I was vagabonding it on Saturday when NPR had a talk about suicide on the view of the survivors. I couldn't help getting a bit angry as I listen to an analogy given by a writer whose father took his life very young at her age and who resented his ....cough....choice....in not existing anymore. Even her analogy was a bit hostile in my case. Being from either Minnesota or some other frozen hellhole, she compared depression to being lost in the snow storm while suicide just the individual becoming tired of not being able to see clearly and decide to lay down in the snow to sleep their life away. Often times she remarked that they were just feet away from home or shelter or whatever example of safety they wanted to frame it and.....here it fucking comes.....if they ONLY had just A LITTLE MORE FAITH and given A LITTLE MORE EFFORT none of this would have happened.
This still pisses me off. I initially yelled back at the Well-Meaning White People that just fucking frustrate me each and everytime they fucking miss the bigger point, screaming out something in the range of Fucking daft bitch, they gave all their faith and all their effort and they still died, in heartbreak and horrific disappointment that they could not be saved! Hell, no one came out for them. No one lit torches. No one made any fucking attempt to save them if I use your fucking analogy. And yes, even though the end result of suicide is that the loved ones and those closest to the victim, Im going to use the word victim here, have no idea and its almost a betrayal to THEM that they took their own life and it's their fault that they did it, everything we honestly know from suicide is based on those who remain and not of those who take their lives simply because the dead tell no tales and what clues they leave behind are usually hidden to protect the privacy of the family.
That's some one-sided bullshit. I know because I was going to take my life. And I was trying to find a solution to my issues outside of taking my own life. And if it wasn't for a mentor taking his first I would have not reached my radicle assumption that I will always leave those who have no idea or are blatantly oblivious to reach conclusions without them know. And often time a note is not enough to express what happened and why this was the only viable method at conflict resolution.
It's almost an insult to many who have taken their lives and I know being someone who stood on both sides of the fence. I understand that I stand here no screaming at the radio at all the well-meaning insult of well deserving victims who had to continue and who are tainted with the view of if they only know how their selfish choice cost everyone one around them.
With immense respect, fuck all of you and I hope there is a special place in your personal hell where your lost one gets to confront you and tell you of their pain and anguish for all eternity.
Just a week ago it hit me. The perfect analogy for suicide. It encompassed everything I faced and felt and how close I was to take my own life. People with depression or some other mental illness are in a high rise on fire and at first, there is no sign and no symptom. And more and more as the fire builds and gets worse the occupants are forced to go higher and higher, not because it's logical or the best thing to do, but because the fires are so immense that the pain of burning forces them to move away and up is the only way to go. All the while they hope and wish someone helps them somehow while not believing so. I mean, who can not see their building on fire. Maybe they see and it's not a big deal. Maybe everyone building is on fire and Im the only one who can not control the flames. Why are my sprinklers not working? Why am I going through this? What have I done for this to happen? Why am I not getting help and why is no one coming for me. Am do I deserve this. I can get out, I'll just keep at it. And you logic your way through it all until you reach the top and there is no other place to go and you start contemplating the hard questions. Should I let the fires take me or should I jump? How painful is it going to be to not jump? Why didn't I run through the fire then when now there is no chance of getting help. What will I do?
This is why people make plans and continue with their lives until somehow they just die. I was supposed to have brunch with them the next day. I was going on a trip with them. I just booked time off for our visit or was just at their birthday. Why would they do this?
In the end, they may have jumped. The fire forced them to jump out of reaction. They were consumed by what causes them so much pain and they pass. These are the questions they ask but not how come we didn't see their building on fire. And in honesty its because its a shame to show your building on fire. Mental health is still taboo. No one wants to come out and say I distrust my senses and I need help because I can not think straight enough to not cause myself immense pain. I can not hide it any longer or worse.....everyone ignored me until I took my life. And in the end, they reaped the sympathy and help that someone else so direly needed.
Suicide is the inferno consuming your building and forcing you out of it, either by horrific reasoning or by instinct to not be consumed by it.
There.
Not poor me. More poor them. Awwww.....they would never know how great life is and they missed out....because they made a choice...Seriously, how fucking shitty are you. This has nothing to do with you. They took their life and out of your own need to protect yourself you place the blame on the dead. You feel better, but it doesn't prevent those who die. And it doesn't prevent others from dying.
Seriously, fuck you. Im sure your father would have loved not suffering and not taking his life. Duh. Everyone would have. I know I would have. And if it wasn't for someone else who took their own life before me, I would have not understood that those of us who suffer in silence will only make ourselves the villain of our own tragedy. Yodon'tnt win. You just stop feeling the pain. And much like Milton's Satan, you're already doing to be made the villain then why not end it all in style and go out screaming.
I did.
I said to my best friend, Im not doing well and I wanted to take my life if not for X doing so before me.
Regardless if he believed me or not, I said it. And then on I kept saying it. And I screamed it. And I yelled at anyone else who would listen that I am not well and I jump rather having it consume me.
And then, someone heard me. I got help. Those around me didn't or couldn't help because they and I don't know how to. Or how to deal with it. Our generation who sees condoms are normal and not as a way to not die, still has much to learn on what will keep us from not dying. Then it will be normal.
And yes, that path to normalcy will cost us more lives. That's the horror, much like condoms needed to be normal.
I don't know how to end this. I didn't even think I was going to write about this.
So...yea.....end.
Showing posts with label Windmills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Windmills. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Friday, February 17, 2017
When Even Your Cold Calculative Analytical Mind Says You Can or Praise in the oddest and coldest form
These writing exercises are interesting, if only to me. Some time ago, my daughter gifted me for Xmas a Master Class in writing with James Patterson. It's an odd gift considering the timing. In the middle of house sitting, I scoured Youtube for vids to keep my free time busy and I hit a happy pocket of Stephen King lectures, some with R.R. Martin who asked how the hell was he able to put out so much writing. Watching this vid, I noticed that the room became silent at the question in which he told people that he simply writes for four hours a day, every day. He has more than enough spare time to do what he wishes, including research. And yet he knew this was an altogether easy response that would normally be brushed off as almost uninteresting instead of some mystical and deep secret that needs to be sealed with arcane ritual and blood sacrifice.
He also explained that while he put out Carrie, he has this immense desire to just write. His mind was filled with ideas and stories and he knew that he could write more if only he had the time and to have the time he knew he needed money. He needed the money to allow him to focus on writing instead of stealing away time from work, family and other obligations. So sitting there he sat down and wanted to know how much money he needed to write. How much he needed for at least one year worth of time out of the workforce where his family will not be without financial means, including emergencies and vacation time. Sitting there in the late 70's he calculated how much his contribution was to the household and he came up with a rough number that I somehow remember as something around $64, 000.
He needed an amount near $64, 000, if my memory is on it (still feel free to check my math, the idea is still there, though). If he was able to sell Carrie for that close to the amount he could have enough money for the year to continue writing full time. His wife would continue to work, but that was the minimum amount he would need to be able to write without any doubt or worry. That would be the amount that he would need to follow his dream and use that money to see if he was able to continue writing or if Carrie would be his only book, a fate of most writers sadly who do break through into the industry. When his publisher called back, he was almost ready to negotiate a sum close to what he needed when they notified his that they would like to buy his book for a sum closer to $100,000. And so, you can guess everything else was history.
The reason why it hit me so was that it was his test to see if he had the potential to continue writing as a living. During many of the lectures, sadly, he informed everyone that it seems as if writing was a dying medium that needed immense attention and understanding to keep changing with a society that at worse disregard the value of books until the film or tv show came out and at best changed the medium of how his work would be read itself. Although books will never be a forgotten medium it's certain that tablets, phones, and other contraptions have cause enough of a stir with publishers who often time ignored any innovation as they threat they are or the opportunity they should be seen as. Yet with all that he continue to declare that if you have that need and desire to write you have to do whatever it takes to satisfy the need.
And so starting my Master Class with a green notebook, pens, and enough chance to see if there is any potential in me I began the lessons. One of the lessons I've taken to heart is that you must begin a schedule, if only an hour a day, to write and to see how much you can write. In this, a goal of 500 words was made a goal in an hour. And practice should be built up until 1000 words are met. In 28 minutes I have already passed 725 words written. I know I'll hit 1000 before the hour is over. In this moment, I have some issues here. When James Patterson said that I should aim for that amount of words in the allotted time I sit here and wonder what potential I honestly have. Was this goal a low minimum or a "baby step"? Is there a higher goal that I should be aiming for? What is the golden ratio of words to time that he and other writers average? Is this because I'm not writing fiction and I simply have a natural ability to ramble on? Should I be ecstatic that I have blown away such a goal already or should I be focusing on a higher goal?
All throughout my lessons, the advice I'm getting from an author who has published the most books in his lifetime puzzles me. He says have a journal. I do! In that journal have ideas and plots and other snips of writings that you can store for any future attempts at a story. I have a worn-out notebook with first draft stories and outlines on how they should connect and other snippets of possible stories. Choose at least three to have a plot. I have at least 6. Attempt to write those three. I have six first drafts, as mentioned before. And here I have to question not his advice, but myself. Why is this simple to me? Why is this not difficult? Mind you, I can say that I haven't really written fiction in these activities, but have focused my writings on the two work mornings that (1001 words in 38 minutes) I get here early enough and have nothing but dronish work ahead of me to look forwards to. I haven't written on the other days. In fact, I'm writing a whole lot less in these activities considering that more of my pieces are at least......*leaves to see* 2,000 to 2,750 words.
.....wow......
Am I a writer? I mean, I write. A lot. I write when I have a need and there are moments where I have to take off time and simply be, but if I'm just shooting the breeze at least 1,000 words in less than an hour, does that mean I have potential I'm not paying attention to? Should I push myself? I mean, should I even believe? It's more an exercise in overcoming my low self-esteem. I was going to write a "but" after that statement, yet I have none to add. I have low self-esteem and I think it's limiting me. I'm not saying this as in to praise myself, but more in a cold calculative manner where I can see a given action is not taken advantage. If I look at myself coldly, I can see that I have potential to do so, yet do I have the tenacity to make it work? Is this worth reading? Then again, King said to not worry about that and just put it out there. People will find it who will like it, but if you have the need and desire to write you have to do it. I think I'm there. I have to write. I don't know if this will ever produce a dollar for me, but I have to write to simply be normal. I need to unleash whatever thoughts I have trapped in my head that my mouth is not able to unleash. I need to do so as much as some people find a desire to copulate. I need to simply free my mind in order to be able to sit in a room and veg out as much as I have been doing. It's been at least four months since I've honestly worked out to the point I can call it a decent piece of work, but I have to write constantly, even if it's the stupidest thing my mind can come up with!
And yet, is this enough? Is this what I need to just run with it? At this point, some motivation in the form of a mentor, even or plot device tells me to blah blah blah. Life is not that. Yet I, in my most stubborn and foolish of minds as well as over thinking and immensely calculative seems to state that I should, if only because I can. Not flourish or spice or even petals falling from heaven. I can because I must and I must because it flows. I don't know if this is what people would want to if people would desire to have it. Perhaps given an example or a direction to fulfill my way or something, but I have to state as coldly and calculative as my stupidly automatic and over-analytical as my thought process can be, I can write.
I can write.
I CAN write.
I can WRITE.
I CAN WRITE.
.......1,549 words in 58 minutes.
I think......I KNOW I can write. This may be my talent. This is MY TALENT.
I think I just broke through myself.
........huh, I think this is a breakthrough.
.......now what?
1,582 words in one hour.
He also explained that while he put out Carrie, he has this immense desire to just write. His mind was filled with ideas and stories and he knew that he could write more if only he had the time and to have the time he knew he needed money. He needed the money to allow him to focus on writing instead of stealing away time from work, family and other obligations. So sitting there he sat down and wanted to know how much money he needed to write. How much he needed for at least one year worth of time out of the workforce where his family will not be without financial means, including emergencies and vacation time. Sitting there in the late 70's he calculated how much his contribution was to the household and he came up with a rough number that I somehow remember as something around $64, 000.
He needed an amount near $64, 000, if my memory is on it (still feel free to check my math, the idea is still there, though). If he was able to sell Carrie for that close to the amount he could have enough money for the year to continue writing full time. His wife would continue to work, but that was the minimum amount he would need to be able to write without any doubt or worry. That would be the amount that he would need to follow his dream and use that money to see if he was able to continue writing or if Carrie would be his only book, a fate of most writers sadly who do break through into the industry. When his publisher called back, he was almost ready to negotiate a sum close to what he needed when they notified his that they would like to buy his book for a sum closer to $100,000. And so, you can guess everything else was history.
The reason why it hit me so was that it was his test to see if he had the potential to continue writing as a living. During many of the lectures, sadly, he informed everyone that it seems as if writing was a dying medium that needed immense attention and understanding to keep changing with a society that at worse disregard the value of books until the film or tv show came out and at best changed the medium of how his work would be read itself. Although books will never be a forgotten medium it's certain that tablets, phones, and other contraptions have cause enough of a stir with publishers who often time ignored any innovation as they threat they are or the opportunity they should be seen as. Yet with all that he continue to declare that if you have that need and desire to write you have to do whatever it takes to satisfy the need.
And so starting my Master Class with a green notebook, pens, and enough chance to see if there is any potential in me I began the lessons. One of the lessons I've taken to heart is that you must begin a schedule, if only an hour a day, to write and to see how much you can write. In this, a goal of 500 words was made a goal in an hour. And practice should be built up until 1000 words are met. In 28 minutes I have already passed 725 words written. I know I'll hit 1000 before the hour is over. In this moment, I have some issues here. When James Patterson said that I should aim for that amount of words in the allotted time I sit here and wonder what potential I honestly have. Was this goal a low minimum or a "baby step"? Is there a higher goal that I should be aiming for? What is the golden ratio of words to time that he and other writers average? Is this because I'm not writing fiction and I simply have a natural ability to ramble on? Should I be ecstatic that I have blown away such a goal already or should I be focusing on a higher goal?
All throughout my lessons, the advice I'm getting from an author who has published the most books in his lifetime puzzles me. He says have a journal. I do! In that journal have ideas and plots and other snips of writings that you can store for any future attempts at a story. I have a worn-out notebook with first draft stories and outlines on how they should connect and other snippets of possible stories. Choose at least three to have a plot. I have at least 6. Attempt to write those three. I have six first drafts, as mentioned before. And here I have to question not his advice, but myself. Why is this simple to me? Why is this not difficult? Mind you, I can say that I haven't really written fiction in these activities, but have focused my writings on the two work mornings that (1001 words in 38 minutes) I get here early enough and have nothing but dronish work ahead of me to look forwards to. I haven't written on the other days. In fact, I'm writing a whole lot less in these activities considering that more of my pieces are at least......*leaves to see* 2,000 to 2,750 words.
.....wow......
Am I a writer? I mean, I write. A lot. I write when I have a need and there are moments where I have to take off time and simply be, but if I'm just shooting the breeze at least 1,000 words in less than an hour, does that mean I have potential I'm not paying attention to? Should I push myself? I mean, should I even believe? It's more an exercise in overcoming my low self-esteem. I was going to write a "but" after that statement, yet I have none to add. I have low self-esteem and I think it's limiting me. I'm not saying this as in to praise myself, but more in a cold calculative manner where I can see a given action is not taken advantage. If I look at myself coldly, I can see that I have potential to do so, yet do I have the tenacity to make it work? Is this worth reading? Then again, King said to not worry about that and just put it out there. People will find it who will like it, but if you have the need and desire to write you have to do it. I think I'm there. I have to write. I don't know if this will ever produce a dollar for me, but I have to write to simply be normal. I need to unleash whatever thoughts I have trapped in my head that my mouth is not able to unleash. I need to do so as much as some people find a desire to copulate. I need to simply free my mind in order to be able to sit in a room and veg out as much as I have been doing. It's been at least four months since I've honestly worked out to the point I can call it a decent piece of work, but I have to write constantly, even if it's the stupidest thing my mind can come up with!
And yet, is this enough? Is this what I need to just run with it? At this point, some motivation in the form of a mentor, even or plot device tells me to blah blah blah. Life is not that. Yet I, in my most stubborn and foolish of minds as well as over thinking and immensely calculative seems to state that I should, if only because I can. Not flourish or spice or even petals falling from heaven. I can because I must and I must because it flows. I don't know if this is what people would want to if people would desire to have it. Perhaps given an example or a direction to fulfill my way or something, but I have to state as coldly and calculative as my stupidly automatic and over-analytical as my thought process can be, I can write.
I can write.
I CAN write.
I can WRITE.
I CAN WRITE.
.......1,549 words in 58 minutes.
I think......I KNOW I can write. This may be my talent. This is MY TALENT.
I think I just broke through myself.
........huh, I think this is a breakthrough.
.......now what?
1,582 words in one hour.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
When Chaos returns and keeps you jumping.....
Sorry good people for the lack of writing so far. Things are getting a bit hectic and I have a few different deadlines coming in and I wanted to knock them out before things go belly up. So not writing until next week. I have much to write and even much to share that I haven't gotten the chance to go into, but things are just a bit too hectic.
If anything I can share with you all that I'm now isolating any last pockets of insanity that still plague me and I'm in the process of removing them permanently. It's funny when you realize what you are finally able to do and how much work it is and at the same time it isn't to do. Things are good overall and I'm more than fine. Any difficulty that I am enduring is with a smile rather than a dark cloud or the Big Black Dog near. Things are good, but just a busy season for me.
SO please hold hope. I shall share more soon. Just need to handle this and then I'll come back.
Peace and Love, please be good to each other.
If anything I can share with you all that I'm now isolating any last pockets of insanity that still plague me and I'm in the process of removing them permanently. It's funny when you realize what you are finally able to do and how much work it is and at the same time it isn't to do. Things are good overall and I'm more than fine. Any difficulty that I am enduring is with a smile rather than a dark cloud or the Big Black Dog near. Things are good, but just a busy season for me.
SO please hold hope. I shall share more soon. Just need to handle this and then I'll come back.
Peace and Love, please be good to each other.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Between Enthalpy and Entropy there the Struggle for Peace of Mind: Or I like writing, you guys, I do!
I always loved the idea of being a scientist as a child. I think it was Ghostbusters when Bill Murray turns to the Hotel big wig and tells him, to back off because he was a scientist. Then again if you asked me what science was back then I'd probably explain to you how they were the people who took magic and made it every day. The people chasing Big Foot, trying to figure out which aliens were using prods for their butt experiments, and how to talk to ghosts of course. Then again I was what....10?
Yet there is something that I find solace in science that writing has not given to me. There is a method that is tried and true and if there were any errors to it, it would have been corrected to make sure that you can be as close to 95% correct in your assumptions. I love that there are formulas that calculate the most tiny of factors that can have the greatest effect to what you are attempting to calculate. I love most of all that if you are earnestly pursuing your practice with honesty, you'd want people to correct your mistakes, prove your hypothesis wrong, and to double check your math to make sure you didn't round up too soon or that you have shaved a great amount of precision off of your work for the assumption of simplicity. I even love the fact that people chase down the math for any patterns that may give people an idea to make life a bit better than before.
What can be explained is and what can not be is hunted down by a world wide community that is hunting down the same clues with different ideas hoping for that one error or observation that will lead to the next breakthrough understanding on why and how. It still makes me laugh that my degree is in Exercise Science and yes, some may call me a glorified coach, I see myself as someone who can take account on a biochemical, genetic and microbial level why you should run, yes it's fucking hard and no one really likes it, but that difficulty does wonders for your cardiovascular health even though you are not good at it and do resemble a drunk llama spitting every fourth step. It makes me laugh because in an odd moment of realization I discovered I don't need to wait for a return of graduate school to pursue more chemistry and micro to call myself a scientist, but that my degree alone does that.
Like, wow......childhood goal realized and attained. Neat.
Still going back one day.
Yet this is probably why I can not understand writing in any sense. It isn't a tried true method of getting something on the screen that doesn't make me feel a failure of humanity. In fact, I've written so many things that I realize what I want to write can't be reached at times. It's not like I have a map and compass with a decent sense of direction to get me where I wanted to, but more of a guy tied to a kite who might have believe this to be a great idea only to end up hoping he lands somewhere soft. Writing is pure chaos for me and has always been my first love. As much as I see scientists in their lab coats and black rubber gloves engaging in explosions, lightning and the taboo.....oh wait....that's movie scientist...always trying to blaspheme GOD and ending up fucking up the world with a moral of "if you only stayed stupid we'd be ok" always delivered.....
FOCUS
Writers have this romantic idea and view of ripping something so close the ether and soul from within in order to proclaim of our humanity and worth the empty heavens. Keats, Shelly, Byron, and sure.....even Wordsworth bring up dusty libraries, roaring fires, and writing to candlelight. Writers such as Poe, Lovecraft, and even King shows us how our human flaws can be used to grow terror and fear in order to remind us that we are only here for a moment. That our time has followed greater moments and will be shadowed afterwards by great ones, trapping us into a blink of a memory that will only catch the attention of those who can not remember and will end up not caring enough to bring themselves to the effort of following it up.
So as much as I crave the Enthalpy of science, bringing into order for a few microseconds of time an image that blurs past us daily, I crave the Entropy of ripping one's self apart for the amusement of another. And yet, it's more. It's that space that lives between boredom and the inspiration to attempt some sort of insane amusement that would only lead to a great story one day. Even now I am filled with so much to say once more and that the moments that do me in the worst is not writer's block that nulls me to nothingness, but the explosion of events and life that speeds by without a moment of reflection. Those moments when you mind feels so impacted that it risks to explode and sacrificing on to death every last thought that had will not be birth to the world. I know my dying moments on this world, if not numbed by opiates or blanked by internal madness of illness will be filled with the lamentation of not my time coming to end, but of the ideas I haven't expressed, even if they dwell within the mundane.
I can not control it. I do not choose when it speaks or at times what it says. I only ingest what I am able to take in or at times are forced to ingest moments that lead to nightmares from denial. I then stare at the screen and make my numerous attempts that will either lull me to calm or spur an onslaught of rambling words with no sort of order, often times saying everything but what needs to be said. Proofreading at times cause me question if the previous ME is just insane or just stupid. Other times I realize that as much as I was taken hostage by that point, that it was too overwhelming and I could not erupt what needs to be said. Often time rereading it would cause me to break from reality and understand I can not say what I need to say the most simply because I can not find the words to encompass it all and what I needed the most of someone to hold on to me and tell me it will be all right. When I am able to say something so bluntly it is due to many of these moments reread or a comatose apathy that numbs me whole and allows me to utter horrors without screaming until my throat becomes bloody. These are the times when I willing go into circles or tell others that I can not endure the memory once again since I lose so much reliving it.
There are other moments where I take on the Sisyphean burden of returning to a piece I've had dove in without checking for depth and wrestled it down to by any means available to me, each time disgusted with my attempts, enraged at my own ineptitude. These moments of hatred cause me to inflict self-hatred through harsh liquor and self-depreciating actions that will only add more fuel to a future fire. I return to the scene of struggle and wonder what is missing and how I can hold on to it once more in order to put my will upon it and not it upon me. I'm learning to walk away from pieces with a much impressive failure rate since they only lead to frustrated angst and sluggish mornings. They usually wane upon their deathbeds without mercy and conscious only to arrive at the disappointing end of being deleted and called my personal ruin. And yet there are those times where I commit the unimaginable and keep such a dead piece hidden and out from public eyes to remind me that I am not able to bare all, even when screaming that I am more than willing and would gladly make it my last effort at anything. I witness this necrosis and in some horrid and blasphemous say make mental notes and leave it once more entombed within intangible walls, never to see light of day.
My writing has always been there when I had no voice. Either memorized in order to keep the prying from finding another assault to their order or smuggled, hidden and protected as some would their secret shames. In everyday life, I do not resemble marble in which my emotions are protected and hidden from those who can find fault with them. With the most spectacular of ability to not be able to speak a lie, I had to learn to either remain silent. select my words with diligent care, or to blatantly spew what is in mind without fear of what may come. It's rough enough fighting a stutter. I've learned quickly to lean towards the strange and odd in order to be able to speak somewhat until social anxiety or once again, apathy (you will see this material again and again) allows me to say what I can and to shrug off when mumbled mess stumbles. Writing surpasses that if and only if I can get this venture enough momentum that I can begin to focus with some sort of idea of direction. If I get 80% of it I call it a victory and I can move on. If I get 50% I know I will continue to beat a dead horse. Less and it becomes a running theme that sneaks into everything untilI attempt to exorcise it which at times only leads to the previously mentioned entombment until I can bury it or use it to scold my stupored id.
I've improved greatly I'm told in the same breaths that critique. There is something primal about someone tearing into your piece and pulling it apart that causes you to recoil in terror and fury. Check my math? Please, thank you and would you care for creme in your coffee? Tear my limping piece on why I like chocolate bunnies and I hold myself from chewing off your face with some sort of sick interest of why you find fault in order to push me to bite more of your face. I don't understand it. It's either apathy of the sacrifice or a rollercoaster of emotion all ending with a feeling of failure. I never had this skin thickened and I wish I was able to attain it. Here I scream out ramblings can feel I achieved much and others simply struggle to get through misspellings and circular points and nonsense. So I force myself to edit and try not to symbolically flip the table and give up completely only to realize I have nowhere else to go but the mess I left.
That's an image, huh? A filthy anarchist in shambles as it places a comical bomb on a bridge causing to burn as they dance against 'Merica and God and Country only to run off and drive the firetruck into the river from the damaged bridge they destroyed. It's hilarious here, but when you see it .....yea, it's sad. So....yea, don't do that?
FOCUS
I know what you're saying, "Auggie, you magnificent bastard, you're just stalling! You haven't said anything outside that you like writing and it's incredibly difficult to you, you most charismatic and scoundreled individual, you!" And yes, I would have to answer with yes, I am stalling. This is basically a mic check of sorts. I wanted to get something written in order to continue to. I needed to prevent literary blue balls. I wanted to know I can still write when need to, especially now since I am so full of thought I don't know where to start. I want to write about an achievement and then something that still haunts me today. To rant at the innate simplicity of what is evil and what is not evil which so many are literally bending over backwards to negate and declare that they ALWAYS enjoyed the upright position of being able to inspect one's own jejunum with superiority and self-appointed greatness, oh how great are they people, so much greatness that it's blinding, this greatness is so great folks, believe me. There is so much within that I fear that if I share one idea with will be tainted with the other and not expressed to it's full glory. I know, it's stupid, but I feel this way and I wanted to see if I can write without any of it.
Yet, I am defensive. At this point of life, I realized that everything can and may be taken from you yet your ability to communicate is only taken by force or willingly given up for whatever reason. I've given it up once. For happiness. For what I called happiness which was pleasing someone who didn't think I should disagree with them. That any discontent would be met with imaginative measures of hell that may endure through the night and longer. Where anything of worth to you, no matter how small can be taken and smashed in front of you. Where you are not worth anything to them and they will beat that into you for your own good without any regards to their own being. They do it out of love, which is the most horrific self-justification I've ever had heard from upright apes who declare to know the heart of the universe. What is it about people who knows best for you and their idea of how the universe is behind them fully.
And you're in the way. Why don't you let me love you? Why do you make me do this to you? Why must I go to these measures? Why can't you trust me? I should have never cared about such a shitty excuse for a person.
Each of those remarks came with a physical injury and scar to boot. Sometimes they're reminders of what was and what never should have been. Other days they are fuel to never shut up and serve as proof that if anyone can not reason with you without force they are not worth your time. Ever.
.......
FOCUS
....yea, writing is difficult, but I have my reasons. I have to and it's probably the vice to do me in one day. I also will let it take me. I've had moments where words have failed me and that alone has caused me to realized that only a mind unwilling entertain you can be your limit. I'm learning that a mind that is closed off is not worth your reach. That doubt is more than enough for them and you must reach those willing to entertain your openly. Life is too short. Anyone who either stifles you or negates your effort with ignorance is not worth the effort when the willing are always that. So I write for myself. I edit for you, but I write for myself in hopes of trying to make some sort of sense to what I see and I can not comprehend fully. To bring meaning to what I can not wrap my mind around and to hope that once say it makes sense to someone else. Not lofty goals, but they are mine. I don't see fortune from this, only a clear mind and perhaps a chance to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
That's good enough, no?
Monday, April 25, 2016
Me, Myself, and I: When you can't trust anyone else.
There has been a large amount of time that had past since my last regular writing, years really. To being to explain or even offer a view of the past would be too much to relive and hard to even being. So the easiest thing to do is simply start from here and state what is needed with added insights here and there to offer some chance to fill in gaps.
I've started therapy in January after starting family therapy with my two adult children in the Summer. I've been going for at least three months now with some days missing due to illness and bouts of chaos. I've made some progress and even improved a bit as a human being, yet I'm quite daunted by it as the same way someone finds comfort in their shoes while staring up at a a high mountain to be climbed. It offers some peace of mind in the right context, yet starring at the difficulty ahead can less any effect.
To cut to the bone, I'm going to shoot out some things that was touched and perhaps attempt to explore it all while making any progress or insight. Please forgive the bullets, it helps if only to place it all at one place.
- I have PTSD. Nothing too grave as some returning vets, but it's quite active. It's not as potent as in I blank out, but it's seeing something in regular life and shaking my head, sometimes literally, to get my thoughts back. Sometimes they're horrible. Other times saddening reminder of a time lost. I never understood what it was I was dealing with until I asked a few people. So, yea....that.
- I've had trauma since I was young. After a point I've joined a cult until 21 when my marriage crumbled and I was pushed out for a lack of term. I've recovered and even went on to recollect my life, yet I have always suffered a bit of chaos and hell at least until 2013 when I contemplated taking my life.
- I have an odd way of looking at the world, I know that now. Most of it comes from lack of trust and believing that I have no one to trust or even confide. Some of it is simply a wave of doubt and emotion. Most of it comes from experiences, losing people, meeting people who'd take advantage of me and simply living in a world where most people had never had a bad day while I crawled out of the cracks that most human being refuse to acknowledge.
- I don't have a sense of healthy boundaries. I don't know how to tell someone not to tear me apart or even consider mistreatment something wrong. I'm patient and I endure much, yet I place myself in bad experiences, sometimes extending myself to help someone else. I don't know if this was to appease the cult or just a mechanism I developed while young.
- I don't have a healthy view of myself. I know this because I been told by people who witnessed me tolerating hell that would make anyone furious. I do not have a sense of worth that is not based on what I can do verses who I am. I have a constant fear of being "worthless" because it's when you are a target and you can not defend yourself.
- I don't know what I look like. I'm not sure how to even explain this, but I have no concept of what I am or what I look like. From what I can tell I am scary looking for most part and sometimes attractive to people who are attracted to force and power. I've been fetishized as something rough or dangerous, but in truth I see myself as something small. Maybe even fragile, even though I have a great ability to instill fear. Defensive mechanism, maybe? I don't think I'm attractive. I don't think I'm anything but a waiting action. I don't know if that makes any sense. I don't like looking into the mirror most of the time.
- I think at least 7 steps ahead of anything. I analyze what can go wrong, may go wrong, and what to do if it ever goes wrong. A price of living in a state of chaos. While most people fall into shock or horror at the worst moments of life, I thrive in them. I know how to start over, pull people out of the end, and even help them move on. I know Damage Control all to well. I'm a survivor, but I do not know how to live.
I'm sure there's more. This just stands out right now.
Since I've been working with someone I've realized that I need to let go. I need to realize that I'm not the one on the front line by myself, but I have people around me. Sadly, I have issues asking friends for help, much less taking it. I've had a few of them attempt and even offer assistance that would amaze more, yet I can't. Or I'm not able. At least not yet.
The one thing that sticks in my head is that my therapist hit this one point where I felt he knew everything. He knew my fatigue. My lack of effort from being "on" for so long. That lack of desire to take any chances or even attempt to make life better for myself. For others, I'd do anything, but for myself I'm more then willing to not exist.
To fade away. To simply not be.
This is what I fight. This is my Secret War. This is my attempt to make something of an existence which I have in any way any idea of. I don't know what's going to happen and I have not idea if I'm going to make it. Or even exist past this. I just know I need to document this and try every day. Some days are good, others are bad, some I curl up in a ball, and few I feel I left it behind me as I run towards.....anywhere.
Above it all, I wonder if I'm alone. Am I? Do I just believe it? Can I trust others to have the same effort I would give them? Can I trust Warn Jets humming at a distance or is it always going to be me dragging myself along, ignoring the jokes of how long it may take me or why I'm not doing this or that. Above all I know I drag something heavy behind me. I know I have people declaring their aid. I know I won't trust it because I had people leave when needed most and even ......yea....even that....
I'm going to try. I'm going to go against 40 years of instinct and "TRY", even if it gets me nothing but ruin. I'm going to ignore everything and just try.
I'm writing this for me. I think it's ok if you see too.
I'm strong, but I'm tired. And it's only getting worse.I won't give up, but I don't know how much longer I can endure. I'm going to try.
I will try.
Please have patience with me. I don't know what I'm doing like a fish walking towards a bike.
I will try.
Maybe by the time this publishes I will feel different. Then I can read this and understand what 's going on....maybe not. I don't know.
If you'll excuse me I'm going to try to make something to eat. Because I need to, I guess. Don't mind the Black Dog.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Love's Naloxone Or Taking the Anti-love pill. Part Fifteen – Instrumental
I think this is a post that has a long time to be written, especially now that I'm feeling a bit stronger than before. The act that I'm not writing this in the third person or trying to mask this in the veil of fiction is saying alot. I'm kind of proud of the bounds made so far in an astonished and disbelieving sort of mind. Being so long under a rain cloud that after a few days of sunshine I'm quite frighten at the fact that it's not there, not in any way saying that I would love to return to my mind filled with difficulty and a constant state of misery, but that if you remove anything/anyone from their natural state and place them in a complete and different environment you will have them marvel and often time recoil in some sort of minor horror that their existence can be different.
Don't believe? Feed a stray animal some moist chicken or beef from your own plate and they will enter a kind of epiphany where all their suffering has been worth that one moment and you will never be alone since they will stand by your side as companion and confidant. In fact, don't do so unless you are ready to look after them and take them in since that little sliver of hope and gratitude can crush their little heart quickly if you are not ready to have them into your life.
Huh.....that's what this is all about, isn't it? That sliver of hope that can crush us if it's unfed. Not like the first embers of what can be life giving fire it does not punish you for not being unless you count that lost opportunity to have it as grave. BBQ not so much, but in the wilderness with nothing else on your side you will understand that there is nothing more devastating that lost hope.
So yes, I'm here to plead my case, tell my tale and to offer confession to all who watch me now. I do not kneel to any deity but to the universe that spawned me and made me cry out into the coldness of the world. Ha.....no....no I can't blame people for what is done, no matter how much I may want to nor am I going to begin now. Sometimes shit just happens and we can choose to see it as it is or as it could have been. And yet, in my odd case I never had taken time to look at it, but simply force another step forward to this figurative place where I could finally arrive and lose my burdens.
Well, this is it. I'm there. To be honest, I never really believed I would get here. That eye of the storm or the safe harbor where I can find enough solitude to feel.....safe. In fact, the idea of feeling safe has never occurred to me. I can not tell you how safe I finally feel and that work has been done not by my reluctant hands and numb hands, but the work of individuals who I love more than anything in the world. They have done much to offer me some sort of anchor to moor myself to and to finally feel that I am no on the run. Even nomads much know where home lies to travel away from it. And yet with my vagrant soul I had fond no peace or shelter. The last time I've held a concept of 'HOME' that was not chaotic, poisonous or heavy was in the years where I was young. At least early double digits.
Abuse spawns abuse which spawns abuse.
So I'm flying blind right now. I haven't found a song to accompany this or even a direction. I just know I have to say certain things that prose, verse or meter will not allow. I'm quite certain that words may fail me as it had failed me at times when I needed them most. In fact, the only thing I can say that I have intact in my very being is my name. I've been stripped from every bit of human need that can be and after a point, every thing left over, whole or tattered, was cut off by myself to ensure that nothing will ever hold me back again. I must move on. I must arrive to that mythical promise land that never is, was, or will be. And yet, I am here. Almost as if the lie I told myself to keep me from buckling and falling down for the last time has came true in some sort of cruel act.
If I can help you understand what I'm going through it would be that scene in Shawshank when the Older Man and Red get out of prison. Anyone would say that it's a good thing to leave, specially if prison is as horrible as it is said. You can even imagine that the freed individual may even laugh and celebrate until something happens and they are sent back. Sometimes, sometimes you realize that your life has been molded by the horror you had endured for so long and not suffering leaves you alien and not understanding what is next. I've knew this day would come when I realized that I'm close. I never believed it, but I am not one to refuse research. I've looked into much and realized that I am, for the lack of a better word, institutionalized in a mind frame that can be dangerous. The natural thing to do is to run out from a situation where the pressure has been consistent only to fall down and die. Just like returning from the depths of the ocean you have to decompress so that you are able to survive without that constant pressure.
This in fact is my constant theme in everything I've written really. Lovecraft is haunted by the insanity of his parents. King by the lack of a father and the need to feel whole. I have lived a lifetimes worth of trauma and in many times continued to run back in to pull others out, even when they pull me back in, only to realize that I've never decompressed. I have not dealt with many things and it all hit one single nerve that is almost so prevalent that I've worn it upon my breast as my letter and raised it as a banner. My biggest weakness and the whole reason I've built enough defenses and protection and layers and inner circle and the ability to leave anything behind as a man would cut a finger off to survive gangrene. The ability to pile on suffering, hatred, mockery, and ridicule as a defense is that it is also my greatest weakness.
If you strip everything from someone. Anything and everything that they find value and joy, not just figuratively but physically, what do you have left?
Me.
You end up with me.
Except the only thing I had left in the worst moment of my life was my name and that was being torn apart as I sat with nothing left. I realized that this was the moment when most people would take their lives and simply be remembered as a sad story. A moral to scare insolent children from venturing out too far. The "you don't want to be like them/their child/him". I was my own after school special. Ha......if you asked me then if death was a mercy I would tell you it wasn't. And yet with nothing left but my name and that being sullied I had not choice but to take a step forward. It didn't even matter the direction. Just that I was moving forward in circles proved to many that I was still swinging. Back then you physically seen me as how I feel then and sometimes today. As someone said that there are moments when I'm beside myself. This is why.
In time, I've realize that I because the joke of the cosmos although my religious self called it God's Joke. And yet there is something in me that I still have today. Something that will strengthen me, push me, drive me, and make me move forward and give me patience if that movement was only inches: Rage. An anger took me. An insolent, disgruntled, and dismayed feeling that some would equate to tossing me off the mountain to see if I would claw up in survival. Well, I survived. I survived when only my rage fed me. I move forward when my anger was the only thing that kept me warm, safe, and in some sick sense positive. In the matter of over a decade I've finally arrived at the point when the act of me breathing is a huge "fuck you". I've made it and I've sacrificed anything and everything to get to this point to prove to others who have abandoned me in worse and have consoled me in mockery that I can do it.
And sadly, I am still angry. I'm angry to the point that it's killing me. I'm angry to the point that it's my primary feeling. I'm angry to the point that every other emotion is derived from anger. This is why I could not keep friends long. This is why I have a shelf life of two years as a lover and even as a father I could not console out of tenderness, but another manifestation of anger. I have done things with my hands that I have nightmares still and yet I can tell you that I done it out of survival, not as an excuse, but as explanation of my sickness. I am angry to the point that every breath in and is chaotic fuel for some change and entropy. It am the embodiment of what Rage can do for you.
And yet, I am very alone and I accept it fully. I know that swinging this weapon takes as much or not more from me than anyone else. That my anger kills me more than you would know. That my introverted ways comes from my own fear of hurting those around me if left too long around them. Like nuclear fuel, I feel spent and need to go away, even now, from those who make me happy because I feel I will in some way harm them. That my very being would bring chaos. It's not something that I take lightly because I've seen it time and time again. It's easier to pull away from others than to rick hurting them. I do what ever possible to make sure that, even if it means leaving them for some times when I'm the most happiest. I fear losing what little I've somehow managed to gather in this life.
And living many times in solitude I have the strength now to say I need others.
If you watch closely as some of you with keen eyes have already seen this anger does make me self sufficient, but there is a deep sorrow that dwells in me. A sorrow that proved the hardest moments that no one is going to help. No one is going to save you. The Calvary does not exist.Superman will not turn the planet back for you. You are nothing but a shrug in time. You are worthless. If someone dropped you as some spare change, they would not bother picking you back up.
I am not worth the trouble.
That is the feeling I wear all the time. I am not worth the trouble and no matter how you show me, tell me, or prove it to me, from what I've seen the majority of life I, as a human being and as someone who is trying to make life a bit more ....I don't know....I constantly feel that I do not have any value in this life, place, moment. I know my blood is valuable and can save lives. Take it. I know that my hair can help small children hide their sickness and offer some chance to normalcy. Take it. I know my body can do good while I'm here and that I can change the tide for others who may need someone to help them. I'm there. I have always been there. I stalk the human dumping grounds and pull people up and move them forward in hopes that they never need me or anyone else again, not using anger, but the belief that they are valuable. It's why I love you, you reading this now....I love you.....I love you so much that I would give what I have to make you feel loved.....so that no one else can feel what I feel, even if my love comes from my anger......or hurt....or sadness that I am not worth anything. Just because I paid a deep price, why must I leave others to suffer the same if I can just give a little bit more.
And that is who I am. Disposable. Unimportant. Worth a shot and then tossed aside. No one has ever came after me when I leave and I don't expect that they will, even if I look back stupidly. I'm used to it really, damn me to what ever hell you can find I'm used to it. I lift these banners high, with what pride I can muster if only to say I have some pride, as worthless as it is. I do not make attachments, because something disposable do not have that privilege. I do not make future plans because I've had moments, razor at hand and then smiling in the sun. I can not make many promises that I can not deliver under a small amount of time, because I am not promised tomorrow. I know that something may happen. I may fall somehow, and as happy as I am now I know real horror and despair that I know that I am more than capable to take my life and know that this works against me just as using anger to exist. I know I do not have a future and not only feel guilt for living this long when others I've lost could have had another day, but I know I'm in overtime. I know when I should have died. I know the moment and the second when I should have not been here to write this. I write this now not to justify my exit, but to let people understand why I struggle now and will probably struggle forever. I do not want to leave you with questions and I do not want any image of myself that is not true.
The truth must be exposed regardless of how it may paint us. And I say now that I am greatly flawed.
I didn't want to leave you thinking it was ever you. Any of you. I just struggle at times with something so much more greater than myself that I do not take our small times together for granted. I cherish it as the starved eat every grain of rice. Small sittings with nothing said may seem dull to you, but I savor them as my last taste ever. I love our meaningless moments and yes, even our misunderstandings and arguments. I'm sorry and I want to make amends quickly because I don't want to leave you in this state.
And so, with all of this I actually realize that my greatest windmill is not just existing or reaching some milestone, but to be happy.
Can you imagine me happy? Well, I have been happy on and off for the past 5 months. It's in a way my last revenge: to actually live well. I know. It's backwards. I'm saying this because if something .....horrible.....happens, it's not because I was "sad" or "depressed' but struggling with surviving. I don't want people to cry that I am gone or that put a sad label on me that I was just hellbent or "lost". I want all of you to understand that I'm fighting to be happy. I'm trying my best to sustain myself not on sadness, worthlessness, or ever rage, but joy. I want you to remember me as someone who did everything in his ability to be happy. Even if I fail miserably. I want you to know that I'm happy now and I'm growing this little ember of hope as if my life depends on it, because it does. I'm gambling everything to make this work and if I fall to far I know I won't be able to get back up. I'm treating this as serious as it feels.
I've actually worked on my smiling muscles to hold a smile for a minute straight.
Really.
You should be proud of me, not sad because I'm going to hold it for two minutes next and then one day I'll forget that I ever had a problem with my face hurting when I finally smiled and then I won't look like I'm having a stroke.
Do you know how sad it is not being able to smile? That actually made me cry.
Well, fuck that. I may feel worthless, but I'm going to make my smile priceless.
Someone made me realize that.
It helped alot.
Alot.
.....
*smiles for a minute*
So yea.....see why I couldn't find a song to go with this?
So, yes. Even if I'm smiling at you, I feel worthless. I feel my anger at a low simmer that can boil over in times. I have the strongest feeling that if someone has to go I will vote myself off before giving others the idea that they should vote someone off. I am disposable and can withstand hell and suffering like no one you meet. And with that damnation I seek a kind of salvation that my weaknesses and fears can only offer me. I help those who need it, without thanks. I give what I can and will go hungry if possible. I rally others forward because I have no inner strength for myself, but all for those who even think about faltering. I cheer the loudest for you because I know what it's like to not only be cheerless, but also boo'ed.I know what it's like to be despised, hated, and feared. I'm a sacrifice that keeps on living and giving. What's not to love?!?!
ha ha....yea.....that's topic for another day. Not today. I don't want to hamper my happy too much. Just enough to let you on, but not today.
Ok.....I'm actually tired. I'm going to nap. Please don't commit me or have another fucking intervention. Spend time with me. Do what you always do and that will keep me happy. Do not do anything out of the ordinary or you will make me feel funny.
I'll leave you with this because.....why not? Hope and all.
You know who you are.
Thanks.
*goes outside and sit in the sun to fall asleep*
Don't believe? Feed a stray animal some moist chicken or beef from your own plate and they will enter a kind of epiphany where all their suffering has been worth that one moment and you will never be alone since they will stand by your side as companion and confidant. In fact, don't do so unless you are ready to look after them and take them in since that little sliver of hope and gratitude can crush their little heart quickly if you are not ready to have them into your life.
Huh.....that's what this is all about, isn't it? That sliver of hope that can crush us if it's unfed. Not like the first embers of what can be life giving fire it does not punish you for not being unless you count that lost opportunity to have it as grave. BBQ not so much, but in the wilderness with nothing else on your side you will understand that there is nothing more devastating that lost hope.
So yes, I'm here to plead my case, tell my tale and to offer confession to all who watch me now. I do not kneel to any deity but to the universe that spawned me and made me cry out into the coldness of the world. Ha.....no....no I can't blame people for what is done, no matter how much I may want to nor am I going to begin now. Sometimes shit just happens and we can choose to see it as it is or as it could have been. And yet, in my odd case I never had taken time to look at it, but simply force another step forward to this figurative place where I could finally arrive and lose my burdens.
Well, this is it. I'm there. To be honest, I never really believed I would get here. That eye of the storm or the safe harbor where I can find enough solitude to feel.....safe. In fact, the idea of feeling safe has never occurred to me. I can not tell you how safe I finally feel and that work has been done not by my reluctant hands and numb hands, but the work of individuals who I love more than anything in the world. They have done much to offer me some sort of anchor to moor myself to and to finally feel that I am no on the run. Even nomads much know where home lies to travel away from it. And yet with my vagrant soul I had fond no peace or shelter. The last time I've held a concept of 'HOME' that was not chaotic, poisonous or heavy was in the years where I was young. At least early double digits.
Abuse spawns abuse which spawns abuse.
So I'm flying blind right now. I haven't found a song to accompany this or even a direction. I just know I have to say certain things that prose, verse or meter will not allow. I'm quite certain that words may fail me as it had failed me at times when I needed them most. In fact, the only thing I can say that I have intact in my very being is my name. I've been stripped from every bit of human need that can be and after a point, every thing left over, whole or tattered, was cut off by myself to ensure that nothing will ever hold me back again. I must move on. I must arrive to that mythical promise land that never is, was, or will be. And yet, I am here. Almost as if the lie I told myself to keep me from buckling and falling down for the last time has came true in some sort of cruel act.
If I can help you understand what I'm going through it would be that scene in Shawshank when the Older Man and Red get out of prison. Anyone would say that it's a good thing to leave, specially if prison is as horrible as it is said. You can even imagine that the freed individual may even laugh and celebrate until something happens and they are sent back. Sometimes, sometimes you realize that your life has been molded by the horror you had endured for so long and not suffering leaves you alien and not understanding what is next. I've knew this day would come when I realized that I'm close. I never believed it, but I am not one to refuse research. I've looked into much and realized that I am, for the lack of a better word, institutionalized in a mind frame that can be dangerous. The natural thing to do is to run out from a situation where the pressure has been consistent only to fall down and die. Just like returning from the depths of the ocean you have to decompress so that you are able to survive without that constant pressure.
This in fact is my constant theme in everything I've written really. Lovecraft is haunted by the insanity of his parents. King by the lack of a father and the need to feel whole. I have lived a lifetimes worth of trauma and in many times continued to run back in to pull others out, even when they pull me back in, only to realize that I've never decompressed. I have not dealt with many things and it all hit one single nerve that is almost so prevalent that I've worn it upon my breast as my letter and raised it as a banner. My biggest weakness and the whole reason I've built enough defenses and protection and layers and inner circle and the ability to leave anything behind as a man would cut a finger off to survive gangrene. The ability to pile on suffering, hatred, mockery, and ridicule as a defense is that it is also my greatest weakness.
If you strip everything from someone. Anything and everything that they find value and joy, not just figuratively but physically, what do you have left?
Me.
You end up with me.
Except the only thing I had left in the worst moment of my life was my name and that was being torn apart as I sat with nothing left. I realized that this was the moment when most people would take their lives and simply be remembered as a sad story. A moral to scare insolent children from venturing out too far. The "you don't want to be like them/their child/him". I was my own after school special. Ha......if you asked me then if death was a mercy I would tell you it wasn't. And yet with nothing left but my name and that being sullied I had not choice but to take a step forward. It didn't even matter the direction. Just that I was moving forward in circles proved to many that I was still swinging. Back then you physically seen me as how I feel then and sometimes today. As someone said that there are moments when I'm beside myself. This is why.
In time, I've realize that I because the joke of the cosmos although my religious self called it God's Joke. And yet there is something in me that I still have today. Something that will strengthen me, push me, drive me, and make me move forward and give me patience if that movement was only inches: Rage. An anger took me. An insolent, disgruntled, and dismayed feeling that some would equate to tossing me off the mountain to see if I would claw up in survival. Well, I survived. I survived when only my rage fed me. I move forward when my anger was the only thing that kept me warm, safe, and in some sick sense positive. In the matter of over a decade I've finally arrived at the point when the act of me breathing is a huge "fuck you". I've made it and I've sacrificed anything and everything to get to this point to prove to others who have abandoned me in worse and have consoled me in mockery that I can do it.
And sadly, I am still angry. I'm angry to the point that it's killing me. I'm angry to the point that it's my primary feeling. I'm angry to the point that every other emotion is derived from anger. This is why I could not keep friends long. This is why I have a shelf life of two years as a lover and even as a father I could not console out of tenderness, but another manifestation of anger. I have done things with my hands that I have nightmares still and yet I can tell you that I done it out of survival, not as an excuse, but as explanation of my sickness. I am angry to the point that every breath in and is chaotic fuel for some change and entropy. It am the embodiment of what Rage can do for you.
And yet, I am very alone and I accept it fully. I know that swinging this weapon takes as much or not more from me than anyone else. That my anger kills me more than you would know. That my introverted ways comes from my own fear of hurting those around me if left too long around them. Like nuclear fuel, I feel spent and need to go away, even now, from those who make me happy because I feel I will in some way harm them. That my very being would bring chaos. It's not something that I take lightly because I've seen it time and time again. It's easier to pull away from others than to rick hurting them. I do what ever possible to make sure that, even if it means leaving them for some times when I'm the most happiest. I fear losing what little I've somehow managed to gather in this life.
And living many times in solitude I have the strength now to say I need others.
If you watch closely as some of you with keen eyes have already seen this anger does make me self sufficient, but there is a deep sorrow that dwells in me. A sorrow that proved the hardest moments that no one is going to help. No one is going to save you. The Calvary does not exist.Superman will not turn the planet back for you. You are nothing but a shrug in time. You are worthless. If someone dropped you as some spare change, they would not bother picking you back up.
I am not worth the trouble.
That is the feeling I wear all the time. I am not worth the trouble and no matter how you show me, tell me, or prove it to me, from what I've seen the majority of life I, as a human being and as someone who is trying to make life a bit more ....I don't know....I constantly feel that I do not have any value in this life, place, moment. I know my blood is valuable and can save lives. Take it. I know that my hair can help small children hide their sickness and offer some chance to normalcy. Take it. I know my body can do good while I'm here and that I can change the tide for others who may need someone to help them. I'm there. I have always been there. I stalk the human dumping grounds and pull people up and move them forward in hopes that they never need me or anyone else again, not using anger, but the belief that they are valuable. It's why I love you, you reading this now....I love you.....I love you so much that I would give what I have to make you feel loved.....so that no one else can feel what I feel, even if my love comes from my anger......or hurt....or sadness that I am not worth anything. Just because I paid a deep price, why must I leave others to suffer the same if I can just give a little bit more.
And that is who I am. Disposable. Unimportant. Worth a shot and then tossed aside. No one has ever came after me when I leave and I don't expect that they will, even if I look back stupidly. I'm used to it really, damn me to what ever hell you can find I'm used to it. I lift these banners high, with what pride I can muster if only to say I have some pride, as worthless as it is. I do not make attachments, because something disposable do not have that privilege. I do not make future plans because I've had moments, razor at hand and then smiling in the sun. I can not make many promises that I can not deliver under a small amount of time, because I am not promised tomorrow. I know that something may happen. I may fall somehow, and as happy as I am now I know real horror and despair that I know that I am more than capable to take my life and know that this works against me just as using anger to exist. I know I do not have a future and not only feel guilt for living this long when others I've lost could have had another day, but I know I'm in overtime. I know when I should have died. I know the moment and the second when I should have not been here to write this. I write this now not to justify my exit, but to let people understand why I struggle now and will probably struggle forever. I do not want to leave you with questions and I do not want any image of myself that is not true.
The truth must be exposed regardless of how it may paint us. And I say now that I am greatly flawed.
I didn't want to leave you thinking it was ever you. Any of you. I just struggle at times with something so much more greater than myself that I do not take our small times together for granted. I cherish it as the starved eat every grain of rice. Small sittings with nothing said may seem dull to you, but I savor them as my last taste ever. I love our meaningless moments and yes, even our misunderstandings and arguments. I'm sorry and I want to make amends quickly because I don't want to leave you in this state.
And so, with all of this I actually realize that my greatest windmill is not just existing or reaching some milestone, but to be happy.
Can you imagine me happy? Well, I have been happy on and off for the past 5 months. It's in a way my last revenge: to actually live well. I know. It's backwards. I'm saying this because if something .....horrible.....happens, it's not because I was "sad" or "depressed' but struggling with surviving. I don't want people to cry that I am gone or that put a sad label on me that I was just hellbent or "lost". I want all of you to understand that I'm fighting to be happy. I'm trying my best to sustain myself not on sadness, worthlessness, or ever rage, but joy. I want you to remember me as someone who did everything in his ability to be happy. Even if I fail miserably. I want you to know that I'm happy now and I'm growing this little ember of hope as if my life depends on it, because it does. I'm gambling everything to make this work and if I fall to far I know I won't be able to get back up. I'm treating this as serious as it feels.
I've actually worked on my smiling muscles to hold a smile for a minute straight.
Really.
You should be proud of me, not sad because I'm going to hold it for two minutes next and then one day I'll forget that I ever had a problem with my face hurting when I finally smiled and then I won't look like I'm having a stroke.
Do you know how sad it is not being able to smile? That actually made me cry.
Well, fuck that. I may feel worthless, but I'm going to make my smile priceless.
Someone made me realize that.
It helped alot.
Alot.
.....
*smiles for a minute*
So yea.....see why I couldn't find a song to go with this?
So, yes. Even if I'm smiling at you, I feel worthless. I feel my anger at a low simmer that can boil over in times. I have the strongest feeling that if someone has to go I will vote myself off before giving others the idea that they should vote someone off. I am disposable and can withstand hell and suffering like no one you meet. And with that damnation I seek a kind of salvation that my weaknesses and fears can only offer me. I help those who need it, without thanks. I give what I can and will go hungry if possible. I rally others forward because I have no inner strength for myself, but all for those who even think about faltering. I cheer the loudest for you because I know what it's like to not only be cheerless, but also boo'ed.I know what it's like to be despised, hated, and feared. I'm a sacrifice that keeps on living and giving. What's not to love?!?!
ha ha....yea.....that's topic for another day. Not today. I don't want to hamper my happy too much. Just enough to let you on, but not today.
Ok.....I'm actually tired. I'm going to nap. Please don't commit me or have another fucking intervention. Spend time with me. Do what you always do and that will keep me happy. Do not do anything out of the ordinary or you will make me feel funny.
I'll leave you with this because.....why not? Hope and all.
"The antidote for 50 enemies is one friend" ~Aristotle
You know who you are.
Thanks.
*goes outside and sit in the sun to fall asleep*
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Shower Epiphany: Gone, back again, and onwards
After hitting 20.0% body fat yesterday I checked again and it's a bit higher than 20.0% today, but understanding how homeostasis works I know that it's going to drop down to my goal and even lower soon. It's part of that rebalancing that your body does when you introduce enough chaos to for it to change. Something that I've followed from my classes in Biology, Chemistry, Kin, Physics and even in English literature. There is no level of normalcy that a selected place or point of time we shall call the universe for whatever we choose to be our goal. And yet, I'm not going to talk about this. Having already explained this many times before that I have some difficulty cutting to the bone when it hits layers that are long forgotten and dormant. So I have to start out with somewhere I'm comfortable in order to sink lower to where I want to go.
So please excuse my cowardice. I'm going to cut to the bone.
To say that I am a child of chaos is saying very little. I can honestly say that I have not had any form of normalcy in my life since I was 14 and then it's only for a few good years or so. So the past few months have been my crucible of sorts as I decide to put my schooling up against my experience. In truth, I wanted to see if I can have some sort of control over my own body. I'm not one to make weak statements and understanding a bit more of my past that I've long buried may give you a bit more insight.
At the age of 16-17 I've contracted Tuberculosis while working in Westwood cleaning brokerage offices. While friends were enjoying their increase in muscle and leanness in their hormonal growth spurts mine was used to survive as I dropped weight from a healthy 180 lbs to a painfully sick 128 lbs. If you need a mental image think of the survivors of the concentration camps. I would eat constantly and yet not keep a lb. It would be two years after my infection to find out what I had and it would come at the right time, since I was having breathing problems. Having been cured by body would not begin to recover for another 5 years.
A huge difference from growing up the chubby kid.
My 20's were great, yet not understanding what I know now I can say that I was harder on my health than any disease. Not understanding the basics of nutrition, exercise, or general maintenance I caused more damage than you can imagine. And yet it would take me 7 years to get my body back on track and healthy enough even with strong moments of sickness and not being able to breath. And yet I fought to increase my lung capacity and to gain strength. I think it was 6 years when I would arrive at my physical best, hence the 20% at 200 lbs.
Sadly a long series of injuries would derail me once more. Tearing my shoulder, catching pneumonia, and having a thrombosis in my leg just stopped my from attaining any physical success. That with studying for long hours and eating whatever was at hand can wreak havoc on anyone. I jumped to my highest at 255 lbs and a body fat in the obese area of 31% or so. Thankfully my studies have picked up and I had many great instructors who helped me keep hope even if moving meant that I would bleed out. I understood that I'm not where I want to be and I had to stop beating myself up. I had to depend on what I was learning and to take small steps. If you worked with me you now that I always talk about small changes and efforts always add up over one huge attempt. Focusing effort on myself I've made myself my own guinea pig, knowing that I can not or would not tell anyone to do anything that I can not do. If this had any way of working then I would have to be my success story.
And so, over two years ago I dragged a very heavy me out into the road. I shuffled when I could not run. I pushed my body when my lungs screamed for air. I continued to push from the most modified or "girl" position imaginable (for those of you who are too stupid to realize that there are women power lifters who can lift us like nothing). I knew my ego was in the dumps, but I kept saying soon. My faith was placed in math and measurement over rolling in whatever shame I can feel. I took up all the insults and arrogance that those who never have fallen could sling. My mantra was one word: Soon.
In over one year, I was able to move decently without reopening my wound. In January, I would face my greatest weakness and start running with a running journal. In March, my body fat dropped to 25%, which removed me from any health related risks. And now, it's in the far range of ideal for my age range. My resting heart rate had dropped to 48 bpm with not only is amazing that I can have that much control of my body, but it has given me an X factor against age and the loss of ability. This is not only where I was before, but I'm past it.
If you told me that I would be back 5 years ago, I would not believe it. If you old me that I would be stronger and have a greater condition, I would have laughed. If you told me that I'm at the point where I can push on and change my body as I see if I would have never believed you. This is new for me since I never grew up "handsome" or "fit" or even "attractive". I have a great sense of humor, a brilliant intellect, and enough humility to know that if I don't work hard on these I basically have nothing to offer people. My positive traits are earned rather than genetic. I have to work hard to be interesting and I do so as the Moon reflects the Sun, I surround myself with brilliant and interesting people and reflect them. And these same people have been pushing me along when I really wanted to quit.
At this point I don't see myself quitting until ......hmmm.....I'll make it to my 50's and then see.
So, if anything it has taught me that anyone and everyone can make a change with enough desire and with plenty of positive reinforcement. You can do it, because I am doing it. And to be honest, I can be a bit lazy at time. And yet, my defeatist attitude is waning. Thanks to my dearest friends.
So thank you for giving me back my time in the Sun. I promise to spend it well and pull as many as I can with me.
So please excuse my cowardice. I'm going to cut to the bone.
To say that I am a child of chaos is saying very little. I can honestly say that I have not had any form of normalcy in my life since I was 14 and then it's only for a few good years or so. So the past few months have been my crucible of sorts as I decide to put my schooling up against my experience. In truth, I wanted to see if I can have some sort of control over my own body. I'm not one to make weak statements and understanding a bit more of my past that I've long buried may give you a bit more insight.
At the age of 16-17 I've contracted Tuberculosis while working in Westwood cleaning brokerage offices. While friends were enjoying their increase in muscle and leanness in their hormonal growth spurts mine was used to survive as I dropped weight from a healthy 180 lbs to a painfully sick 128 lbs. If you need a mental image think of the survivors of the concentration camps. I would eat constantly and yet not keep a lb. It would be two years after my infection to find out what I had and it would come at the right time, since I was having breathing problems. Having been cured by body would not begin to recover for another 5 years.
A huge difference from growing up the chubby kid.
My 20's were great, yet not understanding what I know now I can say that I was harder on my health than any disease. Not understanding the basics of nutrition, exercise, or general maintenance I caused more damage than you can imagine. And yet it would take me 7 years to get my body back on track and healthy enough even with strong moments of sickness and not being able to breath. And yet I fought to increase my lung capacity and to gain strength. I think it was 6 years when I would arrive at my physical best, hence the 20% at 200 lbs.
Sadly a long series of injuries would derail me once more. Tearing my shoulder, catching pneumonia, and having a thrombosis in my leg just stopped my from attaining any physical success. That with studying for long hours and eating whatever was at hand can wreak havoc on anyone. I jumped to my highest at 255 lbs and a body fat in the obese area of 31% or so. Thankfully my studies have picked up and I had many great instructors who helped me keep hope even if moving meant that I would bleed out. I understood that I'm not where I want to be and I had to stop beating myself up. I had to depend on what I was learning and to take small steps. If you worked with me you now that I always talk about small changes and efforts always add up over one huge attempt. Focusing effort on myself I've made myself my own guinea pig, knowing that I can not or would not tell anyone to do anything that I can not do. If this had any way of working then I would have to be my success story.
And so, over two years ago I dragged a very heavy me out into the road. I shuffled when I could not run. I pushed my body when my lungs screamed for air. I continued to push from the most modified or "girl" position imaginable (for those of you who are too stupid to realize that there are women power lifters who can lift us like nothing). I knew my ego was in the dumps, but I kept saying soon. My faith was placed in math and measurement over rolling in whatever shame I can feel. I took up all the insults and arrogance that those who never have fallen could sling. My mantra was one word: Soon.
In over one year, I was able to move decently without reopening my wound. In January, I would face my greatest weakness and start running with a running journal. In March, my body fat dropped to 25%, which removed me from any health related risks. And now, it's in the far range of ideal for my age range. My resting heart rate had dropped to 48 bpm with not only is amazing that I can have that much control of my body, but it has given me an X factor against age and the loss of ability. This is not only where I was before, but I'm past it.
If you told me that I would be back 5 years ago, I would not believe it. If you old me that I would be stronger and have a greater condition, I would have laughed. If you told me that I'm at the point where I can push on and change my body as I see if I would have never believed you. This is new for me since I never grew up "handsome" or "fit" or even "attractive". I have a great sense of humor, a brilliant intellect, and enough humility to know that if I don't work hard on these I basically have nothing to offer people. My positive traits are earned rather than genetic. I have to work hard to be interesting and I do so as the Moon reflects the Sun, I surround myself with brilliant and interesting people and reflect them. And these same people have been pushing me along when I really wanted to quit.
At this point I don't see myself quitting until ......hmmm.....I'll make it to my 50's and then see.
So, if anything it has taught me that anyone and everyone can make a change with enough desire and with plenty of positive reinforcement. You can do it, because I am doing it. And to be honest, I can be a bit lazy at time. And yet, my defeatist attitude is waning. Thanks to my dearest friends.
So thank you for giving me back my time in the Sun. I promise to spend it well and pull as many as I can with me.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Love's Naloxone Or Taking the Anti-love pill. Part Thirteen – Everybody Wants To Rule The World: Breaking out
*The month has been a volatile time for me as all good revolutions are as we shove against self contained spaces that we either out grow or we find too confining for our own good. So I whole heatedly beg your pardon, I wish to state that for the lack of time and the promises of keeping certain information safe until I take respite within the Earth unless I am to prepare myself for midnight calls and knocks on doors with no physical hands to be seen (you don't want to know. I'd sooner swallow mine own tongue than to pass upon knowledge get that is too costly to suffer). Saying so, I shall take artistic liberty and combine a month long conversation with many people who still remain in shadows or who outnumber my most ambitious desire to honor their effort. You know who you are and I am always thankful*
Sitting in the sunny room he nervously looks off distance while she sits in front of him. Many years his senior and well known to his deceptive mannerisms, she humors him as she allows him to remain distant yet knowing that there is nothing more he wants than to be close as thieves. Warm tea and cookies serve only as a plot device as well as to expose the chink within armor too overwhelming to carry. She know he had done what she called for as he sits uncomfortably and prepared for the outbreak of Secret Wars of long ago, yet still to realize that there is no one left to fight. after some time she leans over and coax he to open up. This time and space is unaffected by the pace of the world, yet as we all know time has unwound here. Time is meaningless with what task is at hand as a long moment of time has become a blink in seconds for our purposes.
She is letting him have it, but this is all in the past. Pleasantries are something they do not bother with as he asked for something he usually administers without holding back. "To cut to the bone", you give a no shitter that is blunt as it is quick. You do not ask for one as hope to be made felt better. She respected him enough to cut deep and quick as he asked and yet, it has been something he still chews on, knowing his eye can tear apart everything and everyone except himself. She does take some relish in repeating it time to time if only to get him engaged, but with each time cookies get a bit fancier and the tea a bit richer, yet she hold no reservations on what was, is, or is going to be said. Bile with triple dutch chocolate chocolate chips.
"I don't think you know how much you struggle since you are honestly deluding yourself. You are a stone terracotta warrior who shows not remorse, nor shows anything but the weathered age you carry with you. You are ancient beyond your years and you envelope yourself within a malice that was never yours. You are a kabuki samurai with a creeping giggle. A paranoid rabbit who fear to let down his guard for being pounced yet you yearn to nibble on what good you find. You are not a cruel person nor have you ever been. Your guilt is evident of that. You carry a sadness of things forced upon you and you flog yourself when ever possible to prevent others from the joy of making you suffer. "
His cold gaze towards the nothingness changed direction towards her in a guilty confession that his eyes could never hide. Almost filled with fear as well as bracing himself to be struck down with an oncoming blow as one fighter would expose and exploit to down his opponent. She continues on.
"You live two lives that can not continue to coexist. You carry an air of rage and fury yet, you kneel down towards small children and become warm and comforting. You carry an aura that has many avoid you in a wide circle yet you draw animals onto you with a gentleness that seem more natural to you than the ugly scowl you hold. Since we have been friends for all these years I demand that I meet this phantom that you hide and remove the ill spirit that haunts you now."
There is something about people who can wield words as some declare expertise on weaponry that has a way of disarming him. He always yearned towards his unused wit that only make some showing when a snide yet sharp remark is to be made. To play with words as some play with actions was the way to draw this phantom, as it seems as his hard gaze suddenly became exhausted and yet yielding a delicate smile that only pass too quickly for quick glances. And with that he took in a breath of air as someone would suckle smoke within and released it as if the weariness of what he carried was not to be endured anymore.
He spoke more of why he was tired and even of a feeling that he held that if he shown some weakness and even compared it to being surrounded by vicious dogs that would leap on to you with a slip or a stumble. That as kind as he is with the errors of others and the folly of those who attempt to hurt him he has either worked so diligently to remove anything that would cause others to find fault or target or to preemptively strike himself down with a fervor that no other can match nor would attempt. His self flogging was his way of punishing himself for his error, human as they may be yet his own humanity is to be self denied at least until those he fear will not bring down any retribution he has already suffered before. His own justice would be demeaning yet motivating to cut out that "weakness", yet within the hands of others that human error would be as sharp as jagged hands in the hands of savage cruelty, always aimed the point where he could not defend himself. While others were schooled in how to learn from mistakes or how errors were simply a work in manifest of the effort made to reach perfect, his errors would time and time again used against him. It was only recently when he was already attacked for "crimes" committed more than a decade ago at an age where most were allowed to discover their age appropriate foolishness.
"I understand more now. You have always been a gentle soul, yet you've realize that the world has a perverse way of tearing gentleness out of others. You have made yourself a target and fodder. You have done things to save yourself from the hell of others while allowing yourself to somewhat punish yourself for not being able to survive as such. You've made yourself the martyr got the inequity of others and banners man for the 'Secret Wars' that you were pulled into that were never your own. You invite the hell within to acknowledged that fact that there is hell. You suffer for the ideal of suffering and you invite the worst of what may be to make sure that if you can endure that pain and still move forward. And yet, you are your own worse enemy, assigning assassins to attack when in fact there way not be any there. In truth, you save others in their need and you have never been saved, have you?"
He looks up this time and his eyes shimmer as hard pressed lips hold back a wave that can never be mistake other than pure disappointment. She waits while the question sits long in the room until he realize that she had released an elephant into the room. She uses his honesty against him in the only way to force him to see what he refuses to admit. It is not enough to allow silence speak it's volumes. HE must be made to say what his mind does not allow him to say. He finally stomachs a response with a cracking voice, he says.....
"The warm jets can be heard, but they never arrive. The Calvary arrives when the onslaught is over and there is nothing to bury but the dead. Shoulders are always looked over only to find no one....no one there. There is no retreat since there is no tomorrow promised. I have to jump first, be vicious and relentless before I get overwhelmed. I have never won. NEVER. I've only lost and lost heavily to the point where I have to readjust what is losing and what is making sure they do not win. I can only force a stalemate if lucky or at least make sure that their victory is tasteless and vile. So no.....no one has or will save me and you can not ever convince me that I will ever be saved because that child has already been lost. I can save others, but I can never be save."
"Tell me why you were not saved?"
"You do not save the expendable or the worthless and I am far aware that I am both."
The breakthrough left him rasped and shaken, yet he continues to sit. Conversation is continued as time is bent and warped once more. A philosophy of worthlessness is shared in which he says that he had learned the nature of many simply by taking on a lowly role or being Machiavellian enough. He is quit tactical, yet his methods would have the general leading the defense and losing the war for the mere thought of "what is right over what is best". His ability to map out the cruelty he has face in the hands of others marveled her. How he declared placing himself in positions that tried the confidence and trust of another only to note that people would make offering to wolves as well as they say good day. Conversations reach upon those he does value and after some insight there is a mutual understanding that the concept of redemption is never a venture that is taken upon one's own shoulder's unless it's their own.
Time moves slowly here as the bend often loops and allows moments to be relived. The understanding is that he has collected a good amount of favors from many who have valued his help and yet while it may be true that it may be easier to reunite shoulder and joint on his own when certain individuals are asked to honor promises made in the past, others have attempted to assist if only move aside. Favors are as valuable as uncashed checks and even their ink is lost with time and scrutiny. He's learned that he value assistance more than promises, yet no one will be willing to assist until you have taken the task to hand for yourself and many times it is completed with help as soon as an end is visible.
No one saves you still, even if you are close to the end. Especially then.
And yet, the discussion has reached their experiment. He was questioned over the time apart and if there were any changes. From what was shared, there was hope of change, yet he did drag his heels along, almost as if he did not want to be proven wring. Appealing to his scientific need was a double edged sword in this case since he demanded proof for what he had years already seen, yet he could not deny anything that can be done coldly for science. That coldness is something that he takes too much refuge as a child would take need of a blanket against the horrors of the dark. And yet, it has been the best way to get him to take the chances he refused to. Small chances, such as letting his hair down, hug someone, don't hide his laughing face or even harder tasks such as tell someone he has an attraction, tell someone they mean alot to them, or even take a stupid chance and dance and sing, even if it means drinking enough not to care.
Everything was shared. He did not like the risk, yet he was kind of surprised. He felt as if he has somehow emerged from a long nightmare only to feel, for a moment at least, that he was actually human, sweat, blood and bone. He felt the need to be touched and the need to be needed. He enjoyed laughing at his end of anxiety even if he dreaded handing his number or even smiling and keeping eye contact from longer than 3 seconds. He was a creature of shadow and did not appreciate attention even if it meant that he was human with needs. Attention usually brought him more than enough problems and still refused to keep any for of communication that he could not turn off or have some grade of anonymity. It has taken him years and his last experience with mobiles left him sour, especially when few have discovered where he was. In avoidance, he have eluded stalkers and annoyances alike, yet he understood that even if he found the whole process repugnant that his days of seclusion were numbered.
They sipped in silence as he knew what was next. A new task in humiliation or how she described a chance to make human contact. He laughed before yet more than willing to continue. She smiled and said that he had to wrote this moment. He had to write once more, not on his need to numb or to make his pursuit meaningless as so much Naloxone would do, but to admit his "progress" for all to enjoy voyeristically and to exhibition his heart" as torn and tattered as any such organ would be without making any reference to half pound prices (HA, fuck you!) and yet even that much insolence would be addressed soon. even though his act of rebellion would not be considered too much of anything other than "bitch noise".
And yet he knew what response would come naturally afterwards. "What is it that you want? Why are you even listening to me? What do you want to accomplish?"
To her response,
".........I want......another cookie."
"Of course, you ass. Of course. Perfection is a long while away. Until then, we have cookies."
There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you
Sitting in the sunny room he nervously looks off distance while she sits in front of him. Many years his senior and well known to his deceptive mannerisms, she humors him as she allows him to remain distant yet knowing that there is nothing more he wants than to be close as thieves. Warm tea and cookies serve only as a plot device as well as to expose the chink within armor too overwhelming to carry. She know he had done what she called for as he sits uncomfortably and prepared for the outbreak of Secret Wars of long ago, yet still to realize that there is no one left to fight. after some time she leans over and coax he to open up. This time and space is unaffected by the pace of the world, yet as we all know time has unwound here. Time is meaningless with what task is at hand as a long moment of time has become a blink in seconds for our purposes.
She is letting him have it, but this is all in the past. Pleasantries are something they do not bother with as he asked for something he usually administers without holding back. "To cut to the bone", you give a no shitter that is blunt as it is quick. You do not ask for one as hope to be made felt better. She respected him enough to cut deep and quick as he asked and yet, it has been something he still chews on, knowing his eye can tear apart everything and everyone except himself. She does take some relish in repeating it time to time if only to get him engaged, but with each time cookies get a bit fancier and the tea a bit richer, yet she hold no reservations on what was, is, or is going to be said. Bile with triple dutch chocolate chocolate chips.
"I don't think you know how much you struggle since you are honestly deluding yourself. You are a stone terracotta warrior who shows not remorse, nor shows anything but the weathered age you carry with you. You are ancient beyond your years and you envelope yourself within a malice that was never yours. You are a kabuki samurai with a creeping giggle. A paranoid rabbit who fear to let down his guard for being pounced yet you yearn to nibble on what good you find. You are not a cruel person nor have you ever been. Your guilt is evident of that. You carry a sadness of things forced upon you and you flog yourself when ever possible to prevent others from the joy of making you suffer. "
His cold gaze towards the nothingness changed direction towards her in a guilty confession that his eyes could never hide. Almost filled with fear as well as bracing himself to be struck down with an oncoming blow as one fighter would expose and exploit to down his opponent. She continues on.
"You live two lives that can not continue to coexist. You carry an air of rage and fury yet, you kneel down towards small children and become warm and comforting. You carry an aura that has many avoid you in a wide circle yet you draw animals onto you with a gentleness that seem more natural to you than the ugly scowl you hold. Since we have been friends for all these years I demand that I meet this phantom that you hide and remove the ill spirit that haunts you now."
It's my own design
It's my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most
There is something about people who can wield words as some declare expertise on weaponry that has a way of disarming him. He always yearned towards his unused wit that only make some showing when a snide yet sharp remark is to be made. To play with words as some play with actions was the way to draw this phantom, as it seems as his hard gaze suddenly became exhausted and yet yielding a delicate smile that only pass too quickly for quick glances. And with that he took in a breath of air as someone would suckle smoke within and released it as if the weariness of what he carried was not to be endured anymore.
He spoke more of why he was tired and even of a feeling that he held that if he shown some weakness and even compared it to being surrounded by vicious dogs that would leap on to you with a slip or a stumble. That as kind as he is with the errors of others and the folly of those who attempt to hurt him he has either worked so diligently to remove anything that would cause others to find fault or target or to preemptively strike himself down with a fervor that no other can match nor would attempt. His self flogging was his way of punishing himself for his error, human as they may be yet his own humanity is to be self denied at least until those he fear will not bring down any retribution he has already suffered before. His own justice would be demeaning yet motivating to cut out that "weakness", yet within the hands of others that human error would be as sharp as jagged hands in the hands of savage cruelty, always aimed the point where he could not defend himself. While others were schooled in how to learn from mistakes or how errors were simply a work in manifest of the effort made to reach perfect, his errors would time and time again used against him. It was only recently when he was already attacked for "crimes" committed more than a decade ago at an age where most were allowed to discover their age appropriate foolishness.
"I understand more now. You have always been a gentle soul, yet you've realize that the world has a perverse way of tearing gentleness out of others. You have made yourself a target and fodder. You have done things to save yourself from the hell of others while allowing yourself to somewhat punish yourself for not being able to survive as such. You've made yourself the martyr got the inequity of others and banners man for the 'Secret Wars' that you were pulled into that were never your own. You invite the hell within to acknowledged that fact that there is hell. You suffer for the ideal of suffering and you invite the worst of what may be to make sure that if you can endure that pain and still move forward. And yet, you are your own worse enemy, assigning assassins to attack when in fact there way not be any there. In truth, you save others in their need and you have never been saved, have you?"
Welcome to your life
Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature
He looks up this time and his eyes shimmer as hard pressed lips hold back a wave that can never be mistake other than pure disappointment. She waits while the question sits long in the room until he realize that she had released an elephant into the room. She uses his honesty against him in the only way to force him to see what he refuses to admit. It is not enough to allow silence speak it's volumes. HE must be made to say what his mind does not allow him to say. He finally stomachs a response with a cracking voice, he says.....
"The warm jets can be heard, but they never arrive. The Calvary arrives when the onslaught is over and there is nothing to bury but the dead. Shoulders are always looked over only to find no one....no one there. There is no retreat since there is no tomorrow promised. I have to jump first, be vicious and relentless before I get overwhelmed. I have never won. NEVER. I've only lost and lost heavily to the point where I have to readjust what is losing and what is making sure they do not win. I can only force a stalemate if lucky or at least make sure that their victory is tasteless and vile. So no.....no one has or will save me and you can not ever convince me that I will ever be saved because that child has already been lost. I can save others, but I can never be save."
"Tell me why you were not saved?"
"You do not save the expendable or the worthless and I am far aware that I am both."
The breakthrough left him rasped and shaken, yet he continues to sit. Conversation is continued as time is bent and warped once more. A philosophy of worthlessness is shared in which he says that he had learned the nature of many simply by taking on a lowly role or being Machiavellian enough. He is quit tactical, yet his methods would have the general leading the defense and losing the war for the mere thought of "what is right over what is best". His ability to map out the cruelty he has face in the hands of others marveled her. How he declared placing himself in positions that tried the confidence and trust of another only to note that people would make offering to wolves as well as they say good day. Conversations reach upon those he does value and after some insight there is a mutual understanding that the concept of redemption is never a venture that is taken upon one's own shoulder's unless it's their own.
Time moves slowly here as the bend often loops and allows moments to be relived. The understanding is that he has collected a good amount of favors from many who have valued his help and yet while it may be true that it may be easier to reunite shoulder and joint on his own when certain individuals are asked to honor promises made in the past, others have attempted to assist if only move aside. Favors are as valuable as uncashed checks and even their ink is lost with time and scrutiny. He's learned that he value assistance more than promises, yet no one will be willing to assist until you have taken the task to hand for yourself and many times it is completed with help as soon as an end is visible.
No one saves you still, even if you are close to the end. Especially then.
There's a room where the light won't find you
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down
When they do I'll be right behind you
And yet, the discussion has reached their experiment. He was questioned over the time apart and if there were any changes. From what was shared, there was hope of change, yet he did drag his heels along, almost as if he did not want to be proven wring. Appealing to his scientific need was a double edged sword in this case since he demanded proof for what he had years already seen, yet he could not deny anything that can be done coldly for science. That coldness is something that he takes too much refuge as a child would take need of a blanket against the horrors of the dark. And yet, it has been the best way to get him to take the chances he refused to. Small chances, such as letting his hair down, hug someone, don't hide his laughing face or even harder tasks such as tell someone he has an attraction, tell someone they mean alot to them, or even take a stupid chance and dance and sing, even if it means drinking enough not to care.
All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Say that you'll never never never never need it
One headline why believe it?
One headline why believe it?
Everything was shared. He did not like the risk, yet he was kind of surprised. He felt as if he has somehow emerged from a long nightmare only to feel, for a moment at least, that he was actually human, sweat, blood and bone. He felt the need to be touched and the need to be needed. He enjoyed laughing at his end of anxiety even if he dreaded handing his number or even smiling and keeping eye contact from longer than 3 seconds. He was a creature of shadow and did not appreciate attention even if it meant that he was human with needs. Attention usually brought him more than enough problems and still refused to keep any for of communication that he could not turn off or have some grade of anonymity. It has taken him years and his last experience with mobiles left him sour, especially when few have discovered where he was. In avoidance, he have eluded stalkers and annoyances alike, yet he understood that even if he found the whole process repugnant that his days of seclusion were numbered.
I can't stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
They sipped in silence as he knew what was next. A new task in humiliation or how she described a chance to make human contact. He laughed before yet more than willing to continue. She smiled and said that he had to wrote this moment. He had to write once more, not on his need to numb or to make his pursuit meaningless as so much Naloxone would do, but to admit his "progress" for all to enjoy voyeristically and to exhibition his heart" as torn and tattered as any such organ would be without making any reference to half pound prices (HA, fuck you!) and yet even that much insolence would be addressed soon. even though his act of rebellion would not be considered too much of anything other than "bitch noise".
And yet he knew what response would come naturally afterwards. "What is it that you want? Why are you even listening to me? What do you want to accomplish?"
To her response,
".........I want......another cookie."
"Of course, you ass. Of course. Perfection is a long while away. Until then, we have cookies."
So glad we've almost made it
So sad they had to fade it
Everybody wants to rule the world
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