Standing Outside the Fire


We call them fools
Who have to dance within the flame
Who chance the sorrow and the shame
That always come with getting burned

But you got to be tough when consumed by desire
\’Cause it\’s not enough just to stand outside the fire

When I listen to Garth Brook\’s \”Standing Outside the Fire\” I think of my oldest son Eric. He is 17 years old and a high functioning autistic. He will charge through life like a snow plow and with all the subtley of an atomic bomb. That\’s the way he is and just have to learn to deal with it sometimes. I guess maybe I am jealous of him. There are times when I wish I was free of the limits that I place on myself. To be able to tell the people around me how I feel and not be self-conscience about giving them the pat on the back that they need and telling the ones who bother me not to do that. To shout out joy at the top of my lungs and have unabashed enthusiasm for something although reality dicates otherwise. My son is not what I wanted him to be and I say to God \”Thank you\” for having it that way.

Published by Bard on the Plains

I currently work as a custodian in the Clark High School but have also ran a farm as well as worked at a potato chip factory. I am married to Deb and we have three kids, Eric, Ryan and Emily. I also have a love of computers going back 40 years. I am also an amateur taker of photos (don't feel quite comfortable calling myself a photographer yet). I am the host of the Bard on the Plains Podcast and Holding Out For a Hero Podcast.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: