Rolando Gomez

No, I haven’t abandoned my blog, my normal work schedule is seven days a week, 20-hours per day with no holidays in between. I’ve just been swamped with back-to-back, workshops followed with a private photography instruction client and of course this wonderful thing called life. Add to that, we’ve been working on Glamour1.com, updating software and the post-production of images for my next book while working on my house to sell it faster.

Over the past ten years I’ve bought and sold almost ten houses. Selling a home is a big task with all the inconveniences, both expected and unexpected, of moving from one location to another while still working to make a living. Add to that, the decision to sell the house this time was not based on my normal pattern of buying and selling but more on critical life issues—where is an angel when you need one?

This year takes the cake for exhaustion and exhilaration, one of the biggest years to test my life between business and family decisions. On my bad days I’ll often think how lucky I’ve been as a survivor of many military missions like the Drug War in Latin America (26-months), Haiti, Desert Storm, Rwanda (Zaire, Uganda & Kenya) and many others. I think about how lucky my children are when I recall the death in Rwanda and families eating out of garbage cans in Honduras and other poor countries, though I also have more pleasing thoughts about all the watery-eyes during the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I’ve witnessed more than the average human will ever see in their life and sometimes wonder, why me?

I’ve seen more than the average soldier will in their entire military career—eight years active-duty U.S. Army and almost 40 countries is not typical for any soldier, so sometimes I do feel lucky, other times I remember Hell-experiences I’ll never forget and wonder how I survived it all. However, what the guys and gals are going through in Iraq is worse than anything I’ve gone through and my prayers always go out to them, their families and their friends. I look at my time in the military as a cake-walk compared to what they go through.

Sometimes life is Hell and what we make of it determines whether we stay there or not. Our military members in Iraq however aren’t given that choice as their Hell has provided for 81,000 IED (improvised explosive device) attacks in Iraq since the IED’s were first named, according to the Washington Post, with 25,000 IED attacks this year alone. Now that is Hell.

The other day I heard the song, If You’re Going Through Hell (Rodney Atkins) and it reminded me about “gannas,” the Spanish word for “will” or the passion of your heart to want something. The song made me realize that I live for my passion in photography, my life-blood that started when I picked up my first camera at the age of nine.

When someone asks, “I need this or that?” Most don’t realize I’m already putting in 20-hour days, I suffer from chronic back pain, I have five kiddos who rarely see me (and I work out of a home-office in the same house where three live with me), I have corporate matters, I have workshop logistics, I have elder-unhealthy parents, etc., etc., more than most people have in a normal life—self-employment is not easy when you’re a one-man show—and yeah, sometimes I make a stiff drink and sit in my Jacuzzi tub, that’s called taking time off for at least thirty-minutes before I start my 20-hour day again.

Yes, my blog updates lately have been slow and I’ll use this holiday week to catch-up on them and other work as there are no holidays with self-employment—holidays are just another day to catch-up, though I will bake a turkey for my children as it’s their holiday and I should be a Dad for at least “Turkey Day.” God Bless everyone this holiday period and please don’t forget our military in your prayers, rg sends!