This All Started Because I Love My Morning Coffee.

Yup! That's right!

All this rambling rambling rambling.... It all started because I love coffee.

Noah gets up in the morning to get ready for work and he makes coffee before he and he gets me up and I go down and drink a cup with him before he has to leave.

It's a lovely way to start my day.

Then, somewhere along the way, over the last year, the first thing I would do next every day is post a coffee meme on Facebook.

I am not sure exactly how that happened, except I was beginning my every day with coffee with Noah, and that meme became a...tribute to our morning. Paid honor to it.

I would find funny memes and sweet memes and deep make-you-think memes and sometimes even sad memes. All manner and variety of memes. Sometimes I created my own, and that started because I would find one I loved but it would have swearing on it and I didn't want to subject that on people who don't like it—it's different when it's my novel—so I would re-do it taking out the F-words and C-words and S-words.

And then, I don’t know why, along with the meme, after Noah gave me one of his sweet little kisses and headed off to work, I started talking/writing a little bit about the meme. Sometimes the meme inspired me to say.

That evolved into a little ramble. Saying good morning. What I expected to do that day. Asking everyone what they were going to do with theirs.

Then one day I realized that sometimes these little rambling writings could last fifteen minutes thirty, an hour. Just rambling. But sometimes they were becoming about my deepest most innermost thoughts. I’d be talking about my feelings, my hopes, my wishes, and my thoughts about “life, the universe, and everything.” 

Ever since Covid closed the world down and changed everything and turned our world—my world upside-down—I went into a deep depression. Me. Mr Find-a-Silver-Lining. And that had all followed that worst couple of years or more of my life at work. They didn’t want me anymore. With health issues and such, I was costing them money. They wanted me gone. But they couldn’t exactly fire me because they were worried I might sue (I found out about a lot of this only a long time afterward). They were purposely making life hell in the hopes that I would quit.

I didn’t. Because what they had forgotten was the philosophy of that company was to insnare their employees, make them dependent on them, so employees didn’t want to—or couldn’t—leave. For instance, two years working there and I had three weeks vacation. Who is going to want to leave a company that would take them five or more years somewhere else to get that same benefit? For years they completely paid for our insurance? What company does that? Even when they started making us help pay for it, it was a ridiculously small amount. And many of us were in our forties and fifties by then, and to get that kind of benefits anywhere else would be very hard, especially for us who were older. We were in for the long haul. I mean I was able—every year—to take my two week vacation to Midwest Men’s Festival, and still have vacation time left to go to writers events, conventions, little trips, and more. If I left That Company, I would never be able to do that. So of course, I didn’t want to leave. Of course, I didn’t quit.

So they made it worse. They switched my schedule to Sundays so I couldn’t go to church. My supervisor and all of hers, even the head of the company, knew my life revolved around church. They did it on purpose. They would let this team lead abuse me emotionally and mentally—I would take him to Human Resources over and over again and they would do nothing about it—because they wanted me (and other employees) out of there.

So one thing led to another to another to another and the valley I was going into was deeper and darker and deeper and darker and deeper and darker and soon I couldn’t see the sun anymore.

Even when circumstances—injuries I got at work—let me leave That Company, I was in a state of constant anxiety because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was trying for disability through the company and that was a huge battle and I finally got it, only to have the insurance company constantly hound me to apply for Social Security Disability. They even hired another company to help me, which led to months and months and months of stress trying to qualify for that. 

Finally... Finally! I got Disability and somewhere along the line That Company told me that I had been let go—not fired they assured me!—and that my position was no longer available but I could always come back if I wanted, all I had to do was apply and go through the interview process and do my year as a temp...and that all my benefits would start on page one.

It was some of the worst years of my life.

Somehow I held on.

And then...then...I finally began...bit by bit...to remember Who I Am.

I began to remember the philosophies and the Spiritually that had been the foundation of who I was and what had made my life a dream come true. The Church I used to go to—New Age thinking to the max—reopened its doors to the public again (instead of just doing virtual services). I remembered that that Church had been the true beginning of one of the best periods of my life and so I started going back. Then a year ago I discovered their very different Recovery Group and have been going almost every Wednesday night since.

And I mustn’t forget to mention something very important. People were supporting me in many ways, but one of the most powerful ones was they were sending me dolls. Beautiful Ken and Barbies and GI Joes, some new and some of them their personal dolls! And each of these dolls were telling me their stories and I found myself finally, after a long long time, wanting to write again!

I started a phase where every morning I would get up with Noah, sit with him and drink coffee until he left, and then have a quite time. Meditation music. Affirmations. Daily readings. I would not listen to the news until at least noon, and I wouldn’t let RBear do it around me. I started posting a positive thought every day and that evolved into me doing my “365 Days of Silver,” where I found something positive, some silver lining every single day, and posted about it. I started posting that coffee meme every day. I started rambling...talking very personably about my voyage, my journey. A journey it turned out to be Out Of Depression.

I was, with purpose and forethought, pulling, climbing—somedays clawing—myself out of that deep dark valley that I am been walking through for so long. I was journaling it all right there along with my coffee memes. I wasn’t even really aware what I was doing until, quite unexpectantly, getting comments on my posts—but more—texts and messages from people telling me what they had been going through and thanking my for my daily posts and encouraging me to keep doing it and telling me that my page, almost always POSITIVE, was something they looked forward to each day.

I was amazed. Who knew my pain, and my looking for a way out of it, could inspire others??? 

Every single solitary morning for months on end I had been saying something along with my posted coffee meme. Those thoughts that might be nothing more than a couple of paragraphs, ore might be the most deepest meaningful spiritual insights that I had had. Who knew that could touch others?

So, when my “365 Days of Silver” came to an end, that year where I EXPLAINED WHAT THAT MEANS BEN, and the fact that so many people seem to be paying attention to that morning coffee meme and what I had to say, I decided to make a blog.

And there we go.

So today? Today was a true rambling.

And last night, when I was thinking about what I might write about this morning, I REMEMBERED that my coffee meme ramblings—while sometimes being about the mystery of life and God and all of that there stuff—sometimes it was nothing more and saying what I was going to be doing that day, or sharing a positive something-something from that day before. That I didn’t need to have something mind-blowing every day. That what made people read those morning posts is that I was just...being Ben.

But most of all I remembered something else.

I cannot stop looking for silver linings. I cannot stop looking to my highest good. I must continue to remember what I am grateful for. This blog isn’t a Breakfast/Morning Entertainment Television Show. “Good Morning My Confidants” The Today Show or Good Morning American or Fox & Friends (Ugh, and thank God!) or CBS This Morning or Live! With Kelly And Michael. I don’t have to come up with something captivating and entertaining each daybecause that isn’t what this blog or “365 Days of Silver” or my morning coffee memes are or were every about (although you will want to come around tomorrow Rhys Ford’s Blog Tour is stopping here! 😊)!

“Good Morning My Confidants” is about me, on my journey, remembering to be positive, and climbing up out of the dark valley I was in for so long.

I am not where I want to be yet. The climbing continues. BUT, when I look back—and one must be careful about that, I don’t want to turn into a pillar of salt—I see that I am way up the slope. That deep valley is behind me. The there is less and less climbing I need to do.

And just think! When I don’t need to use all that energy climbing, I am going to have a lot of energy for walking.

Maybe even running.

Or...flying!

So that is what this blog is all about. If that appeals to you, if you want to try flying to, join me.

Misery might love company, but joy loves it even more!

Namasté,

BG “Gentle Ben” Thomas

Jan 17, 2024, Entry #017

PS: You’re getting the hard copy today. Rough. Stream of consciousness. Unedited and no spelling corrections. Because...this is Ben!