So, a little about me.. I grew up the only boy in a house full of girls. We grew up a military family and by the time I was six I was living an almost magical childhood, moving from place to place. Seeing new things, people, and cultures. By the time we moved to Germany I started to understand how it feels to lose people. Not from them passing away or anything. Just moving and leaving, people leaving you...things like that.. I would make friends, be the best of friends only to have everyone leave when their families would be transferred.. I remember about the 10th friend that moved away I was so sad. My mom told me don't worry you will make new friends. I knew I would..more like I knew I could... Didn't mean I necessarily wanted to.. I told her I don't want to make friends anymore.. When she asked me why, I told her it was because it hurt to much when they left... So thats what I did.. I was friendly to everyone but I never let anyone get very close to me. It's the way I protect myself from being disappointed in people. Or having that feeling of losing trust in someone you thought would never let you down... 

My first BrOk3n StOrY: 

 Every Saturday morning my Dad and I would go running through the tiny cobble stone streets of the little town we lived in. It was always one of my favorite times. The streets were always quite and peaceful, just the sounds of our feet hitting the stones with every stride. I loved that time, I got to spend time alone with my Dad. No girls! I was always with girls.  We would talk about all kinds of things. Not things most six year old would talk about with their parents. We would talk about simple things. He taught me to pay attention to everything around me. Take time to stop and see the beauty that surrounds us everywhere. We would talk about space, time, history, and him being in the military and living in Germany  during the time of the wall we would talk about war, and theories of what would happen if war did come. What we would do. . My Dad was also a russian linguist so we would talk about communism and what he saw was wrong with it. Needless to say he was my Superman. He was so strong and smart. I believed nothing could happen to me while I was with him. That somehow when I was with him I was indestructible. 

 Every once in a while on our runs we would go to the obstacle course and run the obstacles. Except the monkey bars... They always freaked me out... for one they weren't your regular monkey bars... they were the ones that the Army guys used so the spacing was farther apart and they seemed to a little kid like me to be fifty feet off the freakin ground. I think it made my Dad crazy I would never try them, not even pretend like I was going to. He told me to try them every time we got to them. So one day I decided fine I'll do it. I made a deal with him. If I tried and I couldn't make it he would have to catch me. He agreed and off I went.. I climbed the mile into the sky it took to get to the first bar, as I gripped it the butterflies set in and I looked down at the ground and started to shake a little. But the fear didn't stop me. I looked down and saw my dad down there and knew he would catch me if I ran into trouble. So I swung out. Man that was a long first swing, I thought to myself, and went for the next one. Woooh almost missed that one...then to the next. I caught that next one with just my finger tips and kind of lose momentum. So I'm just hanging there on the bar, starting to lose my grip. I tell my Dad I can't do this I'm not going to make it. He tells me yes you can. Just keep going. Nope. I'm not going anyplace. I kind of squirm to try and get a little swing going so I can make it to the next bar and it doesn't  do much for me except make me slip. I looked down as I start to fall and I see my Dad he's right there. I'm sure he's going to catch me, but I don't think it clicked in his head to reach out and grab me and I hit the ground so hard it knocked the air out of me. Then I start to feel a burning in my arm and a crazy tingle. I buckle over not able to breath and my arm now almost on fire and starting to hurt like nothing I had felt in all my 6 little years. About the time I could breath again I started thinking "he told me he would catch me, he promised he would catch me" then I look at my arm trying to figure out what was going on with it. As I held it out it had this funny bend to it.  You know when you hurt yourself so bad that you get the cold then hot sweat and the crazy butterflies that actually feel like birds smashing around in your guts. Yeah that kind. Its the first time I had ever felt like that. I looked up at my Dad and he looked at my arm all twisted up, then he looked me dead in the eyes and I saw a quick flash of panic in his eyes. That was the first time I had seen that coming from him and I knew something was wrong... I wiped the tears out of my eyes and look my dad and said "you said you would catch me and you didn't. " I think about this time my dad was trying to figure out how to get me home because we were about a mile away from home so he kind of just brushed that off. I'm sure he felt bad about it. Instead of picking me up and kissing me and hugging me. Something I always do with my babies. Even if its a tiny little scratch i kiss them and hug them untill they stop crying and know that they will be ok. He went with what he knew..military... So he stood me up put his hands on my shoulders and told me I was ok and that I need to stop crying and not to look at it. We needed to get home. I stopped crying and told him I could make it and off we went running most of the way till I couldn't take the pain anymore. I learned a little bit about how much physical pain could push me that day. I also learned that I could manage it somewhat with thoughts I ran through my head. When the point came that I needed to walk, I started looking at everything around me and saying what it was in my head. Just so I could try and think about something other than my arm. I started saying colors and shapes everything I saw I said. It actually helped. I still use it today when something is in my head so hard it hurts thinking about it. Like when someone you love dies, your heart breaks, you lose trust in someone you never thought would hurt you. The thoughts that truly are all you can think about. So the pain settled to a dull throb and the apartments we lived in were in site so I started to feel a little better and I knew my mom would be right there. We walked in the door I followed my dad into our kitchen to where my mom was he told her we needed to go to the hospital. I'll never forget the look on her face as she turned around and took one look at a crooked mangled mess of an arm I was holding and went white as a ghost. She went and grabbed the keys to the car and off we went. Driving down cobble stone roads with a broken arm is not so much fun let me tell ya. We make it to the Army base hospital and it turned out that I need to have my arm set under anesthesia and stay the night in the hospital. That didn't sit well with me at all. When it came time to go back into surgery a nurse came at me with what looked to be the alaskan pipeline of needles I had enough and all but jumped out of the bed I was in. So after wrestling 3 nurses and a Dr. they got their shot in. I don't remember much after that till later that night. I woke up needing to go to the bathroom really bad. I was hooked up to i.v.'s and wires, all kinds of things. I called out to the nurse I could see at the end of the room. She couldn't hear me. I didn't want to yell because I was in a room filled with other kids and a lot of them were asleep. So I tried to get out of bed and make it on my own. I guess there is an alarm on the bed that tells the nurses when someone is out of bed. After they got done yelling at me and getting me back in my bed I asked if I could use the bathroom and they got a little mad at me and took me. When I was all settle again with monitors hooked back up things got real quite. I started thinking about how my dad didn't catch me. All he had to do was catch me. Now I know it wasn't his fault. It was just an accident, just a simple accident. That night laying there and thinking it formed a big part of who I am today and the biggest part of me I want to change. That night I decided the only person I could count on was me. No one else not friends, because they just leave you. Not family, because when they let you down that hurts more than anything, even if it is accidental. Thats how I have been living the last 28 years. Trust no one. Expect to be disappointed. Don't let anyone close enough to see the real you because it gives them the power to hurt you. It sucks. Its ruined so many special relationships I have had over the years. People you meet once upon a day dream. So many different people. All types, every race, every religion, all types of beliefs. Some to this day I could show up on the door step and know I will be taken care of. I know because I have done it a few times in my days from the jam's I get myself into. (stories for another time) Its made me lose my family for the second time now. I've lost my kids. I've lost once best friends. I have almost lost myself. I'm tired of losing. I HATE TO LOSE!! I really do. Somehow, I need to take my mind back to that day. That moment, I decided to give up faith in others and go about things my own way. Sometimes in life you need help. Sometimes you feel like you don't have a hand to reach for. Thats kind of where I'm at right now. I feel like my hands are slipping on the monkey bars again and this time there is no one down there. Not even someone to say they will catch me when I fall, I'm bound to fall and all I see is just that hard ground. And I've been here before, the last time it messed me up. So what to do, what to do. Well, I decided to swing for that next bar. I can do this. I just have to try. So I'm going to try. I have the same choice in front of me. This time I'm going to trust people. Open up a little and tell them how incredible and special they are to me. Show a little of me. Make myself give up the fear of being hurt by letting someone close. I'm going to try and reverse that night. See where that takes me because I know the other way really sucks. Or at least it has so far.

So an interesting thing happened to me today... I have been trying to think of what I wanted to say next...I wanted to tell a little of my BrOk3n story...but a new experience trumped my own story today... So I found out that my ex brother in law had died from a heroin o.d. last night... I wasn't too affected by it because for one, we aren't family and it's not like we know each other well or anything.. but his little girls and I used to be very close another life time ago...and I started thinking what if that was me..what if my kids lost their Daddy..their superman...their day dreamer...and I started to feel bad about not missing another person I have known and once was family, ( even if I thought he was a punk). Then my ex text me and said my little boy, my sweet little boy, didn't really understand when they told them and had thought it was me that was gone and wanted to talk to me..right about the same time I had started to feel so bad for my nieces' and thinking what if that was me... so I called him instantly and I could hear the relief in his little voice that his Daddy was just fine...I told him how much I loved him and how much I missed him...after I hung up I really started to think about those sweet little girls and how they cant call their Daddy to have him reassure them he's just fine and loves them so...but there is so much more to this part of the story because this same group of people have visited so much hurt to me and my kids and family and life..(thats for another time)..that I am kind of starting to learn a little about how it is to forgive someone that has offended you so bad...and the more I write the more you will know I have no forgiveness in me...if I have felt wronged in the ways I have, about certain things I have, there is no forgiveness. I have been hurt so bad all my life that I've become numb and just shake off the bad things that come my way...but it has made me hard and cold and semi careless...and its something within me that needs to change... I wish I could just go to those little girls and scoop them up and give them big kisses from their Uncle Bri and tell them it will be ok and that I am there for them anytime they need me...and I cant... and its enough to make a guy feel helpless...but so thankful it wasn't his own kids that was lost to one of the dark places of the world that I have become a custom to living in...not the drug parts...but the sorrow and wanting to just numb up with anything to make it stop hurting..to not have nightmares of life..so bad they wake you up just to make you wish you didn't. So what I learned today is to not take anyone that is in your life for granted... Even if you think they suck...because if you just look for a second you will see how the hurt has crossed over into peoples lives that are innocent and don't deserve to hurt this much at such a young age... I have always wished that if I had super powers I would want to be able to take away sadness for the people I love... I wish for that and then I turn around and send pain to people just because it hurts me so much to be close to another grown human being for the fear of being let down or disappointed... I have had a long history of losing the things that I hold closest and is made me forget who I am and who I was but its also reminded me of who I want to be and who I want to become... tomorrow I will write about my own story I wanted to share

What's with this BrOk3n thing??

     You may be wondering whats with this BrOk3n thing. Well, the answer to that is very complex yet very simple. The simple first. We all have been BrOk3n in one form or another. We all have a BrOk3n story of how pain, anger, hurt, sadness, disappointment, (you get the drift) has changed us. Some for the better, some for the worse. If you think about your own life story I am sure you will find things that have affected you so strongly that it changed who you are or what you believe. Things that have made you lose trust in people, yourself, your loved ones, god, and the world in general. I know I have. I have had life times worth of it. Now it's my turn to fight back and try to make a difference. I know I have also caused all of the things mentioned. That hurt, the hurt of knowing I have caused someone else so much suffering and sadness hurts me more then anything that has been done to me. So now I am trying to somehow redeem myself from the evil I have brought into others lives. This isn't an easy thing to do, but its something I feel I have to do. I don't want to just sit back and numb myself to the things that happen around me and watch them steal away and destroy life's tiny glimpses of happiness we are blessed with. Those little fragments of time, the moments that pull us through the darkness we all experience. So I come to you. The lost, lonely, confused, hurt, sad, disappointed, frightened, disheartened, and especially those of you that feel like you cant take the pain of everyday life you are willing to throw it away and give up. I come to you to beg and plead with all my heart for you and I to not feel or be alone anymore. That we can unite together to bring peace, kindness, love, honor, and dignity, back to each other. By standing together and replacing the voids of each others life. Filling in the missing pieces that have been taken out of our life puzzle. The only way that can happen is by changing ourselves first. Taking our BrOk3n stories to the world and letting each others see the harm it has done. The sadness that we can, and do bring to one of the other beautiful creatures that shares the same air, same existence, same feelings that you do. I, by far, am no one to be preaching or judging others, by any means. I have my demons and my sorrow, my own BrOk3n Stories. Things I never wanted to share with anyone, let alone the entire world. But if it means I can help someone else, that's my small redemption for some of the sadness I have brought into this beautifully incredible world of ours. I hope by sharing my thoughts, my feelings, and my own BrOk3n Story, I can try and make a difference in this cold, shallow, heartless world we share. With your help, I know, together we can be what changes world.