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.