I can only imagine this is how a someone who wants to write a book must feel when they first sit down to put ideas to paper. Where to begin, what is the beginning, is the ending really the end, and so on. First off, I’m not a writer, researcher, or anything of the sort. I’m more so your average ‘Joe’. Nothing too special here. Wife, kids, get up – go to work, live life’s normal struggles, and just try to do the right thing each day. I mostly prefer to live the quiet life, a few friends (closer to none would be more accurate), in our small house (that is in a constant state of remodeling) by the woods in Ohio. Watching and photographing nature, gardening (flowers and vegetable), brewing beer, playing music, and spending time with my family is the level of excitement I seek.
I don’t have any social media accounts. Well, I used to, then all of it really just turned into an echo chamber for polarized ideas. Everyone had a ‘hill to die on’ about whatever popular ’cause’ was around. Now, I’m not critical of those who embrace social media. If it works for them…great. It’s just not my thing anymore.
Some might say I have lived an interesting and adventurous life, some may not. But I don’t know how much of that is really important anymore, it’s in the past. What I think has become important is the understanding (or lack of understanding) that I realized in the past year or so. This understanding really began when a family member and myself started to have long and honest conversation without judgement and criticism. A sort of ‘comparing notes’ of our experiences throughout our lives. Things started to line up, in a rather disturbing way. It created more questions than answers, but it was very helpful to finally ‘get it out’.
It’s long, complex, and if I have to be honest, largely unbelievable. You really start to question ‘did that really happen’ and when you have confirmation from someone else you trust say ‘yes… that really did happen’, it guides you along a better path of dealing with things.
So what is all of this stuff I am rambling about? In short, it involves a lifetime of paranormal, supernatural, the occult, and living with people (family) deeply involved with this and not even knowing it. Though I never engaged in any of that directly (at least I don’t believe I did), I was forced to experience, what I refer to as a ‘splash effect’ of being close to those who did (and still do). As it turns out, much of it was really not fun.
One must be careful not to draw unreasonable conclusions or correlations. Though, when dealing with these things, the ‘unreasonable’ quickly can become the ‘reasonable’. There will always be those detractors, the ones who are quick to call B.S. and say its ‘hocus pocus’ garbage and that’s OK. In a way, I envy them. They probably haven’t had to endure the experiences and struggle with effects.
So, as we move forward, I felt compelled to put a place together were those might be comfortable sharing experiences that ‘just don’t make sense’. Much to my surprise, I have found it very therapeutic to do so. Many of the things I encountered I was never seeking any ‘validation’, I wanted a sound rational explanation based on what is known and acceptable as normal. Sometimes in life, it just doesn’t work that way…