Sometimes in darkness it only takes a small ray of light to fill up the room. I awoke before the family and sat on the front porch, watching the squirrels play in the snow, and the birds torture the squirrels playing in the snow. The world was still and serene, beautiful in its plainness.
It struck me like a Mac Davis song. Remember him? He had this art of taking the average and painting it, as it is, magically ordinary. The songs weren’t hard for the simple Joe to sing, any one could and the listener couldn’t help but hum along. They were all memorably spectacular, but complexly simple.
Maybe I’m just finally getting the reins on things, but like listening to “I Believe In Music”, “Forever Lovers” or “A Little Less Conversation” I find myself sighing in contentment, dazzled with the ordinary routine of life. I’m finding basic comfort in basic comfort, sometimes to the point of getting annoyed when the slightest hair is out of place.
Hopefully the scope of my vision is widening. I don’t find myself dwelling in the anger and pain of the past. I’m not quite focused yet, but I don’t seem to be spinning my wheels as much in the snow banks. It’s melting away in the middling 48 degree sunshine.
I took a brief drive this morning, as I oft do on a Saturday, veering off my usual path down a portion of a road I used to be forced to travel. There was a time when Old Forge Creek Road was the only one leading to town. It was treacherously curvy and dangerously narrow, following babble by babble the creek that leads to somewhere I’ve never really known.
There’s not a lot left of that old road that used to be. Now only two small sections exist, the smaller one I live on, used only by the five families that live on either end, and the bigger section still heavily traveled and still following every pebble of the creek. That old portion hasn’t changed much but now leads to nowhere.
I recall the bike wrecks, the spills in the creek and the dogs chasing the old Ford Granddad used to drive, nipping stupidly at the tires. I used to think it was so beautiful, but that beauty is now gone. The older folks and the poor folk that still live there haven’t taken care of it. It’s weedy, neglected and stereotypical Appalachian.
Many years ago, I remember trying to cross the creek in a spot other than the bridge, as children will typically find a way to do. I remember slipping off one of the jagged stones and landing painfully on several others.
In tears, cut, bloody and wet, I remember bawling, literally bawling, to my Aunt Mag who was dabbing my scrapes and asking “Why God puts such odd rocks across the river”, as I thought it was.
In wonderful Southern drawl my Aunt Mag smiled as she rubbed Rosebud Salve into my little wounds. “Danny, God has to put odd rocks in the river.” When I cried more and told her it wasn’t fair to make people slip and fall, she of course had the perfect answer.
“There’s odd rocks across the river so the next time you step you know you’re footing is sure.” That answer has rung through my head the rest of my life.
As I find myself at a resting spot, please God let it be just a resting spot, I am learning the joys of the magically ordinary. I work when they allow me. I clean house and make dinner for Mom and Dad. I get a kick out of Dad getting a kick out of me being able to walk in the room look at the TV and immediately know what movie he’s watching.
I’ve found quiet joy in the one day this week Mom slept late, not getting out of her robe and nightgown, just sitting by the fireplace and working on a crossword puzzle well into the night. I find peace in the hyperkinetics of my dog, Jackson, as he sniffs out and digs to China looking for a mole. I get a belly laugh spying the neighbors feeding their pet pig the junk mail, Roscoe snacking away dressed in a bright green sweater she made for him.
There’s also this odd peaceful addiction to Twitter. I truly enjoy reading the Tweets, and unlike most, I read them all. I follow over a hundred people. Like most of America I have this creepy fetish of wondering what ‘celebrities’ are up to. I prefer to follow the ones who Tweet realism, rather than networking.
Kurt Warner tweets about his kids. Yesterday stating where each one was, the seven year old being “in Tupperware”. That cracked me up, having visions of a tot in time out in a big plastic microwave safe container. I realize he didn’t mean in that way, but I went there. But that’s the sort of thing I enjoy reading, the normality of those whose choice of paths have made them anything but.
I like knowing that Kristin Chenoweth is a chronic insomniac, one more thing we have in common…hint hint. I like the fact that Allison Sweeney’s young son last week “was hungrier than a two tummied giant”. I like it that Russell Tovey makes fun of his own ears and James Cameron thinks Kim Kardasian is already in “3D”.
And I’ve been writing. Sometimes its good, sometimes its bad, but I’ve gotten myself back in the routine of writing a minimum of an hour a day, that doesn’t include blogging, another story totally. I’m still not convinced that anything will ever come of my writing. It’s just something I just do, like breathing.
To be honest, I really wouldn’t know how to go about doing something with my writing. That’s why I blog, tri-blog actually. Just to put it out there past my own nose. It’s a long shot, but I know that once a bolt of lightning hit Ben Franklin’s key.
Over hearing a bit of silly conversation a few weeks ago during the snow storm at work lead me to writing a piece I ended up titling “The Hapka of Our Lives” concerning the brouhaha surrounding the departure of an actor from “Days of Our Lives”. It was a good piece; funny, tight and structured to perfectly fit the framework I set up for that blog.
On a silly lark, I tweeted a link to it to the actor himself. Untypically he apparently actually read it and retweeted it to a couple of other actors from the show, saying, “I almost died laughing”. I was very shocked and pleasantly surprised. That led to my little blog going bonkers for a few days.
It was a nice little kick to the ego. I didn’t get any new ‘followers’ from it and numbers dropped down to normal for the next two episodes I posted, which is fine. Sometimes you have to use your increments of “Fifteen Minutes” in small chunks to really be able to savor it. I have to admit, I don’t think the two posts after the “big” blog were very good.
In hindsight, I think I tried to imitate the “Hapka” blog getting silly and not really carrying the story along. That’s important in my writing, as a matter of fact, in my life. It’s fine to veer off in several directions as long as when they pull together they stay focused on the task at hand.
But all of this has led my to be more comfortable with my “average-ness”. Sometimes, I think we get so caught up in being better, in being excellent, in not settling for anything as long as its more than everyone else, we forget that in order to be the best there have to be a lot of people that are not.
That’s okay. A squirrel never wants to be anything more than a squirrel. Dreaming of something other than what we are is the one trait that makes us human. Our biggest problem only rears it’s ugliness when we only dream of something more and not set about any form of action to achieve it.
This is where I have spun my wheels lately. There’s not a whole lot left on my bucket list. I have been so, so lucky ticking them off one by one. Had a play produced. Check. Performed to a standing ovation. Check. Met a childhood hero. Check (Uhm…I recommend not doing that one, better to let them remain a hero than become human.) Been to Africa. Check. Check. Check.
Now I’ve never had that one great love, but I’ve loved and been loved. I’ve never had wealth, but I’ve taken care of myself and given back as much as I could when I could. I’ve never been blessed and cursed with children, but God knows what he’s doing. And I don’t feel I’ve fulfilled my purpose, but I’ve had a blast spending 52 two years fingering all around it knowing someday I’ll hit the right spot.
I’d still like to be on a game show. I’d still like to write for a soap opera (better hurry on that one, unfortunately the dinosaurs seem to be smoking their last cigarettes.) and I’d like to be published. I don’t really know how to go about achieving those, but I’ll figure it out.
And even at my age, I hold out hope for that one great love. An early mentor of mine, Owen Phillips, a man whom I also came to know as a dear friend, didn’t find that one great love until he was well past retirement age. He and his sweet wife married for the first time in their late sixties, spending their last years being able to do nothing but be in love.
That’s my image of true love. Thank you Owen for being the example of that possibility, and bless both you and your wife’s souls. The image of you both holding hands, walking down the sidewalks at dusk is an image that always brings a sigh to my heart. I miss you both every day.
As for the now, I walk a little more confident, a little less battered and a little more hopeful. Not that I still don’t get smacked constantly by the Blue Wham, but every moment I realize it’s okay to be content with normal, as long as I don’t stop focusing on just a little more, it doesn’t seem to be able to take hold.
I just can’t get bogged down on the old road that used to be. It’s fine to drive down it and remember occasionally, as tomorrow is guided by today’s worth of yesterday. I just can’t idle there, fretting over the odd rock in the river and never getting to the other side.
I understand I am an average, ordinary guy with a bucket still full of dreams. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Maybe I’m just your average dreamer and just maybe I’m taking a few scoots toward remembering who am I and finding out who I want to be.
Showing posts with label Depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Depression. Show all posts
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Blue Wham
Wham! It just gets you right between the eyes. Everything is fine. You inhale but somehow before you exhale the blue just seeps over everything and makes the last half of that breath so heavy you can’t do it.
I’ve been doing so well, or at least faking it well. Then today that heavy blue, like wet corduroy making every nuance a task, is all over everything. I don’t seem to be able to control it. I don’t seem to be able to recognize the switch that sets it off. All I can do is struggle under the soggy pressure and act like it neither effects or affects me.
The holidays are blessedly over. I knew they would be painful. Ironically the new job working from 8 PM to 4:30 AM helped. I spent most of the time just trying to figure out what day it was, making the depression seem palatable. It was there, but it was like a pained animal lurking in the bushes of my life, regaining its energy to strike.
It doesn’t make sense, the uncontrollable surge. It has no place in my life. Yet there it is constantly feeding me despair and hopelessness like Twinkies and Hot Tea. I try to resist, but when I least expect it, it is the temptation I cannot resist.
Things were going so well. I alluded myself into thinking I had it under control. I know it’s a problem that is going to be there for a while longer, but I think I’ve worked it out so no one knows it’s a part of every breath I take.
I’m usually only on the floor when the store is open for less than an hour, which has been good. Faking being normal in public is so exhausting. Most of the time, I work in one aisle by myself, so I don’t have to invent being inventive at conversation. I’ll be there chugging right along and suddenly find myself staring at a jar of Ragu and wondering what the point is.
The times I’ve desperately wanted to smash one of those jars with all the anger of my existence I’ve lost count. The energy it has taken to resist slicing open so much more than the box cartons would power Epcot Center. The imagined kicks to my own skull after a brief conversation with a coworker screaming “You’re letting them get too close” are more consistent than the snow here.
But I’ve been good. I’ve fought it. I haven’t curled up in a little ball like a hamster too sick to find its wheel as much and every time I’ve managed to stave it off from anyone who would notice or care.
I’ve smiled. I’ve laughed. I’ve been thoroughly human when that is actually the very last possible emotion I could really feel. I’ve resigned to it. This is how it is and it’s the best thing.
I can’t let it just take over. I cannot let the blue be the only stimulation of my world. It’s an acting chore, like the wonderful Swoosie Kurtz once said, “You just imagine it in your head and do it, eventually it will become real”.
That’s what I’m doing. Imagining being a human, hoping eventually it will become real. I was once. I will be again. I have to be again. I refuse to become a casualty in my own war.
Yesterday was such a great day. I slept late, wasn’t groggy or cranky getting up. Went to work, in public and enjoyed the craziness that is “there is snow on the ground so we’ll never ever be able to buy food again”. I laughed and smiled and was helpful.
I came home, ate a snack and played on the Internet until the Tylenol PM finally engulfed me. I even got a compliment via Twitter from a writer. It was a good day. I went to sleep faking happy so well it was almost real.
Then today, the wham of blue attacked from the corner it was hiding in. There is no pill, no counseling, no emotion, no action that can shake it. For lack of a better image, it’s a debilitating chigger always there until it finally dies and falls off.
Maybe there is something to cover the effects, but there’s nothing to make it go away and never ever come back. Yes, yes there is. There is something inside me that does this. There is something triggering this off, stronger each time but thankfully with longer periods of being able to fake it not being there in between.
All I have to do is find it. All I have to do is stop the trigger or recognize it enough to switch it back off. All I have to do is trust that some how, some way, some day this will all be in the past, carcass in the little box with all the other nightmares I’ve slain.
I’d ask for help. I get on my knees scratching my bloody eyes screaming for help if there was anything anyone could do. This is something only I can do.
I’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll get past all this. I will be human again, as normal as it can be in the eye of the beholder. But I’ll never ever love the blue.
I’ve been doing so well, or at least faking it well. Then today that heavy blue, like wet corduroy making every nuance a task, is all over everything. I don’t seem to be able to control it. I don’t seem to be able to recognize the switch that sets it off. All I can do is struggle under the soggy pressure and act like it neither effects or affects me.
The holidays are blessedly over. I knew they would be painful. Ironically the new job working from 8 PM to 4:30 AM helped. I spent most of the time just trying to figure out what day it was, making the depression seem palatable. It was there, but it was like a pained animal lurking in the bushes of my life, regaining its energy to strike.
It doesn’t make sense, the uncontrollable surge. It has no place in my life. Yet there it is constantly feeding me despair and hopelessness like Twinkies and Hot Tea. I try to resist, but when I least expect it, it is the temptation I cannot resist.
Things were going so well. I alluded myself into thinking I had it under control. I know it’s a problem that is going to be there for a while longer, but I think I’ve worked it out so no one knows it’s a part of every breath I take.
I’m usually only on the floor when the store is open for less than an hour, which has been good. Faking being normal in public is so exhausting. Most of the time, I work in one aisle by myself, so I don’t have to invent being inventive at conversation. I’ll be there chugging right along and suddenly find myself staring at a jar of Ragu and wondering what the point is.
The times I’ve desperately wanted to smash one of those jars with all the anger of my existence I’ve lost count. The energy it has taken to resist slicing open so much more than the box cartons would power Epcot Center. The imagined kicks to my own skull after a brief conversation with a coworker screaming “You’re letting them get too close” are more consistent than the snow here.
But I’ve been good. I’ve fought it. I haven’t curled up in a little ball like a hamster too sick to find its wheel as much and every time I’ve managed to stave it off from anyone who would notice or care.
I’ve smiled. I’ve laughed. I’ve been thoroughly human when that is actually the very last possible emotion I could really feel. I’ve resigned to it. This is how it is and it’s the best thing.
I can’t let it just take over. I cannot let the blue be the only stimulation of my world. It’s an acting chore, like the wonderful Swoosie Kurtz once said, “You just imagine it in your head and do it, eventually it will become real”.
That’s what I’m doing. Imagining being a human, hoping eventually it will become real. I was once. I will be again. I have to be again. I refuse to become a casualty in my own war.
Yesterday was such a great day. I slept late, wasn’t groggy or cranky getting up. Went to work, in public and enjoyed the craziness that is “there is snow on the ground so we’ll never ever be able to buy food again”. I laughed and smiled and was helpful.
I came home, ate a snack and played on the Internet until the Tylenol PM finally engulfed me. I even got a compliment via Twitter from a writer. It was a good day. I went to sleep faking happy so well it was almost real.
Then today, the wham of blue attacked from the corner it was hiding in. There is no pill, no counseling, no emotion, no action that can shake it. For lack of a better image, it’s a debilitating chigger always there until it finally dies and falls off.
Maybe there is something to cover the effects, but there’s nothing to make it go away and never ever come back. Yes, yes there is. There is something inside me that does this. There is something triggering this off, stronger each time but thankfully with longer periods of being able to fake it not being there in between.
All I have to do is find it. All I have to do is stop the trigger or recognize it enough to switch it back off. All I have to do is trust that some how, some way, some day this will all be in the past, carcass in the little box with all the other nightmares I’ve slain.
I’d ask for help. I get on my knees scratching my bloody eyes screaming for help if there was anything anyone could do. This is something only I can do.
I’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll get past all this. I will be human again, as normal as it can be in the eye of the beholder. But I’ll never ever love the blue.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sunday
Sundays have always been a special day for me, even growing up. Now much, much later and still growing up, Sunday is the day I look forward to.
As a child it was church and family. The most vivid of my childhood memories took place on a Sunday. An only child, my mother had a brother and sister with five children between them, all of us living within a few miles of each other. I like to joke that we were raised commune style, the six of us cousins are more like brothers and sisters.
Regardless, on Sundays you could almost always find us all together at one house or another. We attended the same church then retired to our separate homes for lunch and by late afternoon we all ended up under one roof. The parents did whatever parents do while the six of us; three girls and three boys terrorized Mother Nature.
By dark, it was popcorn and all of us kids gathered together in front of the tube to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney”. Then we’d find some other innocent trouble to get into before being ripped to our separate homes for bed.
Even as we grew older, Sundays were still a time for worship services and visiting, either company at your house or going to visit someone else. Before I moved back to Tennessee, Sundays was still at time that a cousin or two, all but one and now myself, still in Cecil County, got together for snackin’ and chattin’.
I miss that. I miss the days when on Sunday you found your way together with someone you loved or a trip somewhere with family of heart or of blood that would bond a memory to your soul. I keep waiting for company. I should just stop making excuses, get off my duff and go visit someone.
Sundays have become so ritual these days. I got up this morning, walked Jackson then showered and went to church. At lunch, walked the dog and then watched what Hulu, which isn't always kind to my old computer, would let me.
I miss my church in Maryland. I had only been a member for a little over a year before I made the decisions that brought me here. I had been a member at the church I grew up in, but found another that ironically seemed more like family. I’ve never attended a church that had people walk up to you and when they said “How you doing?” honestly meant it.
I was just started to get really involved in it when I moved. My cousin Diane was a member there, and I served on the hospitality committee with her. This meant that I helped plan and “do” social events planned through out the year. I helped with the cooking and clean up. It was fun. Of course, I always loved being around Diane.
They had a great little Praise & Worship team that I got asked to be a part of. Any excuse to sing and I’m there. I loved it. Music is kind of the way I worship, although I’m sure some would prefer that I worshiped a little more quietly and little more on key.
I am now attending the church my parents go to. For a small country church it has enough attendance for two services. I enjoy sitting between my parents again, but to be honest, I am extremely uncomfortable there.
I do like the pastor, Lonnie. He’s intelligent and educated speaking with compassion and heart. He’s a good man. When it comes to pastors he’s got big shoes to fill when it comes to me. I worshiped under the guidance of two wonderful and powerful young men, Russ Reaves and Timothy J. Kraynak, but Lonnie does a fine job. He’s probably the closest thing I’ll find in East Tennessee to the sort of “Preaching” that speaks to my heart.
Now the music at the church is another thing. They do have a nice little Praise & Worship team; the members vary from week to week I assume depending on who’s available to rehearse. Almost always there is a woman by the name of Louise Johnson whose voice and demeanor remind me a lot of Southern Gospel legend Vestel Goodman.They do a fine job with more contemporary songs.
Then there is the choir itself. Let’s just say they are a “Shut up and Sang It” kind of group. There is nothing wrong with that. They do pretty much exclusively Old Time Gospel music, which I adore. I was even part of a Southern Gospel Quartet for years.
However the choir at this church doesn’t pay a lot of attention to rhythm, pitch, or harmony. There is nothing wrong with that, and the churchgoers seem to enjoy it. I say good for them. If someone is getting enjoyment or joy out of it, who I am I to stand up and say, “Excuse me, but could everyone at least sing the same words?”
I have to admit that today during the sermon that I realized something. I think the reason why I am here, and at that church particularly is that I have unresolved anger issues that I need to deal with. I thought that I had forgiven and moved on, but I think maybe I just shoved the anger in a box, labeled it forgiven, shoved it the back closet of my brain and moved on.
I’ve not been able to get Thom Bierdz book “Forgiving Troy” out of my head today. If you haven’t read this book, go grab a copy now and get ready for a moving rhapsody of success, horror and forgiveness. This is a stunning look at the other side of success, the struggle with self worth and mental illness and the imperfect perfection of letting go of pain to find the true meaning of "You" through forgiving the unforgivable.
Thom Bierdz and I exchanged emails for a few months about ten years ago, as he was just completing this book. At least I think it was Bierdz and I. For all I know it was a secretary or a stalker or something, regardless it was via his personal website. We are close to the same age, and I was just beginning to notice some cracks in my mental veneer.
At that time I was not aware of the tragedies that had disrupted him. I knew we were about the same age, I a few years older, and remembered him from “The Young and the Restless”. I saw an interview with him on “ET” or something and wanted to look at his artwork. I found his website and ended up sending an email and a brief exchange started.
Then I went to Africa for the first time, came home and had a car wreck and never got back into the email exchange. I did however purchase the book, by this time knowing the story of his courage courage, torment and struggle to forgive his brother. The power of it did more that resonate, it changed me.
I don’t think I understood why his story keeps popping back into the recesses of my head until maybe today. There is so little here in East Tennessee that gives me peace or happiness, because I have not really forgiven. Granted nothing happened as shocking or horrific as what Mr. Bierdz had to endure, but things happened that destroyed my trust, my faith and worst of all my hope.
They say that acknowledging the problem is half the battle. I fear that it is only the beginning, but I am ready to try. Some of the pain is so ingrained, like my bike scars from childhood; they will be difficult to remove. It’s not that it must be done; it is simply something that should be done.
I want to not feel looked down upon by the entire population of East Tennessee. I want the freedom to be myself in public without fear. I need to forgive the ostracism, the assumptions and in some cases the hateful lies that cause me to cower with a weak smile on my face until I can make it to my car and sob out loud in my car.
Until I am able to do this I will never be past this numbing depression. I will succeed. I will forgive…and be forgiven. I will be at peace. I will.
As a child it was church and family. The most vivid of my childhood memories took place on a Sunday. An only child, my mother had a brother and sister with five children between them, all of us living within a few miles of each other. I like to joke that we were raised commune style, the six of us cousins are more like brothers and sisters.
Regardless, on Sundays you could almost always find us all together at one house or another. We attended the same church then retired to our separate homes for lunch and by late afternoon we all ended up under one roof. The parents did whatever parents do while the six of us; three girls and three boys terrorized Mother Nature.
By dark, it was popcorn and all of us kids gathered together in front of the tube to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney”. Then we’d find some other innocent trouble to get into before being ripped to our separate homes for bed.
Even as we grew older, Sundays were still a time for worship services and visiting, either company at your house or going to visit someone else. Before I moved back to Tennessee, Sundays was still at time that a cousin or two, all but one and now myself, still in Cecil County, got together for snackin’ and chattin’.
I miss that. I miss the days when on Sunday you found your way together with someone you loved or a trip somewhere with family of heart or of blood that would bond a memory to your soul. I keep waiting for company. I should just stop making excuses, get off my duff and go visit someone.
Sundays have become so ritual these days. I got up this morning, walked Jackson then showered and went to church. At lunch, walked the dog and then watched what Hulu, which isn't always kind to my old computer, would let me.
I miss my church in Maryland. I had only been a member for a little over a year before I made the decisions that brought me here. I had been a member at the church I grew up in, but found another that ironically seemed more like family. I’ve never attended a church that had people walk up to you and when they said “How you doing?” honestly meant it.
I was just started to get really involved in it when I moved. My cousin Diane was a member there, and I served on the hospitality committee with her. This meant that I helped plan and “do” social events planned through out the year. I helped with the cooking and clean up. It was fun. Of course, I always loved being around Diane.
They had a great little Praise & Worship team that I got asked to be a part of. Any excuse to sing and I’m there. I loved it. Music is kind of the way I worship, although I’m sure some would prefer that I worshiped a little more quietly and little more on key.
I am now attending the church my parents go to. For a small country church it has enough attendance for two services. I enjoy sitting between my parents again, but to be honest, I am extremely uncomfortable there.
I do like the pastor, Lonnie. He’s intelligent and educated speaking with compassion and heart. He’s a good man. When it comes to pastors he’s got big shoes to fill when it comes to me. I worshiped under the guidance of two wonderful and powerful young men, Russ Reaves and Timothy J. Kraynak, but Lonnie does a fine job. He’s probably the closest thing I’ll find in East Tennessee to the sort of “Preaching” that speaks to my heart.
Now the music at the church is another thing. They do have a nice little Praise & Worship team; the members vary from week to week I assume depending on who’s available to rehearse. Almost always there is a woman by the name of Louise Johnson whose voice and demeanor remind me a lot of Southern Gospel legend Vestel Goodman.They do a fine job with more contemporary songs.
Then there is the choir itself. Let’s just say they are a “Shut up and Sang It” kind of group. There is nothing wrong with that. They do pretty much exclusively Old Time Gospel music, which I adore. I was even part of a Southern Gospel Quartet for years.
However the choir at this church doesn’t pay a lot of attention to rhythm, pitch, or harmony. There is nothing wrong with that, and the churchgoers seem to enjoy it. I say good for them. If someone is getting enjoyment or joy out of it, who I am I to stand up and say, “Excuse me, but could everyone at least sing the same words?”
I have to admit that today during the sermon that I realized something. I think the reason why I am here, and at that church particularly is that I have unresolved anger issues that I need to deal with. I thought that I had forgiven and moved on, but I think maybe I just shoved the anger in a box, labeled it forgiven, shoved it the back closet of my brain and moved on.
I’ve not been able to get Thom Bierdz book “Forgiving Troy” out of my head today. If you haven’t read this book, go grab a copy now and get ready for a moving rhapsody of success, horror and forgiveness. This is a stunning look at the other side of success, the struggle with self worth and mental illness and the imperfect perfection of letting go of pain to find the true meaning of "You" through forgiving the unforgivable.
Thom Bierdz and I exchanged emails for a few months about ten years ago, as he was just completing this book. At least I think it was Bierdz and I. For all I know it was a secretary or a stalker or something, regardless it was via his personal website. We are close to the same age, and I was just beginning to notice some cracks in my mental veneer.
At that time I was not aware of the tragedies that had disrupted him. I knew we were about the same age, I a few years older, and remembered him from “The Young and the Restless”. I saw an interview with him on “ET” or something and wanted to look at his artwork. I found his website and ended up sending an email and a brief exchange started.
Then I went to Africa for the first time, came home and had a car wreck and never got back into the email exchange. I did however purchase the book, by this time knowing the story of his courage courage, torment and struggle to forgive his brother. The power of it did more that resonate, it changed me.
I don’t think I understood why his story keeps popping back into the recesses of my head until maybe today. There is so little here in East Tennessee that gives me peace or happiness, because I have not really forgiven. Granted nothing happened as shocking or horrific as what Mr. Bierdz had to endure, but things happened that destroyed my trust, my faith and worst of all my hope.
They say that acknowledging the problem is half the battle. I fear that it is only the beginning, but I am ready to try. Some of the pain is so ingrained, like my bike scars from childhood; they will be difficult to remove. It’s not that it must be done; it is simply something that should be done.
I want to not feel looked down upon by the entire population of East Tennessee. I want the freedom to be myself in public without fear. I need to forgive the ostracism, the assumptions and in some cases the hateful lies that cause me to cower with a weak smile on my face until I can make it to my car and sob out loud in my car.
Until I am able to do this I will never be past this numbing depression. I will succeed. I will forgive…and be forgiven. I will be at peace. I will.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Power of My Own Stupidity
A character in my novel says, “I enjoy the power of my own stupidity” in a chapter that I posted not long ago. Ironically that little quote has been bouncing around in my head non-stop lately.
I’ve started working again. Just a part time, minimum wage job stocking frozen food at a grocery store. It’s a fine job with nice people.
I feared working in public. I still battle being past the walls of my room, but the actor in me kicked in. As soon as I clock in this character I’ve created, known as me, kicks in.
The other day, as I was stocking ice cream a woman came to me and asked where all the “Nippelodian” flavor was. I smiled and told her I was unfamiliar with it but “Let’s look.”
Quickly she grabbed a carton and said, “Here it is. Right in front of you” with obvious disdain. She held it up to my face, pointed to the word “Neapolitan” on the carton and sounded it out phonetically for me as she pointed with her finger, “Nip-pul-oh-de-ann”. Finishing her lesson with “Can’t you read?”
I apologized and told her I had always called it Neapolitan.
She shook her head in disgust and said, “It’s French, you can’t talk the letters the way we do.” With that she tossed it in her cart smashing two loaves of bread to oblivion and was on her way. Probably to complain to someone about all the smashed bread on the shelves.
I just laughed to myself and continued to fill up the case with Blue Bunny. Not more than a half hour later a man came up and asked where all the “Nippelodian” ice cream was. Obviously, I’ve been wrong…about a lot of things.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’ve been having so much trouble shaking this depression. Oh, I’m functioning blindly and faking being normal real well.
That’s part of it. Trying to prove to the world that everything is fine, when you know that what few strings are left of the fabric in your mind are worn, frayed and snapped.
It’s so exhausting. I don’t want to function. I just want to lay flat out in a road somewhere and just let my mind and body throb.
The mental pain is hard enough. The constant ache of desperation takes its toll on me. The consistent clawing at my psyche to rid all the ache gives me headaches, robs my sleep and then plasters the scarring with guilt and shame.
The physical pain is even worse, especially in the last week since I’ve forced myself to become physical again by taking this much needed job. People don’t realize how physically painful severe depression is. Of course, most people aren’t even aware of others in depression, not a true malignant depression.
It is as though your body is trying to reject your mind. Every muscle of my being is sore and tender from the fight. My skin is covered in scratch marks from itching the rashes that come and go, mostly at night making what little sleep I get a nightmare.
I’m fighting, one foot in front of the other, and I am so tired of it all. I see pity or misunderstood disdain all around me. I am constantly battling tears; anger and the need to just pull inside my head, protecting myself from the hurt, the hurt I cannot control.
But I am getting better. I swear to God with every scratch of my fingernails, I am getting better. I am able to concentrate more, on other things beside the overwhelming desire to just stop and not move on. I am demanding that I concentrate on anything but the black vacuum sucking the life out of me.
I write a lot, obsessing about the novel. I know it’s not good, but I have to get it out. I keep fighting going back and starting from the beginning again. I’ve moved on to the second book of the trilogy, incorporating bits and pieces of what little of my mind is left into the main character.
The struggle to put into coherent words somehow gives me strength to deal with it. I avoid drugs, except aspirin and Tylenol PM. I can’t afford the medical/psychiatric attention I probably need anyone, so this is what I am doing.
But I continue. I have to. That’s have the battle isn’t it? It has to be. I pray minute by minute that I am doing the best that I can. That how I deal with this is intelligent and the right thing to do.
Then like Kellen in my novel maybe I am just holding on to the power of my own stupidity. But them, that power is really the only true defense any one has.
I’ve started working again. Just a part time, minimum wage job stocking frozen food at a grocery store. It’s a fine job with nice people.
I feared working in public. I still battle being past the walls of my room, but the actor in me kicked in. As soon as I clock in this character I’ve created, known as me, kicks in.
The other day, as I was stocking ice cream a woman came to me and asked where all the “Nippelodian” flavor was. I smiled and told her I was unfamiliar with it but “Let’s look.”
Quickly she grabbed a carton and said, “Here it is. Right in front of you” with obvious disdain. She held it up to my face, pointed to the word “Neapolitan” on the carton and sounded it out phonetically for me as she pointed with her finger, “Nip-pul-oh-de-ann”. Finishing her lesson with “Can’t you read?”
I apologized and told her I had always called it Neapolitan.
She shook her head in disgust and said, “It’s French, you can’t talk the letters the way we do.” With that she tossed it in her cart smashing two loaves of bread to oblivion and was on her way. Probably to complain to someone about all the smashed bread on the shelves.
I just laughed to myself and continued to fill up the case with Blue Bunny. Not more than a half hour later a man came up and asked where all the “Nippelodian” ice cream was. Obviously, I’ve been wrong…about a lot of things.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’ve been having so much trouble shaking this depression. Oh, I’m functioning blindly and faking being normal real well.
That’s part of it. Trying to prove to the world that everything is fine, when you know that what few strings are left of the fabric in your mind are worn, frayed and snapped.
It’s so exhausting. I don’t want to function. I just want to lay flat out in a road somewhere and just let my mind and body throb.
The mental pain is hard enough. The constant ache of desperation takes its toll on me. The consistent clawing at my psyche to rid all the ache gives me headaches, robs my sleep and then plasters the scarring with guilt and shame.
The physical pain is even worse, especially in the last week since I’ve forced myself to become physical again by taking this much needed job. People don’t realize how physically painful severe depression is. Of course, most people aren’t even aware of others in depression, not a true malignant depression.
It is as though your body is trying to reject your mind. Every muscle of my being is sore and tender from the fight. My skin is covered in scratch marks from itching the rashes that come and go, mostly at night making what little sleep I get a nightmare.
I’m fighting, one foot in front of the other, and I am so tired of it all. I see pity or misunderstood disdain all around me. I am constantly battling tears; anger and the need to just pull inside my head, protecting myself from the hurt, the hurt I cannot control.
But I am getting better. I swear to God with every scratch of my fingernails, I am getting better. I am able to concentrate more, on other things beside the overwhelming desire to just stop and not move on. I am demanding that I concentrate on anything but the black vacuum sucking the life out of me.
I write a lot, obsessing about the novel. I know it’s not good, but I have to get it out. I keep fighting going back and starting from the beginning again. I’ve moved on to the second book of the trilogy, incorporating bits and pieces of what little of my mind is left into the main character.
The struggle to put into coherent words somehow gives me strength to deal with it. I avoid drugs, except aspirin and Tylenol PM. I can’t afford the medical/psychiatric attention I probably need anyone, so this is what I am doing.
But I continue. I have to. That’s have the battle isn’t it? It has to be. I pray minute by minute that I am doing the best that I can. That how I deal with this is intelligent and the right thing to do.
Then like Kellen in my novel maybe I am just holding on to the power of my own stupidity. But them, that power is really the only true defense any one has.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
When A Stranger Smiles
I have to admit that I’ve always been wary of major miracles. Biblically whenever the Red Sea was parted or an arc was built, someone had screwed up royally somewhere. Maybe it’s my own personality flaw, seeing exactly where my life is now, and I should be demanding some major turning water into wine.
I am also keenly aware the pennies add up to dollars. To me, little non-essentials tossed on the ground pile up quickly into guarantees that life is so much more than a random series of events. I don’t know that I always see the glass as half full, but I have made it a point to wear down the square pegs until I can shove them, like it or not, into round holes.
Maybe it’s just that I haven’t noticed when I bend over in the road to pick up the shiny object that the truck would have plowed me down had I not. Maybe instead of finding the comment hysterical I should have been offended. Maybe I’m just more insane than even I imagined. Then again, maybe that’s not so bad.
These days, while admittedly struggling, I find such comfort in the tiniest of miracles. The fact that it is now the last week in October and my Dianthus are still in bloom makes me smile. Knowing most of the leaves have turned and fallen, and most mornings are so thick with frost it looks like snowfall, there are still bright red, purple and orange petals daring me not to sigh every time I step outside. I know it is egotistical, but those hardy little blooms are hanging on as long as they can, just for me.
It’s been too long a time that I haven’t had to have some sort of boost to get me through the day. They always seem to pop up just at the right time, like the lone slug of cool water in the middle of endless desert wandering, saving me from knee buckling surrender and strengthening me into questing further for the proper door. I never knew where they will come from, or what form they will take, but they are always without a doubt right there, in my face, daring me not to acknowledge them.
Not that long ago, driving to work from Rising Sun to Lancaster the day after we had buried my Aunt Irene I realized that it was Friday. Friday was the day she would always give me a ten dollar bill and have me bring home magazines for her to read. She was a hoot; you’d think she was the Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living type. No, Aunt Irene liked the Hollywood rags, not the real trashy stuff, but People, Us and OK.
Sometime between pulling out of the drive way of her home, I would now live in alone until it was ready for sale to strangers, and the 45 minute drive to downtown Lancaster it hit me that it was Friday, and she’d not be needing her weekly dosage of newsprint. I would not be heading home that night and listen to her tell me all that was going on in the world based on what she had just read. She was gone.
The drive to work was uncontrolled pain. I kept my foot on the gas, knowing I had no choice but to continue although my heart racked with pain to my very soul. I kept thinking just let it out. I’ve got a long drive and I’ll be fine by the time I pull in the parking lot. But the tears and the sobs kept coming, causing me more than once to pull to the side of the road just to be able to breathe.
By the time I made it to Lancaster Proper, I was still sobbing, throat and tear ducts raw and chest heaving for breath. I was in no shape for work, but determined to continue. I didn’t know how, as this Tsunamic wave of grief was unexpected and unexplainable.
Lancaster, a small wonderful town in Pennsylvania, is reminiscent of NYC in some ways. (Anyone from Lancaster reading this is probably laughing hysterically) I say this, as the town is made up of a series of very tight, almost familial boroughs. Each of the little divisions having it’s own unique landscape and personality.
My trip to work included crossing into and through what I dubbed “Penns-hispania”. It is my favorite part of the town, an old fashioned series of buildings reminding me of movies set in the city in the ‘50s. Kids played stickball in the street. Neighbors chatted with each other from stoops and the little shopkeepers swept the sidewalks and seemed to know all their customers by name. Of course, this was a Latino neighborhood, without subtitles, so it pressed me to pick up a few words here and there.
There was one traffic light in this neighbor that always caught me. This particular morning was no different. It turned red, and stepped on the brake and waited. As I sat, I continued to sob, crying deafening my ears. I suddenly realized that the crying I was hearing wasn’t my own, but that of a baby in a carriage on the sidewalk right outside my car.
I turned to look, spying a young woman, mid twenties, doing her best to calm the shrieks of a beautiful baby boy. She picked him up, patted his back and rocked him in her arms. The woman was frustrated, but carrying on. For some reason our eyes locked…and she smiled.
In that instant, the miracle of calm seized my body. In that moment the connection that had been broken reconnected enough to give me what I needed to go on. It didn’t make sense, but in those moments it isn’t sensibility that heals, but the warmth of human emotional touch.
I continued to travel that road, alone and broken, for almost a year. Three or four times a week, even when not caught by that traffic light, I would see the young woman and her son. More often than not, there was a brief exchange, the nod of a head, the tilt of a glance or a smile shared between strangers that seemed to give just that extra little tuft to the day.
As these letters form words on this page I struggle to shape into sentences why that story is as important for me to form as it is, I feel, for you to understand. I guess the best way to put it at this point is that you are my smile from a stranger and these words are my smile in return.
I have no idea who you are. We have little, if anything, in common other than we both read English and have access to Internet. But I am here and you are there and for one moment in time I trust that we connect. I hope that we connect.
There aren’t droves of you; just a few and one is all that truly counts. The fact that at one time or another my rabid prose have been looked at on every continent of this world amazes me. The only proof of each others existence are letters I’ve arranged in sequence on a screen, and you being the next higher number in sequence in a column. Some of you I do know or at least know of, but very, very few of you I have actually met in person.
Odd, don’t you think, how personal some of our relationships get with people we only know via cyber-space? There are people who have become such important fibers in the fabric of my world. Twenty years ago, I would have had no chance to brush anywhere near these people, and they do fade in and out. In today’s world, in my world of today, you whom I only know exist via a tick on a screen makes up a reason for me to breathe.
Dear Fabiana has moved back to Brazil, and I haven’t heard from her in two years, but I can still feel her thoughts and prayers for me, as I hope she feels mine. I still get emails from Belle and Carey. Jeff G, Otter and I still comment on each other’s blogs. It should boggle the mind how close and small this cyber world is, but instead it feels comforting, natural and encouraging.
And then, it can be frustrating. I found out a few weeks ago my cyber-buddy Eric Arvin was seriously ill. Having never met the man, not even sure exactly where he is, but it was frustrating not to be able to do anything to personally encourage him or comfort his family.
I felt silly putting notes on his “page” but I was powerless to do anything else.
It’s not like he could say, “Hey Doc, could you move the ventilator tube so I can check my emails?” Fortunately, he has recovered and is back in contact.
Eric is a gifted novelist. (What two, three new books coming out in the next year?) Although we have little in common, his wit and warmth are very much a part of my world. I kind of got to know him as his first book was published, so in many ways I’ve watched the child artist grow into a mature craftsman via cyberspace.
Like you, now reading this. I know nothing about you. You know nothing about me but whatever your mind may glean from these words. It’s not important. What is, is that we have shared an exchange. Although that may not bring forth the parting of the Red Sea in our lives, it has in someway placed another penny in that pile adding up to the next dollar.
I wish I knew your name. I wish I knew where you where. I wish I could add your face to the register of smiles in my head. I wish I could some how say thank you. I wish I could give just a small portion back of the monument that you have given to me.
Then again, maybe none of that is important because as strangers we have shared a smile.
I am also keenly aware the pennies add up to dollars. To me, little non-essentials tossed on the ground pile up quickly into guarantees that life is so much more than a random series of events. I don’t know that I always see the glass as half full, but I have made it a point to wear down the square pegs until I can shove them, like it or not, into round holes.
Maybe it’s just that I haven’t noticed when I bend over in the road to pick up the shiny object that the truck would have plowed me down had I not. Maybe instead of finding the comment hysterical I should have been offended. Maybe I’m just more insane than even I imagined. Then again, maybe that’s not so bad.
These days, while admittedly struggling, I find such comfort in the tiniest of miracles. The fact that it is now the last week in October and my Dianthus are still in bloom makes me smile. Knowing most of the leaves have turned and fallen, and most mornings are so thick with frost it looks like snowfall, there are still bright red, purple and orange petals daring me not to sigh every time I step outside. I know it is egotistical, but those hardy little blooms are hanging on as long as they can, just for me.
It’s been too long a time that I haven’t had to have some sort of boost to get me through the day. They always seem to pop up just at the right time, like the lone slug of cool water in the middle of endless desert wandering, saving me from knee buckling surrender and strengthening me into questing further for the proper door. I never knew where they will come from, or what form they will take, but they are always without a doubt right there, in my face, daring me not to acknowledge them.
Not that long ago, driving to work from Rising Sun to Lancaster the day after we had buried my Aunt Irene I realized that it was Friday. Friday was the day she would always give me a ten dollar bill and have me bring home magazines for her to read. She was a hoot; you’d think she was the Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living type. No, Aunt Irene liked the Hollywood rags, not the real trashy stuff, but People, Us and OK.
Sometime between pulling out of the drive way of her home, I would now live in alone until it was ready for sale to strangers, and the 45 minute drive to downtown Lancaster it hit me that it was Friday, and she’d not be needing her weekly dosage of newsprint. I would not be heading home that night and listen to her tell me all that was going on in the world based on what she had just read. She was gone.
The drive to work was uncontrolled pain. I kept my foot on the gas, knowing I had no choice but to continue although my heart racked with pain to my very soul. I kept thinking just let it out. I’ve got a long drive and I’ll be fine by the time I pull in the parking lot. But the tears and the sobs kept coming, causing me more than once to pull to the side of the road just to be able to breathe.
By the time I made it to Lancaster Proper, I was still sobbing, throat and tear ducts raw and chest heaving for breath. I was in no shape for work, but determined to continue. I didn’t know how, as this Tsunamic wave of grief was unexpected and unexplainable.
Lancaster, a small wonderful town in Pennsylvania, is reminiscent of NYC in some ways. (Anyone from Lancaster reading this is probably laughing hysterically) I say this, as the town is made up of a series of very tight, almost familial boroughs. Each of the little divisions having it’s own unique landscape and personality.
My trip to work included crossing into and through what I dubbed “Penns-hispania”. It is my favorite part of the town, an old fashioned series of buildings reminding me of movies set in the city in the ‘50s. Kids played stickball in the street. Neighbors chatted with each other from stoops and the little shopkeepers swept the sidewalks and seemed to know all their customers by name. Of course, this was a Latino neighborhood, without subtitles, so it pressed me to pick up a few words here and there.
There was one traffic light in this neighbor that always caught me. This particular morning was no different. It turned red, and stepped on the brake and waited. As I sat, I continued to sob, crying deafening my ears. I suddenly realized that the crying I was hearing wasn’t my own, but that of a baby in a carriage on the sidewalk right outside my car.
I turned to look, spying a young woman, mid twenties, doing her best to calm the shrieks of a beautiful baby boy. She picked him up, patted his back and rocked him in her arms. The woman was frustrated, but carrying on. For some reason our eyes locked…and she smiled.
In that instant, the miracle of calm seized my body. In that moment the connection that had been broken reconnected enough to give me what I needed to go on. It didn’t make sense, but in those moments it isn’t sensibility that heals, but the warmth of human emotional touch.
I continued to travel that road, alone and broken, for almost a year. Three or four times a week, even when not caught by that traffic light, I would see the young woman and her son. More often than not, there was a brief exchange, the nod of a head, the tilt of a glance or a smile shared between strangers that seemed to give just that extra little tuft to the day.
As these letters form words on this page I struggle to shape into sentences why that story is as important for me to form as it is, I feel, for you to understand. I guess the best way to put it at this point is that you are my smile from a stranger and these words are my smile in return.
I have no idea who you are. We have little, if anything, in common other than we both read English and have access to Internet. But I am here and you are there and for one moment in time I trust that we connect. I hope that we connect.
There aren’t droves of you; just a few and one is all that truly counts. The fact that at one time or another my rabid prose have been looked at on every continent of this world amazes me. The only proof of each others existence are letters I’ve arranged in sequence on a screen, and you being the next higher number in sequence in a column. Some of you I do know or at least know of, but very, very few of you I have actually met in person.
Odd, don’t you think, how personal some of our relationships get with people we only know via cyber-space? There are people who have become such important fibers in the fabric of my world. Twenty years ago, I would have had no chance to brush anywhere near these people, and they do fade in and out. In today’s world, in my world of today, you whom I only know exist via a tick on a screen makes up a reason for me to breathe.
Dear Fabiana has moved back to Brazil, and I haven’t heard from her in two years, but I can still feel her thoughts and prayers for me, as I hope she feels mine. I still get emails from Belle and Carey. Jeff G, Otter and I still comment on each other’s blogs. It should boggle the mind how close and small this cyber world is, but instead it feels comforting, natural and encouraging.
And then, it can be frustrating. I found out a few weeks ago my cyber-buddy Eric Arvin was seriously ill. Having never met the man, not even sure exactly where he is, but it was frustrating not to be able to do anything to personally encourage him or comfort his family.
I felt silly putting notes on his “page” but I was powerless to do anything else.
It’s not like he could say, “Hey Doc, could you move the ventilator tube so I can check my emails?” Fortunately, he has recovered and is back in contact.
Eric is a gifted novelist. (What two, three new books coming out in the next year?) Although we have little in common, his wit and warmth are very much a part of my world. I kind of got to know him as his first book was published, so in many ways I’ve watched the child artist grow into a mature craftsman via cyberspace.
Like you, now reading this. I know nothing about you. You know nothing about me but whatever your mind may glean from these words. It’s not important. What is, is that we have shared an exchange. Although that may not bring forth the parting of the Red Sea in our lives, it has in someway placed another penny in that pile adding up to the next dollar.
I wish I knew your name. I wish I knew where you where. I wish I could add your face to the register of smiles in my head. I wish I could some how say thank you. I wish I could give just a small portion back of the monument that you have given to me.
Then again, maybe none of that is important because as strangers we have shared a smile.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Invariable Cliche
I ran across a blog yesterday evening, one I normally wouldn't read. There was this vague connection that made me stop and read...and read... I found myself starting at the beginning and reading everything, about five year's worth of blogs.
I can't say that it is expertly written, heck I can't say mine are expertly written. I can't say that the blogs even explored a subject I knew anything about or identified with. The writer and I have little, if anything, in common.
The twenty something guy writing the blog is working his way upwards in the world of professional sports and struggling with hiding his sexuality. I'm old enough to be the guy's father and I liked the Orioles as a kid but that's pretty much about as "jockish" as I get. As far as the gay thing goes, I have lots of gay friends whom I adore and I have a man crush on John Barrowman, but that's about it.
So why did this blog strike me so? I think it was a resonance that sort of opened my eyes. This kid has made some tough choices in his life, struggling with them daily but has kept his focus on achieving his dream, all the time in desperate fear that it could end with the beginning of one good rumor. It was this "kid's" fierce determination and focus that pulled me in.
I enjoyed, via the young man's blog, watching his self confidence and courage grow. I wondered at the sense of excitement as he took risky steps in his personal life, and found myself rooting for him as he battled injury, both emotional and physical, to come back, maintain his focus and, although invariably cliched, keep reaching "for the prize". Thanks, Slugger, you opened my eyes. I owe you one.
I've made no secret that I have been struggling. Ironically, it started about the time the dude I've been talking about started blogging. In July, when I got fired, no other way to put that one, I hit an impasse. I have just not been unable to function normally, only forcing myself to little by little maintain any kind of life.
My phone has been off since July. I turn it on occasionally to see if anyone has called about job interviews and quickly deleted the many, many phone calls from friends. I've posted a couple of things on Facebook, but have responded to nothing. I just wasn't able.
Basically, I found myself wounded beyond hurt in a physical and mental place that I couldn't stand. I actually left this area of the country almost fifteen years ago because I just couldn't stand waking up every morning angered at the quaint disregard of personal respect known as "Southern Hospitality". I seriously do not mean to offend, but that is how I feel.
So I find myself jobless in East Tennessee and living with no end in sight with my seventy year old parents. Cable sucks, Internet is even worse, my good computer struck down by lightning three days after arriving, opportunities almost nil because of the caste system here that no one is bright enough to see exists. My future looked to be nothing more than sitting around this house with Mom and Dad waiting to see which one of us kicked the bucket first.
I know something is wrong, but I have been unable to even seek help. The few places I turned to turned me away or were "just unable to find the time". I live off of Tylenol PM and Sominex. Most of my fillings have fallen out, and I no longer have insurance even if I could afford the co-pay, so eating is painful. What I do manage to eat rips my stomach up as my ulcers are now back in high gear.
Going out in public is a nightmare. I use to get comfort and refuge by going out to very public places by myself. Now, I sweat profusely and if someone even says "Would you like fried with that" I can't answer the question. I've been forcing myself, but it doesn't take long before I end up back in my car sobbing uncontrollably and physically shaking until my chest hurts.
I have been afraid, literally paralyzed physically and mentally by fear. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing something that was the foundation of my very being. I didn't realize it but I made a choice to stop in order to stop the pain, and my life has been painful for quite some time. Life gets that way, and I would do anything to get it to stop.
So I started "settling for". Oh God, how many times did I consciously convince myself that "this is fine"? It's not what I want, but I accept it. I even stopped making my own decisions, allowing everyone...anyone to decide what I needed to do next. I have suddenly realized that the point that am I in life is what all that got me.
You see, I stopped dreaming. I stopped allowing myself to obsess about something that may or may not have been possible. I was always the poor kid, the only child, the odd dude and the one that people either made fun of or didn't stand out enough to warrant remembering. I also came in at the tail end of things that seemed to crumble shortly after I arrived. I reached the point where I thought if I got involved my mere presence was the destructive force that brought it to an end or that it wouldn't turn out the way it did in my head i.e. let's bring on more pain.
Granted, I probably only have time left for one last cheap thrill or two. I'm not a senior citizen by any means, but definitely closer to the middle of middle aged, so I'm not delusional enough to think I can play "Romeo" or even "Hamlet", but I've got to stop, I WILL stop, dismissing my every thought as impossible with a painful result. I have taken away my own "hope" and compartmentalized it as an impossible dream that has passed me by forever.
I won't promise myself a painless, easy rest of breathing but I am promising myself that I will try anything and everything that I decide I want to do. I will no longer chastise and punish myself for creatively wasting my time. It's my time, and right now I have no choice but to waste a lot of it creatively or I will lose what's left of my effing mind.
I admit to an obsession with Twitter. I'm no good at it, but I have been enjoying trying to decipher what the heck people are saying, and getting a little stalkerish thrill out of kind of knowing what a lot of perfect strangers are doing and thinking. Maybe sometime, I'll even be good at it.
And I enjoy these two blogs I've kind of toyed with. They first started as an attempt to make me feel human. I used to blog A LOT on MySpace. Then all this stuff started happening and I just couldn't do it. So this one I will keep in the vein of the MySpace blogs; thoughts, feelings...whatever pops into my head. It will be a good way to track my own progress and focus. If someone reads it cool. If someone wants to leave a comment or get in contact, once again, cool.
The other, "Odd Rocks Across the River", also here on blogspot, was meant to be a place for me to post a continuing homage to the dying daytime drama with a slightly mean poke at the Southern lifestyle. The intent was to post "episodes" linked together by reoccurring characters with no real end. I will still do so, labeling each of those with the word "episode" and a sequential number, but I will also use it to post any works of fiction that I spin. (I like to compartmentalize so there--fiction/insanity track)
I will also in the next twenty four hours on this blog post the first chapter of my other obsession, a novel I have been working on for, well I'm not so sure but, I haven't bought underwear in three years and I know I've been working on this novel longer than that. The first chapter is the only thing I'm happy with, so I'll let it out there. I know I'll never be happy with it, but I also know that I'm at the point where I probably just need a good editor. Not that posting Chapter One will help, but at least it's more pro-active than creative masturbation.
I'm not sure what to focus on yet, but I've just got to get the flood gates to the mind open up, listen closely to my heart, then toss the good parts up to my brain and run screaming forward with all the strength I have.
The progression being instead of taking one step at a step to dream one breath at a time.
Proudly, if a little wobbly...the chicken dances on.
P.S. Thank God for Sluggers, dreams and spellcheck
I can't say that it is expertly written, heck I can't say mine are expertly written. I can't say that the blogs even explored a subject I knew anything about or identified with. The writer and I have little, if anything, in common.
The twenty something guy writing the blog is working his way upwards in the world of professional sports and struggling with hiding his sexuality. I'm old enough to be the guy's father and I liked the Orioles as a kid but that's pretty much about as "jockish" as I get. As far as the gay thing goes, I have lots of gay friends whom I adore and I have a man crush on John Barrowman, but that's about it.
So why did this blog strike me so? I think it was a resonance that sort of opened my eyes. This kid has made some tough choices in his life, struggling with them daily but has kept his focus on achieving his dream, all the time in desperate fear that it could end with the beginning of one good rumor. It was this "kid's" fierce determination and focus that pulled me in.
I enjoyed, via the young man's blog, watching his self confidence and courage grow. I wondered at the sense of excitement as he took risky steps in his personal life, and found myself rooting for him as he battled injury, both emotional and physical, to come back, maintain his focus and, although invariably cliched, keep reaching "for the prize". Thanks, Slugger, you opened my eyes. I owe you one.
I've made no secret that I have been struggling. Ironically, it started about the time the dude I've been talking about started blogging. In July, when I got fired, no other way to put that one, I hit an impasse. I have just not been unable to function normally, only forcing myself to little by little maintain any kind of life.
My phone has been off since July. I turn it on occasionally to see if anyone has called about job interviews and quickly deleted the many, many phone calls from friends. I've posted a couple of things on Facebook, but have responded to nothing. I just wasn't able.
Basically, I found myself wounded beyond hurt in a physical and mental place that I couldn't stand. I actually left this area of the country almost fifteen years ago because I just couldn't stand waking up every morning angered at the quaint disregard of personal respect known as "Southern Hospitality". I seriously do not mean to offend, but that is how I feel.
So I find myself jobless in East Tennessee and living with no end in sight with my seventy year old parents. Cable sucks, Internet is even worse, my good computer struck down by lightning three days after arriving, opportunities almost nil because of the caste system here that no one is bright enough to see exists. My future looked to be nothing more than sitting around this house with Mom and Dad waiting to see which one of us kicked the bucket first.
I know something is wrong, but I have been unable to even seek help. The few places I turned to turned me away or were "just unable to find the time". I live off of Tylenol PM and Sominex. Most of my fillings have fallen out, and I no longer have insurance even if I could afford the co-pay, so eating is painful. What I do manage to eat rips my stomach up as my ulcers are now back in high gear.
Going out in public is a nightmare. I use to get comfort and refuge by going out to very public places by myself. Now, I sweat profusely and if someone even says "Would you like fried with that" I can't answer the question. I've been forcing myself, but it doesn't take long before I end up back in my car sobbing uncontrollably and physically shaking until my chest hurts.
I have been afraid, literally paralyzed physically and mentally by fear. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing something that was the foundation of my very being. I didn't realize it but I made a choice to stop in order to stop the pain, and my life has been painful for quite some time. Life gets that way, and I would do anything to get it to stop.
So I started "settling for". Oh God, how many times did I consciously convince myself that "this is fine"? It's not what I want, but I accept it. I even stopped making my own decisions, allowing everyone...anyone to decide what I needed to do next. I have suddenly realized that the point that am I in life is what all that got me.
You see, I stopped dreaming. I stopped allowing myself to obsess about something that may or may not have been possible. I was always the poor kid, the only child, the odd dude and the one that people either made fun of or didn't stand out enough to warrant remembering. I also came in at the tail end of things that seemed to crumble shortly after I arrived. I reached the point where I thought if I got involved my mere presence was the destructive force that brought it to an end or that it wouldn't turn out the way it did in my head i.e. let's bring on more pain.
Granted, I probably only have time left for one last cheap thrill or two. I'm not a senior citizen by any means, but definitely closer to the middle of middle aged, so I'm not delusional enough to think I can play "Romeo" or even "Hamlet", but I've got to stop, I WILL stop, dismissing my every thought as impossible with a painful result. I have taken away my own "hope" and compartmentalized it as an impossible dream that has passed me by forever.
I won't promise myself a painless, easy rest of breathing but I am promising myself that I will try anything and everything that I decide I want to do. I will no longer chastise and punish myself for creatively wasting my time. It's my time, and right now I have no choice but to waste a lot of it creatively or I will lose what's left of my effing mind.
I admit to an obsession with Twitter. I'm no good at it, but I have been enjoying trying to decipher what the heck people are saying, and getting a little stalkerish thrill out of kind of knowing what a lot of perfect strangers are doing and thinking. Maybe sometime, I'll even be good at it.
And I enjoy these two blogs I've kind of toyed with. They first started as an attempt to make me feel human. I used to blog A LOT on MySpace. Then all this stuff started happening and I just couldn't do it. So this one I will keep in the vein of the MySpace blogs; thoughts, feelings...whatever pops into my head. It will be a good way to track my own progress and focus. If someone reads it cool. If someone wants to leave a comment or get in contact, once again, cool.
The other, "Odd Rocks Across the River", also here on blogspot, was meant to be a place for me to post a continuing homage to the dying daytime drama with a slightly mean poke at the Southern lifestyle. The intent was to post "episodes" linked together by reoccurring characters with no real end. I will still do so, labeling each of those with the word "episode" and a sequential number, but I will also use it to post any works of fiction that I spin. (I like to compartmentalize so there--fiction/insanity track)
I will also in the next twenty four hours on this blog post the first chapter of my other obsession, a novel I have been working on for, well I'm not so sure but, I haven't bought underwear in three years and I know I've been working on this novel longer than that. The first chapter is the only thing I'm happy with, so I'll let it out there. I know I'll never be happy with it, but I also know that I'm at the point where I probably just need a good editor. Not that posting Chapter One will help, but at least it's more pro-active than creative masturbation.
I'm not sure what to focus on yet, but I've just got to get the flood gates to the mind open up, listen closely to my heart, then toss the good parts up to my brain and run screaming forward with all the strength I have.
The progression being instead of taking one step at a step to dream one breath at a time.
Proudly, if a little wobbly...the chicken dances on.
P.S. Thank God for Sluggers, dreams and spellcheck
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