tours went to the Coors brewery. I have no desire to see a brewery again.
These days she seems to be more into going to places to say she’s been there. Setting foot in all 50 states and things like that.
If I go places I want to actually see how it is different from where I am.
I don’t want to go 1000 miles to eat at the same chain restaurant that is near where I live.
Of course, you can find things that are different very close to home. My wife and I have lived where we are now for 18 ½ years. We went to a museum 6 miles away for the first time not too long ago.
There’s plenty of stuff to see everywhere, just look around.

Successes:
I love them! They’re great!
I’ve certainly had a few over the years. Along with their opposite.
I’m very much a person who sees cycles. So, as much as I like the top of the wheel, I know it goes back around. And, that’s just the way it is. If you don’t keep it turning when it is down, you don’t get to get back to the top.
Some wheels don’t spin, or I can only push them in a way that doesn’t match the axle. Those I try to avoid.

Friends:
About 25 years ago

evrgreen and I worked at a company in New Hampshire. There were several of us who were young and unmarried and we’d get together every so often for dinner and such.
One day my friend Gary said to me: “You watch and listen to what everyone is saying. You take in what everyone else is saying. But, when it is your time to talk, will you be heard?”
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I can be heard when I want to be heard.”

A few years ago I went through some troubles in which people I thought were some of my best friends in the world treated me very badly.
Some outright attacked me. A couple did things behind my back that were very, very painful to me.

I came to realize that I had been wrong when I had answered Gary 20 years before. I wasn’t being heard. What I was saying is not what other people were picking up. And, what was being attributed to me was as far from what I was trying to say as was possible.
That resulted in many things. One of which was this journal. Up until then I had actively avoided being on line with my thoughts and feelings. But, I realized that people I thought were my friends were telling outright lies about me, and being believed. I felt the need to, at the very least, express what I was thinking as best as I could and not have other people garble it as they had.

The good news is folks stepped forward to help me, and I am very grateful for that.
But, having people I thought of as family for more than half my life turn on me, has had an effect. I can’t say I am as accepting of friends as I was. I hold more of a distance than I did.
Because if my most trusted people will stab me in the back, what of the others?

I am not trying to say I expect people to attack me, or my newer friends are not as good, or anything like that.
This is all about me.
I have lost my confidence at being able to tell who can be trusted to stand behind me with a knife.
Because, lets face it, I hand out blades left and right.
So, these days I spend more time with my back to the wall.

This is not the first time. As I said, cycles. Sooner or later I’ll get off the wall. Sooner or later something else will cut me and I’ll pull back a bit more. Things will repeat.

Happiness:
I like being happy and many things make me happy.
Nothing makes me happier than being loved by my wife.
My happiest moments are with her.