Waiting on the sidelines....out in the pasture

I know it has been a while but a lot in my life has been going on.

Work has been crazy, the baby is growing up to fast and oh yea, I was inducted into the London, Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.

Funny though.. If life is about choices then why do we ultimately get to make very few?

In today's world we are faced with many choice; good and bad. Ones which will lead us down the road to a better future or a darker one. Right?

Why when you sit back and really look at does it seems most of the time that we, as a person never really make the choice. No, I am not talking about what to have for dinner or what to wear more over I am talk about the choice which we can never control.

I threw a curling stone yesterday for the first time in what has to be almost 3 years now. I must say I did very well, it was kind of like riding a bike once I was done cursing at the ice and stones. I retired from curling as a member of the national team over 4 years and I find still today I have to live out my past. What more is that no one today will take me for who I am. Allot in my life has change and trying to outlive what people think they know about me has been; what seems impossible.

My life in the past was full of passion which was greatly outlive by my lack of patience. I was a true competitor and to be honest with myself more than anything a ASSH*(E about it. I was very good at most sports I did or tried. I have won Gold at eh highest level you could ever achieve; the Olympics or in my case the Paralympics. The months after each time I gained success something in me thought I was better than I was, I had control and I could do whatever I wanted, both in sports or in life.

Than my life changed....not sure when but it did change and change hard.  I think it changed   just before I moved to Newfoundland. I had lost everything. My sports, my job, my wife at the time, my family and even my children. I had started to recover slowly. I found a new love, my current wife. I made a means with my children the best I could, found a new job, I even got back into sport heavy again, curling Hockey , BBALL, etc. . Then I lost a great part of it again after I made a choice in a way. I nearly died on the day of the accident and nobody really knows that until I placed in here in print. I was in the back woods of Newfoundland and had an ATV accident. Like a fool I was alone. The 800 pound bike rolled on top of me and I was pinned. No cell phone coverage, late in the day, cold, everything that you would like to watch in a good survival drama show.  After hours under the bike; it hit me... It is not my choice to make here today to die. I have a wife, children, a few friends who the hell am I to make a choice for them. I am not sure how but I got that bike off me, crawl a few hundred feet with my breaks, blood and pain to get cell phone coverage and rescue. That day I said I would try and make amends.

But that choice is not up to me, I gave that right way. For those of you reading this please , please understand the following. I am not who I was, I never will be again.  I  am sorry and I am here should you ever want to believe in me again. A song I listen to at least once a day says this....

Nobody knows but me, That I sometimes cry
If I could pretend that I'm asleep, When my tears start to fall
I peek out from behind these walls, I think nobody knows

Nobody likes to lose their inner voice, The one I used to hear before my life
Made a choice, But I think nobody knows

Who's gonna be there after the last angel has flown, And I've lost my way back home
I think nobody knows

It's win or lose not how you play the game, And the road to darkness has a way
Of always knowing my name, But I think nobody knows

Tomorrow I'll be there my friend, I'll wake up and start all over again

When everybody else is gone, Nobody knows but me what I have lost.

  So in the end, never let your passion outweigh your patience! EVER!

Use you gifts in a quiet fashion including your voice.

And never try and out run your past for it will always control you future.

Until next time....(hopefully)

Waiting on the sidelines