People who have influenced me

Hey, remember Monday Musings….? It’s baaaaaaaack, baby! At least this week. I won’t call it TRULY back until I make time to do six in a row. In fact, as I’m wrapping this up, I’d say this isn’t even really back, more like sticking my toe in the pool and maybe next week I’ll dive in more.

If you want something to read that I wrote this morning before I got tired, I have a movie review as an unlocked post over on Patreon that you’re welcome to.

Meanwhile!

Sometimes a person will come into your world and change your life. Tell us about one of those people and what their presence has meant to you.

Lots of them, but many of them have since shuffled off this mortal coil, and I don’t really feel like talking about that right now – I woke up at 2AM this morning unable to go back to sleep and so I am tired and cranky and have a bit of a headache (is the weather changing?) and I don’t feel like really digging into that right now. It’s enough to say that many of them are in this tattoo, in the form of state trees or state flowers from where they were born. This way I carry them with me, everywhere, all times.

Who has had the strongest impact in your life? Do you remember the day you met them? Tell us the story.

See above.

Is there anyone who has had a huge impact on you that you have never met (a celebrity, a star in your field, an author, etc.)? Why is this person so instrumental for you?

OK, I am clearly too tired to really be doing this right now, my answers are shit and not introspective at all. There are a lot of ‘famous’ people I admire, but … have they had an impact? Hmm. I’d say maybe…. Sheri S. Tepper, author. Richard Adams, author. C. S. Lewis, author. Lewis Carroll, author. All of them have written books that have touched my life; but the way Sheri Tepper lived her life – the things she did, the number of books she wrote – is admirable and I wish I could do the same.

Tell a story of a person who influenced you by setting a bad example.

I knew someone who was an addict and perpetually in trouble, usually man trouble, usually trouble she needed help getting out of. On an uncountable number of occasions there were two other people – gentle, kind, caring people who would go to the ends of the earth for people they loved – who would drop everything and go save her. An hour away or a full day’s drive away, they would drop everything, every time, pull her out of the bad situation and make sure she had what she needed and set her on her feet again…. only to do the same thing six months or a year later.

Because of this person, I never wanted to be someone’s burden. I never wanted to be the person who either out of ineptitude or weaponized helplessness always needed other people to swoop in and set me right. I didn’t want to be a complete fuckup who always messed up in the same way without learning any lessons other than someone else will get you out of it.

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OK, this is a bit of a blah post – I meant to do better but I’ve just been up too long and my brain has stopped working well. So here’s just under 600 words and I will be in dreamland in about 15 minutes! Man, if I am this tired the day after tomorrow there’s no way I can stay up to watch the ball drop!