Tabula Rosa

Tabula Rosa

 

I am not sure I really even want to write right now, hence why I am.  I went away from the pen and paper for a while (and I bet it while happen again).  I went away because I stopped.   I stopped caring, I stopped pursuing, stopped clamoring, stopped needing that extra inch like Al Pacino talks about in Any Given Sunday.  Bottom line is that I did something that has never happened to me yet.  I fully stopped. 

I have been told a lot by a lot of people that I need to let go, need to stop, need to seek counsel and stop trying to figure everything out.  Much of that advice is extremely true and comes from grounded perspectives and honest hearts.  But, not all of that advice is applicable to me.  See, me stopping, me hitting a sort of stop-and-smell-the-roses sort of limbo is like putting a car in neutral on a step hill.  One can easily expect the outcome of that endeavor.  I should have been able to expect the outcome of my endeavor to stop and slow down, etc.  It has been a traditional folly of mine to give in at that 99% that I have talked about before. 

I have traditionally given in, but in the last few months something started to change.  I finally finished my Master’s degree, I secured a job, I finished and published my book, and I moved forward.  Something else happened though too, I completely lost my way.  I had no clue as to who I am and what I am all about.  That is scary.  I was a walking zombie of a person. 

That zombie-like state landed me into a very stark and negative place.  I slowly regained old bad habits.  I took to sex and the drink, and started to walk that line of God on one side and false idols on another.  I do not have a built in regard for my own safety and an understanding of my own mortality.  I cannot look at myself and feel what others feel.  I have, maybe a side effect of heavy medication and other things, become very numb to emotions.  Maybe I am slipping back into a long drawn out stretch of mania whereby I simply move and move and never stop and never fully feel.  The presumed scary part is that I don’t really mind that. 

See, as the days went by recently, I started to break down again.  I lost a job, started binge drinking, stopped and started with my meds over and over again.  I was a wreck.  It ended up landing me in a hospital for three weeks were I spent a lot of time digesting how I got there.  I got there on a stretcher in an ambulance with a lot of alcohol and sedatives in my stomach.  I figuratively got there, in a way that shakes my head.  I honestly cannot explain how I got there.  It went from zero to 1,000 so fast that I cannot comprehend it.  I don’t know how I went to such crazy lengths, but I did and it just happened. 

So, while spending three weeks in a hospital with nothing to do but pray for visitors, read my Bible and think about my actions, I had a lot of time on my hands.  I had hoped for some great warm feeling to wash over me and make me want to pull a Charles Dickens’ type of ending out of my hat and start dancing around fevered with the fact that I am alive.  That really didn’t take place and still hasn’t. 

Instead of that, I feel like I have no control.  I have no control of living or dying.  It is out of my hands.  For someone that needs and craves control, the ultimate need is to control my life on my terms.  But, I cannot and that is what I thought about for days and nights. 

In the few days since I left the hospital, I went back to doing on the outside are my usual tricks.  I lined up some job interviews, landed a job in about 15 minutes at an interview, found a place to live, found some money, reconnected with friends and family and I pushed forward.  But, on the inside a lot has changed.  I received a Facebook message from an old friend from college.  She wrote about how she was so proud that the intense Pete could write blogs about himself and let his guard down and let himself be weak.  I smiled about that.  In the midst of all the chaos that is my life, there is a simple fact that slowly but surely (even at the worst of lengths and going past the lowest of lows) I am still progressing in a good and Godly direction.

For many, the events of my recent life and actions should be met with lots of emotions, lots of things to talk about, things to cross-examine, dissect and really get down deep and explore.  I find none of that to be rewarding or of positive gains.  At some point, I just needed to do what I did and exhaust it from system.  I reached an apex for myself.  Something that I longed to do since I was a very young child I attempted to do and I failed at it.  But, I can gladly accept that failure; I can move forward knowing that my life is out of my hands.  I am surprisingly calm and very calculated about everything. 

Life is good.  Life is really good, and the t-shirts tell me so.  I hear it, see it and believe it.  I also just don’t really want to talk about it.  I don’t know if that will change and a rush and gush of emotions will fly out of me.  I tend to think that won’t happen.  I am not really built that way.  What I think is going to happen is that I am going to move forward even more so.  I am going to just enjoy this moment.  And then I will enjoy the next moment and the next. 

Most people never get to start over.  They never get to start anew.  I have had that opportunity over and over again.  Granted it was never as drastic and dramatic as of recent, but it still was opportunity after opportunity.  The Latin term is known as Tabula Rosa.  Tabula Rosa simply means clean slate.  I am starting over, again, with a clean slate.  That is pretty darn cool if you ask me.  And I would rather be asked about that then the bombardment of questions about my present state and mindset.  I would rather talk about things to come instead of things gone by.  That is where I am at today. 

So, really?  I have to vent in line to tell my life?  That is what Facebook is.  It is a vacation at a theme park where we all stand in line for three hours and we just are tired but want to make a fun time out of it.  It sucks how we have to tell others of our time.  We never want to say it. But, we do.  And its primroses and fairies.  But, it is the truth.  It is that truest feeling.  The whole tired, the whole hatred.  It is being exhausted, and then being excited.  Riding that ‘coaster, or other them ride, and just letting go, but hating it.  You feel tired, but then suddenly, you are lost in it.  You feel like it is fun, like you can only enjoy it.  It is the ride, the company with, the fact it is a challenge, it is all that, but its just you, and the oeople with, or the story told.  It sucks, but it is worth it.  an hour plus for 0 seconds and it is life there after….

 

That is the ride

A Year in Review

A Year in Review

Last December 21^st, I was in the middle of my work week.  I had just moved into a new apartment, hated my job, and was feeling the lows of loneliness.  I had already racked up a huge amount of carnage, debt and destruction (the norm).  The morning was very bright, and very cold.

I was happy that the morning was cold because at that point, I was drinking every day and not caring about anything.  Most mornings meant warm showers then putting on my shirt and tie, and by that point, I would be sweating bullets from detoxing the copious amounts of stupidity (alcohol) that was in my system.  Then I would feverishly find whatever I could drink to make it through the morning and then hopefully lunch so I could make it through my day.  Then feel good as I left work, head home, wish I knew how to cry, and then watch tv, pass out, wake up and repeat.  That was my life a year ago. 

As I left my apartment building at an early 6:13am (and I was already running late, since my job required me to work 15 hour days), I stood out and looked at the complex’s pool.  It looked beautiful, and I thought about how I spent over a month in my apartment and never made to the pool once yet.  I love water, I need it, and I was denying my body of it on all fronts. 

I stood and a small voice inside me said, “Just give me 5 years.”  I didn’t know what that meant.  See, that morning I didn’t feel hung-over, I didn’t need a drink, I felt OK.  I walked to my car and could still hear “5 years” being told over and over again. 

I didn’t know what 5 years even looked like.  I spent the previous year and a half on a hell bent attempt.  And was now working at some Office Space job that I hated.  Most days, the voice of the construction worker neighbor in the movie would go through my head saying, “Dude, Peter man, that sucks.” 

I got to my car, and debated the whole 5 years thing.  It meant trying to fly right, manage my mental illness, grow the fuck up, etc.  I could see it, I could taste it, I just didn’t know how to swallow it.  How could I change my life?  And why 5 years?  Why not, just give me change now?  I wanted the instant change, or screw it.  That night, I left work feeling great, I went and got liquored up and well two weeks later I was fired. 

It’s now 12/21/12 (the day the world was supposed to end…) and that 5 years thing is still ringing through my head.  Obviously, I didn’t suddenly pull a 180 and now my life is perfect.  Far from it.  But, instead, some things have happened.  I saw a movie a while back about 3 guys that decided to run the Sahara Desert.  Yes, run the freakin Sahara Desert!  Basically, in 100 days they would attempt to run over a marathon and a half every day.  Of course, it took longer than planned and they had their issues along the way.  I watched as they fought with each other, wanted to give up, cried, etc.  One of the runner’s talked about how he, on his 30^th birthday, decided to put down his shot of tequila and start running.  He ran 30 miles that night.  He said he was running ever sense. 

That guy is how I view things, I see things as an automatic change.  Put this down, pick this up, change and move on.  It doesn’t work that way (5 years).  The guy in the movie, which is called Running the Sahara, was an ass most of the time, he was maniacal and mean.  He wasn’t inspiring to me at all, none of the runners were. 

I found no inspiration in them because they were just running to finish something.  They damned their health, their hopes, their families, everything for that one pursuit to finish running a desert.  That is how I live my life, and watching them was like watching the heartache I put others through. 

Here is my year in review:

I spent last Christmas alone on a couch with a bottle of Tequila, too proud to ask to go home to see my family.  I did all my Christmas phone calls early in the AM so I wouldn’t slur and be bothered as I got tanked.  I then spent the week at my job on a manic high that I couldn’t control and tried to with alcohol and even Nyquil.  I couldn’t stop moving, talking, or just being frenzied.  New Year’s came, and I spent it alone, well save for the girl I met on Match.com that I talked to, picked up, had drunken sex with, then drove her home the next day hung over.  I then went to work the next day, drinking all day, and one Thursday morning walked into the office to find that I was “let go.”  Part of me was stoked, finally!  Part of me couldn’t believe it.  I walked out and my boss said, “let’s be honest, you didn’t really want to work here anyway.”  I almost broke down crying saying, “Please don’t fire the guys on the floor, take care of them.”  I was in charge and failed, obviously. 

From there, I was Baker Acted at one point, spent a day in the hospital for dehydration, locked myself in a hotel room for a week to kill myself, jumped off a roof, attempted to run away, jumped off a bridge,  got a DUI blowing a .364 but I was “polite” to the officers on my arrest report, went to the hospital again and was put in ICU for 4 days with a BAC of .59 and tried to put stitches into my own eye, I got two jobs, lost two jobs.  Got a third and maintained the third, I spent a summer homeless, yet lived in a beach house with a pool with my sponsor/ best friend,  Went to 63 meetings in 7 days to “cure” myself, I got a new apartment, got on medication, finished my graduate thesis and graduated with a Master’s degree and a 3.6 GPA, took my Personal Training exam and passed, regained my CPR and First Aid certifications, became a member of CERT and most importantly became closer to God and became a member of my church, got to go home and spend Thanksgiving with my whole family, and am alive to tell all this a year later.  There is a ton that I left out, but there is plenty that happened. 

Five years is a long time, but it has been one and I can see progress.  I should be dead, but I am not.  That means everything.  I still hear that voice telling me to slow down and learn.  I read my Bible more, am still a baby Christian but looking to grow up, and I am looking to continue to figure out my life and keep moving forward.  I hope to continue slowing down, and becoming a softer, gentler, more complete Pete.  I want to know God better, be okay with intimacy and friendship and to really grasp on and hold on to my issues of being bipolar and my dependence on alcohol to make me feel better.  I haven’t learned how to master my anxiety and fears yet, but I face them daily.  Luckily, I have some time left to figure them out. 

The Survival Mechanism

The Survival Mechanism

 

There are times, days, even years where things are going great.  The wind is at your back, things are easy, breezy and fun.  Most of my adult life has been that way.  I have lived it up and then some.   Then there are times, like my pastor talked about recently, that are dark.  There is darkness everywhere and at every turn.  Those times are happening a lot more frequently for me right now.

I am told a lot of messages.  Some people tell me how truly good I have it.  Others tell me that I should just “suck it up.”  Still others tell me nicer things like, “it will be OK” and “trust in God,” and it is “always darkest before the dawn,” etc.  I get a lot of help and am told a lot of messages.  What sucks is that I am ungrateful for any of them.

In my life there are countless people that truly want to help me, be my friend, love me, support me, etc.  And in my life, there are more times than not that I don’t want any of that help.  I am ungrateful, I understand that, but that is what makes it even more difficult.  I can’t plead ignorance.  I can’t try to say that I don’t get it, that I don’t understand, or didn’t realize what people are doing for me.  I get it, I fully do.  I just don’t want it.

I don’t want help because it makes me weak.  Why am I not strong enough to handle everything on my own?  I should be able to, and the fact that I cannot makes me stay up nights, makes me hate the world and chiefly hate myself.  I feel conflicted at all times and sick to my stomach when people give me money, talk about money, or I see it.  I feel sick when people talk about their successes.  I am not jealous, not in the sense that I wish I was them.  I just wish I knew how to handle me well enough to be that successful.

I am not successful.  I am a man-child who lives in a dirty apartment in the worst part of town.  I walk to work; thanks to my own stupid actions.  I am about to lose health insurance, I have no dental insurance, I owe more money than I could make and I live basically day-to-day every day.  I am falling apart, my body is destroyed, and when people reach out to help me, I just want to be strong enough to say, “no thanks, I got this.”  I haven’t got it and that sucks ass.

Garth Brooks sang, “we don’t reach for hand-outs, we reach for those who are down.”  Well, I put myself down, and I have to reach for myself to pull myself back up.  There is a lot of heavy heavy food on my plate, but I need to clean my plate if I want dessert.

See, I get that, I get and understand all of it.  I don’t really wish to be left alone, but I do wish that everyone would stop reviewing my life and looking, fearing, judging, caring, etc.  Like Drake sings, “I’m doin’ me…” that is what I need to be doing: me.  I keep being told that I cannot do all of this on my own, but shouldn’t I?  If I go hungry, it is my fault.  I shouldn’t ask for help.  If I get hurt or sick, well I should have planned better and maintained insurance.  If I can’t pay and I get sued, well then it is my fault anyway.  That makes me sound like a martyr, but isn’t it simply true that at the end of the day all I have is me and God to count on?  Plus, who knows how much of it all is engrained and how much of it is a just how I was born.  At age six, I was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, my quick retort was, “read a good book and die.”

All I know is that more I get pushed to the edge, the more that people smile at me, and hug me and act all nice to me, the more I want war.  It is my survival instinct.  I know it is how I protect myself, but if it is how I protect myself, then shouldn’t I honor it more?  I truly don’t and it costs me.

A few years ago, I ventured out of my shell of sorts and asked for help.  Real, legit, asked and cried out for help.  I am more screwed now than I was when I asked for help.  Doesn’t that teach me a lesson to never ask for help?  See, right now, I am asking questions.  I am probing and trying to figure this out.  I just know that there is a fire inside me, a very angry, very strong, very hot and ready to burn everything fire.  It doesn’t want self-destruction, rather it wants the war.  It wants to get in the game and figure this out.

I just think I am better suited to my old self.  No emotion, no caring and just doing what I have to do to win.  I miss my old mantras.  I miss telling myself to “win at all costs” and then doing so.  I miss being a non-watered-down version of myself.  Mind you, I have a ton of issues and all of that, but I would rather repack all of them and forget all of the last two years than go on pretending that I am some new creation when really all I am is a guy who believes in God, nothing really else, and simply wants to go to war.  I am not sure what else can be taken from me, or what else will be taken away from me, at this point in my life there are few tangible things left and emotionally I am already bankrupt, so all I have is the next victory.  I just want a war, maybe that is my survival mechanism, not even just an instinct, but it also is how I function at the absolute best of myself.  I want me back.

Hompe

Hompe

‘Tis the season.  It is the start of the holiday season, and that used to be something that made me very antsy, very disheveled and off kilter.  I was essentially a mess.  I loved the idea of the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s) but, was never overly enthralled with the responsibilities and needs that I had to deal with. 

I guess what I struggled with the most was the feeling of having to be “on,” or having to really be the perfect son, nephew, cousin, brother, grandson, neighbor, Christian, American, Superman, and all things for everyone during the holidays.  I, internally, felt lost, ashamed and hurt, but externally all that I could show was a manic amount of joy.  Years of this brought me to exhaustion and the joy was completely spent up.  I tried to circumvent that by being absent from the holidays, either physically or emotionally (through things like alcohol, stoicism, sex, and other things).  It was a lost cause effort on my part. 

Recently, I was afforded the chance to go home and celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.  I flew home from sunny Florida, and met my dad at the airport in cold NJ.  We talked about his business, about how I am doing, and a bit about life.  I didn’t do my usual fall asleep or just ride silently.  We softly had a chance to bond a bit. 

I was able to have moments with my brothers and their wives, my nephews and nieces, and lots of moments with my mom.  I was able to have soft bonding experiences (soft bonding is simply a shortened moment of reconnecting) and we were able to be in each other’s company and presence and be in love. 

That is an amazing thing to write really.  It is amazing to write: “be in love.”  We really were that though.  Over Thanksgiving dinner one of my brother’s gave a toast about what he is thankful for.  I was beyond touched by the cadence in his voice about me being able to be there with everyone.  I could feel the relief that comes from not knowing if someone is going to be alright or not and seeing them doing well.  It was awesome and a blessing. 

I got to talk to my other brother and just sort of vent and discuss my life and direction and get a chance to see what my big brother has in the way of advice and guidance.  I also got to talk to both my sisters-in-law and see how they are, and just be able to spend some time getting to know two women that I feel are more like my sister (though I don’t yet express that enough in their presence) than simply de facto sisters through marriage. 

I got to connect with my nephews and nieces and through bingo games and chess matches and exploring tree bark and going on rides at a Santa’s Village type play park, I got to be close with them and I got to show them that I love them. 

And with my mom, who has taken the brunt of my actions and incidents, I was able to talk to her in person and not on the phone.  I got to look her in the eye and explain who I am and what I am about and show her the effort I am making to be a better person.  It is a lot different to say something in person than on the phone and 1,500 miles away, even if it is the exact same words verbatim. 

So, I guess what I am saying is that I got to go home.  I got to, was fortunate enough, be around my family.  I am fortunate that I have a lot of “families;” through church, and other organizations and relations.  But, my family is my family.  They deserved my best, not because I had something to prove, but because they simply deserved my best. 

In a family matrix the bond of it all is always challenged when things go wrong, people are mean and evil, and actions are poor and misguided.  Those sorts of things fray and rip on a family dynamic.  They tear people apart and the larger the negative action is the larger the fray.  It can even sever a family totally and cause an inability for it to be whole again.  Of course, sometimes it may be stitched up, but the scar of stitch will always tell the tale of the war that was. 

The negatives weren’t there; no war.  They weren’t present in relation to me and to my family and how we interacted.  We were whole, complete, and ok.  I know that I have caused scarring and created damage, but things were ok.  Things were ok because in our home dynamic there was hope. 

Hope is said to be the last thing that stayed in Pandora’s Box.  After all the destructive spirits and demons came out, in the bottom of the box was Elpis (or as known really: Hope).  That was what being at home felt like.  I felt like I had released all the evil and demons into the world.  I wreaked havoc on everyone for years.  I was a cluster-mess of destruction.  Yet, hope remained in the box, or in this case it remained in my family. 

Home is often characterized as being “where your heart is.”  This is a true-ish statement in that it is where your heart is, but it is also a true location, a destination, a place of real and tangible understanding.  Home is a tangible place, whereas, hope is an intangible feeling or emotion.  Hope is an idea, a pursuit, a belief.  Where the two intersect is a place/thing that I call “hompe.” 

Hompe is the hope that stems from being home.  It is the location of where a person can be loved and cared for and it provides what everyone needs when the shit hits the fan and life is producing more lemons then there is sugar and when all the world is caving in around you.  It is one last thing left in the box, one last remainder to hold on to, to believe in, to just simply not let go of. 

Life needs more hompe in it.  Well, scratch that, life actually needs less.  In a perfect world (Heaven) there would be no need for hompe because there would be no need for hope and everyone would simply be home.  But, reality is that life frays the family quilt, it cleaves and divides with no regard or purpose beyond destruction.  And, it will destroy the quilt totally if there is no home and no hope.  There has to be hompe. 

When I was home, I was afforded minutes and moments with my family.  I was given conversations, silly looks and expressions, hugs (and yes, I did hug) and sentiments.  I was given so very much, even after I had taken so very much away.  The reason I was given anything at all was simply that everyone, not just me, held on to hope.  They hoped I would change as much as I hoped to make change a reality.  They hoped to see me again and for me to be sound, collected and alright.  Had they not held on to hope, or if I had not, there would be no home.  Not for me anyway.  I would have torn into the fabric so deeply that my part of the quilt would be lost.  I would be a piece removed from the whole.  Everyone held out for hope though.  I could see it in their eyes, I could hear it in their voices, and read it between their words.  There was the fulfillment of hope.  There was the nexus of hope and home: hompe.  Hompe is a word I made up to describe a feeling and a location.  Hompe is where I get to smile about having a family and how much they love me and how much I get to love them.  Hompe is awesome. 

Ice Cold Stoic Style

Ice Cold Stoic Style

My high school was less than typical.  I was afforded the chance to go to a private school with amazing education, and extremely high competitive values.  Often, my classes were taught in the Socratic style and students were blindly called on to know all the answers at all the times (this sort of teaching put huge disadvantages on me for life because unless one is doing a hospital residency, speaking first and out-of-turn and “knowing all” isn’t the best approach to life).

One of my teachers/professors/whatevers would take the Socratic Method and make it look like child’s play.  She would go steps further and even put or names on the board, keep them there, and move us up and down by our overall grade while posting our most recent grades next to our names.  There was no hiding the smart, and no hiding the dumb.  We were in a sink or swim style of learning.

Looking back I know that there are benefits to that format of learning, but now I also recognize the inherent drawbacks.  I couldn’t see it then because I was a) inside the world of it, it was too close to me for me to fully examine; and b) I learned another strong lesson from this whatever she was.

The lesson learned was on stoicism.  I learned to be fully stoic.  It looked, smelled, tasted, and felt beautiful as I heard all that she offered to me.  We were examining the ancient Greek city-states and how Athens was known more for being high-brow and artistic and politically nuanced.  And we learned about a sister city in Sparta.  Spartan life has been made overly famous by movies like 300 and even talked about in lore in movies like The Last Samurai.  If you are a scholar of warfare and tactics, you will know of the famous battle at Thermopylae where a handful of Spartans, around 300 (with Athenians, and others…) held off a Persian army for days with ranks in the 100,000’s of thousands.  The soldiers used the land around them, used brilliant techniques, but also had a mindset and personality combination that is known as stoicism.

My professorwhatever told us all about what stoicism really is.  We read an ancient Greek example whereby a small Spartan boy (in a culture that believed in war and fighting and all points of life were bent towards being indestructible) was beginning his quest into manhood.  Spartan manhood meant being completely numb to pain and to fear, it meant being ready to fight and die at all times.  In the movie 300 the famous line is, “Spartan! Come back with your shield or on it!”  That is the wife of a Spartan talking.

So anyway, this boy, as told in lore to me, was out fending for himself and learning to survive.  Survival meant doing whatever it took.  It meant making Juan Val Juan look like Lindsey Lohan shoplifting.  This boy was on a quest to find food and in so went to a farmer’s home.  He found a fox that he would use the pelt for warmth and the rest for food and weapons.  He started to carry the fox in struggle and the farmer suddenly came before the boy.  As the boy stood before the farmer, the fox began to wrestle and gnaw underneath the sack the boy held.  The boy held on for dear life, and calmly told the farmer that he had not stolen anything while the satchel moved to and fro.  As the boy stood there, the upset fox started to gnaw past the bag and into the boy’s stomach.  Yes, the fox began eating the boy’s stomach and intestines as he stood there.  However, the boy knowing that being outcasted is a fate worse than death did not move.  He did not relent, he used his stoicism.  He stood facing the farmer until the point where he could no longer stand, and fell over and shortly thereafter died.  The fox scurried away with a trail of blood coming from his mouth.

I was 15 when I read about this story.  I became instantly addicted to stoicism.  No pain no gain, never let them see you hurt, always win, die trying, just do it, never give up, never give in, fight ’til the end, die if you have to, suck it up, win at all costs, whatever it takes, and so many other mantras.  These mantras were my lifeline.  They taught me everything I needed to know.  And as I learned them and many more, I clung to people that would teach them to me.  I learned to never cry when my headmaster through me into a wall and yelled at me.  I learned to never back down when I was pushed to the edge of fighting.  I learned and I learned and I learned.

There were many nights that all I wanted to be was that little boy.  I wanted to die that way.  Later when the movie came out, I just wanted to die on my shield.  I wanted to leave a widow at home while I died alone or in battle and fell on my shield.  I wanted to be Spartan, be a Viking, be a Knights Templar.  I became enthralled in hurting myself in worthy causes.  I became obsessed with doing more than a human being is capable of and laughing off all the pain and death and circumstance that came with it.

When I wanted to hurt, a simple “suck it up” would suffice and I was back to no smiles, no thrills and no emotion.  I was emotionless in expression but not emotionless in being.  That was the problem.

See the problem is that Spartan life was tough.  Greek life was tough.  Hell, life is tough and was much tougher the further a person goes back until they reach Eden.  Life by its very nature is tough, violent, and gross.  The problem is that people are designed and created to learn and to adapt.  We have been given gifts of exploration and knowledge.

Spartan life was tough and many people died young.  Old was middle age now-a-days.  Being stoic helped a person stave off death for a while.  Being stoic these days will kill a person prematurely.  It almost killed me close to a dozen times.  I would love to have lived fast and died faster, but instead I lived fast and ache more.  I haven’t seen death yet, believe me I tried to.

But, the pain, until I have learned to release it, became a sort of death.  It became a prison.  I locked all my emotions and physical, mental, psychological problems and pains into a small box and I turned the stoic key and inside they all laid and were locked up.  And that seemed great, but the thing about anything that is locked up is that eventually something or someone comes along and pulls the Scooby Doo “Do Not Pull” cord and unleashes everything.  Something eventually unlocks the box.

For me, it wasn’t a one thing or a one person.  It was simply too much.  I couldn’t handle over 200 bones broken, surgeries, and pains, and psychological traumas and mental weaknesses.  I couldn’t handle being hurt in so many ways and just constantly being strong.  The human body is designed to withstand, but it breaks more than it stays whole.  Muscles tare, tendons stretch, cartilage snaps and grows, minds alter and change, hearts beat irregularly, hearts beat different emotions.  Things constantly are at war in a human.  Trapping all of that war inside was like building an army to destroy myself.

Luckily, no realistically fortunately, I caught on to what was happening.  It was too much.  I had done enough time in the pain game, done enough to hurt myself to prove my strength.  Everyone knows I am the one to call when shit hits fans; that is just known.  Awesome.  But, I put my body into so much harm that when called I might not be able to perform as needed.  So, I almost pulled the Catch 22 of going through so much pain to prove myself, but then having too much pain to do anything with the proof.  This is one time I am glad for almost.

I look toward Jesus as an example of someone that understood pain.  I don’t just mean the Cross, I mean his whole life.  He simply understood pain and understood how to deal with it.  He was at peace with it.  Instead of boxing it all in, he simply let it be free.  It can do less harm when released out and disseminated than it can when harnessed in one spot and stuck there.  He was able to rest when needed, be weak and tender, but also strong when needed.  He knew the moments; he was battle tested and ready.  I love that.  I am forever grateful and honestly joyfully envious.  I could not walk his road.  I had to walk mine.  I had to be stoic and say, “suck it up” until I couldn’t anymore.  And then I had to let all my pain out, and find a new meaning in “suck it up.”  Suck it up is something I believe Jesus would not say, but he would simply do.  It is wisdom of understanding a situation and doing what needs to be done in it.  My nature was one of cowering, so I learned to suck it up.  I learned to be tough.  Now, I don’t need the mantras, I live them.  I live peacefully but with strong pursuits.  I live humbly but with loud objectives.  I am meek, but not without strength and purpose.  I know that I am not needed, but that I am wanted and that provides a “just do it” attitude.

It is a funny transition to life to watch one’s self grow.  I am learning, I do know that. The Socratic Method inside my brain is at full maximization.  I enjoy and endure it at times.  But, I also welcome all that comes from the experience and after I go through it, I let it out; it goes to where it needs to.  I smile more, but still am strong.  I love more, but no one thinks me weak.  I rest more, and everyone is the better for a well-rested me.  It is pretty darn near glorious.  And what is best is that this entire essay came from me putting on a Spartan Race t-shirt this morning.  I was supposed to go get a bagel for breakfast about an hour ago.  Oh well, I was afforded the chance to write and to smile and now to eat.  The old me would have sacrificed the bagel in homage to being tough.  I am hungry.  I shall eat and be full.

 

Uncle Mo

Uncle Mo

Since it’s the political season and we are three days away from the Presidential race being over, I am reminded of Bush senior’s comment about good ole Uncle Mo.  President Bush told us about how Uncle Mo works.  We know the good Uncle less as a drunken Uncle, a crazy Uncle, the whatever-you-want-to-call-him Uncle, but instead the Uncle of Momentum.

When we got Uncle Mo, things are looking bright.  When Uncle Mo isn’t visiting the house, well, most of us are pretty much screwed.

Right now, it is like that scene in Any Given Sunday for me.  Al Pacino is yelling about life being a game of inches.  I am agreeing with that and trying to ramp up my own mo.  I am trying to harness some mindset to get me some results to pick up some momentum and hang out with Uncle Mo.

Right now sucks.  Right now is boring.  Right now (like a Van Halen song) is nothing but a morning with a lot of “hit the gym” and “do some work” messages running through my head.  I just don’t have the drive, I had it five days ago, then a birthday hit, then a Halloween, and somewhere in there, I just slowed down and went ugggggh.

I am suddenly 32, the age that my mom left this world, and I have done very little with my life.  The Mo ain’t flowin.  I don’t feel as bad as I used to, thanks to some positive thinking, medical help, and the rest, but I still am sans Mo today.  I need some Uncle Mo.  I would settle for Aunt Flo, wait I can’t settle for that, that is a gnarly girl’s thing.  How about some Aunt Jamina?  I do like the flapjacks, but that won’t Mo me up.  Maybe some Uncle Fester?  The point is that there is no substitute for Uncle Mo.  I need him on my side.

I have to go home for Thanksgiving in a few weeks.  I have to show my goods, I have to be in the game, I have to be better, faster, stronger (oooh, that got the heart racing a bit) than everyone else.  I have to be as close to perfect as possible.  Any chips in the amour will be a one-way ticket to days of feeling less than and feeling like I am in hell.

Where oh where is my Uncle Mo?  I am hoping that I find him later today when I hit the gym.  I need to get into this fight, and soon.  The clock is ticking and I cannot MacGyver my way out of this one.  I can only come as myself, the very best self, or I might as well not even show up.  Thanksgiving dinner will be an all or nothing shit-show in my mind.  Hmm, here comes Uncle Mo.  I am fired up, I have to be.  Otherwise I am just going to be spending the four days screaming, “Uncle!”  And that will not happen!

Listening to Jimmy Yet Again

Listening to Jimmy Yet Again

 

In homage to Halloween as a holiday (which is today) and to a man that knows how to make people dress up: Jimmy Buffett, I am going to listen to Jimmy again.  There is something fun and silly about Jimmy.  It is a sort of childish, not to harm, not to do anything wrong, sort of fun that takes place in a Jimmy song and concert.  When you go to see Jimmy Buffett you laugh, you play, and you find life.

There is a romantic claim to certain artists.  Depending on your age range, your demographic, your relation to the earth, you find your own persons and bands, but one thing is certain and that Is that when you find the beat and rhythm, you feel home.

What is meant by that is whether it’s The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Whitney Houston, B.B. King, Jimmy Buffett, The Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews, Frank Sinatra, your church group, Garth Brooks, Mozart, Sugar Hill Gang, etc. etc. etc., it doesn’t matter the artist per say, it matters the artist’s message.  We are all struck by the beauty of the message.

I wrote a few months back, sort of laughing, sort of tragically, sort of melancholic that I could not listen to Jimmy Buffett anymore.  I knew I would, and wrote that, but I haven’t really since that day.  I did today.  There is crispness in the air, a sort of south Florida fall season coming, and it made me rekindle my summers and Jimmy Buffett time.  I decided to pay that homage.

It also happens to be Halloween, which is a holiday that I find very little joy in.  I just never got in to it.  The house would be decorated, I could get candy and do all the fun, but I always felt it was a holiday out of place.  I never felt comfortable dressing up in a costume.  It was either buy a standard costume as a Batman or Superman or look like everyone else, or try to have your parents make a costume for you and pray it looked okay.

For most kids, that sort of costume awareness and understanding happens at about age 8 or so.  For me, it happened at age 3.  That is when I first started remembering conversations, fights, arguments, loved words, hidden agendas, and all the rest.  It is when I first started to know that what I wore seemed to matter.

I wore a Big Bird costume when I was five years old.  It was the last time I would have a picture of my mom and dad holding me at Halloween, and one of the last ever.  I had a plastic bird face and a plastic sheet of Big Bird.  I looked the part, for a five year old, but I can remember that day.  I was excited, loving it all, and loved the attention, but it all felt out of place all the same.

I just felt raw.  I felt like I had no identity and none was being instilled and suddenly I am nothing but a character for others to laugh and smile at.  At the time I felt sort of angst-ridden I guess, but now I know the feeling.  It was searching.  I was looking for comfort, and I was searching for it.

Rarely as a child did I find comfort.  I found it once in a heated blanket in my house in Vermont, and found it once in the touch of a woman, but really two times out of 32 years is a sad amount of time and understanding.

When I listen to Jimmy Buffett and I think of Parrot Heads and I hear Jimmy’s melodies about silly things that have hidden meanings and deeper designs, I fall in love a bit.  I get lost in what a costume should be, and why people clamor to be different and to have a night away from who they are.

As time goes by steadily, I am still trying to find out who I am and what I love about me.  I wore a costume for all my life, so taking one off is great.  But, it is also great to have a rallying point.  I have God, and that is my primary base of knowing home, knowing good, knowing truth.  I find beauty and joy in simplicity, in fun and frivolity.  In that, I find my joy in Jimmy Buffett and others.  I find it in remembering how fragile I was in those old costumes.  I remember the Big Bird, the Karate Man, the Zombie, the Bum, the all the horrible others, the Superman, the everyday person.  I remember them all.  And in that memory I find confusion, then I listen to the simplicity of a song by Jimmy or Dave and I find myself understanding.  They sing of dual or triple meanings, yet are all about simplicity.

What I find most difficult is wearing a costume that is plain clothes.  What I find in music is that plain clothes are needed and inside those clothes the real meaning exists.  God teaches me everything, and he allows me to enjoy Jimmy and the message of calm from him.  That is better than candy, or the damn raisins and apples the health freaks give out.

Nothing

 Nothing

All people want to know about people is all the absolutely nothings of them; which is good since that is all the courage people have to share anyway.

What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come

Knowing a bit about copyright laws, I figured I could safely get away with titling my piece, What Dreams May Come, and get away with it without disrupting the natural forces and pissing off the makers of a movie of the same title.  It is such a great line that how could I not want to discuss it?

I finished Bipolarsuperman seven days ago.  I wrote and I wrote, but I didn’t have that full on edge that only true mania can bring out.  I was focused, really really really focused, but I lacked the true hyper-focus of it all.  That worried me.  The mania might be gone.  An old friend has finally said goodbye.  I know that I should be grateful for that, but I love the mania so much.  It is a high that nothing else on this earth can produce.  I abhor the lows, and thank God I have not experienced them lately, but the mania is delicious.  It is how I operate. 

Well, it is how I used to operate.  This machine (a total book reference there) no longer operates by the same guidelines.  I am figuring out those guidelines now.  Some I have ironed out and know steadfastly.  Others I am still dabbling in and trying to figure out.  I know that I have to stay on medication.  I don’t know what I am going to end up doing with my life.  I know that I have to stand resolutely for justice and morality and kindness and love.  I don’t know if kindness, morality or love will find me, and what the justice of my previous actions will look like.  I know, simply, that I don’t know.  That in its self is huge for a person like me.  To admit is to accept, to accept is to welcome, to welcome is to conquer, to conquer is to make peace with.  I accept so that I may be at peace. 

In the midst of writing, hitting the gym and improving my health, I also found a bit of work.  I currently am working at a gym as a customer service specialist (so fancy) and a personal trainer.  I love the job, and I was only fortunate enough to get it because I finally am being mature enough to take my meds, handle my affairs and do what I have to do to be whole. 

This morning at work, I met a girl that was my training partner for the day.  She was to show me the ropes of the gym and explain things to me to help me out.  She is 24, remarkably attractive in a wholesome way, intelligent, passionate and very easy to talk to.  She is great.  We talked and I instantly valued her as a person. 

What I do know is that she is great.  What I don’t know is what it is like to hit on her, to flirt with her, to say daring and overly bold things to her.  I am glad for that.  The old me would have (and I still had flashes of wanting to do all of this) flirted with her and made her into an object and not a person.  I didn’t speak to her as something to covet or attain.  Objects are attainable, people are adorable.  I adored talking with her. 

We talked about work and about life.  The conversation had many chances to talk about Halloween and going to bars to get drunk, about slutty outfits, working out, her body, sex, etc.  And believe me I can bring up sex to a nun and she would thank me for it.  As the convo progressed, I did not progress down a darker road.  Maybe it is because a friend of mine told me about how he was approached for sex at a bar/restaurant and he turned it down stating that he wanted to be closer to Jesus than to simply have sex with a random girl.  That was admirable of him. 

But, it wasn’t the reason that I didn’t talk that way.  I never thought about that guy, and his story.  I just focused on the conversation.  My brain remained slow and listening.  I absorbed everything, yet my mind didn’t race.  I didn’t think about Halloween costumes when she talked about them, which would lead to slutty attire and then to her being slutty then to her and I having sex then to her and I dating then her and I getting married, then kids, then a life, then picket fences, then perfect jobs, then kids going to college, then divorce, then burying her way too young or living with her until way too old.  My mind always used to race from start to finish of any situation.  Today, I just listened and all of those thoughts and the “and then’s (straight from Dude, Where’s My car)” never materialized.

It really was a dream that came.  I watched myself act normally.  Or, better yet, I just acted.  I no longer care to be normal, but I do care to be me.  I just was being me.  I wanted to know this girl as a person, and to tell her about me as a person.  The rest didn’t matter; there was no peacocking, no mannerism or words to denote desire.  There was no desire. 

For all intents and purposes I should have felt desire, felt a need, clamored for a way to get this girl.  I should have felt emotions run through me all over the place.  I should have felt frenzied and forlorn.  I should have felt excitement and melancholy in the same second.  I just felt at peace and enjoying a moment to talk to someone. 

I even was afforded an amazing opportunity to talk about mental illness and to talk about God.  She brought up the topic of mental illness due to a show that she watches on Showtime.  She made a comment about a character that didn’t take her meds and by the next day was in a full on manic episode.  I was able to talk about the truth behind that, and how rare it is for someone to stop a med cycle and the very next day go extremely manic.  It was more hype than reality. 

We talked about how mental illness affects so many people.  She asked me how I knew so much about it.  I told her point blank, “I am mentally ill.”  Now, for some people, that might not have seemed wise.  They might see me as trying to lose my job, or being foolish, etc.  I saw it as a direct answer.  She saw it as someone that understood himself.  To thine own self be true.  I just explained how I am bipolar, what that looks like for me, how I treat it.  She said she would have never guessed by how I was acting and could communicate my feelings about it.  I replied to that by saying, “it takes a lot of effort, and a lot of help.  I do what I am supposed to do and I constantly work towards finding out who I am.” 

Because of the way I was presenting myself, she looked at me as though she understood what I meant.  I felt a calm about me.  I felt like I was supposed to be talking this way.  It isn’t all the time that I am supposed to talk a certain way, but this was one time that I was supposed to talk that certain way. 

I hope days like today keep happening.  I am tired, I was up and at work by 5am, it’s been a 13 hour day, which isn’t really that long, but I am still adjusting to not having my manic cycles and bursts of energy.  I just hope days like today happen and conversations like she and I had happen with so many other people.  It is important for me to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.  My dream is not so much about cars and money and girls or weddings and the like.  My dream is to walk into situations and not fear myself.  I got a taste of what it is like to not sit inside my own brain, to not have dozens of voices making decisions and comments for me.  I got to make the decisions and decide the comments.  I got to be a whole person.  That is an amazing dream that came to life today.