Martin Family,

I learned a valuable lesson today.  One that I’ve spent the last 5 years trying to get through my thick skull and sadly, only over the last year and a half or so have I truly started to see it.  The lesson?  Be careful who you trust.  I know many of you have heard parts of my story, and some may have questions or want to try to understand me, while others may just look at me as the odd duck that I am.  I’m pretty comfortable with being a little bit of an outsider.  I’m safe there.  But I’ll get to that more in a few minutes.  I trusted my story, all that I am to someone who has absolutely done everything in her power to destroy me.  It’s sad really.  I did fall in love with her and truly have had a hard time letting go of all that I felt for her.  We had a child together.  A little boy that I love more than anything in this world.  But love and lust and words are often deceiving.  I deceived myself and fell for someone who doesn’t believe the way that I do.  And though I don’t 100% follow the tenets that many of you subscribe to, I love my God and I have a faith that NO MAN, WOMAN, ANYONE can take from me.  So, today I was given the opportunity to relearn the value of trust broken.  $3000.00 worth.  It’s just money, but to some people it is their god, their source of accomplishment or control.  It’s not the way I was raised and it’s not the way I focus my life.  Hell, I’d give everything I had to have more time.  Time I lost with Cade and Cambrey.  Time with a little boy.

And this all got me thinking.  I know I’m difficult.  To understand.  To get to know.  To rationalize my behaviors and how I live.  But I’m me.  I like me. For the first time in my entire life I’m really happy that I’m Chad.  A mix of a recluse, Uncle Marvin and Chris Farley (i.e. Tommy Boy), I know it may seem that I’m arrogant or distant, or even just an ass (which I absolutely can be if you cross something that matters to me – my kids, my heart, my convictions).  I’m laughing as I write that, but I’m not quiet about what I think or feel anymore. I hid for too long.  I’m wrong a lot, but I’m also very firm in what I do believe and what I will accept from myself first and then others.  I’m blunt when you get to know me, but I also have fragments of that kid’s heart still in there.  I always joke that “There is still good in him” (blatant Star Wars reference).  And there is, beneath the prickly exterior. I don’t come to family gatherings often. Quite honestly, they make me beyond anxious and that’s not changing.  But I do truly love each and every one of you.  Deep in my heart.  And if you let me, when it’s time I will express it to you.  Ask me to help, give me a task, let me know something I can do for you.  I’ll do my damndest to be there.  Maybe not at a large gathering, but please know my heart is still there.  

I learned to sing in this family.  Music is still an essential part of my life.  And I love the hymns.   You have given me things, especially the elders lol (Mom, Freida, Andy, Flea).  I’ll never eat a pickle again in my life. Thanks “Sis”!  I picked up guitar after hearing “Georgia Home” for the first time.  Found God when I really didn’t understand all that was going on inside of me in a church filled with all of you.  But I also found hell, and quite honestly, I am not going back there.  Not to that mental place.  Drum lessons came as my dad reached out to a cool as hell science teacher at Lindley Middle School who was also a jazz drummer.  I wonder what would have happened if that door hadn’t been opened.  Kit might not be traveling the world if there wasn’t some rhythm playing on the steering wheel everywhere we drove (my dad thumping).  Many of you love baseball, Matt, Kenny, Kit, myself.  I wonder if that didn’t start at the ball fields, where Skider, David, Andy, Allen Martin, Fran, Freida, Flea, all of us that could at the time played to some degree.  Matt and Eric really went on to be athletes, but the game, well it stuck with several of us.  I saw the hardest part of love.  Maw-maw, Eric.  Then Allen Martin, all gone.  In my opinion way to soon.  I see so much of the family dynamic that those two, Preacher and Wife, instilled in Morgan and Sam’s, Alex and Rip’s families.  Kenny’s young family.  I see how close the bond is for the three girls, Ashley, Alex and Aby.  Alie, you and Justin look like you’re beaming with a baby (soon to be babies).  I love that you all have so much love in your lives.  Matt and Melissa, I sat with the two of you a couple of months ago and had a great conversation.  You don’t know how much I appreciated that as I was ramping up inside with anxiety. And I see in the two of you David and Freida, Dot and Murphy.  That is a huge compliment to me.  There’s a hell of a lot of wisdom in those two couples.  Kit and I, well I don’t want to speak for him, but we’re just a little different.  Mom and Dad, it’s not that I don’t love you, I just can’t always express it the way that you may want or need.

So, this is more than I ever open up.  But it was necessary.  I do well one on one, and my offer above stands.  This recluse tries to live a full life.  Where I put my time and my effort/energy is extremely important to me. My kids really matter to me.  More than any of you may see.  I’ve spent the last three and a half years trying to help them find their place.  I won’t hold their hands and I will absolutely let them fail.  Because you know what, when I’ve been in the mud is when I’ve found the most incredible images of what our faith really means.  I can’t preach or teach that any better than trying to remain a good man.  Now a whole man, after 40 years of struggle with the past.  

You all are precious, and I felt like I should give you a little of my heart.  Be careful though, don’t spook me.  I tend to disappear easily, Boo Radley style. ;-)  But I’m around.  I have had to embrace that I have way too much Martin in my blood.  I notice more and more things about myself that remind me of Allen Martin.  I wish I could be half the scoundrel, man of Faith, jokester, hardheaded, loving human being. He told me one night while sitting downstairs at Shannon Drive that he “had already had the love of his life, and that was enough”.  I believed him.  He knew me like no other.  I miss sitting with him.  I didn’t listen enough.  I didn’t take heed of his wisdom.  But I do now. He trusted me at times when I didn’t trust myself.  I’m thankful for 5 years living with him.  

So, here’s where I will end. Thank you.  Thanks you for or being a part of my life growing up and being who you are.  That’s all we ever can really be.  In the new Avenger’s Movie, Thor is the character that I most identify with and his quote near the very end is so poetic to my heart.  “I need to start being who I am, not who I’m supposed to be”. 

I’m going to keep being me.

Peace, 

Chad

Connect

As a child, did you ever look up into the sky on a clear summer night?  When the sun has burned off any haze and set, leaving the night with a perfect picture of a thousand stars.  It’s almost like you could reach out and touch them.  Sitting alone under such a canopy of twinkling brilliance, it’s easy to feel totally alone and so small in comparison.  Alone, on the same night a thousand miles away, another curious child looks up pondering the same thoughts as the first constellation comes clearly into view.  

Are we ever truly alone?  Not getting spiritual or philosophical, but are we?

I’ve dreamt under those stars.  I still do at times.  And when I’m out there, my world drifts away into a cosmos that reminds me of my stature, of being just one single organism in a universe that might be teeming with others.  Sentient, carnal, sludge.  Who knows?  But what I have realized, just like that child across the world from me, is that there are others out there.  We just have to find ways to connect like connecting the dots of stars in a constellation.

It is in our isolation that we find solace at times, but often we can find that place where being alone becomes a sense of overwhelming loneliness.  It is easy to feel connected with the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others, but are we really so connected when trolling yet another site or app?  Where did human contact, a hug, a close whisper, a smile not shared over a screen get lost?  Our help often comes first from a google search, then checking with our “Friends” online and then posting our victories and trials out there for others to see.  I’m not in any way trying to bash the world that we have now with social media.  I use it myself to stay abreast of happenings, births, life events that may be across the country or just not part of the hectic schedule I sometimes have.  But is it true connection?

What would it be like to go back to small communities with a central gathering place?  Real hands to pat you on the back or open ears to sit by a fire and listen intently and offer up words of encouragement or just to say, “I hear you”.  I still struggle with being real.  I want my work, my friendships, my family to be real to me.  And I am the FIRST to admit that close proximity to large amounts of people can truly give me anxiety and unneeded stress.  But I also need time with those I care about.  In the work that I do, both teaching and my new venture I need to see your face.  To absorb some of your energy.  To breathe you in and allow you to do the same of me.  We were built for communion with others.   

And on those nights when I’m alone under the stars, I remember that song from the animated movie “An American Tail”, Somewhere Out There.

“And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishin' on the same bright star
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky”

Do you feel alone?  Amidst the hustle and bustle of your life, do you feel more alone than connected?  See, the stars are there every night, whether we can see them or not.  They shine just as bright whether covered by clouds or lost in the thunder and rain.  And when you stand alone under one of those perfect nights, realize that somewhere, no matter how far apart, there is someone thinking about you and hoping that you are thinking about them.

Find connection in others who seek the same things in life.  In hopeful people who dive in and want to experience more than just a world on a screen.  Find peace in knowing that we never have to be alone.