A Progressive Outlook towards a Historically Dreadful Period of Time or I'm not afraid of December

Today is November 30th.

Tomorrow is December 1st.

I have to say it's been longer than a decade since I've not felt any anxiety towards December. It has been a difficult month for me for many reasons. December is when I discover when people in my life have passed or they do pass on in December. For the past three years, I've gotten horribly sick to the point where I begin to spit up blood and usually rush masked to the doctor for fear of TB kicking up. It's kind of rough being a human bomb, but thankfully each time I do see a doctor, go through X-rays and even spit into the tube, I only discover that it's not my lungs bleeding, but my throat, either because the last cold's cough was extremely rough on it hence the bleeding, or that I actually have some nasty bacteria wrecking havoc there.

Fun.

I've always eyed December with a dread of what could go wrong. I've always looked at January as some sort of safe haven and as horribly superstitious as it sounds, I focus on the new year as some sort of safe place to prevent me from losing more of my heath or even causing me an early demise. This year alone was difficult sitting in a chair trying to recuperate to the fears of many of you considering that most people judge my well being on the frequency I post on social media, as we agreed almost a decade ago.  Most of you had to be told to stay away for fear of transferring my illness and I have plenty of people, watching me to make sure I was doing nothing but sleeping and eating what I could.

So, yea ....December has always been horribly difficult. And yet, I'm here once more in front of Starbucks, before work writing this, sipping on Guatemalan Dark coffee with nothing more but thoughts and plans for December.  I have weekend plans with friends and looking forward to fixing things that I had to forgo due to lack of funds.  I'm on a long-term plan to make my life a bit easier and even calculating how soon I can write off my debt and even plans to make life easier. There was once a time when I would look at people walking their dogs on a Saturday and wish I had that experience. For the past three years, I've remedied a solution that was as close as possible to that dream and yet I look forward to a phantom dream of waking up on a Saturday at my own place to a happy German Shepard, Rachel....I'd name her Rachel, and maybe even a pot belly piglet, Franky/Frannie Bacon.

I'd laugh at that and know it was not possible. Then again, now with October changing everything, and yes, I must write about it soon and I'm already putting that into words, yet it honestly gave me the only thing I ever wanted: The Opportunity. If there's anything I hate the most it's stagnation. The past 10 years has been a testament to stagnation. I struggled at a snail pace to graduate to the jeers of many not understanding that I was last of a stubborn group of people who refused to leave until college has become completely unaffordable. The fact that it took me that long to graduate instead of succumbing to just negligent policies is more of a boon rather than a hindrance. Above all, I learned to be patient, prepared, and ready.

Yet throughout the years those traits become dull and rusty when continuing to grind at a snail pace. Goals seem prolonged to reach then distant then intangible. What used to be a plan to advance become a battle for principle. Motivation becomes an obligation and ends up into a monotonous drone that numbs you. If anyone wanted to know how long someone can endure this kind of spirit-breaking torture I'd say it took me a decade. Nights of closing your eyes to waking staring up into ceilings pondering why you should get up again can be grating on anything close to determination. And yet everything seemed to hit a peak of disappointment when December approached and hard question would have to be ignored if only to retain on to hope. Yet when you begin to grasp on hope and faith (firm belief in something for which there is no proof) is the only thing you have left, you know you lost and you don't have any more moves. All you can do is wait.

It's the waiting that does you in.

Yet this year is different.

This year I'm in therapy and I was able to confront issues that I had no idea existed. This year I was able to understand what that nagging feeling was when I believed I was lacking something to prevent people for projecting their weaknesses and limitations onto me. I learned to build boundaries where I can take a step back and negate the advances of people who see me as a scapegoat, a hindrance, a simply excuse to place all of their woes upon. I learned to drop was never my "crazy" and to acknowledge what IS mine and to have the confidence to take it head on and challenge it as it once dominated me.  That was October in an abstract. That was the month I took the word of someone who had no interest, wager, or stake in my life, for good or bad, and actually put myself in the crucible. It's where I learn to benefit from my own traits of endurance, stubbornness, patience, and a drive that I am now understanding has been held down for far too long.

I've discovered new things about myself that I never had to see, as if I was always in a constant blur and I was now seeing for the first time. I realize that the world is not out to get me, despite how much I've prepared to defend against such an attack. And if it even does it's pitiful and even almost not worth the effort. I've learned that I am in a new emotional renaissance where I tasted food for the first time. I was seeing colors and shapes that I always used to pass by and finally see them for what they are. My time of dormant mind has reawakened me to a new hedonistic hunger that I can now indulge in rather than be the ingredient to someone else's need. I realize that there really isn't anything left to hold me back but the phantom of what I was defending myself from everything that held me back. Almost as if an over reaction towards an immunity, my own defenses has imprisoned me from anyone's reach and trapped me in solitude.

And yet, the past two months I learned I am almost immortal or at least in relation to everything that has held me back. It's almost freeing how you can now pinch off something as a stray insect from your shoulder that once held you down and made you struggle to continue. How my immediate reaction towards anyone attempting to "pull one over" is a braying of laughter and a hardy, "nope". How hugging my most delicious of friends is actually comforting now rather than empty. And when I leave my most favorite of companions I do not feel the hollowness of losing their embrace and kindness or even feeling how I drew as much happiness for my own from them in order to make a few paces away only to feel the lingering phantoms of such affection. Now I leave with a bursting heart, as if my love was a damned river bursting through and flooding the once parched landscape. I want to go further in my vagabond way, now knowing there is no tether of obligation holding me back, but a need from others that I can or can not oblige.

I finally have choices, options and advantages rather than tightening a belt, pinching a penny that never existed, and a daunting duty to grind my life away.  As I finish this post on December 1st, I can honestly say that that is now over. If life does get difficult, and oh it will get difficult #TheMostGloriousofDumpsterFires, I know that I can endure, move forward and make the lives of others better also. I'm not dreading what will come because I had overcame the greatest of enemies and it was me. In protecting myself I almost killed myself. I mean, I can't begin to explain to you how much of a challenge I was. And yet, once I challaenged the right places I come to realize that I was holding on to what was killing me.

So I let go........just let it go.....

.....boom.....

......and that's all it took.

Yea, I'm shocked as you are. And sitting today on Dec. 1st I'm not dreading or fearful or having to be proactive to make certain I'm not alone, out of reach, or lacking in any drive as I sprint towards January, but I am hopeful, safe, and even eager to see what will come my way. I feel nothing can pull me down unless I will it so.

So....yea.....I'm good. I'm ok. I'm more than fine.  For the first time in a long time, I am at peace and ready for what life has in store for me. Even if I hit a set back, I'm not going to lose this. I mean once you face yourself and win, is there nothing you can endure?

......right?

Peace and Love.

Criminally Stupid or Stupidly Criminal or The Masses are ASSES!

Forgive me, beloved.

I haven't been in a writing mood simply because I've said it all or I don't have the time to expand some thoughts. I honestly wanted to write you all about how magnificent October has been to pull me out of my shell, yet with the election that The Most Glorious of Dumpster Fires that is the new coming president-elect administration it seems that everyone only has one thought on their minds:

Trump is honestly backed by the Alt Right, or what I still call and will for now on call them fucking nazis.

Sadly, there is a beautiful sense of Schadenfreude here. I'm not going to out most of you, the people who I do interact with or even speak with at a table with some sort of meal on it and not any loyal reader who has no idea what I say or do. Yet I'll be "kind" with a capital K and a capital IND in saying that most of you have already understood where I'm coming from and what I've seen already from this nation. I'm more than willing to believe that this nation is beautiful and magnificent and what few parts I've traveled in I've met some of the nicest people imaginable. And yet, I have met and found an element that usually puts me in that cold, calculative place that I usually go to when I know things are not right and people are planning or hoping at minimum for the worst for me.

There's a reason why I look this way, good people. I don't usually look this nasty just to invite most to sit with me.  I became this because I was once twink sized at 128 lbs at 5' 10'' and looked as if I walk out of a camp. Not joking. Stress and TB can do that.

But enough of the past.

When I mentioned that there was this sense of Schadenfreude, I mean it from people who honestly called me a bit "extreme" and even "paranoid". Who somehow only saw the beauty of the day and not what can hide in plain sight. What people show you, their choice of words, how they behave with you and how they somehow like to enjoy a sense of superiority that in all case may not be due to them actually being superior. My father taught me that it's good to be with the little people, the ones who do the grunt work and in many ways are not worthy enough to put on a facade for. "Shit people". They not only know how things are, but they can get things done. Often time I've done favors and even mingled with them if only to allow people to assume naturally.

It's sad, really. When people assume. When they believe the worst could not happen. Bad things only happen in places where the newscaster can pronounce and you don't try to. Things can not go bad unless they are already bad. People are not working in their methods to make them bad, not even improve their lives, just make them bad for you. As you have your coffee, start your day, talk about this program or another, that things can not go bad. I mean, why would they.

Now......people are kind of shitting themselves. Not even people who would be called the NPR grouping of White people. I mean people of color, LGBT+ people, Trans people, old and young alike. People are shitting themselves because you now see the elephant in the room. You now see it when I've always ridden it. I hung off it to even allow you an opportunity to question what I was doing or how strange it was. Nope, I was a wacko. I was insane and that was it. There was not boogie man and if there was you should have started asking for money, THEN you'd get the attention! Yet, just informing people to be vigilant to simply BE VIGALENT?

Nah......*pffffffft*.....that's a bunch of bull, my friend.

And then, you start to see if blatantly. You see the people working in the shadows stand out and smile. They smile with appreciation of the work they've done. The long hours while you remain in almost a slumber. The previous generations warned us about fascists. They warned us about how people will use violence, media, and any means to incite anger towards any group not them and use that anger to reach the places of power where smart people than us kept them out. Well, they accomplished it. They reached the places where we imagined they would never be. They did well and now that they are emboldened by their achievement they are not stopping, but even pushing outwards.

Some blamed that we let transgendered us restrooms without harassment. That we won't shut up about getting shot by police. That the "injuns" up in the Dakota's need to stop being so uppity. That we should question the gays and queers and chase them back into their closets and even go in after them. That anyone browner than alabaster should keep their head down and do as they say or else it's back to places where it's not here. That unless you're not Christian you are in the way. All of that. Not just the religious right, but average white people who traditionally have been voting against their interests have tossed in for the "greater good". They might have even voted for Obama, but continue to vote for people who negate their chances of Hope that was promised.

People who have been the target of adding religion to school, dumbing people down, removing rights of women to improve their lives by allowing them control over their reproductive cycles. That whole red blotch of 'Merica that if compared to other maps of obesity, need for education, high religious views, discrimination groups, and even poverty levels you'd see the idea of something almost sinister and very criminal. They often say that you don't need to incarcerate people into building, but if you can make their lives harder and remove their opportunities to go up the socio-economics ladder and THEN blame in this case, "the black guy" and if you worked hard enough on limiting education? Well.....here we are.

We knew this was coming. Most of us. And yet, most of you ignored it. Education in Texas is just that education IN Texas and not here where I live. Racism in other places happen in RED STATES, not BLUE ONES. It can't happen here in Cali, even though the 90's proved that wrong. It's been over 16 years since the state went blue and we so quickly forget how it wasn't and how people are working on that. Working on what you built to weaken it to change things. Simple maintenance is needed and that can not happen if you are not vigilant.

So my dear, shitless friends, my most beloved. Take a good look now and know when I say we have work to do, I am not saying it to make you feel better. WE HAVE WORK TO DO!

Snap out of it and start reading up. Start contacting your representative and let them know you are listening. Watch the news and demand real news. Watch news from other nations such as Britan and Canada for the contrast. Don't depend on AronRa, Bill Maher, or anyone else you go to for insight, get in with them and do your own homework. We have been lax, some of us, and that cost us magnificently.

We can't all just watch The Most Glorious of Dumpster Fires......