The Blog of Mike Bridgman

Ok, so my first post of my "New Direction" is already here, see how great things are moving along already?  The Blog of Mike Bridgman...   While the name may or may not leave something to be desired depending on what your taste for a catchy title should be, the blog itself is actualy quite, well, wonderful.  I am not sure what the theme or purpose behind the blog is, and I actually think that it might not have one at all.  Which isn't such a bad thing as it leaves him open to discuss all kinds of fun things.  The man himself is quite interesting as I have exchanged an email or two with him and seen some of his ideas at work.  I know that one project I can't wait to see finished is his bio page, which really is actually a project, not just him writing a bio, as crazy as that might be...  Mike does have a full time job as a web designer, and he also does freelance work in the field as well on an, if I am not too busy to get to it basis.  He does have samples of work that he has done in the past, and I dare say that his blog is quite attractive itself, in an I don't want to attract to much attention kind of way.  Now, although there are elements of web page design in his blog, that isn't really as far as I can tell, what is blog is all about.

New Direction

I have to say that it is amazing what pure boredom can produce. I have been spending my days fighting heavyweight bouts with boredom. It has gotten to the point that at night, when normal people are usually sleeping (well at least most of the semi-normal people, not that I am quite sure what normal even means. I mean, normal is just the average of behavior of all things that are like the thing that you are talking about isn't it? Oh wait, we are not discussing normality, I actually have something important to say...)... Like I was saying, when normal people are usually sleeping, I have been finding that I am so far gone over the boundary of the land of boredom that I can not even start to begin to get to sleep. In these fits of not sleeping even when I am so exhaustingly trying to sleep, my brain starts to kick into overdrive (or maybe it is just going from neutral to drive...), and I have all kinds of crazy ideas and daydreams that just happen to be occurring at night.

One of these ideas, among many others, stuck me as pure genius. Then I continued to think about it and although it did strike me as pure genius, I do have to say that to any other person it would probably only seem to be a bit of common sense. I was rather disappointed in this observation so I continued to think on it until it came full circle back to be pure genius and I all around felt swell about the entire idea.

To recreate one's own work?

I was writing an email to the pretty much only person I ever write emails to anymore and something came up. We have this thing going back and forth where we put a quote in the subject line(well mostly her, since most of my subjects start with Re:). I decided to do my occasional (maybe very occasional?) input into the little quirk by looking up a quote to put in. I came across this quote that struck me like, as my friend used to say, a sucker punch right to the brain...

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
~Edna St Vincent Millay

Who we are

What is this place? This world? Is the road mine to take where I want or am I on a path out of control that will throw me off whenever it wants? I am only a man. What is a man? Is he a king of his domain, is the world his oyster? Or is he the plankton in the ocean, a spec of sand on the beach? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say, but who are they, and how do they know? What makes this life worth living... Sometimes I feel as if I have all of the answers... Sometimes I feel like I am five years old again and trying to do calculus. I am many things but yet I am nothing. I am every one of you, but you are none of me. I am none of you but you are all of me.

Just a Quickie...

As the title suggests this is a very fast and furious post to update all two maybe (and that is a very thin and stretched maybe) three of you who read this few and far between blog on a few important matters.

1. I am currently deployed to Afghanistan.

2. That was really the only important thing I had to say.

On a serious not though folks, yes I am currently deployed and will be for the normal tour of approximately a year (unless things change which they can and usually do but we hope for the best around here). What does this mean to you? Well not much that really affects your normal daily life... that is unless you know me personally (and those of you that I do.... just keep that to yourself please). Some things that may affect you as a loving and avid reader of my so called blog are that I have limited access to the internet and everything on it. There is a good side to all of this though.... with my current surrounding and environment I may have more and better content worth writing about so it may actually improve my blog content and not hinder it in any way. This is only a possibility and quickly scatted through my noggin, but it is possible none the less.

So I think that about covers it... I hope to let you hear from me sooner rather than later.... cheerio mate (been hanging around too many Brits I suppose....)

Already Gone...

I know I need to do this, but it seems my motivation is lacking and content unknown to me. I decided to just start writing and let my mind wander and the words flow forth. Which oddly enough is what I normally do anyways, just with a little direction to start with... I am gone from the United States now.... in a country that ends with a "stan" and on my way to another one that ends with a "stan". So I am gone again, away from family and friends, away from convenience and freedom. I sometimes look back on my life and think all I am ever doing is leaving. I wonder why I would think of it that way... Why not see it as always going somewhere instead of always leaving someone? Is it better that I look upon the sadness of leaving loved ones or that I should look to the enjoyment of going new places. Except most of the places I seem to go are not by choice and really aren't that enjoyable. And yet I seem to deal with leaving extraordinarily well compared to most people I know and see. Is it because I was never really close to many people when I was young? Is it because I moved around and lived with different parents? I have no idea, but I hate the idea that calls out to me every time I broach the subject in my mind. That I am good at leaving... If there was something to ever be good at, is this something anyone should want to be good at? Makes me think about the song Should've Been A Cowboy by Toby Keith...

I bet you've never heard ole Marshall Dylan say
Miss Kitty have you ever thought of running away
Settling down would you marry me
If I ask you twice and beg you pretty please
She'd of said Yes in a New York minute
They never tied the knot
His heart wasn't in it
He just stole a kiss as he road away
He never hung his hat up, at Kitty's place

You can call me whiny...

Why is it that I turn to writing in order to fully express myself. Spoken word never seems to convey what strikes at my inner chords as well as the written form. Is it that I can go back and edit them over and over again to get them just right? I always wonder this as I return here over and over again (although it is sporadically I know and apologize.) Although this really has nothing to do with why I am visiting you here once again.

This is about longing. Not the feeling of when you want something specific to eat... That is just a craving, very temporary and easily sated. Longing is so much more. A soul churning, aching, painful and emotional pull on your very being. Feeling like part of who you are is missing and all you want in life is to bring it back to its rightful place. I have been longing for something. I have been needing it ever since the first time it came into my life. How is it that something you never even knew existed only a moment before can instantly be so vital to you that you feel half empty without it, like you don't even know how you lived this long not even knowing it was missing. Now what if this object of your desire is so close and yet always seems to be out of reach? Whether it is just outside, down the road, across town, across the country or even the world... it constantly feels like no matter what genius plan or plot you think up in order to bring it close, there is always a reason that it must stay away... Maybe I am romanticizing and overreacting you would say... Well, maybe I am... I have been without far too long and it gnaws at my essence, my will, my sanity... What last week may have been simply a nuisance is this week maddening. How many excuses can one mind withstand before it starts to fracture and fail? Granted, I have not given in to such an extreme end of the scale as to lose my reasoning and understanding.. But I am forced to wonder if that may become an issue in the future.

For now distance is not a limiting factor, but in the future it will be. If the situation now, when being so close, drives me this batty... what will it be when there is half the world in the way? Will it be easier since there is so obvious a barrier to stop me from having what it is I seek? Or will it only enhance the aggravation, disappointment and boiling anger that I already feel rising within me? I have been through many trials in life... separation, loneliness, physical, emotional and monetary hardships, betrayal and the list can roll on... Is having something that you ache for so close but still unable to have with you... is that worse than anything else?

As most of you know I do not like to talk about my job often, but here I think that there is a reason to discuss something. There are many things that are very unique to military life. One that I think is very hard for anyone else to understand is this... The sense of urgency, of time running out, how you have to squeeze all of the joy and time out of life, because you know you will be leaving again soon... To know that you will not see these places, smell this air, taste this food... and more importantly, to look into her eyes, to smell her hair, to taste her kiss, and to hold her in your arms... Those are things that can drive you, for good or ill... To let go of your routines and the daily life that most of you live... To think, if I never see this place, my house, my car, my home town... To think if I never see these people, my mother, father, my sons and daughters, my wife (or husband)... If I never see them again when I walk away this time... What will I remember in my last moment, and what will they remember for the rest of theirs? Does that make you question how you are living life? Does it make you wonder how could someone ever do such a thing? Can you do it? Can you do it over and over again? That is what today's military faces year after year... they volunteer to do it... Now I won't say that they volunteer to do it for you, for America, for our government... no I won't say that... I will say that they do it for their one stop light home towns, for their parents and grandparents, for their wives (and husbands) and for their children. They don't do it for you, they don't even know you, they do it for the people they care about. You are just a lucky benefactor, a side effect.

But back to business... If you had to walk away from this life, for and undetermined amount of time... Would it make you anxious? Hurried? Rushed? Desperate even? What would you spend your time before you left doing? Who would you spend your time with? Now, what if that person you wanted to spend your time with... what if you couldn't? Would you describe the feeling of wanting to spend time with that person... would you describe as a deep soul aching longing? I think I have brought this full circle...

Letter to self

Dear Self,

Why don't you ever stay on schedule with my schedule? Why is it that when I need to go to sleep you want to stay up and when I need to get up you want to sleep? We have been doing this same job for five years now, you should be used to it by now... I mean really, it should not be this hard to come to an agreement. I have tried to compromise with you, I give an hour here and you make me feel like crap in the morning. I take an hour there and you STILL make me feel like crap in the morning. Why do you hate me so? I understand you might resent me a little, I have used and abused you, but not too much right? I mean, a few piercings, some tattoos, lots of Red Bull, but hey, I give you healthy foods, vitamins and exercise... that is a fair exchange right? We need to work on this. Is there a return policy on you...me? This is your warning, you better start compromising more or I am getting my money back...

The Road Trip of Life

Once again my well laid plans of actually blogging has hit the wall as per usual.... Well put that hatred of being denied such divine writing as mine for so long aside and rejoice in the coming of more entries starting right now.

I am currently planning a huge (well huge to me) event that is going to mark a major item off of my bucket list (and yes I actually have one... don't you?). I am planning a 16 day road trip across the country. I will be traveling from Myrtle Beach, SC all the way to San Diego, CA then following Route 66 back across the country stopping in Louisville, KY and Nashville, TN on my way back to North Carolina. It is going to be amazing and I am very excited. Although as I plan this trip it makes ponder on the course of my life and the people or lack of people in it.

What has brought me to this point in my life? It is amazing to me that I even have the opportunity to take this trip. What amazes me more so than having the chance is that I am actually getting up and making it happen. I have always envied the people I see and talk to that seize every opportunity in their life to experience the world. How many people have I sat and listened to, stranger and friend alike, weave their tales of adventure and excitement. How even the mundane, when re-told in such light, seems worlds above what I myself have experienced. I am a man from a big family in a small town, one of those towns that most people never get out of. Who would have thought that I could see the world, or even this whole country? It fills me with an undeniable giddyness to know that I am actually going to do what I have only seen in movies and heard in stories.

Now comes the other end of this spectrum... It is in these monumental life moments that you stop and look around. Only when everything seems to be going a million and a half miles an hour can you ever truly stop and see the real picture around you. What I see when I look around is a half life. Something that, while yes it is a life, it seems only half full (or half empty, either way something is missing). I have no one that can truly share these moments with me. No one to check off their bucket list while I do mine. No one to high five or celebrate with when something totally awesome happens. Those events that you know no one will believe even if you did catch it on camera. It would be a real treat to have someone to at least corroborate how totally sweet that cactus we saw in the desert was. (Just an example... I hope something better than a sweet cactus is the highlight of my trip...). I don't know if there is some greater plan to this world, or if it is just me and my own ingenuity, but I know that I am really tired of waiting for something to happen. I am getting out and this is the first step. I will see what happens in life when I am pushing the limit instead of being dragged along by it... There is definitely more to come on this story...

Girls and boys...

Why is it that the opposite sex, no matter how old or young you may be, always has the ability to stir such amazing feelings within you? One would think that as we age, those butterflies and sparks of the teenage years would wane. That the overflowing nervous energy would not be able to paralyze us as it did on the night of our first kiss. Yet, here we are, in our 20's, 30's, 40's and maybe further on, and struck dumb with those same feelings. I had to actually stop myself recently, as I busied myself around my messy house, maybe loading the dishwasher or some other menial task, I actually stopped. Froze, as the thought struck me. My mind whirled me back to a picture of myself as a small boy, holding a hand picked dandelion behind my back as I nervously approached a pretty girl. Cheeks flushed, feeling the heat radiate from my body, wondering what would happen, thinking that the next few seconds would determine the rest of my life. There, standing in my kitchen, of my home that I own, a 24 year old man (some may argue still a boy, but that is beside the point), I realized that I was struck with the very same feeling. That, what can only be described (if it can be described at all) as a nervous, almost giddy, energy. How is it that, we are able to have those feelings over and over again, as if the world rests on what happens in those next seconds, minutes, hours... It is something that I have not yet been able to understand. The same with how we can watch someone, while we are sitting with them on the couch, or laying side by side in bed, maybe even at dinner with a group of friends, we can see all of the small things. How they twirl their hair, the way the corners of their eyes crinkle when they laugh, the way they absently brush against your arm or back, how that one piece of hair never seems to stay put and falls down, yet they never seem to understand and sweep it back again and again. All in an instant, you can take it in. How seconds can seem like lifetimes and lifetimes like only seconds. It is amazing what infatuation does to us, these frail human beings that we are.

People often say there is no such thing as magic, but how can that be. When a simple look can enspell you, a touch can light you on fire, and a tear can break your heart. Is this not magic? I have to say that it feels that way. Can you think of anything that will stop a man in his tracks faster than a shy smile from a girl? Or that can set a 30 year old woman to giggling like a school girl more than that sly smirk from a man. How is it that total strangers can walk by on the street and instantly connect in nothing but a single look? I am amazed, every time these feelings hit, hit me like a cement truck, and seemingly out of no where. I can go through days, weeks, even months without remembering more than one or two things I did, said, ate or even where I went. Yet, I can remember a thousand things from only five minutes spent with a girl that has....it (how else do you say it?). I can't remember what I wore last weekend, but why can I remember what she wore, her hair, earrings, how she smiled, laughed, the look from across the room, how her hair smelled when she laid her head on my shoulder, the feeling of her hand in mine, the way everything she did or said was in some way endearing, cute even. How is it that we can lose ourselves in those moments?

I fear and rejoice in the fact that I do not understand these things. For in my fear I always see that rejection. I see that little girl that doesn't swoon for my dandelion. The one that lets my heart fall to the ground along with my hopes and daydreams of what tomorrow would have brought. And yet I must rejoice, for without that fear, the little girl who blushes and kisses my cheek in thanks for my little yellow flower, would not be as sweet. As I grow older in my years (if not in my mind), I hope that I will always be able to be that little boy once again. For without that little boy, with his hand picked dandelion, there would be no sweetness in that little girls kiss...

Re-Inventing the wheel, amongst other things...

I don't know if anyone ever noticed, but I have been, well, you could say "out of the loop" for a while. While I have been in the same physical place (except for a few absences home and for training) my mind has been to what feels like the ends of the universe and back, multiple times... Working through the emotional and mental Olympics of the holidays while going through a separation/divorce and trying to help guide my siblings along a life path that doesn't end in drug addiction and jail, I wish that I could say life has been quite swell. It hasn't, but I believe that since I am here, that is changing. I am finally coming back to one of the things I truly love, which is right here writing for me, well I guess and you too (maybe). Hopefully on a more routine basis, and content ripe with, well something interesting to keep me here (and yes to keep you here as well). Ok, now that the cliche "I'm back" intro is over, maybe we can move on to some more interesting (if not well written) topics...


I have to say that what really brings me back is that feeling of seeking a reconnection with one's own self. When, for all of life's twists, turns, ups and downs, you know you need to, should we say, get back to the basics. Looking back and asking, how did I get here, in this place, feeling like this. When that urge to pick back up and set all the world right again comes along. The only problem with such feelings is just that, they are feelings, which as in their nature, tend to come and go. I do believe that this surge of... (liveliness, spirit, vitality, zeal?) that I have seems more permanent this time. I think this partially because, I am still having this feeling right now, while my throat is swollen most of the way shut, my stomach roils from the medley of pills (to stop the said swelling of throat), still having to be at work through both of those, and my never quite knowing what is going on in my love life, or lack thereof. I still feel this... energy, as if it begs for release, if but I could find the correct form to let it out in. I think this is that form, although it may need multiple ways out before it is exhausted, I know no such answers as of yet. There have been many thoughts, ideas, and problems that have plagued my measly brain for release into this keyboard. I hope that I can only maintain my grasp on them until the time comes when I can let them flow forth unto you, but there is one that is over powering all others, and it must come first. It will come first, although not right now. Maybe later today, we shall see. Till we meet again...