Joe Bennett  

After many years of running at full speed I found the time to rest. I looked back over all my achievements and prizes and was proud. Among all the things I have done littered through out was hurt and pain. Those are things I could never admitted because it isn't part of being a man. As a man you have to do things that one may not be proud of on many levels. Regret and remorse are a luxury that most men are not allowed to have. We are told when we are young to take that emotion and to bury it within. Nothing like that will remain buried without some cost to the soul. It reaches out from the emotional grave like a spectre hidden from sight. We may act out with violence toward others we love to not let them close to us. Or we take it internally to make us lock out everyone to our sorrow. People we love attempt to repair us to no avail most time. Because to do so is admit frailty in ourselves with the life we led. That is the chink in the armor we can't reveal even to ourselves. So we carry this like a large stone hanging from a chain around our necks. Always striving to move ahead but weighed down by our on sins. With the moments of happiness there is a tint of sadness with the cost of it all. Like a ancient warrior you look down on the peasant with contempt because they haven't lived a full life. On the other hand you admire the him on the nights you relive the battles of the past that are so real in your dreams that you wake up weary. So these dimensions of one's self are balanced and tear at each other at the same time. Most men will sit on the edge of the bed and wonder was it all worth it. Then walk through the house in the still of the morning to look over their wife and children and know it was. So begins another day, we put on our armor, grab our sword & shield to do battle with the world as we always do. Over the years the armor isn't as strong as it used to be nor the sword as sharp to avoid the emotional scars as when I was young, proud and foolish. Wisd