Hiatus

When I began this blog nearly a year ago, I had no idea of the successes I would experience. With each new victory, I celebrated but I also became consumed by the blog. I let it interfere with my personal life and relationships, and my world soon seemed to revolve around saving the country when in fact I was losing myself.

While I have met so many amazing people on this path, I have also hurt people that I love. I need to walk away from Bungalow Bill’s Conservative Wisdom for now until I am capable of developing a healthy balance. When I started this I never realized how fast the path of change would be set in motion, and the time that it took to discover what is going on in Washington DC removed my time at home.

I hurt the one person I love more than anybody in this world. I have let her down in so many ways. I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t live with her not feeling special, loved, needed, wanted, and secure. I can’t live without her. This blog has taken priority in my life, and that’s not what I intended when I began writing in last October. I had recently gotten married, and I still haven’t figured out what I need to do to be a great husband and achieve the dreams we shared before our wedding day. I need to find comfort and direction with my new skin, and I didn’t prioritize my marriage before everything else.

There are so many mornings I should have stayed in bed and held my wife, and I was up doing the morning blogs, watching my hits grow, and seeing the Google AdSense money add up. What I didn’t see is the decline in the vision I shared with a very special woman who has loved me unconditionally for many years. This blog hasn’t been worth it, and I have been given the chance to save what is important to me.

We met my first weekend home from basic training and AIT. I had joined the Army Reserves a few months earlier, and I was trying to get my normal life back. School was still a few months away, but I had bought a new car with money I set aside while in basic and so I went to McDonald’s to get my old job back. That’s where I caught her eye.

It would be a few more days until we formally met. There was a bowling party on the evening of May 4, 1991, and some friends I worked with convince me to go. As I bowled, I realized a new girl had joined our little click, and I found myself flirting with her. As we left the bowling alley, I found myself wanting to get to know this woman, and we went an old deserted camp known as Winoka which sits above Springfield Lake. We knew as we walked the dark trails under the moonlight what was going on, and I think we both couldn’t wait to get rid of the others.

We eventually got away from the others and wound up spending the rest of the evening talking and kissing at Doling Park. It was an amazing night, but one that would create a lot of jealousy among the soap opera known as McDonalds. One night, someone we considered a mutual friend began lying about both of us. I was with her and she was with him. Soon, the lies led to some bad decisions through the jealousy, and pride killed what should have been.

Many years later while I was in Springfield for the Tour of Missouri, she saw me in a television interview, and we were given a second chance at what should have been. I have come too close now to ruining this second chance. It’s time to end this blog and take care of my responsibilities at home and with my wife and family. Maybe later, I could find time to balance time and make a contribution here and there. For now, I can’t take that chance. I love my Michelle, and I don’t want to know what life is without her.

I used to play Adam Sandler’s I Want to Grow Old With You to her. I have learned over the past year how the years quickly catch up with you. They fly by. I don’t want to lose any more time. I have had some personal issues knowing I am a pirate looking at forty. I thought I could steal time and there would always be plenty to give. I was wrong.

Thanks to everyone who has encouraged this blog and contributed in one form or another. Please know I am with the freedom movement in spirit. For now, I have a marriage that needs fixing. I love Michelle, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don’t want to lose her. So I am signing off.

http://www.claybowler.com/michelle/