Dec
31
Goodbye 2010s, Hello 2020s

When I reflect on the 2010s, I recall a decade of feeling helpless in the face of tragedy and reacting with anger and determination to regain some control.

Face it, the 2010s sucked. But especially sucked for me in particular.

  • The company I worked for was sold to another company that laid me off at the end of 2012.
  • Unable to find work, I assumed thousands of dollars of student loan debt to further my education in 2013.
  • My brother died in May 2014.
  • I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea and started having to use a CPAP machine in 2016.
  • My wife left me and filed for divorce in 2010, triggering years of loneliness, animosity, and legal battles.
  • After the divorce, I was left with a house full of clutter and had to throw things away. I had accumulated items since 2001, had items from my Chattanooga apartment, items from my closed studio. Then my sister moved in. This meant throwing away or giving away so many things to which I had sentimental attachments.
  • The global war on terror really hit home when five men were shot and killed by a man just down the road from the office where I was working in Chattanooga.
  • My friend Don and a very nice lady I was dating named Dawn both died of cancer in 2017.
  • Once my coworkers found out I was turning 50, they began treating me differently. They presumed I was much younger.
  • This year was a particularly hellish way to bookend a miserable decade. Sickness, financial and professional struggles, a family crisis that left me feeling helpless.

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Nov
05
Once More Unto the Breach

If you are following me online, it’s eventual you’ll see that I am returning to my old stomping grounds, the place where my career first began. It’s been a long, twisting road — a very rocky one for much of 2019 — but I am happy to double back (or triple back, in this case).
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Sep
30
Raging Against the Dying of the Light

“Every time when I look in the mirror,
All these lines on my face getting clearer.
The past is gone.
It went by, like dusk to dawn.”
– Aerosmith

I don’t want to grow old. I refuse to “go gentle into that good night” and will “rage against the dying of the light,” as Dylan Thomas put it.

I  define “oldness” as a crescendo of blandness, diminished enthusiasm for life, less arousal/passion, and heightened fatigue. So set in our ways that we can no longer open our minds to accept we don’t know it all.

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Jul
31
Things I Want To Tell My Daughter On Her 18th Birthday

It has finally happened. That little baby who totally changed my life 18 years ago today is an official adult.

It’s cliché to say the time went so fast. In some ways, the changes came on too fast, but I felt every last one of those diapers I changed.

I was 33 years old when I became a father. My child lived in the pre-9/11 world for 42 days. She arrived before we had iPods, iPhones, and iPads.

She’s now old enough to buy a lottery ticket, enlist in the Army, get a tattoo or piercing, serve jury duty, drink alcohol in most European countries and Canada, go to jail, and vote for president.

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May
04
A Most Significant Week

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth Be With You…

I’m relaxing at home in Fort Payne after a week that included having surgery and closing a chapter in my own story.

I guess you could say I am a bit like Luke Skywalker collapsed in the snow of Hoth. I’ve removed myself from a dire situation after listening to my intuition, now I’m physically strained as my body mends from a stressful event. That voice is guiding me about what to do next, same as Obi Wan appeared to Luke as an apparition in the blizzard with instructions to incite the challenges that will propel our heroes on their next adventure and lead to sacrifice and growth.

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Apr
02
Time Travel and Other Tricks I Can Do

“I’m a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been…”
– Led Zeppelin, “Kashmir”

Well, sort of a “time traveler”. My job is a straight 45-minute drive from my house in Alabama on a good day with no traffic issues and driving the speed limit. I leave at 6:30 am and usually arrive just before 8:30.

No, I’m not that slow poke you curse as you pass me on the Interstate. Like a lot of people living in North Alabama, I have to drive a bit to get to work, which means passing through the top Northwest corner of Georgia and into the city of Chattanooga, which is located in South Central Tennessee.

It sounds more impressive when I tell people my commute takes me through 3 states.

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Dec
31
2019 Goals and Predictions

It’s time to put 2018 to bed and look ahead to the goals we can set in the new year. The chronological line is completely arbitrary, of course, but it’s fascinating to look at blocks of time to reflect on who we were and what mattered to us. Yesterday, I watched a marathon on CNN about “the 2000s” and the events of that decade. We are now in the final year of the following decade. How will historians look back on the events of the final year before our world entered “the twenties.” That sounds weird.

Transitioning to a new year is a healthy “reset button” for the mind, a chance to remind ourselves that time is slipping by, and we have a limited number of days remaining to get stuff done before they lower us into the ground. It’s also fun to guess what lies in store for us and review in 12 months to see how wrong we were.
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Copyright Steven Stiefel 2018. All Rights Reserved