Introducing Cecil Douglas Rowlett Jr. Part II

Like I said in the original post, I am the writer and this is the story of my life so I can control the way the story flows. I think that is what attracts me to writing.  I have the ability to control a world, although fiction, in an uncontrollable world of reality. I felt for theatrical effect, I had to tell you about my tragedies first and now I want to paint in some scenery that will help tell the story better.

I often wonder if I was born a writer.  Is my talent a God given attribute and yes I know how arrogant that sounds, but again this is my story, this is how I feel. On a car ride to kindergarten one day my mom looks at me and says, “You do your best thinking in the shower!” Strange statement from a mom to her son, but she was right.  Even at that age, I did my best thinking in the shower. To this day when facing a major decision or a tragedy, I don’t sleep on it.  I shower on it! How did my mom know that about me, when I myself was just discovering it? I once told Rebecca that demons must be like cats, they must not like water, because only in the shower could I never hear them mock me. Did my mom have some kind of insight to me that I didn’t or do moms just know us better than we know ourselves?

That wasn’t the last time that she gave me an insight on my future.  A year or so later, she looked at me and said, “With your words, you can build a person up or tear them down.  You will have to be careful how you chose the words you speak and write.” I never knew I was a writer, but I wrote my first story in second grade and from there I started a long journey of a writer. Jump forward to a week before my mom dies.  A Sunday evening and my mom asked me to share a bowl of ice cream with her as she lies in bed. Today I know she was dying, but then I was whining about having a test the next day and needed to go to bed. Even though I had all those pressures of a teenager’s life, I did what every good son does; I had ice cream with my mom. She gave me a talk that has been with me all my life and if you want to know what she said listen to “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.  It is almost like they were under the bed with a notepad. It would be the last talk we ever had, because the next morning when I looked in her room to greet her, she screamed at my dad and told him to get that boy away from her. I’m not a doctor, but I have been told that her body was shutting down and focusing all its energy into just surviving. For the next week she thought my dad was her dad and that I was there to hurt her.

I wrote a lot in the days, months, and years after her death. I wrote a lot in the days, months, and years after Rebecca died. In good times, I wrote happiness and in tragedies, I wrote some of my darkest words. After each tragedy, my writings would save me, for the time being. After I buried Rebecca, I never thought I would find another person I would love, but I did. With her help, I published the 1^st Edition of “The Long Step Forward” through a small publisher. Somewhere in there, we had a daughter named Bostyn and then a son named Denver. Life was a fairytale, but life was life and a wife demands certain things from you. I’m not sure about other writers but I have always found it hard to be husband and writer. So at the request of my wife, I shut off the writing, which proved harder than it sounded. Picture a garden house with a lot of water pressure and then you plug the end of that hose without shutting off the water. Well, I thought I shut off the writing.  I didn’t know that was impossible to do, that you really just plug the hose, but the writing still tries to flow. A non-writing Cecil is an unhappy Cecil, a bad Cecil. The fairytale started to turn to more of a horror story. The hose was plugged, the writing was trying to flow and yes it eventually exploded. I was told that I needed to seek out counseling before I lost my marriage.  I was forced to move out until I dealt with my issues. Now I was always the one who said counseling is for freaks and wimps. I wanted so badly to save my marriage that a few days later I found myself in a room with soft sea sounds playing on a stereo.

I remember my counselors first words, “tell me your story?” I told her what I thought was my story.  I told her about my failing marriage and how I wasn’t the best husband in the world. When I was done she looked at me and said, “You’re an ass,” and my reply was “I know.  How do we fix that?”  She said, “You aren’t crazy.  I can medicate crazy.  You are the most complex yet simple man I have ever met.  Now really tell me your story.” Over the next eight weeks, I told her my story from conception to the eighth session. Her diagnoses, “You are a writer, not because you want to be, but because you have to be, don’t ever turn that off again.  Publish, don’t publish.  It doesn’t matter, but write.”  I discovered who Cecil Douglas Rowlett really was.  The counseling didn’t help save my marriage, but it helped me save my true self and come to terms to who I really am. I learned that my second wife wasn’t in love with me as the true Cecil, and that was fine, but Cecil can’t be anybody other than who Cecil is destined to be. I was destined to write, I may not be destined to be famously published, but I am and will always be a writer.

In my life, I can think of three times that I wanted to kill myself and each time I found the light at the end of the tunnel. I always heard a voice that said you are not done yet.  I will let you know when you are done. I have gone from a man who hated counseling to one who says I want to help counsel people like that. Never again will I plug the hose of my writing.  I will always let it flow. I no longer say I want to be a writer.  I say hey I am a writer. Over the last two years, I have republished “The Long Step Forward” and I published my novel “The Last Winter” under my own publishing banner, Bad T Publishing & Productions. Soon I will start my training to become a counselor so that I can help others with my story. My blog is finally up and running and I am looking to publish more books soon. I have a great woman by my side; I have two great kids, two great future stepdaughters, great friends and a great family who accept me as the writer I am. Life is, well it is life! I am ready for Act III and more. I refuse to be a bystander and let life rule me.  I plan on ruling life. It is all choices in life and I choose happiness. Each day that I live from here on out, I plan to not just have a great day but I plan on making it a great day. Stay tuned……

This post is dedicated to Cecil Douglas Rowlett Sr. 9-24-1945 to 8-18-2013 RIP!!!