Words Like Pepto

Sometimes the memories flood my brain and fill me with the emotional wreckage of my not-so-popular life choices.  But at least I have something to write about.
I have taken to writing or doodling every night before I go to bed and this practice seems to have put cracks in the damn that I have been building to help me deal with the rush of emotions that I sometimes experience.  By writing down whatever I have in the front of my mind, room is made for the next set of thoughts to step to the front of the line.  It's like the act of putting it on paper actually removes it from my mind.  It is my coping mechanism, which is healthier than my old method of stuffing it down into a sack in the basement of my brain and hoping it would never get to see the light of day.  But it always does.
So, I have an emotional emesis nightly spread out in my rather nondescript scrawl over lined paper.  The taste it leaves in my mouth depends on the contents.  There are nights when the taste is sweet from removing the taint from my heart and I sleep deeply with dreams that entertain with insanity.  Other nights, the heaving brings tears and sobbing as I work out the emotions of past indiscretions and apologize to nobody for things I have done but have never spoken of.  The visions that come to me in my sleep will leave me choked up and tearful, as if I had been crying all night, when my alarm clock forces me awake in the morning.  The strangest discovery for me is the taste of hate and anger on my tongue.  There is more than I thought, and if I had to guess I would say there is probably even more than that.
I don't like hate.  It is ugly.  I didn't even think I had that emotion amongst my lexicon of feelings.  I guess I do.  I guess I am as human as anyone else.  The taste it leaves is sour as it passes onto the page.  The worst part of its ugliness is that it sticks in my teeth for days following.  Hate is the Pablano of emotions.  Sometimes you think you could use a little bit to spice things up, but you always regret it later when your heart burns and the indigestion leaves your mouth sour.
I am captivated by the the nights that I tap into something that I didn't know was looming behind the scenes.  Those nights the words spill onto the page in a fury and are nonsensical afterward.  Those are the words that most accurately reflect the darkness that dwells.  They are the guilt and the sadness and the anger and hate that creep into my dreams and cloud my vision when I wake.  They are the words I can't speak out loud.  My only reprieve is that of pen to paper and they only surface in letters forming words forming thoughts or in drawings that are rarely more than sketches of the recesses of my mind.
Sometimes they scare me.  But when emotions are seen clearly they are never as bad as they are in your heart.  I think your heart tends to see things bigger than they are.  That's why initial emotions are so strong in both love and hate.  When the blood slows again, things fall in to perspective.  For me, putting the emotion on paper is my way of seeing it clearly.
Even writing about my writing is like seeing the silt in the river begin to clear so that the largest stones begin to take shape.  I can't see the little fish yet, but they are down there.
Words are thoughts taken shape.  They are the reflection of the things we can't see.
Words are what will eventually set me free.

Bored of Melancholy

For a brief moment I was legitimately happy.  That strange kind of happy that you feel in your chest in the same spot where feelings, even the bad ones, seem to find a home.  Anxiety was the immediate reaction to that feeling.  I have been miserable for long enough that the thought of being happy was run off by fear.  Fear of what?  Fear that I don't deserve it?  Fear that it will won't last?  Probably both. 
Then I let those fears go. 
Curiosity has taken their place. 
I know I have asked this before, but am I so wired for feeling down and out that feeling something else is so alien that I fear it? 
It must be true.  Otherwise, why would I have that reaction?
I can feel myself changing inside.  I feel more in control and I am not as affected by dreams and memories and nostalgia of my past life as I have been.  I have also begun to see that being sad is really shitty.  I have grown bored of it.  I have a play list that was pieced together over the course of the past year and a half.  It is full of great, mellow, emotional music that holds a lot of meaning to me.  It is also really depressing.  But that was where I lived.  That was what felt right to me.  I can barely listen to that list without feeling the mood of those songs wash over me and I have to get away from it.  I find myself moving from the beautiful melancholy of Ray Lamontagne to the positive and shiny optimism of Brett Dennen.  It is very odd to look at my musical selection this way. 
I will still listen to some of the music I was in to in school.  Nirvana and Pearl Jam.  Alice in Chains and Korn.  Music that was angsty and anxious.  Depressed and angry.  I still listen to it.  I probably always will, but it doesn't have quite the same effect on me.  At one point I sought out the sounds that reflected my stormy soul.  Or perhaps fed it. 
I don't want to feed it like that anymore.  I seek out music that moves me in a different way.  Songs from The Temper Trap and Band of Horses that resonate with something other than the dark parts of our emotional psyche speak to me.  I love this.  My nostalgia holds on to those bands and songs that were a part of me for so long, and it really is hard to let go of some of them.  But the effect they had on me was not always positive.  It created a poetic romanticism to my depression. 

I am kind of bored of being depressed as well. 

The constant cloud looming in the distance is tired.  A lot of it stems from things that I didn't realize affected me.  The divorce and lack of a consistent, solid male presence has had a deep and powerful effect on me.  Dragging up the fact that I taught myself to shave almost sent me into a fit of anxiety.  I have some serious baggage to deal with and I believe that all of this stuff that is locked up inside of me was a driving force behind some of my poorer life choices as of late.  But I am working at it and this work has led me to the moment I had just a few minutes ago.  A moment of happiness and contentment. 

Anxiety for those moments is stupid and I am done with it.  I am done with being all dark and broody and melancholy all the time.  It sucks.

I don't doubt that I will slip and fall from time to time.  My therapist tells me that one of my character traits seems to be a tendency towards melancholy.  This is partially drawn from my introspective mind set.  The dreams of my old life that wake me with sobbing are a billboard for the fact that I have some healing to do.  Today, I choose to dwell on the fact that I recognize that I am still a bit fucked up, not on the fact that I am still a bit fucked up. 
Allow a moment of cliche when I say I am looking more at the silver lining and less at the dark cloud.

Friends and Lovers

I have lost connection with a lot of people that I should not have. 
The friends that we make in life are important.  They help fill our lives with all of the things that life can be.  They are supports.  Sometimes we do things and some of the people get shoved aside.  I am ashamed that I have shoved aside the people that I have.

When I left my wife, a lot of people were really upset with me.  Some of them still won't talk to me and I understand.  I know that I made mistakes, that I did things without thinking - regardless of whether they were the right thing to do or not.  The friends that I am reconnecting with, the relationship is still not the same.  I suppose this is a byproduct of actions taken and things not said.  I don't expect everyone to turn around, shake my hand and tell me that all is forgiven.  How could I?  Some words, once spoke, can't be taken back.  But I have to try. 
Real friends are hard to come by.
The thing about meeting people - lovers are easy, friends are hard.  The right combination of clothing and small talk can land you a lover, but friends - friends are a mystery.*

There have been plenty of lovers in and out of my life.  Some of them were meant to go, others I wish had stayed longer, and others I wish I had not left when I did.  But I did.  It's the friends that hurt the most.  One thing I miss about my ex-wife is the friendship, the companionship.  We may not have been perfect together, but we cared (still care).  Having people care about you is an understated pleasure in life. 
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I can't go back and put the words back in my mouth or fix the broken relationships in my life. 
All we can ever do is work and hope that we are forgiven and accepted again.  If not, perhaps it is important to realize that what we did or said hurt people.  Then we don't do or say those things again.  Then we grow a little.  Buddhism tells us to detach ourselves from worldly things.  Nothing is permanent.  The things that I have lost are not important.  The people are.  Since I am a far cry from a Bodhisattva I still miss them.
So, I am attempting to reconnect.  It helps to believe that I am making everything out to be something that it isn't and that I am underestimating the people that I have so rudely shoved aside.  They were all good people. 
The friends that still try with me are a blessing.  The ones that were pissed at me, but stayed are gifts that I can't be thankful enough for.  I know that I would be that and more for them. 
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People come and go.  They affect us and the move us and we laugh with them and cry with them and get drunk with them and eat meals together.  Some leave and the leave a mark on us.  Others stay a bit longer and we watch them grow and change and mature and lose and gain.  And some of them leave and their mark changes us.  Still others stay longer.  They grow old with us.  You watch the world change together and you lean on each other as that world moves just as fast as you slow down.  We cry when they leave this world, which is the only way they could ever leave us.  Those are the people who have become a part of us. 
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Everyone is important.   
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We will leave traces, for we are people and not cities.*


*Steven Dietz
*Ionesco

Monsters Inside Us

I find that there are still traces of my great depression of '10-'11 lingering around the periphery of my vision.  They dance around like the shadows at night in the room of a small child.  They are the monsters under my bed and most days go unnoticed.  But, like all memories, they are still in the corner of my mind. Though I have learned to step back and look at these things as objectively as possible, I just don't know how to step back enough so that the mind does not follow the body when the depression threatens to crawl out and drag me down again.

Is it possible to get past those days and nights when we were at our worst?

After talking to a friend about things that I had done, she made the comment that she was amazed at my stories.  She said I didn't seem like the guy who would lash out at people or walls or raise my voice to anyone.  At one point in my life I would have agreed with her and as I was trying to reassure her that it takes a lot to get me to that point where I can't control myself, I wasn't sure if I was reassuring her or me.
Those days and nights are still a blur for me and I still don't know who that was.  It was as if this other person had stepped into my skin and taken over.  He ruined relationships, screamed at people, ignored the people who cared and threw himself over the edge.  The fact that the things I was doing were not healthy did not seem to register.  That fact that he is me is still hard to accept.
I was doing things that were out of character for me.  I wouldn't stop.  I contemplated suicide.  I drank to escape.  I took pills to chase whatever it was I was drinking so I might escape even further.  I did not want to live because I didn't know who I was or what I was doing or why I was doing it.  Those things were threatening to devour me. Many of the thoughts are still there, but more as a reflection of the time than as a current state of mind.

Do we all have this monster inside of us?
I know that I have spent the majority of my life stuffing emotions and hiding my feelings and thoughts from the light.  I believe that my monster was the manifestation of all of these things come to life.  I believe that the shadows dancing at the corners of my vision are a reminder, a warning of what will come if I choose to avoid changing the things that need to be changed.
Perhaps we all have this unknown creature hiding somewhere in the depths of our psyches.  For the most part it stays that way, lurking about but not rearing its ugly head.  There are moments, however, where the little things we do that we don't talk about, the unspoken things, are too much to contain and it is like adding water to a full glass.  These are the moments when we are at our worst.  These are the times when we can only learn from our mistakes and hope the people around us can forgive. 


I meditate now before I go to bed.
We are all looking for answers and many people find these answers in religion and spirituality.  I am not a religious man.  The path that seems to make the most sense for me is one focused on spirituality and finding the answers in yourself.  For six or seven years now, the path of Buddhism has intrigued me.  Like an estranged father, it has stood back until I was able to look to it for guidance.  I would not call myself Buddhist, but reading and pondering and meditating on the concepts and ideas of Buddhism helps me.  I like how it places the burden of enlightenment on me and at the same time that this idea is freeing, it is that burden that I struggle with.  Knowing that I struggle and looking for answers instead of ignoring the problems is a step forward.
I have seen the monster that is inside me and he still whispers up from the darkness to remind me of where I have been and what will happen if I choose to go there again.  But we all must learn, somehow, and the steps we take afterwards are what really count.  I talk to people now.  I am actively trying to find my answers.  I am slowly (hopefully not too slowly) walking in a relationship that is actually healthy.  I am trying to live where I am instead of where I think I want to be.
One thing I have definitely learned is that the grass only seems greener on the other side.  Enjoying the grass on this side of the fence is one way for me to keep my monsters in check and under the bed where they belong.
Little steps for a long journey.

The Smallest Ripple

Is this all there is?
I keep asking myself if this is really all that life is.  Then I ask myself what I expected it to be.  We wake up, we go to work or school or outside to play (those things if we are lucky) and we talk to people and have a drink or a meal and watch some TV or play with the kids or help them with homework and then we sleep so we can do it all again the next day.  We do that until we die.
Is there a point to it?
We go to work to make money to buy stuff like food and clothes and shelter and fun so that we can eat and be warm.  Are we just surviving so that we can eventually die, hopefully after having had a bit of fun and having done something worth while?  How does this make us any different than any other animal?
Are we different?
Looking at the way we treat most of the other living creatures on the planet, it would seem that we are better than them.  At least, that would be where we place ourselves.  But if we look at what life seems to be, a series of activities we perform in order to eat, be warm, be sheltered and happy it looks like we are doing the same thing even the smallest ant is doing.  Our methods are different, more complicated, but I am struggling to see any real difference.  We live to survive.  We are born to die.
But that is the beginning and the end.  That part is pretty simple.  The middle part is where it all becomes a bit muddled.  Is it really as cliche as to say it is what we do with the time we have that matters?  I keep staring at one thought trying to make sense of it.  Does anything we do really make a difference?
As soon as I wrote that down, an answer jumped out at me.  Yes.  It makes a difference to the people around us.  If I wake up and go to work I have made a bit of cash to satisfy a bit of Maslow for myself.  I have also helped my coworkers to get through their day a little easier.  The work I have done has helped to produce something that will save someone's life.  The money I spend on food will help someone else make money so they can eat and have a roof and clothes.  If I make a phone call to a friend and we go out for a night, we both benefit from laughing and talking so that the next day we might laugh and talk with someone else and they will do the same and so on and so on.  The butterfly effect.
The ripple I make will spread and can affect a lot of people.  So few of them know it, but it is happening all the time.  The keyboard I am typing on was made by someone who wants to make some money and to eat and to have a home to go to.  Have I ever thought, "thanks dude or lady who made this keyboard that is allowing me to write this which will in turn help me figure something out to alleviate my mood so that I might do something that will help someone else who will help someone else and on and on and on."
I am humbled and empowered. 

The enormity of this is now threatening to devour me.  At the same time that I can impact so much by simply waking up in the morning, it is humbling to think of how little I affect as well.  I doubt that this blog will affect the wars in the Middle East, but maybe it will (I recognize the absurdity of the notion).  Someone might read it and decide to stop fighting which might stop one other person and on and on.  There is potential in nearly every action we take to affect someone that could change the world.  It's like the movie Lady in the Water.  The words of one man put on paper could affect the life of some child who later becomes a world leader.  Then again, they might not.  They might just entertain someone for a few hours.  But even that has an effect.

I had no idea that me questioning the value of my life would lead me down this stream of thought.  But I am glad it did.  I have realized something.  What I am doing with my life may not be perfect for me at this moment, but it is affecting something.  Everything we do affects something or someone.  So, this is why it is so important to practice mindfulness everyday.  It is also an example of how we are all connected to each other.  We are all just trying to have food and shelter and to be happy, whatever that means.  Isn't that what all living things are trying to do?
Even the smallest stone causes a ripple.  Even the smallest action has value.  I guess this is as much a warning as it is hopeful.

One Thousand Days

I can't play guitar right now.
There are a lot of songs sitting inside my head slowly fading away because I can't get them out and on paper.  This stupid broken hand that has been screwed back together is slow to heal and I know that when it does it will be all the stronger, since it has been messed up for a while now (the sad result of unleashed fury upon wood doors).  I have a hard time waiting until that day I can form a chord and place lyrics to music that will most likely never find its way to any one's ears but mine.
Or maybe it will.

The thought of playing in front of people scares me and I have a tendency to run from things that scare me, but there is a change happening.  I have been seeing things differently recently.  Running from fear has been holding me back from so many things.  Living in the known, like hiding under blankets, is comfortable and warm but it only blocks out the life that is going on everyday all around me.  For years I have been skirting the the issues I needed to see, avoided the issues lying inside of me because I have been afraid to see them.  I have been afraid of my feelings and my baggage and my past indiscretions.  More recently, I have been locked up inside my walls which I hastily erected to protect my heart from the war going on around me because of me. 
I holed up behind old habits when the emotions that I had locked down for so long broke through the cracks in my old walls.  I don't blame my self for hiding behind well tested defenses, but the walls tend to obscure my vision of all the things around me.  Even as I begin to step outside, the world is shaded in grays.  I still want to hide.  I am not used to this thing where I feel something and have to face it.  I can't seem to shove things down anymore, no matter how much I want to.  But this is what we do.  We protect ourselves from the ravages of life that find our front door.  Right?
Even as I write that, I don't fully believe it.
The woman that died last week battled with Cancer for 1000 days.  I don't doubt that she had days where she hid herself from the world.  But, from what I understand, she spent most of her days living the best she could.  The odds of her dying were better than the chances of her living, but she took the odds and told them to fuck off.  She chose to see the good in life and she traveled and got married and wore colorful wigs.  Her aunt spoke at her funeral and said that if she could relive her past 1000 days, she would live them differently.  I have to agree with that sentiment.  But I can't look at the days that have gone by already.  It is the next 1000 days that matter now.

I am still hurt and scared and scarred.  I find it hard now to say that and not feel ashamed. 
In my next 1000 days I am going to write my songs and play them for people.  They may not be very good, but I don't know that it really matters.  I am not doing it so that I will be making records and touring with Eddie Vedder.  I am going to get out of this debt and go to school again.  I am going to write a horror movie.  I am going to do things.  Knowing myself, what those things are will change, but I will do whatever it is that my heart decides upon.  I guess the thing to remember is that I may not even get 1000 days.  I could end up with ten or ten-thousand.  I have been broken for a while now, but it does seem that I am healing and am seeing things more clearly than I have before.  I don't have the ability to ignore myself anymore.  I have to see myself for who I am and that is scary.  But I have to do things that scare me.  It's how we grow and I really do want to grow. 
I am coming out of this stronger than I was and without the help of metal screws.  That's good, right?

Shame On Me

A girl I went to high school with died of cancer last night.  34 years old and she is gone from this world.  My feelings are a jumble right now. 
Nothing is permanent and we all die.  It is the order of things and is inevitable, but it seems so odd to hear about a friend dying because they have walked the earth for as long as you have and it is hard to imagine that it is so close to us every day.  If I believed in god I would blame him and wonder why he would do this.  But he didn't do anything.  Their is no one to blame.  It is out of our control. 

It is a reminder that we can go at any time.  It is a reminder to savor those in our lives that love us.  In this, I am a failure and it tears at me when I think of people around me dying.  Love is a gift and a difficult one to give, for some people more than others.  I think about what I would do if I found out my ex-wife died and the thought nearly devours me.  Giving love was hard for her and I threw it away.  Shame on me.
I know that I have to treasure the people that care for me.  I have vowed to myself to do this and when it comes to my friends, there is no problem for me.  I can love them easily and would do anything for them.  It is harder in matters of the heart, perhaps because my scars and bruises are still healing, perhaps because I am just scared.  Shame on me.

It is also a reminder to do the things we need to do.  I need to teach again.  I need to ride to California.  I need to write.  I need to stop being a waste and begin contributing to my life.  When it's done, it's done.  I talk about it and write about it, but I don't do it.  Shame on me.

I have no idea what happens when we die.  No one does.  We hypothesize and we find religion and myth and we hope we are right, but no one knows.  All we know is what we have here, now.  There are no answers for us. 

I am a bit of a wreck right now.  My mind is swimming in these thoughts for which there are no answers, so they continue to swirl.  I am lost in the reminder of the things I have taken for granted that I can't make right.  I am lost in the paths I have chosen to pass by because, like so many people, I have been taking this life for granted.  I have wallowed in my own self pity and my tiny problems for too long.  Shame on me.

I am alive. 

I have to remember this.  I have to.  We all do.  A woman I know has died of a disease she fought with for 3 years.  I remember reading her facebook posts about how she wasn't giving up and she would fight on.  She chose to live instead of just wasting away and even found a man who loved her despite her illness and she married him. 
I look at my broken heart that I hide behind and am ashamed.  I look at my broken hand that I am slowly typing with and I am ashamed.  I should be.  Bones mend.  Hearts heal.  This life only happens once. I have been taking it all for granted for too long.  Shame on me.

Seeing the Trees

Are we so used to living with a certain amount of shit in our lives that living that way becomes the norm?

A coworker recently had a surgery on his shoulder to fix issues with his rotator cuff.  Following weeks of physical therapy, he was living without pain for the first time in a long time.  "I became so used to the pain that it was normal to feel it.  Now that I don't have it, I realize how much it actually hurt.  It is strange to not have that constant ache and I have lived with it for so long even though I knew what the answer was to fix it."

Fear keeps us back.  Fear and comfort.  There is comfort in chaos when you are so used to chaos in your life.  I wonder how often I sabotage my own happiness because I have been used to living with a certain level of stress, a certain level of emotional disturbance, that when I am feeling calm for too long I have to do something to shake it up.  Not that long ago I found myself in a comfortable life and I decided to shake it up a bit.  But why?
As an old ass man, I know what is right and what is wrong.  I know that if I touch the flame, it will hurt.  But sometimes, I touch the flame anyway.  Touching the flame has pushed me to do things for a long time now.  But why?
I'm a child.
Emotionally, I am a child in far too many ways. 
This fascinates me.  Why am I?  Why am I immature in this way?  What caused it, if anything?  Why haven't I seen it till now?
Fear, I believe, is a part of it.  Mostly because I believe that fear seeps into every part of my life.  I can safely say that I am scared to be happy for too long because that happiness has always been shaken.  Do I feel that if I have a constant level of feeling down, then it won't hurt as much when something comes along to rock the foundation?  I suppose I do.  In doing so, though, I really am missing out on the things that will fill my soul.
I have made choices that I knew were wrong, but I didn't want to miss out on something.  I knew that I was about to touch a flame and that I would get burned, but the desire to feel the burn overwhelmed the fact that doing it was stupid.  This seems to point to an addiction.  But to what?  Which part of the chaos is my drug?  Is it the chaos itself or perhaps the rush from driving straight into the ensuing storm? 

So, really, it seems that stupidity, or perhaps insanity of some kind, is another part of it.  I keep doing the same thing even though I know it will hurt.  On top of this, I know how to stop.  I know what the solution is.  When I am in a situation where I have the choice to stir the pot or to walk away, I need to just walk away.  i really am a moth drawn to a flame.  But I am smart enough to know that I will get burned.  The addiction draws me in every time. 
Do they have groups for people addicted to poor emotional choices?

I am already doing the therapy thing, which helps, but I am far from cured.  I still seek to taste the rush of emotional maelstrom every time I open my email to see if she has sent me something.  I am better, because I don't check every day.  I tell myself that I wait until I know that I can handle it, but maybe I am waiting to for a day when the sea is calm and in need of a few waves.  I am not sure why I do it, exactly.  Why do I need an emotional kick to the balls?  I know that if I open a message from her it will mess with me.  Whatever sort of balance I have achieved will be thrown off kilter and I will have to spend time finding my center again.  I know I am better, because it doesn't take as long, but I know I am not because I still look instead of just moving the email. 
I am addicted and it kind of pisses me off.

What makes it worse is that I know where my answer lies.  I read Buddhist philosophy and it makes sense to me.  I have done the meditation and the yoga and it all helps me.  But still I find myself reaching for the fire.  It's like eating McDonald's even though I know it offers nothing nutritional.  It's like a smoker who knows it will kill them.  It is ridiculous.  It really is. 

Or is it just hard?

Is it easier to just get drawn in, to hit the drive through or take another puff?  It is changing a habit.  The frustration and depression and the dark parts of me have become a habit.  Like getting up and taking a shower, it is so ingrained in my psyche that I don't even have to think about it.  The easy answer is to just give in and let it ride itself out.  But this easy answer is also the one that leads to the hardest consequences.  So why do it that way?

Recognizing that there are questions is one step and asking them is another.  I can pick out some of the individual clouds, and though the sky is far from clear, it's a start.  I wonder when it is that we decide that not being able to see the sun is better than always feeling its warmth or how we get to a point where the sky is always cloudy in the first place.  The answers are there.  The surgery that will alleviate the dull ache that has become the rule instead of the exception is there.  I know I need help getting to the point where I am happy with me.  I am hoping that recognizing some of this will lead to that.  Most addicts find it easier to quit their addiction by finding something else, something more constructive, to put their attention on.  Maybe this should be my next step.  I would like being calm to be the norm.  I just have to keep the needle out of my arm, the hand out of the fire and find my proverbial Subway to keep me out of McDonald's.

Custodiat Animam Simplicem

I love the day after a fog lifts.
When I wake up and the feelings of melancholy that color and distort every aspect of my life have moved on, the relief is beyond words.  I can breathe again.  I can see again.  I can enjoy again.  It's like the first warm breeze in April.  I love it.  With ease, I step out of my head and laugh again without wondering why I am laughing or whether the laughing is good or bad.  I can just laugh.
I went out last night and ate and drank and lived in the moment with person I was with and there were no preconceptions or assumptions.  It was simple and easy.  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I was simple and easy.  Moments are just moments, the weight we feel in them is the weight we put on them.  I know that it is easy to say this now, after I have stepped away from the self directed tragedy I seem to enjoy living in from time to time. Every step is a step forward.

The only bad part is that I look at my past entries and shake my head.  I don't really like how I seem to have traded my testosterone in for an extra dose of estrogen.
Testosterone keeps things simple. 
Simple is good.

Remnants of Drowning

I am struggling with the confusion of my thoughts and feelings.  The swirling of another few days living with melancholy and nostalgia has left me with a sadness that I can't seem to shake and that I don't understand.  It stems from something outside of my grasp.  I don't understand it even as I am looking at it.  My microscope of rationalization is failing me and I am left waiting for clarity. 
It started on Saturday. 
I was supposed to have a date.  The date turned into what would have been a dinner with her family.  I couldn't do it.  The weight of anxiety pressed on my chest, shortened my breath and sent my head spinning into a snowball that picked up every stress and piece of emotional baggage that my train of thought came across.  The final avalanche that threatened me is a warning that I am still not ready. 
The frustration is nearly overwhelming. 
I admit to my part in the anxiety and hope that someday I will actually learn.  Instead of talking to her before it became an issue, I waited and tried to find a way to still spend the time with her but in a way that I might be able to handle it.  The most frustrating part is that it was just dinner with her family, but that act means so much more and I think we have placed a certain importance on it and on its significance.  Is it that I don't trust myself to take that step and to survive it myself, or is it that I don't know what I want with her?  I have been happy being with her when us being together was relaxed and unassuming.  Just two people having fun together.  That was easy.  It is when I consider opening myself to her that the levy threatens to break. 
Part of this comes from a fear to trust women emotionally.  Not being able to trust is a new thing for me since I trust right away with the assumption that everyone is basically decent.  We talked about this whole situation and she said she can cool it for a bit to give me some time to work shit out.  I want to believe her but my new baggage brings with it mistrust.  I am angry with myself for allowing the past to creep in so deeply and hold my heart.  We all have a past that defines us and that we have to deal with.  It is times like these that wading through it seems so daunting. 
I am still dealing.  I apologize to myself and anyone who finds themselves in the way of this storm for the things I have done that have brought me to where I am now. 
Where I am now is the other part.  Sometimes I think of friends raising families and I am sad.  They seem to have found something, part of the answer.  I don't want the physical part of it, the family and ties.  Still, I am envious of the calm contentment that I feel coming from them.  I am envious that they know where their love is.  Marriage does offer comfort in the form of security that you get from opening yourself to another who fills the spaces between you.  Sometimes I feel like my space is still partially filled.  Before I can allow another in to add themselves I have to make room for them.  In order to make room I have to open it up.  In order to open it up I have to be ready to face what comes out.  Just opening the door feels too daunting right now.  Doing this in time will make it easier, right? 

The relief from her telling me that it was okay to take my time was like stepping out from a stuffy room to a cool breeze.  Her honesty and candor about what she was feeling and what she knew she would want was refreshing.  I have told myself that it is okay to believe her. 
I came into this relationship with a lot of hope.  It felt right and it was easy to be with her.  I didn't feel the fear of being with another person.  Controlling the pace of this thing has not been easy.  My head wants to run, but my heart is not quite ready.  I thought it was.  I am struggling with the fear of the tidal waves that once broke through my walls and left me flailing.  The water still fills my lungs.  I suppose it's like facing an ocean after almost drowning.  At some point you have to dive in and find you can swim again.  I don't know how to know when that time is.

Maybe I just have to jump in.......just not yet.  I'm not ready.

Drinking Life Light

The younger me was a kid in need of meds.  One game done, next one please.  Or maybe a college kid with a case chase, a party to go to and one after that and then after that as well where the women are plentiful and the sights and sounds fill the room and the night and every night.  Stimulation overload.  That was my brain.  That still is my brain.
I am constantly running around like a little kid high on sugar, or at least my mind is.  Hyper and out of control, this brain is constantly on the move and in need of stimulation.  Since it is one of my goals to slow myself down and to experience the moments that are constantly flying by, I recognize my ADD state of mind as a problem.  I am missing so much because when I stop to smell the roses, I have already begun to think about the smell of chocolate cake or what I might do later that day or whether or not I would like to take a nap. 
This is not good.
When I am at work I am thinking about music and video games and girls and sleeping and writing and anything else my brain travels to.  Walking to my car at 3:30, I stare at the ground and watch the thoughts of what happened in the day, what will happen later, what happened when I was six and what might happen in two weeks.  But what about the trees?  What about the blue sky over head?  As a resident of North East Ohio, blue sky is a precious commodity and I am wasting it with thoughts of the past and possible future. 

Is it the way I was raised?  Could it be this culture, this current state of the world?  Could it be run off from college and the few years after?  Could it be that I need Ritalin? 
It is nearly impossible to focus on one thing while the world is sending messages and sounds and warnings from all angles.  Stillness of mind is like an up-current battle against a tide of stimulation that flows around us all the time.  This head-on-a-swivel is affecting everything I do.  Even my relationships suffer.

Beyond my ineptness at emotional stability and letting people into my heart, it is a constant challenge to focus on one person at a time for a long time.  This little brain of mine is moving on before my heart has had a chance to settle in and make friends.  It's like the kid whose father is always moving.  That moving has become the comfort.  Never planting roots means it doesn't hurt as much to pull them up and move again. 
I guess there are traces of this reality in all things.
 By not focusing on any one thing I can see all things and not miss those that have passed me by already.
So, where does this get me?  What do I get out of this but experiences that are watered down?  My lack of mindfulness has made my life "Life-Lite".  Great taste, but less fulfilling.  Am I missing out on the slow savoring of all the flavors that one moment can bring?

When I spent the week cleaning and straightening and doing yard work I found an odd sense of joy in the moments that I was doing those things and a sense of relief at their completion. I wasn't worried about what else was going on.  I was doing what I was doing.  When I started this new relationship, I worked hard at focusing on where I was and who I was with.  I laughed hard and didn't worry about things said, not said, could be said.  I was enjoying the moments I was in. 

My mind is slipping again. 
Old mental habits are finding their way to the surface and I am losing sight of what is in front of me.  Sometimes living in the moment and savoring the things that are happening is so easy.  Breaking the chains that are my old ways of thinking is not.  We are where we are when we are there.  All the rest is conjecture.  Even thinking about the past is recalling stale emotions, thoughts, and memories.  It is impossible to get the full taste from that moment.  Filling the future is impossible.  All we have is right now.  I find it too easy to forget that. 
It's difficult to know what to see in a moment, though.  So much is happening, what do I look at?  Or should I let it all wash over me? 
I think Siddhartha would tell me to watch the colors, but fill my room with none for they are all beautiful.  Or maybe to look at each one, but focus on none.  I am not really sure what this means, yet.  I struggle with these new philosophies; even though their ideas make sense,  I don't yet know how they make sense for me.  What I do know is that I am missing something and what I have been doing hasn't been working.  So I take my daily reading to heart today.  Practice mindfulness in all you do so that by itself the mind is settled, calm and focused*.  Because, while it was fun in college to pound a case of beer, at some point my tastes have started changing.  The cheap twelve pack of Bud Light has been replaced with six Yuengling.  There may not be as many and I don't drink them as quickly, but they are so much better.



*buddhanet.net

Moments Already Passed

Life has a funny way about the way it is.  The ups and downs and all of the little things that bring us to where we are.  It wasn't that long ago that I knew what the next five years of my life would hold.  At eighteen I knew that I would go to school and teach.  That was what I would do.  It was everything after that that was shrouded in a fog.  I couldn't see what my future held.  I didn't really worry about it. 
The beautiful thing about being eighteen is that it didn't seem to matter.  Life is something we ride with possibilities and excitement found in change and moving and dreaming.  I made the choice to let go and float along with the breeze.  Looking back I wonder if I missed something that all of the happy people have.  The dreams and goals and the desire to go after them at the expense of everything else.  Too often I feel like a leaf watching the seeds planting themselves and growing into something more as I drift along on this breeze. 
But I can't be the only one. 
I can't be the only person who doesn't know what they are working for.  The picture book story of a man and a woman getting married and having children with a little house and a dog and cat and a 9-5 is not the story I want to read, let alone live in.  I work a job that doesn't draw out my passion and bring me joy.  I know I can't do this forever.  I will get back to teaching and I will find the pure peace of looking over a crowd of students who are discussing and writing and reading.  I can't sit through a job that I hate for the rest of my life.  I feel stuck here for now, but that is only for now. 
I have been married.  Do I really want to do that again?  The institution that absorbs the lives of so many, and spits far too many back out, is a strange creature.  We are told that getting married is what we should all want and that a family is what we all want and that we should go to school to get a job so we can raise a family and spend our lives raising children so they can do the same thing.  This goal feeds so many people that I can't help but to question myself. 
The institution of marriage is a piece of paper.  It's a tax break.  It's permission to the spouse to be able to go places and make decisions for the other.  Marriage is not love, but love can be a marriage.  Can't love be unmarried too? 
My thoughts tend to push me to think that two people who are together because they want to be and don't have to be based on any legal or religious obligation are two people who are really in love.  Their commitment is one of the heart.  I realize the idealism of that scenario and I recognize that, although my romanticism has been tempered under fire, the thought of two people staying together like that is a romantic thought.  But I like it.  It doesn't feel forced. 
I feel like life shouldn't have to be forced.  We all have to do things that we don't want to do, sometimes.  I have a hard time believing that we all have to do things we don't want to do all the time, though.  There does need to be a balance.  The thought of living a life with a job I hate and a relationship I am bound to is my version of hell.

I don't hold strongly to visions of grandeur anymore.  I have grown substantially from that child of a year ago.  I don't feel the need to do something amazing and earth shattering to find my happiness.  But I don't pretend that I can live in a numb misery either.  Life is always whizzing past us.  Even as a moment is passing us, it is already gone.  Realizing this, I am looking for value in all the small things.  Shopping for a shower curtain to hang in my bathroom, fixing my toilet, deciding what color to paint a room, looking over a freshly weeded front yard - these are places that I find a contentment. 

These are the places I was blind to not that long ago. 

The difference between me now and me at 18 is that I was able to see five years ahead.  I can barely see what my next year holds.  The thing that is still the same is that I don't mind not knowing.  There are goals and plans, but they will change or drift slightly as life introduces the next thing and the next thing after that. I suppose it is part of life to see where it takes you.

Feeling in Grays

I have been questioning my ability to really feel at the far end of the emotional spectrum, the black and white of feelings.  I have loved, but I question whether or not I have "really" loved.  I have disliked, but I don't know that I have ever hated.  I am beginning to believe that my gray emotions are the reason that I am attracted to women and friends that are passionate and that bring their colors into my world.
I need people to fill the holes.
I am drawn to these people. 
That is why I was so drawn to her.  She is passion.  While I sit in the middle, she is the extremes.  She came to me when I was stuck somewhere, when I felt neither happy nor sad.  She smashed holes in my walls and reminded me of the possibilities.  She was my heroin who took me to new heights and deeper depths saving me from a supposed dullness that I believed had crept in and taken over my life.  I can't say that I have ever felt or had feelings with or for anyone that I had with her. That was her gift to me and perhaps it saved me.  Looking back and seeing the waves that rocked my world, I am starting to see the ocean again. 
For all of the storms, for all of the black, there were moments of sunshine and yellows and reds that were nearly blinding.  Maybe it was timing, maybe it was all me or all her, or maybe she was right when she once told me that I couldn't handle a Sagittarius.  I don't know yet.  As with all experiences, though, I have grown and learned. 

I have seen the extremes and now I am in a weird place where the colors are there and I feel like I can place them where I want and when I want, but I am scared.  I am always scared.  I have found a safety in myself that is comforting.  I am in my house and I am piecing my life together while I piece together the remnants of this building where I broke myself.  I plan to paint walls and fix holes and fill in the spaces that could use a little something and I feel like I am doing the same thing to myself, just with infinitely more caution.  An chair can be moved, a painting hung on a wall and no one is hurt by the change.  My fickle heart has hurt and has been hurt enough times that the thought of letting someone in is frightening on so many levels.  But the colors are there and someone new has brought her own pallet and I like what she has.
She has fire, but she has calm.  She has passion, but it ebbs and flows and fills in the spaces slowly and leaves quietly.  She does things for me with out needing anything in return.  I give to her and she accepts, but does not take.  Her colors are bright, but easy on the eyes. 
So where do I go now? 
I keep taking careful, premeditated steps so that I don't fall again.  My heart isn't ready.  I know that.  As much as I say that I am not ready to give myself to someone, I am not ready to see her go either.  There is comfort in knowing that she is around and in my life.  I need comfort.  But I still need space and I still need time.  It is a balance that I feel like I have to maintain.  At the same time I know that I have to get over it and to lighten up.  This sabotage that I am so fond of, the one where I over think everything and plot and have a relationship in my head, is a challenge for me to avoid. 
It is confusing. 

With all of my fears and uncertainties, I do know that I am not scared of her.  That is an amazing thing.  It lets me know that I am not as emotionally fucked up as I was.  I also know that I am comfortable with her and that I like being around her.  As simple as these things are, they are complicated and difficult for a damaged heart.  I don't know what is next, and I am not really planning.  I am not ready yet.  But I know that I am getting there.  I am finding my footing and am beginning to feel something other than down.

I still don't know if I feel in extremes (or why I thought writing this would tell me).  I don't know how important that is either.  I know that I have had a few moments where I felt the warmth of my passion stirring and it is that warmth that reminds me that there is still a whole spectrum of things for me to feel.  Knowing now that I don't have to feel all of them all the time is a burden off my shoulders and a huge step forward for me.  I felt that way once and it was one piece amongst a handful that pushed me over a scary edge.  We all love the warmth of a fire, but do we need to jump into it?  I like blue, but do I want it on every wall in my house?  It all seems to come back to the balance.  Balance in feeling, balance in life, balance in color.  Balance in all things. 
My challenge now is balancing myself and the new relationships in my life and painting my walls to balance each other. 

Freed From Memories

I am so much better now than I was only a few months ago.  Instead of spending every waking moment trying to keep a grip of the ledge, I am taking steps away from that chasm I was teetering on for so long.  I know that life exists ahead of me and that there are choices and plans and love and sex and school and concerts and drinking and friends and all of these things that make life life.  But I have a new struggle.  The memories.  It's the memories that threaten the strength of my new legs to keep walking.  I wish I could say this is new, but I have lived in the past and in the memories for a long time.  Doing this has prevented me from seeing and living in life as it is.  I have lived in life as it was. 

While cleaning my house, I found pictures...so many pictures.  Old scars opened a little again, reminding me of good times.  And not just good times with my ex wife, but of the past 20 some years.  There were pictures from high school when life was little more than an open highway waiting to be driven, pictures of college and girlfriends and summer camp when I was in shape.  I dug through photos of Europe and laughing with the woman I would marry and pictures of the day we did and the life we began for the few years that followed.  The memories are what made it so hard to see where I was now, where I had been recently and where I was when it was all falling apart.  I sat in the closet where the albums and the bag of loose pictures were waiting for me and I sobbed from somewhere inside me that had been closed off, somewhere that I thought had healed.
Behind all of the relationships that go sour are those moments that we treasure, those moments that kept us moving forward with the people we have grown to love.  It makes me sad that the pictures are only captured moments that have passed.  I can see the happiness, but I can't reach in and pull it out anymore than I can go back and relive that time.  It is frustrating to think of all of the what ifs that come along with that.

What if I could go back and play basketball in the snow with Jme and make out during Wayne's World?  What if I could go back to BG and drink a pony keg with Mario or tell Dave he can party at my house if he brings the money and the girls?  What if I could dance with Jill again?  What if I went back to being a camp councilor and Hannah and I would have our summers again?  What if I could spend every rainy night running and dancing in the rain and making love in the newly wet grass?  What if I could be in those moments of real happiness forever where things were simple and were only what they were?

But I can't....we can't.  We can't live in the moments that are gone and I don't know if I would.  If the things that hadn't happened as they happened I wouldn't have experienced all of the good that I have.  To trade in those moments we regret and would rather forget would mean we have to trade in many of the moments we wouldn't lose for our lives.  I am who I am because of all of the things I have done.  I suppose that a good thing about the bad times is that we can learn from them making them something else besides just something that we would like to do differently.  

Life is suffering and each moment of adversity is a moment of growth.  Any runner will tell you that the last mile, the mile where every step is pain and every breath burns, is the mile where you grow the most.  Every time you push through and finish is a time that you have gained something. 

I don't think I can honestly say that I wouldn't go back and have another night in college with the guys in my dorm, or that I wouldn't like to have gotten into Josie's bed instead of sleeping on her couch, or that I wouldn't have stopped and taken the time to talk to Hannah before deciding we were done.  The thing that I hold on to is that I have learned lessons I would never have learned otherwise. 
This past year has been the hardest I have ever experienced.  Parts of myself that I didn't even know existed have been revealed.  I blindly walked into experiences, but have come out able to see more than I ever have before.  I relive flashes of moments every day, and each time I can see things that I could have done differently and that I will do differently if faced with that situation again.  As much as I would like to be 25 and carefree (to be read as "blind"), I am not.  I am growing and aging and learning and seeing things differently and I am realizing that that is okay and it is necessary.  I am not trapped in my memories any longer.  I can look at the pictures in my hand or in my mind and laugh and smile at what was good.  I know that there will be more moments like that and that there will also be more moments I would rather wish away.  That is all okay.  I will grow from every moment, good and bad. 
I am not who I was.  I am who I am. 

Ron, What's Love?

As a romantic, I am constantly in search of great love.  The kind of love that burns in everything I do.  The kind of love that means you would give up everything for someone else because being with them is the air you breathe.  That person is all you need. 
Sometimes I smile at the thought of that person.  Sometimes I laugh at myself.  I laugh at the ridiculousness of the notion.  In this world, it is ridiculous.  This is not to say that it is impossible.  I am not saying that it does not exist.  I am beginning to say that perhaps it is not what I have thought it is. 
I feel bombarded by stories of love so great that everything is sacrificed for it.  Movies and stories of two people who fall in love and lose themselves in each other.  The happiness they experience is the stuff of legends.  Then I remember that these stories only show us the times that these people are together, creating that love.  What happens two months after they have declared their love?  Where are these people after the credits have rolled and the book has been closed? 
Besides the obvious fact that the story has ended so the characters no longer have anything to say, we don't know where they are.  We are never shown the reality of love and relationships in these stories where true love is the moral. 

I do believe that real love is true love.  I believe that this love is the reason that you sacrifice.  I believe that this love burns in you.  But some of my thoughts or feelings on love have begun to change, to realign themselves with what really happens.  The love that burns when you first find it never goes away.  I know this.  But it is not the inferno that consumed the heart when if first sparked.  It is the constant glow at the center of your life.  It is the reminder that there is someone who is there and will always be there.  It is the reason you spend two months salary on diamond earrings.  It is the reason you clean the floors, do the laundry or cook dinner.  But, we don't always think about it that way.  Daily life takes our eyes away from glow, but our hearts know it is there. 
My mom talks about the things my step-father does.  She laughs and shrugs at the way she is annoyed by them.  She scoffs at the collection of violins and guitars.  She shakes her head when he starts a new hobby.  And she loves all of it because it is part of him.  Great love is looking past all of the little things that you shake your head at because the person behind them is who they are.  Great love is knowing that even though you have your quirks and idiosyncrasies, that person still loves you.  There is never a desire to change them, but to accept it all as part of the gift, which is what it is.

I am not saying that everyone we meet can be that great love because with enough work blah blah blah.  I am also not saying that there is only one person that will be the one.  There are so many souls out there that to even believe this is insanely depressing.  But I have known enough women and have experienced enough love to know that there will always be someone else who will come along that you connect with in a way that makes you want to look past the little things.  Love is fickle, though.  To learn to respect that is to begin to understand it a little better. 
Committed love is a decision.  It is a balance between heart and mind.  The heart would have you flitting off to anyone that moves you.  The mind would have you turn the other way because it knows that with love there is hurt and confusion and that life requires more than just love.  The balance is where you find happiness.  The adage of "too much of a good thing" comes into play here.  But we can't deny ourselves either. 

As a single man, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the concept of being with one person for the rest of my life.  When I was married, however, I didn't really think about it.  Life was just life and we moved through it without that daunting thought.  That thought is left at the wedding, at least it should be.  It's like the initial fear of diving in the water because it is too cold.  Once you are in, that fear is gone and now you are just swimming.  The cold is still there, but now you have the choice to keep swimming and playing and splashing and seeing how deep you can go, or you can get out and watch the other kids laughing and living. 
There are marriages where the waves are too rocky and show no sign of levelling off.  If you have tried to swim and navigate, tried to work it out and it is not getting better then perhaps it is better to find the shore.  There is no sense in drowning.  But to get out without even trying, which I believe is an epidemic in our culture, is cowardice.  I was a coward. I will never fully forgive myself.  Karma has and is paying me back for my cowardice. 
The people like me lost sight of what love is or maybe have never really seen it.

I got lost in the idea of love.  I got lost in the stories of love.  I got swept away by a dream.  Love is not the tree in full bloom.  Love is staying around when the leaves have left the tree.   
Real love is the love you hold on to.  Real love is the love you work on.  Real love is that calm that settles inside you.  Sometimes I know that I have had that.  Sometimes I am not sure.  At this point, however, all I can do is move forward and hope that it finds me again.  Real love is certainty.  If you have that, it is not worth just giving up on.

Twenty-Five and Holding

I have been 25 for almost ten years.  Living in the irresponsibility of my mid-twenties was pretty fun for quite a while.  If I could stay there, I would.  But it seems that age has different plans for me.  There was a time I could play a game of backyard football and laugh as the rest were complaining about knees, backs, shoulders, and any other joint that was aching or creaking.  I watched from a safe distance the growth of families from friends that I grew up with.  The guys that played tag and had snowball fights and played basketball and got wasted when the parents were out of town are now raising their own kids who will do all of those things.  I get pictures of daughters off to kindergarten.  The kids are getting older which means my friends are getting older which means I am getting older.  I don't know that I can avoid it.  I don't know that I can keep responsibility for my life at bay.  I am constantly reminded by the gray hairs that are sprouting from my head.
These gray hairs are a reminder of all of the things that I have been through.  The memories of our lives are part of us and the experiences we have had make us who we are.  I regret some of the things I have done.  I regret a great many things I have not done.  But all of that is past.  I can't change it.  The hardest part for me has been to face it, to admit to it.  I look at some of my unwise decisions and it can be hard to look in the mirror.  Every time I do I have to see the skeletons that are stacked up, reminders of an idiot who didn't care as much as he should have about the people around him - or himself.  Facing the ugly truth about me has altered the facade of who I thought I was.
I used to be an Aries, born in the year of the snake.  I used to be a middle child who was the product of a divorce.  I used to be the eternal 25 year old. 

I used to be a series of excuses.

The thing about being made up of all of those things was that I carried no responsibility for my actions.  I blamed my looming boredom, which threatens every relationship that I enter and everything I do, and the resulting fallout on my birth sign.  When I got tired of a person or a hobby or a job, it was not my fault.  I am an Aries.   I could blame my parent's divorce for my own or being a middle child for my need for attention.  I could blame everything I did on something that was out of my control.  If I can't help it, I don't have to accept blame for it.  That was my mind.  That was a major part of who I was. 
Seeing that makes me a little sick. 
Seeing the way that I did things, unthinking and uncaring, makes me sad.  There was a time when I was a "nice guy".  I propagated that little mask of mine because I believed it.  I don't think that I was as nice or as good as I would have liked to believe.  I have kind of been a shit.  And I can't do anything about it.  Or is it, "But I can't do anything about it"?

The past is done and gone and is unchangeable.  A major lesson learned for me.  I have done shitty things.  Those things were my fault, not my sign's or my family's or any other outside influence.  Mine.  I made choices based on what I wanted, or believed I wanted.  Sometimes those things kicked me in the balls and left be crawling on the ground.  Sometimes those choices left me drunk and suicidal.  Some of them sit in the closet as skeletons that will never come out.  All of them have made a part of who I am.  I have actually started to see the lessons to be learned. 


Maybe age is slowing me down a little bit.  I am seeing what is important and I am learning from my mistakes and I am finding my own truths because I know that my life is my responsibility and I can't blame my unhappiness on anyone else, nor can I blame my happiness on anyone else.  It's all mine.  This seemingly apparent revelation is freeing.  I have control.  My life is mine.  This is both daunting and elating.

Life is Stubborn

For a short time I believed that you should follow your heart.  Go where it leads you and find your bliss.  But my bliss does not lie in simply following my heart.  My heart is not that guide that takes me off to show me the cool stuff with little regard for safety.  "The heart has its reasons for which reason knows not."*  In a romantic and ideal world, this would be amazing.  I would follow love wherever it took me with no care for the hearts of others and would experience things that would be earth shattering.  But I can't live that way.  I tried.

In this world, simply following my heart has lead to shattering more than just my world.

The hurricane of consequence that follows is still wreaking havoc.  I have been healing and moving forward and rebuilding.  But I will never be the same, and I don't know if it is a good thing this time.  I will never know.  There are lessons I have learned and I have found things about myself that I would never have seen otherwise.  This is the positive, for what it is worth.

There is still a piece of my heart missing, though.  It may never return.  I don't know.

I have met someone that offers promise.  I have that to hold on to as I attempt to move back in to a world that has been shattered.  Part of me expected that nothing would have changed.  I could open the door and step inside to find things just as they were.  I am not so lucky.  Karma still has some work for me to do and I have no choice but to do it.
I am getting all that I asked for, all that I thought I needed.
Solve et Coagula
It's funny how we have no idea what we need for all of our ideas of what we want.

I have regrets now.  Where I would once say that I regret what I don't do more than what I do, I have no words.  I regret what I have done, I regret what I didn't do.  But none of that really matters.  I have only what I am doing now to think about if I hope to keep taking steps and strides.


I know that I can't live by my heart alone.  It isn't me.  I need the balance of heart and mind.  That is where my bliss lies.  As much as I would like to be that person who follows love with graceful abandonment, I am not him.  Anyone can tell you, I am not graceful.  I am that guy that follows love with stumbling awkwardness.  That is okay.  I know that I need to temper my passion with reflection.  That is my love.  That is my bliss.  The beginning anyway.

I am rebuilding at the same time that I am watching something new come to life.
No matter how many times I try to fuck it up, life keeps moving forward and I have no idea what will happen to the things outside of my control.  It's exciting and scary.  It's all life, though.  I guess it is important to remember that.
"If we focus on the waves, we lose sight of the ocean"*


*Blaise Pascal
*Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

My Unguided Current

I have a problem. 
I have no idea what I want.  I am riding this current of life in my little raft and watching the nice scenery and enjoying the way breezes send me this way or that and every once in a while I run into someone else's raft and we have a good time until the current sends me somewhere new.  I am far from alone as I drift along.  I have family and friends that have been riding along with me and me with them.  Even though my boat strays away from the group for a while sometimes to smell a few of the pretty flowers that bloom along the bank, I always end up back in this flotilla of my life. 

I like that.
Even when I don't like it.

I have begun to listen to these people more and more.  Taking advice and asking for help every now and again has helped me to find a sort of paddle.  Sometimes I even use it.  Because I am lucky.  I know it.  I just don't seem to know what to do with it. 

I have a job.  It's not perfect, but it's okay.  It pays.  It's steady.  In this time of my life and in this time of our lives, that is a lucky thing.  I want something more, eventually.  But what?  To teach?  I think so and that statement, as wishy-washy as it is, is a bold statement for me.  I think so is more than the usual "whatever" that I like to use. 
I have friends.  They are amazing.  I keep making new ones too and have recently met some really amazing people that have become something to me.  I like this.  I like friends.  Friends are good.  I am amazingly blessed in the people that have decided I was an okay guy.  Even in my darkest times and in times when I have thought that the current was going against me, people have been there.  I love them.  Even the people that have come and gone have made a mark.  All of these people propel me along on this undecided current I am riding.

I would say that I am missing a "special someone", but I don't know if I am.  There is a part of me that wants to have someone.  Then there is a part of me that wants to have many someones.  Another area where I just don't know what I want.  I keep saying "hey.  I want to have someone in my life."  and then I stop and think about it and I ponder it and I change my mind.  Then I just want to have sex.  I have had outstanding luck with the women in my life.  If I were to complain, the fates would make my penis disappear out of frustration for the gifts that I have been given.  And I do want to be with someone, eventually.  Right now, though, as much as I don't like to say it, I think I should just keep things simple....noncommittal.  It will probably do me some good to ride this for a while. 

I read this blog entry and I am ashamed that I am even able to complain about anything.  I have food and shelter and clothes.  I have a job.  I have family and friends.  I have so much.  I may not know what I want, but I know that I have what I need and that really is brilliant.
So, what place do I have to bitch or to be depressed or down?  I am like a spoiled child not getting everything he wants.  I want this girl or that girl and I can feel depression creep in when I don't get them, even for a night.  And that kind of shit is the greatest of my worries.  I end up getting pissed off at myself when I get like this, when I throw a mini inner tantrum, because I don't get what I want.  I don't get a part in a play that I want, or my friends don't call me to do something, or my friends won't stop calling me to do stuff.  What the fuck.  Is this still high school?  Am I still that fucking kid in baggy jeans sitting in the back of the class who had deep dark thoughts.  Maybe I am still the little kid who would storm out of my house when I got in trouble screaming that I wasn't good enough.  When do I become an adult?
Looking at myself like this is even more fucking depressing.  Looking at it from the outside makes me want to beat my own ass.  I could probably use it.

One of the reasons that I left my wife was to have a blank slate....more or less.  I had to throw everything away in order to see what I had.  Solve et Coagula.
What is this disease that prevents me from seeing what I have that also makes me want what I don't have that also keeps me from getting the things I want?


I know people that are really good at seeing the things they want at going after them.  Maybe that isn't me.  Maybe I am better and rolling with the waves.  Maybe that is a cop out. 
I do realize that at some point I am going to have to start paddling.  I really do know this.  But, I think i am going to float along for a bit longer, allow my hands to lazily drag in the water and enjoy the sun on my face.  I have a lot of things coming at me fairly soon.  I feel it.  Maybe enjoying the gentle drift will be good while I still have it. This river below me is still restless from the storms and the silt is still blocking my view.  As it swirls and clears, though, I know that I am making progress.  I feel good, now.  I feel lighter.  I feel like I should probably bask in this instead of dwelling in the shadow that threatens the sun. 

As with all things, it won't last forever.

My Fickle Heart

My heart makes me crazy sometimes.
It wants what it wants and I am more and more unable to keep it on a leash as I believe I would like to.  I keep meeting women and then there is laughing and sometimes kissing and sometimes sex. I keep meeting these younger women and they are fresh and exciting and wonderful, full of life and promise.  I love life and promise.  But is that what I need? 
Is it possible that life sets the people in front of us, the experiences that open our eyes to what it is?  If you should have that person who fills your life, you will meet those people.  If life decides you need to be free and loose, you meet people who are free and loose.  It gives you skinny dipping and laughing and drinking and dancing in the rain and meeting new people and finding eyes to get lost in and smiles to wake up to and fingers playing with toes and new music and old songs that still stir your heart.  There is a part of me that wants to be with someone and to slow down a little.  Then I have a night out that is crazy and amazing and I no longer know that I want to slow down a little.  I am tired of sex.  I am tired of sweating nakedness and then being alone again.  There is still no room for love in my heart, but it would be nice to want to lie in bed and laugh and talk.  Isn't that kind of what life is about?  Those moments when you really feel connected to something? 
Sex has come to be something that people do.  Love is not sex.  Sex is sex.  Love is the moments between sex.  The gentle touch on the hand, the look, the right words.  Love is the unselfish giving.  Love is the desire to put someone else before you.  Love is the sacrifice freely given.  Love and sex together are something totally new. 

I met someone that sparked something for me.  She is wild and free and experienced with a brilliant smile and startling blue eyes.  She is a friend of a "friend".  I don't know if that is okay.  I am undecided.  I am confused.  I don't want to hurt anyone else, but I want to see her.  My heart wants me to be selfish.  The last time I was selfish the world cracked. 

I don't know. 

I used to think that we are all blowing around on a breeze.  Today I think I may have changed my mind.  I think we are floating on a river.  The current can take us where it wants, or we can paddle ourselves.  If we are sinking, we can choose to swim.....or not. 

It's all our choice. 
I can be selfish.  I can float along.  I can swim.  I won't sink.  Sinking sucks. 

This blog lost all focus and I am trying to tie it together. 
I am letting this one lie. 

Melancholy and Nostalgia

I am prone to bouts of melancholy and nostalgia.
I think of everything that I should have thought of when I should have thought of it. 
I think of it when it is all too late.  I think of it when it is all slipping away.  Even though I know in that little part of me that knows all things that what it was and where I was was not where I was supposed to be or where I was happy I miss things.  I miss ten years of experience.  I miss the things that I was blind to when I could do something about it. 
I feel that tingly burning thing in the corners of my eyes.  I see the moments.  I put them away for a while. 

I know it was my doing.  I know I can't change it.  I still can't help feeling what I feel. 

Suffering is perception. 
Make these moments of regret and sadness moments of learning and experience, a chance to grow and show the real self - to clear the muddy waters. 
I will still hurt though.  For a while. 
I will miss her and will never forget.
And someday when I am really sad about walking I will try to remember her just the way she looked that night and smile at what it was and not what it became.

She is leaving soon. 
I am a mix of emotion. 
The silt is stirring and swirling. 
I will be okay, so they tell me. 
Time needs to get a wiggle on. 

Anger and Love

I am angry.
It's not a quick fuse rage of throwing things and punching walls.  It's a slow burn in the pit of my chest.  It's kind of like love, but unpleasant and ugly.  It pulls me down instead of lifting me up.  Why does it live where love lives?  Could it be that anger and love are just passion with a different face, a change of clothes?  The best sex is the product of either a fight or a moment of unbridled love.  The best relationships live when love can be expressed as well as anger.  The ones that last the longest are fed when both are fostered healthily. 

I am angry.
The weight in my chest from the burden of unspoken memories.  Tears of frustration perch in the corner of my eyes.  This leashed scream that is crouched in my chest is the product of not saying the things that I want to say.  But how can I even contemplate always saying the things that I want to say when anger is the source?  I have no desire to hurt anyone.  I don't want to lash out in anger, to say things I will regret and possibly don't mean.  "Some words once spoken, can't be taken back".  Here is my fire.  Words that have been said that can't be taken back.  Words that burned me so deeply they still surface to peel off the scars that have begun to form.  I don't want to destroy people's lives, I want to get over it and move on, I know she has, I don't feel like a monster, I meant the love I felt, I pulled away because it had to be done, I know I played my part, but it is not all my fault. 
I hate that these words affect me like they do.
It all spins around my head.  It makes me feel weak.  It makes me feel sorry for myself which pisses me off which makes me ashamed which makes me angry again and it is swirling like a storm.  A storm that feeds on everything else that I have said and done.  My screaming and my tears and my wallowing and my self pity and my denial and my suicide and my leaving and my apologies and holes left in walls and in hearts.  A maelstrom of bullshit.  A pressure that squeezes my heart threatening to bring me down in a hemorrhage of a past I can't change.  A pressure that leaves me in a state where I say shit like this. 

I am tired of the clouds behind the sun. 

I am tired. 
I am tired of mood swings and of this pathetic heart dripping self purging emo bullshit blogging full of self pity and woeful words that don't mean a fucking thing. 
This is life.  Life is suffering.  This is the first noble truth.  Life is suffering.  This is life. 

I really do need to lighten up and get over it. 
It really pisses me off that the best advice I have been given has been given by women who pissed me off. 
I can only shake my head and recognize the truth in it. 

I do need to lighten up.
I do need to get over it.
I know that the dwelling and the resurfacing continues to muddy the water.  I know that I need to move on.
I am just not entirely sure how.  How do I separate the love from the anger?

Too Many Cooks

It is obvious to me that I am not in a place for a relationship of any emotional quality.
I met up with the woman on Saturday night and had a really good time.  Even though I had initially picked her apart the moment I saw her, I didn't close myself off.  I wanted to give it an honest chance and I am glad I did, sort of.
She was as easy to talk to in person as she was on the phone.  She is ambitious and she is driven and she is aggressive.  I was set on "roll with it" that night, so when she took my hand, I let it be.
We laughed.  A lot.  We also drank a lot.  We also went back to hers.  We listened to some good music.  The night was good.

As I lay there, absorbing the moment and pondering the events of the night, I felt a familiar shortness of breath creep in.  My brain was chasing itself around and when it does that I can't even begin to keep up.  Here I was with a woman who was definitely in to me and I was not on the same page.  She is making plans for September.  I am barely making plans for tomorrow.  I can't help but to think that she is hoping for a real future and is planning for it in her head.  I know women do this, but how can I even think about planning for a future with someone when I am barely able to plan for my own future.  I am trying to live in the moment.  But overcoming the mountain of doubts and baggage that looms over me right now is a daunting task.  When I stop thinking about what she might be thinking, I am alright.  I had fun.  We had a good night out.  Do I feel an immense emotional connection to her?  No.  Do I like her?  Yes.  Is that enough?  For me it is.
So now I have the responsibility of calling her up and laying some of this stuff out.  I feel like a real ass.  I would imagine that is because I acted like that guy who does what I do.  I hate it when women don't tell me what they are feeling or thinking and I am left floundering around trying to figure it out.  I can't leave her like that.  She told me that I am responsible for her acting in a way she has never acted before.  She is a bit more outgoing around me.  If I am not mistaken, she is seeing that as a sign of some kind.  That is not good when I am not seeing the same signs.
The challenge of asking her what her mind is saying and telling her what mine is saying is no fun.  I hate the idea of possibly hurting someone.  I don't want to.  I really don't, but I find myself in this position again and again.  At what point do I learn?
I am not ready to be dating.

Emotionally I am still fucked.  The ex-wife is leaving and making plans and we are going to be having a talk later in the week.  I still cry from thoughts of her and memories and actions and all the shit that I have been wading in for too long.  I really want to get over it all.  I really do.  I just haven't done it yet.  I kick myself daily for the way things happened, but like my friend says, it is done.  I can't go back.  I can't change things.  I have to move on, and I am trying.  It is the part where I have to get over some emotional baggage that I am struggling with.
Living in the moment and trying to deal with my shit are two life concepts that butt heads.  At least in the way I am doing it.  Living in the moment says, "go out, have a drink, see what happens."  Dealing says, "don't be an ass.  You are not ready."  My brain and my heart and my gut are all at odds too. 
Too many cooks in the kitchen and I am burning again. 

So, now I have set myself up to have a talk with someone.  I don't know how that talk will go, exactly.  It is not a fun thing to tell someone that you are all fucked up in the head.  I had fun with her and would still like to spend time with her, just not in the way that she seems to be headed.  I guess it will play out as it plays out and I will have had another super awesome learning experience where I hurt someone. 
It is getting old. 
At some point the beatings will stop and I will have realized that I can't keep doing this shit.  When?  When will I listen to the words I have been reading?   I knew I was dense.  I know that it takes a long time for life to sink in for me.  I just can't seem to keep that from messing with others.  I think it is time to just get off the market.  Stay out of the dating scene.  Denounce sex, for a while.  Spend time with friends and myself.  When the time is right and the moons have aligned with the stars and the blah fucking blah astrology bullshit blah blah....

More simply put....someday.

Fear, My Shield

I talked to her.
I am scared, amongst another hodge-podge of emotions. 

We spoke the other night on the phone and hit it off right away.  She talks a lot, which is good for me, because I don't really talk all that much.  She is funny.  She finds me funny.  We laughed deep belly laughs for nearly an hour of the conversation.  I was wheezing and snorting.  It felt good.  I have not laughed like that in a long time. 
She is crazy like me too.  She says what she is feeling and so do I.  She seems to feel things quickly, the way that I do.  I was afraid to tell her that I really wanted to talk to her again.  She said she had been afraid to say the same thing.  This was when we were talking on the phone again last night.  I will talk to her again tomorrow as well.  I have not met this woman, yet I feel a connection. 
This is why I am scared.

I fear that I will not be able to take things slowly, like I know that I need to.  But I am going to try.  I will listen to my heart, but heed the warnings in my head and follow the instinct in my gut.  I am not creating scenarios for our future and I am not wondering what it holds.  I am living in this moment, even as it passes by.  
I don't want the good feelings to be my drug.  I don't want the fear to rule my mind and chase me away.  I also don't want my heart to throw me headlong into something that I have idealized, but which does not exist.  I don't want love to be a projection of my romantic soul.  I would like to see it be what it is.  Then I can add some color with the help of that soul.

I am also afraid that I will meet her and my judgement will take over.  She will be too tall or too short or I won't like her brown eyes and hair or she might want to work out a bit more or will be too skinny.  I am afraid I won't be able to silence that voice. 

I wonder if these are the fears that everyone faces.  The only relationships that I have ever fostered started out as friends and then grew to something else.  This one is starting with the intention of finding something more than just friends.  It is an unfamiliar path.  This fear is a shield of sorts.  As long as it does not cover my eyes from what is good, it might save me from getting crushed again.  I just need to focus on keeping myself out of myself.
One of the benefits of working at keeping out of my head for this is that I have moments where I just enjoy the thought of this woman.  That is what I am going to strive for.  The moment.  Not the future.  I will also not let the past dull the shiny moments with fear. 

I use a lot of definite statements.  I am determined, or at least as determined as I can be.  She may just be a passing fad for me, as too many hearts are, but for now I am excited and buzzing about knowing her. 

There are a lot of mixed emotions swirling in my brain.  I would love to dump them out and paint a picture so I can get a better idea of what all of them are trying to tell me.  But for now I will have to settle for meditating on them as I can piece them together.  Then I make them into words and place them on here for random people to read, which I still don't understand. But I digress. 

Love is a leap.  A big scary leap with no parachute. 

Tired of Sex?

I like sex.  But I have reached an odd point in my life. 
I am teetering in the edge of the boy who would fuck anyone with little concern for the consequences to a man who would kind of like the sex to mean something.  I am not getting all sappy and mushy about it.  I would just like to have sex with someone that I want to spend some time with and this is an odd sort of thing for me.  Done and on to the next one is becoming a bit passe for me and I don't quite have a grip on it. 

Married man friends of mine are a bit jealous of the freedom for my fucking.  They like my stories of being out and drinking and hook ups with younger women and blah blah blah.  It is fun.  I like it.  It is what I wanted for quite some time while I was married.  The freedom to go out and be out and fuck around and talk to girls and have sex, or not, and then they go home and you go to sleep and it is all just super.  And then you get up in the morning and watch tv while eating on the couch and you are naked still and maybe you sleep a bit more and then you take a shower or whatever and eventually you are out again to do it all over.  It's fun.  But it's empty. 

I am taking slow purposeful steps towards being in that state of mind where I want to be with someone on a level beyond horizontal.  It is scary, in many ways.  I have fucked up long term relationships and I don't want to be in that place again.  I have anxiety about women now.  After my last "thing" I am wary of women and the power they can hold over me.  I am keeping most girls at a distance and for good reason.  I am healing.  I am working it out working it through and getting somewhere.  I know what I don't want and am getting an idea on what I do want.  These are good things. 

I still miss the ex wife sometimes.  I still look back on the good times now.  I don't see the shitty things in the same way anymore.  I am moving forward.  Or at least trying. 

It feels like I am missing out on something but I don't know what.  I don't like to miss out on things.  I am going to try to take more risks.  I am going to tell people I like them and thank you for being my friend and I  love you and it's a nice day, why not go to the beach.  I am going to go to the beach more.  Write more.  Talk more.  Sleep more.  Laugh more.  Accept more. 

I could be hit by a car tomorrow or get diagnosed with terminal something or other.  What would I have?  My life is like meaningless sex.  It has been fun and sometimes a bit risky.  It has involved excuses to get women out the door.  It has some good stories.  It is missing something deeper, though.  That thing is in me.  I have to find it.  It is already there.  I just have to find it. 

I am calling a woman tomorrow.  She seems nice in emails and I have seen some pictures and she is cute.  I am scared.  I am scared that she will like me more than I like her or that I will like her more than she will like me or that I will just like her and want to spend time with her.  The last may be the worst one.  But love is a leap.  I suppose that means that life is a leap as well.  Like this bridge I jumped off in Michigan with this chick Katie Shae.  50 feet up with a river that held any number of dangers underneath.  I jumped.  I liked it so much, I did it again. 

I am back there again.  50 feet up, ready to jump into swirling waters. 

Bone Saw? Anyone?

With the news of my ex-wife moving, I have begun to remember the good times .  I think about Mr. Meow Wow.  I think about buying dining room chairs.  I think about Percy and Ratties.  I think about eating wedding cake and drinking champagne.  I think about the things I could have done or what I could be doing now. 
I went for a run tonight.  I thought it would have been fun to have gone with her, to have run the bleachers and walked after. 
Then I get sad.
Which makes me angry with myself. 
I have no right to feel sad for where I am.  I have no right to be sad for what I am missing and what I am missing out on.  Any pain I might be feeling is nothing compared to what I put her through.  She had no control over it.  I did.  I cut the ties and left her to hold the broken end.  I have no right to cry. 

But how do I not?

There are still moments, as brief as they may be now, where I want to cut out my heart because it hurts too much.  I might as well.  I seem pretty good at removing limbs and anything else that is good for me or that I might need.  If anyone has a bone saw, I am getting tired of ripping myself apart.  I would rather make some clean cuts from now on.

But what good is it?

Feeling things is not bad.  I should be feeling them.  By feigning numb, I got where I am today.  I need to feel.  I have to.  It feels good even when it is bad.  My short stint on antidepressants showed me that.  Not only was it nearly impossible to achieve orgasm, I couldn't feel anything else either.  They probably saved me from actually doing something stupid, which is good, but I was a blank wall for months.  Living that way is no good. 
My marriage starved to death because I wasn't allowing myself to feel and to be open and loving and caring.  Even as I talk about those things, I feel a slight twinge of anxiety, though I don't know why.  I do know that I won't repeat that mistake.  I hurt someone that I cared about deeply, but wouldn't admit that I cared as much as I did.  I was afraid.  I didn't want to hurt.  I was a pussy and I have spent the last year hurting more than she ever would have hurt me.  That makes me an idiot too. 

A lot of people have said that it is what we do now that makes all the difference.  We are all human.  We fuck up.  We hurt people.  We must learn and move on or we drown in it.  I have learned a lot.  I have learned about myself and what I want and don't want.  What I will do and what I will never do again. 

I wish I could apologize to her and make her believe that I mean it.  I am more sorry than I can put into words or action.  How many times can I apologize before anyone feels better about it?  How many apologies before they don't mean anything? 
I don't know. 

If I could take out my heart and show it to her, she would see that I am sorry for all of it.  She would see the bruises, the cuts, the scars, the holes....all because I walked out that door. 
But I can't.  And I can't remove any body parts, any ears, to show it either.

I can only say I am sorry.
Maybe that is all that I will ever be able to do.