As I looked over this blog where I posted daily for about five straight years, I came to realize how very helpful it had been to me.  Originally, at its genesis, I thought it was to be a blog about various theological issues and contemporary issues in our society and the Church.  A well-timed stroke in 2008 sidetracked those intentions, as I had trouble collecting and expressing thoughts, a skill I have maintained to this day.  But during that time “Tales of a Faithful Dragonslayer” became my daily therapy to work on recovering what I once knew as a high-functioning and pretty decent brain.

However, a few years ago I just stopped.  It was not without reason.  I had decided to go back to grad school and get yet another degree, this time in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, with a post-Masters certificate in Addictions Counseling as well.  It seemed at the time that my brain had plenty of challenges to keep it sharp, and my blog became more of a forced exercise than a beneficial one.

Oddly enough, at the time, stopping did not seem that big of a deal.  I did get a lot of complaints from regular readers, although I maintained whole-heartedly that the blog was really just a type of therapy to me.  I now see that profession as quite selfish.  After all, God had provided me healing and progress through my writing, and all I did was get to a place of satisfaction and then said, “well the hell with it.”  Poor form  from any way one looks at it.

So why now?  Why here on January 10, 2017 do I decide to make a change?  Well honestly because it helped to make me a better man.  I experienced some very deep, and sometimes traumatic, life-changing experiences during the times I was actively writing, and frankly depression and anxiety, along with addiction to address it, took me down.  I wish I could sound funny here, but I was a prisoner of my own self, not of my circumstances.  If I had been stronger, I could have done better despite them, but it is what it is, and it does not change my reality.  I am who I am.

But now, in recovery for quite some time, a new grandfather for the first time, and still a priest of just about a gazillion years, in addition to being a full-time trophy husband and grad student, I am ready to stop all the screwing around.  It just really seems that I could be a better steward of what I have been given.

So these are NOT resolutions, but I want to get them done.

1.   I want to lose 10,000 pounds or at least get down to my pre-  stroke weight, meaning 80 pounds.

2.  I want to finish grad school and find a place that will pay me to be a therapist through the requirements of my Associate’s license, which is 21 months after April 29th.

3.  I want to be a better husband, father, and friend.  And I also want to be a great grandfather, not meaning like my dad who got there by being OLD, but by being great!  I think I could learn to love that job.

4.  I just want to feel good about my life and enjoy what I am doing.  I feel good in the recovery community, but I am built for the religious communities.  I have set aside much of my work as a priest to get this degree which is intended to be a focal point of my vocation as a priest, but other than saying Mass each day, I am not very priesty!

So I am asking that you please pray for me as I make this intentional turn back onto a path I was already on, and thinner on now that I think of it.

And to reward you for all these pre-pleaded prayers, I have attached to this post, which no doubt is far more serious than any ever to follow, a picture of my grandson, Issac Walter Tirman.  He is the miracle I thought I would never see, yet I both saw him and held him. I can honestly say he is the joy of my life.  Enjoy my friends!

Tommy+