What a World

Step Into the Light

Journal Entry 16 – December 29, 2022

By Steven Maisenbacher

Well, another installment in the never-ending saga of what the hell are these people thinking? Once again I am out of the long-acting insulin. I’ve been telling them for 3 weeks that I need more insulin. They say they will take care of it until all of a sudden I’m down to my last dose. So when I tell them they want me to go to Walmart today and buy an emergency bottle. Evidently the BOP’s health insurance must authorize every prescription refill the doctor from Central Counties Health Centers sends to the pharmacy.  This is stupid to begin with if the prescription is valid the first time with refills it should be valid the second time, right?

Is it just me or is this world ridiculous? I’m not really trying to trip on that too much I’m just going to march myself over to Walmart and get the emergency bottle of insulin and let that be that until they can figure out how to keep a brittle diabetic from going into shock or a coma. This is the third time since August 31st that they’ve run out of my insulin! Yes, these are the people responsible for keeping me healthy and safe – you know the same ones who let a guy run into my room in the middle of the night to hide from a gunman outside looking for him. But we’re not going to go there; we’ve already been there and it did no good.

What I do want to talk about is change. We’ve all heard the clichés: change is good, change is inevitable, change is always for the better, the spice of life, yada yada yada. But change can also bring stress, pain and discomfort. I know I’ve gone through stressful changes often enough. Right now someone I love more than anything is going through this kind of change, uprooting her life to be with me. It isn’t easy and it’s kicking my butt to know there’s nothing I can do to help. I can’t alleviate her stress, I can’t make it any better or any faster or any less difficult. All I can do is be supportive.

You see, I’m going to always be supportive of her. I don’t care if she’s right or wrong, I’m going to support her. If she’s wrong, we’ll talk about it later, but until the smoke clears she’s right. To me that’s the idea of what a man and a woman’s relationship should be – support for each other, under any circumstances, in any situation, and at any cost. Those who follow my story are probably getting to know me fairly well, or at least the way I think and the way I see things, my perspectives on life.

Now here are a few new ones. Number one, there’s nothing that a man won’t do for the woman he loves; there’s nothing he won’t give up or work to change or try to make better in order to please her. Number two, I’m in love with the most beautiful woman in my world. Number three obviously refers to number one. So watching my beautiful woman go through these stressful changes, knowing that she’s doing it as much for me as for herself, without being able to help, without being able to physically hold her, comfort her, tell her that it’s all going to be okay … well, it’s very hard, and I can only imagine how hard it is for her.

But she’s a warrior – literally. She served this country, risked her life for this country and the values the people of this country hold. Not the stupid things the government tries to push off on us under the banner of “it’s good for you,” but the ideals of freedom, the right to practice your religion, the right to an education, the right to your own home and family and your safety as an American citizen. Yeah that’s my baby, and I thank her for her service. I thank all of our veterans for your service as well. Without your service we’d be in a world of hurt and for you to put in your service meant many changes in your life, changing your comfort zones, changing the very fact of your existence at that point. I honor you and I respect you.

Some other changes are needed too, like some of us need to change our attitudes. I’m certainly working on mine. I know I’m a work in progress and sometimes I feel like an experiment in human development but that’s okay too. I’m heading for a big change in about a week when I start college full time! I’ve got a full load planned for Spring semester, and I plan on carrying a full load each semester for the next year. I’m happy about that change because every minute I’m in that class I’m going to be absorbing new information, and that too means change – mental change, educational change, and change in my qualifications to fulfill my dreams of becoming a certified alcohol and drug counselor or a juvenile delinquency counselor.

I’m trying to give back some of what I took. I’m trying to change; I’m trying to send the wheel back around in a good way, just like my baby is trying to do the wheel of our love. Our relationship didn’t just start. It goes back decades. In fact, our personal belief is it didn’t start even in this lifetime. The ties are too strong, the bonds are too obvious and the love too deep to have been just this time around. We’ve been together before, we’ll be together again, and we’ll also be together soon. That’s the payoff for the pain of change in this instance.

I want to say one more thing about change. On Christmas Day there was a change in my shape. Bab, my sister-in-law made lasagna and I became distinctly rounder. And no I am not sorry at all. I ate like a pig on Christmas eve and then I came back here and did it again cuz Babs sent me back with a heaping plate full. Thanks to my family I had the best Christmas ever.

I’m not going to roll on and on about how everything changes but something I said last week is making a lot of sense to me right now. Not everything that’s bad is bad; sometimes good things come out of bad. Just look at what’s happening for me right now. I’m Walks On The Grass and I Will Never Surrender. I will however embrace change – and my beautiful Janice when she gets here.

*** Founded in 2005, the Patriot Guard Riders is an all-volunteer organization whose members attend the funerals of members of the U.S. military and first responders at the invitation of a decedent’s family. The group forms a voluntary honor guard at military burials, helps protect mourners from harassment and fills out the ranks at burials of indigent and homeless veterans. Wikipedia

Long Road Home by Steven Maisenbacher