Dear Rob

Dear Rob,

Why do you have a blog if you never post? Why do you post if no one reads it? To get things off your mind of course. You've read some old blog posts today and realized that not much has changed in that head of yours over time. You still have the same fears, still have the same doubts and still have the same issues in life. You're approaching your 27th birthday now and maybe that is the year that you can finally take a hold of your life, to follow your heart and your dreams. I feel like I need to tell you some things though before we can move on to the future. Things that have happened in your life that have shaped the things holding you back.

Starting at a young age you were never the same as anyone else, be it the glasses, the speech impediment, there was always something to make you feel like you just weren't normal. As you grew up and realized that people didn't look at you as different you made friends and went on with life as it was normal. Normal is something that you've grown to see as unattainable, but we will get to that. As your school years progressed you developed intelligence, you developed relationships with people, the ability to get along with anyone. Friends came, and friends went, some were friends for what seemed like it would be life. Elementary school was great, until the end of 8th grade when it all came crashing down, the beginning of the end so to speak. Losing out on class Valedictorian by one vote, you were appointed to thank the parents instead, except it wasn't exactly something that you were wanting to do at the time. Arriving at graduation after just another night of knowing that your parents are going to separate and having to then proceed to act like everything was awesome and say how much they helped through the school years, and how much we appreciated them and lead the rest of the class down to give flowers wasn't the best experience. Thankfully my teacher was able to convince me I'd regret not doing it one day and that despite what was occurring, that they really were the rock that I leaned on throughout school.

That summer was the last time I saw my mother, its been something like 14 or 15 years now since we went out for dinner with her new boyfriend at the time and was promised that she'd be back and on and on. Not a single thing that was promised at that dinner actually occurred, and sometimes it feels like I don't have a mother, though I understand that it is and wasn't possible for her to come back. I can honestly say that I have forgiven her for leaving, but a small part of me hasn't yet forgiven her for not coming back. Is that an underlying issue in where I stand today? I was probably more of a mom suck growing up then my siblings and it took a lot out of me at that time. Everyone will tell you I am a lot more like my mother was then what my father was.

High school, the time of change, the time where friends go in separate directions and you make new friends. I had so many different groups of friends in high school that I feel like I missed out on the connections that other people have. A lot of that is my fault for not staying connected with people and not being more out going and striking up conversations, but it sucks when you had a load of friends and then slowly they dwindle away until you don't know who your friends are anymore. I sort of just coasted my way through high school, keeping mostly high marks all the way through. I had nothing better to focus on; no longer played sports, girls weren't interested in me, I wasn't interested in drugs or alcohol/partys, so I focused more on school. High school is the time where I started to get a lot more self conscious I guess would be the best way to describe it, depressed almost. I watched everyone else seemingly getting any girl they wanted, watched them joking with their friends and realized that none of that happened for me.

Grade 12 is where things started to change, I had been attending church for a couple years at that point and finally truly believed in what was being spoken about. God became real to me in that year and I fully committed my life to him. That was a big step as I had kicked it around before, I believed but wasn't willing to take that leap. My luck seemingly started to turn around at that point, started making great friends, met a girl who I would eventually start a relationship with, was happy, a lot more positive and just life was great overall. There was an experience in grade 12 that showed how much people cared about me, and made me thank God for opening my eyes when he did. I had earlier in the evening attended the church youth Christmas Banquet, went out to the movies afterwards, came home and zonked out in bed as per normal. At some point through out the night I was awoken out of slumber by what seemed to me was a gentle shake, rolled over and looked, didn't see anything rolled back and realized there was a bright orange glow coming from the hallway. Still half a sleep I stumbled my way out of my room to see smoke filling my families apartment and my father asleep at the computer. I don't know what drove me, I had a determination of a thousand people as I rushed to shake my father awake and get him out of the apartment, while at the same time knocking on everyone's doors in order to ensure they were awake and able to get out of the building.

I think about it all the time, what would of happened if I didn't wake up when I did... would I still be here? More importantly, would my dad still be here? He spent a few days in the hospital from the smoke and I tried to act as if nothing happened. There was an outflow of support from friends, family, teachers and people we didn't even know. It was amazing to see, especially the teachers that had taught myself or my siblings come together and pretty much supply us with everything that was needed to get back to a somewhat normal life. Some teachers let me out of tests, final assignments, gave me breaks when I needed them and for that I will forever be grateful. My friends were super supportive and kept my head high when I went to them broken about having to answer the same questions over and over and just wanting people to stop, they showed me that people weren't asking because they're curious, they're asking because they care and want to help.

As previously mentioned grade 12 brought my first relationship. It was like any relationship in that it had its highs and its lows, for nearly four years. I thought she was the one I would spend the rest of my life with at the time, but it was not in Gods will. We were not the people we wanted to be when we were together, we were both fake and trying to sell an image apart from the life we were living it seemed. I became someone I one hundred percent never wanted to be after catching her cheating on me. I became disinterested in what was best for either of us, and more interested in what I could get out of the relationship before it ended, and seemingly looking back, in trying to make her life a living hell. There was a part of me during that period that still wanted to spend my life with her, and I never once stopped loving her. It was just my way of coping I suppose, and looking back the best thing would of been to break up at the time that the truth came out, but that period of darkness and being whom I never was meant to be, led both of us to marriage and young children.

That relationship ruined me for a long time, it took years to put my confidence and heart back together. I had hatred, I had spite, I had every feeling imaginable in those years. Slowly with the help of those closest to me I began to rebuild the things I had lost, began to lower my shield, remove my bubble so to speak. I've forgiven her, she's forgiven me, but sometimes I wonder if I've forgiven myself.

We're now in the present, Rob, where you have more than you'd ever dreamed of. You're sitting here on the couch at 1 in the morning while your perfect family sleeps. The girl you've always dreamed of is your wife, and you have the most amazing little daughter who just had her first birthday. Life is still hard, but if life was easy all the time then what would we ever learn. I haven't been the best husband, I haven't been the Christian I want to be, and I really have no excuse for either. Hating yourself constantly and putting yourself down isn't a good enough reason to neglect your wife and your Saviour. There are tons of people who love me, and I can't love myself. If I can't pay a bill I beat myself up for weeks, if I let someone down, I feel like the world would be better off without me. It's stupid really. If I could get past my hatred for myself, and stop being so hard on myself, I feel I would be a much better husband and more passionate about my faith.

So Rob, I, writing this letter isn't about making yourself feel sorry for yourself, its to get all that out of your system and let you remind yourself that you are more than what you currently feel you are. It doesn't matter what people around you say you are, you are more than that and you are a good person. You are a person with a faith that people around the world are still searching for, you are a person with a family that men dream and pray for every night. You have a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in with your beautiful wife, with your beautiful daughter sleeping next to you. You are everything your wife tells you that you are, and you need to work on the things that you are not. You are smart, you are healthy, you are most of all lucky.

Don't dwell on yourself Robert, look around you, as Tenth Avenue North says "You are more than the choices that you make, you are more than sum of your past mistakes." It's time to wake up Rob, it is time to be the man, the father, the son, the husband that you can be, that you want to be. Rob you have people that love you, you have people that want to lift you up and support you. Rob, this is the time, this is the place, move on from your worries, move on from your self hatred. Love yourself, love your family, love your daughter, love your wife and love your God.

Rob, I know I haven't said it in a long time, but I love you.
Go get some sleep,

Rob

All of Me... Positives and Negatives.

Tonight was date night, it wasn't a perfect night to say the least but I tried. We still had fun most of the time, we still held hands and put our perfect child to bed. It wasn't the best idea for a date night when I think back upon it, but live and learn right?

I've been spending the last few hours reading about restaurants, and peoples tips on being romantic, and man is every single person different or what? Everything I read is different than the rest. I can admit that I am not the best at being romantic, and now that life's stress is wearing both myself and Jenn down there it is hard to think that things can be better. I want with all of me to make her happy, to provide her with the over-the-top love that she deserves, the love that I have for her but my mind is making it hard to show. I'm tired of stress, I'm tired of worry, I just want to love.

Love is a magical thing, some will say it's a myth, some will say it's a choice, some will say you'll only love once, others love hundreds of times. Love can come in all shapes and forms, as I love Jenn, and I love my daughter. My love for Jenn outweighs and is much different than the love for my daughter. That's not to say that I wouldn't do anything for my daughter to be happy, and I think that is part of my issue when it comes to finding time to love on Jenn... we are always focused on our daughter. Considering her age, she needs a lot of attention, but we still need to focus on each other, put each other on a pedestal, love on each other and make the other feel special.

Seven days, that is what I am going to attempt, for seven days I am going to try my God's honest hardest to put love before worry, love before stress, and work my way out of this funk, out of this depression like state. I know who I am, I know who I have been, I know whom I can be and what I am is not who I am. I am living in a state of fear, a state of stress and worry, a state where every day I am more concerned about what could go wrong, or where the money is going to come from, or if she's going to leave me, if my child is going to keep on being the perfect human being. Some of those fears and stresses are real, many are a figment of my imagination playing tricks on me. What would life look like if I tried my hardest to wake up in the morning and look at the positive? I honestly don't know.

I am going to head to bed, I am going to pray, and I am going to wake up tomorrow morning and try to look on the bright side of everything. Try to start a day and end a day positively, not let the stress of life ruin those areas of life that I have been blessed in. Tomorrow is a new day, I want to be positive, I want to be happy... is it a choice? I am about to find out...

Cause I'm So Happy?

Yesterday I found a documentary on Netflix simply called "Happy". The description stated that it was to show what made people happy from the Kalkuta slums to the deep south of Louisiana. I figured why not, it has to be interesting, right? It was actually pretty great and made you think about how you look at happiness in your own life. I mean when you really think about it, are you happy? Is happy just another emotion for you or are you truly happy from the heart outwards. I'm going to tackle this question within myself and maybe you'll be led to think about your own life.

Let me look at today as a small sample size first; woke up to feed my daughter, changed her poopy diaper then proceed about the day. Shave, kiss fiancee, dress Ains, put her in car seat, head to church, worship, sermon, communion, quickly communicate with a few people, home, have lunch made for me, play with Ains, watch TV shows, put her down for nap and have time alone with my fiancée to chat and cuddle. Now here I am writing a blog and watching a world junior game between two countries I have no connection to. Pretty boring day right? I beg to differ, and I failed to mention that Ains has teeth starting to come in so she is extremely unpredictable.

I found that so far today has been an overall happy day for me, let's break it down:

1. I wake up to the two most beautiful girls in the morning.

2. I have a God that loves me and I had a chance to once again return that love, while at the same time be taught more about Him and how to grow deeper with Him.

3. Jenn cooked a delicious lunch of pasta while I played with Ains and got to see her giggle and roll around as she has recently learned.

4. Time alone with Jenn is rare, so I will take whatever opportunity I can get.

5. I'm writing and blog while watching hockey and no one has complained yet.

Today is a great day. Our life has a lot of uncertainty in it currently and though that's always present, I choose to look past it and enjoy the life I have. We're exploring all options to make some of those uncertainties into things we no longer need to think about, and as long as I have my little family and my big God, I will choose to be happy as much as possible.

Tomorrow I head back to work with question marks, but I need to turn that avenue of my life into a happy one as well to sustain the happiness at home. I love my job for the most part, so minds well enjoy it as long as I am working it. Financial stresses make it more difficult to enjoy working as you always hope that your job will be enough to sustain your family, but I need to start looking past that and enjoy the chances and opportunities put in front of me.

There's lots of things I'm life that I have chosen to allow me to be depressed and bring those people around me down and ruin their days as well. Happiness though a chemical reaction, is really a choice and having a positive mental attitude is really a sustainable way to maintain your happiness. I'm tired of feeing depressed, sad and like I am not capable, so from this point forward I am going to wake up every morning and write down the the things I am thankful for, the things I have to look forward to that day, and a small goal or two to accomplish every day. I'm determined to live a happy life, which to me will be a successful life.

Until next time! I'm Rob Quick... And these are my ramblings.

The Dawn of A New Age

As the title of my blog says this is merely a blog of my random ramblings. I created the blog in 2010 in order to post a single entry that I feared may get lost in the world of Facebook, I then instantly forgot that it existed. If anyone knows me they know I am a man of few words but writing brings those words out much easier for me. I hope to write on here often, if no one reads it I will have a personal memoir of my thoughts for the rest of my life, or at least until Google deletes them from existence.

What will be posted depends on the day but will likely be focused around those things I enjoy most in life; God, family, hockey, wrestling and randomness. Ask my fiancée if you don't think randomness falls into a thing most enjoyed in life for me... She'll tell you I enjoy the most random things and try to talk about them on a daily basis. So that's that! I'll post often, read what youre interested in reading, skip what you think is lame, comment when you feel led to, maybe we'll have some interesting conversation.

I'm Rob Quick, and these are my ramblings.

There Will Be A Day...

God has a plan for us all, it says so all through out the Bible. If you are a follower of Christ, He will guide and lead you, He will make your path the one that you’re supposed to be on if you let Him. I have had a hard time lately with this, cause that battle between what you feel God wants for you, and what He actually wants from you are usually two totally different things. I’m trying to come to terms with how the silence can be a blessing, the silence can be a cure for what aches me. I am having a hard time dealing with the silence. I was so used to having noise in my life, so used to the phone going off, the IM going off, always having someone around to talk with, no matter what. Yet here I sit, alone in my kitchen, in utter and complete silence.

This silence is tearing me apart, it is forcing me to think of things that I would have never thought of before. How decisions that I made in the past, right or wrong, need to be dealt with, and that as much as I would of liked to believe I was a Christian, I really wasn’t. I was living a lie, I was playing the game, so to speak, of Christianity, I was lost in a sea of faces, just another face in the crowd. No matter how much I prayed, or went to church, my heart wasn’t in it, I took control of my own life, instead of allowing myself to be led to places I am supposed to be. I know that I threw God out of my life, and I will never deny that, and I am extremely grateful that I have actually realized that.

What are the next steps though, I sit here, in the silence, the more I pray, the quieter it gets. I’m at that moment where the silence is all I have, where God is all there is to lean on, He knows Im coming home, he knows what I have done, and he knows that I have made mistakes, but He knows that I am willing to change, and correct those wrongs, and turn them into rights. This silence is eating me alive, I trust that I will be lead in the right direction, but the thought of giving up my life is fearsome, it is terrifying. I’ve never ever had a moment like this when the silence is so loud that you can hear God knocking, you can hear the battle going on around you for your life. God is fighting off the demons in my life, and I can hear it, I can feel it, the tug-a-war over my heart, over my mind.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve made a lot of right choices, but God doesn’t care about either, he cares about the here, and the now, the willingness to let go, and let Him guide my life towards the great and fantastic plan that he has in store for me. It’s my responsibility to let Him take me, all of me, and mould me into what He wants me to be, what He has planned for my life. He is the great Healer, and the great Reconciler, He is the only one that can see the future, and without Him, I would be walking aimlessly through life, always leaving the best of me behind.

I was going through Youtube, listening to music, songs to help lift my spirits, and I don’t think there is a better one then Jeremy Camps: There Will Be A Day. The song can be used in so many different situations in life, no matter what is bringing you pain, no matter how bad things are, God promises His children, that there will be a day, where there is no more earthly pain, all the things of Earth, will be no more, God promises that there is a place, where you will be eternally that is free of pain, free of fear, free of the troubles that plague you on this planet.

It may seem like its not worth it now, but trust me when I say, that kicking God out of your life, takes away all that you think is good, without God, you will eventually feel the pain of this earth, if you take your own path, instead of allowing God to take control of your life and lead you, to that place, where the beauty makes the battle on earth worth it. He keeps his promises, if you keep yours, and I am ready, I am ready to step out of myself, and let God take control of me. Its not an easy thing to say, but it is something that is necessary, regardless of what I do, in this silence I hear God calling me, I see him waiting at the end of the road, in front of the house I left years ago, proclaiming I can do this on my own. He’s waiting with open arms, as long as I have an open heart, and after years of playing the game, my heart is open, and the silence though deafening, is a blessing.

There Will Be A Day: Jeremy Camp:

I try to hold on to this world with everything I have
But I feel the weight of what it brings, and the hurt that tries to grab
The many trials that seem to never end, His word declares this truth,
that we will enter in this rest with wonders anew

But I hold on to this hope and the promise that He brings
That there will be a place with no more suffering

(Chorus)
There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more
fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more,
we'll see Jesus face to face
But until that day, we'll hold on to you always

I know the journey seems so long
You feel you’re walking on your own
But there has never been a step
Where you’ve walked out all alone

Troubled soul don’t lose your heart
Cause joy and peace he brings
And the beauty that’s in store
Outweighs the hurt of life’s sting

But I hold on to this hope and the promise that He brings
That there will be a place with no more suffering

(Chorus)

I can’t wait until that day where the very one I’ve lived for always will
wipe away the sorrow that I’ve faced
To touch the scars that rescued me from a life of shame and misery
this is why this is why I sing

There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more
fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more,
we'll see Jesus face to face

There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more
fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more,
we'll see Jesus face to face

There will be a day, he will wipe away the tears,
He will wipe away the tears,
He will wipe away the tears,
There will be a day.