Tuesday, February 10, 2009

That Hero Moment


In 32 years I’ve had my share of experiences, good, bad, exciting, heartbreaking and so on and so forth. These pretty brown eyes have seen their share of life’s moments that will stay with me forever. But at no other point in my life have I ever felt like I was a part of a life altering “event” or such a surreal time in my life that every morning that I wake up I have to remind myself that…”yes, this is really happening.”


I watched a news broadcast recently and they were asking children, “what does recession mean to you?” Several of the children struggled to find the right words while some of them obviously regurgitated what they’d heard from their parents at home. But as the report continued it dawned on me that my own definition of what a recession is has changed over the last five months.


A recession, in my eyes, used to be a period in time when people were struggling and couldn’t be as excessive in their spending habits as they once were. Perhaps one or two companies would go out of business and my parents taxes were going to rise. Admittedly my awareness was limited, thanks to a voluntary ignorance policy that could best be defined as, “it’s not my problem. Someone else will figure it out.”


That was then.


Today if that reporter came to me and asked, “what does recession meant to you?” my answer would be simple. It may be harsh, maybe a little too real, but it’d be simple. Today, recession means that after ten years of a false sense of security someone finally pulled the rug out from under my feet. It means that along with millions of other people, I have to figure out a way…a legal way to make a safe home for my wife and child. Recession means that my patience, my resilience, my pride, confidence and spirit will all be tested on a daily basis. It also means that for years whenever I thought I was afraid of something, I was wrong. Recession means fear unlike anything the boogeyman or the shadow in the closet could ever evoke.


“Is this really happening?” I ask myself every morning. Life experiences are responsible for shaping us into the people we can be and will be. But every so often there comes an experience that we could have never imagined and we watch as it changes us, our families, and our lives right before our eyes. It becomes that moment that you used to sit around and talk about with friends. It’s that moment that you used to say, “I don’t know what I’d do if I were in that position.” It’s that moment, that hero moment that will ultimately define you and your legacy, that moment that knocks you on your ass and kicks you while you’re down there. It’s that moment that despite the pain, despite how tired you are, you stand up again, not because you want to, but because you have to.


And that’s what recession means to me.
Cp

11 comments:

Journeyman said...

Thas real man. To me its like the 8 bit Nintendo. Everything is beautiful when you pull it out of the box. And it happens... One day you have to start blowing the disk, pressing it down and pushing it to the left, putting another disk on top of it to hold it down, keep turning it on and off until the light stops blinking, etc. If the game freezes up when it does start working, you hit the reset button, rinse and repeat the start process and you were back in business. Eventually it gets to the point where it just wont work anymore and you have to get a Genesis. In our economy, the dust blowing and quick "fixes" were happening without our knowledge to make things look good, but now hitting the reset button to unfreeze the "game" won't work anymore. Time for a Genesis...

Robin said...

You've said everything I've tried to, but couldn't.

And thank god you're back to blogging!

Love you, Lav...

Walter J.M Pedersen, III said...

well expressed...made me go hmmmm, that's how i feel...keep bloggin

Writebrain82 said...

Being in a Recession is like being on a crowded beach, lying on your blanket on a beautiful sunny day when suddenly, you notice on the other side of the shore, miles and miles away a raging wave washing ashore and all the people that were there lounging enjoying the same sunny day are washed under by a massive tidal wave. Compassionate you stand up and run to the edge of the shore to get a closer look, afraid, you contemplate whether you should pack your things and start heading for the car while the coast is still clear, but you wait there sort of in awe still watching and as "nothing happens" you eventually ease back to your blanket because everything seems normal, but without any visible ripples in the water suddenly the same tide that was miles away sweeps on shore sending you gasping for air, scrambling and struggling to stay afloat in a vast, violently raging ocean and while there are hundreds of items and random debris in the water to possibly help you get back above water, you can't get your hands on any of them, because you find that everyone that was on the same side of the beach, is now reaching and grabbing for the same stuff just to stay afloat and the longer you're in the water without "something" to help you drift ashore it gets scarier and scarier until it almost seems hopeless and you begin feeling tired, but you know that you can't get tired and you can't give up no matter how many people around you are grabbing for that same piece of driftwood because you know that your family is somewhere in that same tidal wave counting on you to come by and help them make it safely back to the shore.

Kiyotoe said...

Journeyman: I like that analogy. You were right, that's deep. In other words, "it's time to change the game"...

Spark: glad you liked it. My advisors (I have advisors now ;-) told me to get back to blogging so that's what I'm going to try to do.

W.P.: 'preciate it brotha...

Writebrain: Daaaaaaaaamn! Where's your blog? I almost drowned in that depth! lol.

Anonymous said...

"a legal way to make a safe home for my wife and child."

Wait, what?

paz y amor said...

Oh boy. Recession to me is reading the news on a daily basis and reading "____insert company___ has cut XXXX of jobs" and hoping the number of zeroes that follow is minimal...but never is. It means that it's another ten thousand or so people who have to take that long trip home to tell their families that they'll have to cut back on EVERYTHING because their financial situation just became unstable. I feel for all the families across the country who have to figure out what to do, like millions of others....

...oh yeah, welcome back to the madness brohem!

Unknown said...

Recession is a big fat kick in my ass to get me up off of my complacent behind and do. Do what... That is the million dollar question. But I don't think this is just a recession any more, it is a depression... So now we must change the topic and ask the question, what is A Depression?.... And basically, a depression is DEPRESSING. How appropriately named. Life is trying to 'press' you into a state of fear, which if you are not diligent, is easy to do. Like any good depression, you find yourself spiraling deeper into the "I can'ts" and the "what if's". But thank God for children. One look into their eyes, and I realize I can not wallow in my own self doubt. The downward spiral of fear must stop, and I must do whatever I have to do to keep them safe, educated and well fed. And as long as it's moral, it doesn't have to be legal,as long as I don't get caught. :-)

Kiyotoe said...

Teach: Oops, have I kept you out the loop?

Paz: And it seems like we're hearing/reading that every damn day. when is it gonna stop?

M: I bet. Just the thought of my expected one is what keeps me from falling into that "depression". Hey, you work out a perfect bank robbery, let me know!

DesLily said...

welcome back ! it's a depressing time and no one will go uneffected, I think that's why i wrote the letter ..just wanted to wish him luck because he will need it and so do we all.

ps: my brother died in October.. you have one of the last shirts he painted.. strangely enough he was in the middle of painting another of the same dragon but he never finished it.

Carrie said...

OMG it's YOU!
*hugs*
I've missed you! wowowow.
Where have you BEEN?
It looked like you got hacked, and just.. nothing, for a long time. :(
I'm glad you're back, and I hope to see more of you!
You know I'm nothing on government and politics, so I'll just say one more time that I'm really happy to see you again. :D