"Live today to it's fullest, for tomorrow may never come" what a mixed day! tough but yet enjoyable! i went to the courthouse to get a copy of my divorce decree from my marriage to tina so that i can get information about jess from the ranch. it was an enjoyable ride on the train there and back. it always reminds me of that day tam and i spent riding the train when we played hooky from work. it was one of many wonderful experiences with her. ah well, i digress. once i had gotten back to the car and had headed off for work to p/u the purchase order for my fan, i was feeling pretty good. after leaving work and then dropping off a check for my personal loan payment, it happened. i had to hit the brakes pretty good to avoid running a red light and the car spit and sputtered real bad. it restarted but would only spit and sputter and then die. this went on for 30 seconds or so before it finally stayed running so i got going again. i was on my way to arlington camera to purchase a polarizing filter for my camera (even though i have one in rc, i have know idea when i will get back there). the car seemed to be running fine after i left there and headed to granger to p/u the fan but it spit and sputtered again in the parking lot of a warehouse district so i made the decision to get the fan another time and i headed to walmart. i had to get my groceries and i thought it might clear up after sitting awhile. and the sputtering did clear up but now it would not idle down. it was just screaming so i continued to walmart, purchased my groceries and some transmission fluid, i had checked it when i arrived at walmart and it seemed quite low. i thought this possibly was the problem also. added the fluid, started the car and it still was idling way too high. so i came home, fixed some lunch and then decided i just had to get to the bank and deposit my paycheck. once i had returned home i went out and started to look for anything that might be out of the ordinary. and then i found it! the hose that had broken off when i had replaced the rocker cover gasket had broken off once again. i reglued it on and i am hoping that was it. i am allowing the gasket sealer to completely cure before i start the car. if that fixes it, i hope that it will hold out until next sunday when dad and i can replace it with some new hose (i will get some at work tomorrow). all in all, a good day because it is not what happens to you in life, but how you react to what happens that matters. and that reaction will in turn have a "butterfly effect" as to what happens next which then leads to another reaction etc., etc., etc,. it is a never ending chain of events. i have looked back at so many decisions i made in life and have seen how lucky i truly have been because of how things could have gone. i was looking at the website that lists sex offenders for the state of texas, specifically this zip code. there are quite a number of registered sex offenders just around here (three on this street alone!) i have no idea what was going through my head by marrying a 14 yr old girl!!! that is the age of my daughter right now! i will never ever regret the birth of my daughter (which came 2 years after marrying her mother) but again, what was i thinking??!! i look back and all i could think was this was the first and only female that was going to want to be with me!! i was so naive back then (and still was until several months ago in alot of ways!!). and because of the birth of my daughter and consequently raising her alone while working long hours i stayed naive to the ways of the world with women. and then because of that i fell head over heals for dawn after just knowing her for a month, again what was i thinking??!! her and i just did not give it enough time to grow and then she bacame pregnant and we rushed everything and it all fell apart. even though she is not very nice to me i don't hold anything against her, we just did not do thngs right. then i met bethany and finally i had a pretty good relationship, but once again we rushed things. if we had stuck with our first choice which was to wait until the end of the school year (this was in august) we might still be together now. but even though that relationship ended, i learned so much from it and from her. i figured out what it was i wanted from a woman, how i wanted to be treated. i also finally realized that i could attract women, that there were women out there that would enjoy my company. i also learned that i cannot be all things to all people, although this really took until the last few months to sink in. i took time off (18 months or so) from dating and just focused on myself and jess. then when i did start to date again, i decided i didnt want a long term committed relationship, that there were alot of women out there that just wanted some company but that i didnt have to marry them or live with them. and then i met her, tammi gwen taggart hallmark, and she became tammi gwen taggart titsworth. even though i fell for her from the first moment, i was going to go slow and be wary because of my past relationships. i had suffered alot during my divorce from dawn, and i was saddened alot by my breakup with bethany, so i did not want another failed relationship. i went slow, watching for how we interracted. and after a month or so, i knew what it was i loved about her so much. of course her smile and the way her eyes would light up when i saw her. but it was the way she made me laugh. i had never laughed quite as much or as hard as i did with tam. it made her special in my life. i still went slowly, kept our bank accounts seperate. told her she owed no bills, i was going to make the house payment whether she was there or not. i just wanted to know if i could see myself with her for the rest of my life. and i came to believe that no matter what happened, no matter how much our girls dissed us, we would be together. that we would stand together forever as one. and because of that i put all my faith in her and walked out onto a limb, trusted her so completely. and that limb broke. now i am afraid that i will never be able to trust a woman quite that much again. i feel i will never again be able to allow myself to love someone quite as much as i will want to love them. tam was right, life is too short to be unhappy, but she makes if seem like happiness just happens, and that is not reality. it takes work, sacrifice, understanding, forgiveness, effort, and many many more things to make happiness a reality. life is never quite perfect but it can be wonderful if you accept some limits. i have spent the better part of 5 months trying to learn from all of this and i have come out of it feeling so much better, so much at peace with myself. i finally admitted that i was angry with the world for what had happened to me, but that anger was holding me back. i am not angry any longer. i feel good, and i know that if it is God's will, i will love again, that there is a woman somewhere that will love me and want to share time with me.