What the hell is up, everyone? I hope everybody is doing good since many of us are coming off of a three-day weekend. Labor Day has past by once again, taking away its parties as quickly as it brought them. After a long weekend of fun, games, and holding on to my final grip of childhood it seems like quite a drag to head back to work. Oh well, welcome to life. At least I only have a three day work week to contend with before heading off to another party filled weekend.

Labor day weekend was a very good weekend. I had a lot of fun and can't wait for another weekend like it. On Friday, Wally and I took the top off of my Bronco and I let him have it for the night while I went see "Serving Sara". It was fun even if the movie was not the greatest. Then Saturday night a bunch of us went to a party at Misty and Alan Hendricks place, before retiring back to my place to watch a movie and fall asleep half way through it as usual. Sunday, I went to the Blues Festival in St. Louis with Dad, Connie, Bonnie, Leigh, and Jake. That was a lot of fun as well. The only downfall was I rode my Motorcycle there and as we were on the way down I jammed my back on decent little bump. Then Monday it was off to Springfield for my cousin Michele's Birthday party. It was nice to see Michele again after so long. After the party it was off to go shopping with Grandma and Grandpa like the good ole' days. All in all it was a really fun weekend with the only bad point being jamming my back but that is minute, compared to all the fun, that is nearly nonexistent.

The Fort Madison Rodeo is this coming weekend and to me (a redneck in denial, as Ozzy so lovingly puts it) that means another good reason to party. We have been preparing for the rodeo for weeks and now it is nearly upon us. We have quite a little group going this year. So far we have Ozzy, Zach, Wally, a guest of Wally's, a girl meeting Oz at the rodeo, and of course myself. Mom and her boyfriend will be up there also, as well as Bootie, Toni, and the Wright family and I am sure we will cross paths for some partying. I have been voted campsite cook, which does not bother me at all. Especially since I want breakfast each day and I am sure I will be the only one up in time to do that. Everyone is going to pitch in on the food for the campsite and I am sure it will be good. On top of all that you know we will have plenty of beer and assorted drinks to keep us quite amsued the whole trip.

Now enough with the recaps and previews and on with the commentary. This week I was trying to think of something to write about and I kept drawing blanks. Then finally it came to me, it came to me because it is what I am realizing at this moment in my life. It is what I have finally come to terms with and have got to think a lot about. It is simply letting go. Plain and Simple, letting go of the past and venturing forward. I hope some of you can relate to what I am now going to talk about. Here we go.

The past, something that at times can be hard to let go of. This is especially true when it means letting go of someone or something that you held a great love for. It does not matter if that something that you don't want to let go of went completely insane before it went away. Your mind doesn't allow you to think about the bad it only allows you to think of all the good times and thus makes it harder to let go.

Sometimes it takes a long time to move past a situation like this. You continue to think about only the good while ignoring all the reasons that were there for the end to come. A person can hold on to thoughts of the past and hopes that it will be once again for a very long time. I personally, as you all know, held on to the past for eight long months. This was not a good thing for me to do because it simply made my life harder. I didn't know if I would ever be able to move on. All I could think about were the happy times in my past relationship, when in actuality those were long since past. I couldn't see the truth because I wouldn't let myself. So I went on moping around waiting for the past to come back. I couldn't let go of it, because I would not let myself let go of it.

Time went on and I slowly distanced myself from the past, but I still could not quit thinking about it. I was too busy looking in the rear view mirror to see all that laid in front of me waiting to change my life. I couldn't let go, so I couldn't move on. I was torturing myself and didn't realize it.

Finally, someone told me to step out of myself for a little while and look at that relationship from outside. I did this and I realized what they meant. Sure it had been great at times, but after the infamous incident that resulted in many hours of unjust mental hurt to me, it was never quite good again. The trust was gone, the arguments more frequent, the possibilties of unfaithfulness greater, and the feeliings false. I saw all this and knew now what they meant, but at the same time still could not completely let go. There was still something that was needed for me to let go. Something to fill that void that I still felt.

More time went on and I attempted to fill that void with many things. I tried to get as many ladies numbers as possible, then juggle three and four dates a week while making time for friends. My friends were always understanding. They knew while they meant more to me than anything that there were still some voids they couldn't fix for me, so they allowed me to do my own thing. Through all of this I still couldn't completely let go of the past. I still held on to the coat tails attempting to keep it from leaving.

Then it happened. Then that void began to fill. I realized that I was not alone in these feelings. Each one of the people I surrounded myself with had felt the same as me at some point in time. They had all found someone that completed their life and filled their void just as I needed to do. I could look in their eyes and see that they were just like me. I was never any different than anyone else I just refused to let myself believe that others had felt the same. My friends were always understanding because they knew exactly how I felt. That is why we are all such close friends, we are all the same in so many ways. SO I finally found one of the things that I needed to fill the void in my life, understanding. I heard this song in my head at that moment...

Sometimes it just takes a little help from some very special people to help you let go of the past and be ready to move on with the rest of your life. I will not put these people's names here because I hope they know who they are, and if they don't know they will know soon enough.

Thank you all for joining me here for another one of my commentaries. I have been very busy lately and am not sure how often I will be getting these done for you, but I don't plan on quitting just yet so please keep joining for more. Thanks to all of you.

Live to Love and Love to Live.

Take Care,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Coopedaddy