NTZ's blog: "A Return Of Thought"

It's hard for me to watch anything about Jim Valvano, his ESPY speech, and the 1983 NC State Wolfpack team without holding back tears at some point. Soon after there is nothing left to hold back, not when your cheeks become a portrait of emotions flowing downward. There is a lot of reflecting when it's only me and my mind talking. Conversations on the past we have had and the decisions made or wasn't made that has brought us where we are today. Plenty of mistakes. Handful of regrets. Beautiful memories that keeps a man going in a world he struggled believing was meant for him to venture out to. I had a conversation with a woman in my life who is one of a few who I never hesitate in calling my friend. As usual things turn into about both our personal situations. She's single with a child, i'm just single. The belief that we both will be having this same conversation 20 years from now, both of us still single. Then she says it, that I would understand one day once I have a child. My response is always never going to happen. She replies you don't know, can't predict what is to come. Well you know that is true and always a chance unless I don't have sex...

...she laughs. YOU! GREG, NOT HAVING SEX! You fell out the bed and hit your head, can't tell me you not going to have sex...

I guess I see what picture 2013 has painted of me in the eyes of my friends. Since our friendship has began, she knows everything. I mean everything. She's the one person I tell. She knows all about 2013 and how I don't want to repeat last year again. Yes, I'm maybe not Don Juan but I can make a couple calls if need be. I have options, but the point of mentioning not have sex is me saying two things. The obvious of you can't have kids if you don't have sex and the personal feelings that the next sexual experience shall be enjoyed with the next one to become my love. It's alright, you can laugh too. Would be lying if I said that even I wasn't laughing at myself. When did this thought come to be?

That was just a small portion of the conversation we had hours before I watched the documentary about NC State beating Phi Slamma Jamma Houston team in 1983. The battle of Jimmy V and cancer, seeing the last months of his life. It is in that speech at the ESPYs he said that you have had a full day if you have done three things:

Laughed
Think
Have your emotions turned into tears.

Something I actually believe in and with my thought process lately of bettering myself, I end up combining the thoughts of that speech with the conversation of my friend.  At the same time holding back some tears, which became nothing left to hold back. I picked up my phone and started to delete. Things that have me telling people, would be bad if anyone got my phone. Pictures and video sent and received, why do I still have these? Almost an accumulation of if over the past 2 years, why do I still have these? They have no purpose today while when they were taken they were adult enjoyment between I and the sender. No need to carry them on. No faces to many of them and yet I can tell you who they are. Though it's nothing I regret. Nothing to be ashamed of and nothing embarrassing. Just a man with good friends in his life, interesting ones as well. Which brings it back to my friend who I was talking to.

Knowing my efforts in losing weight again she speaks on my looks and how there is nothing wrong with me when I speak about how i'm too self conscious to go in a gym. I know i'm attractive but at the same time there is something that has to be fixed. How I feel about myself today is totally different in the years past. Back then I was ugly and you couldn't tell me different. You couldn't convince me not. I was never ugly and just was too hard on myself she says. I agree today, but all the yesterdays before was a hatred for my appearance. Though as I said, some things still need fixing. That's what i'm doing. No one really understand my feelings in the past. I always ask them, what would you think of yourself when the first time someone told you that you look good in person happened in your mid twenties? That you would go through high school, college, have a job, be around friends and friends of your friends, and be out in public for some to see and yet the first time you even hear you look good happens in your mid twenties. If you're already someone with low confidence and low self esteem then you would never think you are attractive. So I joked, the world made a mistake in letting me think I was. They created a monster. I am not responsible for the terror I cause in the future...it's all on her and others. :)

Not sure how many will end up reading this and this is not a disrespect to those online who have known me since I was 20, some of you looked at me then with opinions of attractive. Though you know that same feeling, there is a difference when those eyes are right in front of you. My path to where I am today is one that many wouldn't follow and couldn't emotionally understand. There is something pathetic that lies in the cracks of that road I walked to get here but I am here. Where life wasn't worth having and now its what can I do to make things better for me. All you have to say to that is never give up. Whatever you want out of things, never give up. Wipes my tears.