Every single day a new challenge (or 6) presents itself to me. Life tests me. I just made this vow, you know. I said I wanted to be a better man, and the universe sees fit to put that up against tidal wave after wave. I’m still standing. If I haven’t hit my limit yet, my lord I’m finding out how much I can take. 
Taking vows are meaningless. Living up to them; that’s the problem. We stumble, we fall, and we have to get back up every single time until we can’t stand up anymore, then we die. Funny how the past year has put that very last bit in front of me several times.
MRSA came back today in a big way. I have been informed my immune system is permanently crippled. It’s why I am 10 times more likely to develop cancer or other serious conditions. All because of some spider-bites.
No, I do not blame anyone for this. It was a series of unfortunate events culminating in emotional scars to match the physical ones. What happened, happened. I cannot change it, nor is it my will to. I am faced with a cascade of ever evolving medical messes that go from bad to worse to better and then mysteries. It feels too much like “when” and not “if”, and to be honest my faith in modern medicine is about as solid as a meteorologist without a satellite.
I look to the future every day as best I can, no matter how much my past (and my own idiosyncrasies) wants to drag me backwards. I cannot undo what I have done wrong. I have apologized. Most of the people I have wronged, I have made amends. The few that I have not, I have little desire to. From my early film days with 7(M) Pictures and the conflicts that arose, I made peace, even putting one of my former-enemies on my TV show. To the guy who once drove from North Carolina to kick my ass (I asked for it and regret what I said), recently took me to lunch.
These are the things that let me know I have changed for the better. For the last several years, I have endeavored to stop what it was that caused others harm. It was rarely ever my intention to hurt anyone. Mostly I did what I wanted without regard to the consequences. I learned to be more conscious of what I did and how to best avoid the hurt.
To have to face someone trying to paint the picture of the monster I once was, just doesn’t look like me, at least not anymore, not for years. That is not who I am, or what I have become.
This is the test. How do I react to an onslaught of exaggeration? What do I say to irrational and unfounded accusations? It hurts, and deep but I cannot control how others think or feel. To have someone not only believe these untruths, but to spread them like wildfire, it’s unfair but so is life.
I simply have to keep doing good. I have to keep my eyes on the real prize, which is to accomplish my goals, even when these obstacles create seemingly insurmountable odds. I will not become the monster. I want to live my life, for as long or short as it may be, in peace.
The road goes ever on my friends.
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