A Hole In My Soul

Greetings everyone. Christmas has now passed. My focus of making sure i could make it an enjoyable and memorable one for my four year old daughter and still pay the bills is now changing. I am looking towards 2018. I have high hopes for this coming year. I am aware terrible things could happen and make it a much worse year than this past one but, i gotta think that is a stretch. 2017 was very hard on me in many ways. Physically i suddenly find myself in the worst shape of my life. Mentally and emotionally and financially ive had so much to overcome with my daughter being taken from me (i have her back now, thank God) ive been robbed , had blowouts with the ex , lost all my supplies and other things from Hurricane Irma and all kinds of other poor me crap nobody wants to read about. 2018 has to be better. But how do i make that happen.

A lot that happens to us in life is well beyond our control. Our decisions do have a domino effect though and a bad decision usually leads to multiple bad things happening and a good decision usually leads to many good things , not just the one thing. So I ask myself, what is a good life decision i can make that i have over.

I can not shake the feeling that something is missing from my life. Something big. The obvious answer that my mother would point out is a good woman, and she wouldn't be wrong but im thinking bigger than that. One can not be happy in a relationship if one is not happy alone and with ones self first.

My daughter brings me more joy than i ever thought possible but there is still something missing. I have pinpointed what it is and my goal, my lifes mission is to get it back in 2018.

I grew up in a sub-urban area north of Boston with a large reservoir and wooded area as my backyard and playground. I spent summer vacations and weekends on Lake Winnipisaukee and in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Id hit the local mountain bike trails after school or go for a hike and bring my fishing rod and a small tackle pack.

Later I moved a little farther north to a more rural area. My backyard was about a half acre that abutted a massive private wooded area that had a power line cut right through it that stratched for miles. It was packed with hiking/biking trails, horse trails, deer, old growth hardwoods and ancient pines. I would spend every free minute i had either hiking and just watching and admiring nature or trail running for exercise. Mountain biking in the summer, snow shoeing and cross country skiing in the winter.

When i was younger , I lost my drivers license for a spell and my boss, who was a good friend, laid me off instead of firing me. This allowed me to collect unemployment. I didn't give it a second thought. I loaded my pack and set off on the Appalachian Trail . I had no plan , just took a bus toVirginia and started hiking north towards Maine. After getting into Maine, I turned around and came back to New Hampshire and got myself into the 4,000 footers club. The club is a non formal group of people that have summited every 4,000 foot mountain in the state. I cant remember but there is fourty something of them i think.

Ive battled substance abuse my entire life. I joined The Marine Corps in 2003 to get a fresh start. I was stationed in southern California and spent a lot of time in the mountain ls , desert and jungle. I did my tours and got out.

While i was in the military, my family had moved to Florida. When I got out i didn't want to get back into the crowd i had fled from so i came to stay with family in South Florida. I got a job and had a kid and im still here. I hate it.

I have lost my connection with nature. For me that is not just activities that I like to do. It is my Spirituality. It was always how i healed my soul when i was down and out. The more drugs were introduced, the less i turned to mother nature and my God so to speak and the sicker i became. I dont use drugs or alcohol any more but i still dont feel healed.

2018 is the year i get my daughter and myself out of Florida to somewhere wher i can not only reconnect with the earth but give that experience to my daughter too. I think that as a society we have lost our connection to the earth and it is ruining us. I know it is hurting me to my core and this coming year i vow to fix that. And with that one good decision many good things will follow. I hope everyone out there gets the inspiration to improve their lives however they see fit this coming year too.