Ponderous Points #1 Hope and Waiting

Gained a lb and my body fat jumped from 23.1 to 23.5%. I'm not getting enough sleep sadly. I'm going to have to remedy that. I'm a bit sleep deprived which makes me laugh here in the tomb, but hey you can't fix everything immediately.

Goal today is to run 3 miles tonight, sleep in a bit since I'm running on 5 hours, and finish up my cover letter for one place and send that out to work on another. I'm in a writing streak as some of you can tell, but I'm probably going to start stacking them up considering that I can go into quiet patches. Two posts a week should be ok?

Crazy Doc is tomorrow. I know what's he's going to say. "You live in a toxic environment. You need to get out of there now." Kind of hard when you don't have a steady cash flow. If there's two things I realize being a vagabond it's that the only way people will put up with you is money or help. And somehow I'm starting to to feel my help isn't valued enough to talk to someone into letting me have a patch of carpet in the corner.

Therefore, resumes, cover letters, and just hope.

I hate hope. Hope is useless compared to a given, even if that given is negative. I'd rather know how bad it is instead of hoping. Mayhaps I'm just jaded, but I'm a fucking realist. My days of optimism ended when I was 16 and life started to get hard.

...huh.....minirant. See, going to store that up. Might even get CAt back up. Just random thoughts.

Random thoughts, plans and not trusting hope.

Walking a Line that's Faded at Best

Writing is a difficult thing. Almost hellish.

There are moments that I go without even speaking to people much less putting words on page behind meaning and yet there are moments where almost in a fever pitch I'm able to spew out words with meaning with innuendo with intent to cause some chaotic spark of thought that is outside the daily does of mind numbing crap. 

Being in the middle of the two poles, I find if hard to even keep what I've written here. I'm very sure it's not going to inspire or provoke thought. Yet I know I have a thought within that needs to see the light of day yet somehow the time is wrong, the mood is not there, or I haven't groked it long enough to fully pull out meaning. And yet, considering that I use my writing as means to balance my thoughts it can be....ickish....is there a word for intellectual blue balls?

Blue Mind?

Odd.

Well, as of now I'm once again trying to rebalance my life by trying to fight my weight gain, depression, looking for a full time legitimate line of work, and figuring out how soon I can move out of a place that, from what I'm told a toxic environment. It's all too easy to slump down and simply close your eyes and let....time...slip....by.....

So I get up despite of not having enough sleep. I weigh myself and check my body fat percentage and calculate how many calories and macro nutrients. I log what I eat, how much water I take in, and calculate my run times, caloric expenditure and any other value I can find out of what data I can gather. I look throughout the Internet and attempt to fill in applications, resumes with cover letters and reference lists. I try to take a nap when able, but not enough to lose hours of time, even though it's what I have. I go outside to work out, lift and keep active. If I have time left over I watch youtube as some would watch tv. If there's time to kill I get on a game and kill some hours of time. IF I have a book I read just enough as one would ration water knowing that my library card has been revoke by the kindness of others and getting hold of thought provoking books are rare. I'm always on wiki .

I can imagine that this existence, this limbo is how I would imagine prison yet with more violence or at times much less. Being around volatile people is nerve wracking. A snide comment said by one person can equate to days of hell. One person's outbursts can chain react. My only rule here to others is to not set off the megaton bomb in the room. I have my moments and I have to walk away knowing that toxic places pull you in by means lower then any enemy can pull. I've had good days where I pull away, bad days where I get pulled in and feel ashamed of myself for being foolish, and I have my rare days that kill me knowing that I am better and yet I gave into a chaotic and destructive nature. 

And people wonder why I know how to get away from crazy. People with solid advice have either escaped their hells or are fighting them at the moment. I'm the later. People who negate "no" for any reason. Anyone who makes you feel less then who you are. Any one who gaslight, is verbally or physically abusive when they lack a decent verbal IQ to discuss and even debate. People who emotionally leech, want you to rebuild them making your their monkey wrench only to return to abusive means, anyone who has ever thrown any object towards you. 

Hell. Abuse is hell. It's harder to escape it. There comes a point where your own being will work against you. Self sabotage, fighting low self esteem, trying to keep momentum and remaining positive are all part of it.

......funny......didn't feel like writing at all. Still don't know where it's going either. Still don't know if this will be posted.

Life is tough.......my life is tough. I'm going to try to not to speak in the third person. I'm told when I speak of myself I regress into a monotone and become distant. It's a mechanism from what I'm told is frightening as hell to watch. So....no third person.

*clear throat* My life IS tough. And it's stupid at the same time. I think of it was pulling myself out of quicksand. I know how to do it, I'm learning new methods to do so also, yet it's time consuming, tiring, and from what I'm told one of the hardest things to do. When your very effort works against you and doing nothing is death. I hear many people tell me they love me, they're behind me, that they are in any way willing to help me. I'm here trying not to pull anyone else in while trying to tread myself above. I more then understand that I have to reach a certain people in order to break free of mental shackles that hold be down, yet getting there is hard. I know what should be done. The practise is difficult, painful, and often times meaningless. 

It's why they say that the best support you can give someone depressed is to just sit there, maybe make them into a burrito and just sit there. It's nothing you can do to fix them. You presence can be damaging, but if you just sit and say you understand its the most amazing thing. The person does not need to hide it and they can simply be.

Saying this I have an amazing support network. I have great friends. I've been told that I can equate my value to that of the caliber of my friends. I would like to believe that. Then again I would love to be functional and not be in this situation to start. So I know, but often time I do not understand. 

It's like when I'm told that I've loved. I understand the words. I know the meaning. I more then believe that my closest friends mean the words, that they have meaning. I just don't feel anything. Was it because I've been in so many types of toxic relationships? Can it be that they loved me also and yet that love was painful, harmful, and destructive in their different ways. One person was physically abusive. Other mentally. One negated my own feelings and made me feel used. Others negated the word 'no' and others just took me along their own insanity. I have a type and its crazy, needy, hurtful. I didn't choose it. I didn't want it, but it's a clear pattern. Being celibate now for 9 years I can see that my life is a lot more livable when not in the trunk of a car or stalked.

So....therapy. I'm told people see changes. That I've made immense advancements in the 8 months I've been going. That I am more then willing to tear myself apart and pull whatever poisons me. That I know have a mindset that limits me, imposed by me, and that I will never be happy until I fully dismantle it. It sounds good. As if I can walk over to a pipe and just turn a valve and everything will be kudos. 

How I wish.

How I wish to be normal. I've a boring person really, yet I am a product of my environment. I do not trust easily. I consider my needs least if not important. I question myself more times then anyone else. I'm an introvert, pessimist, sarcastic, and yet I'm told I'm honestly not. I have a 'dark humor' that scares everyone off. I've lived horrors that only those who have cold eyes can recognize and normal people 'can't just even'.

ha ha ha....I was actually told I made someone go on antidepressants because I told them a part of my life.

Part. As in, "I was divorced by 21" part. 

Saying all of this, I try to be positive. I try to be functional. I balance my life and try to gain momentum as a child would learn to walk. I fall alot. I fail alot. I curl up into a ball alot. I don't cry. I don't know how to anymore. Yet, I get back up and try again. 

Why?

Because three years ago I should have taken my life. And yet, time shows that things change. Sometimes you just have to endure fucking hell as hard as it is, yet the moment you get your chance you will jump and run for it even if jump and run is really collapse and drag. Yet that fucking drag.....that pain.....pain is life....you have a fighting chance. Scream it. Yell it. Write it on the walls. Make as much noise as possible. Don't let it drag your down. It will and you should fight. You should make your escape the most explosive moment you can.......because if you don't you pass in silence. You pass in silence and mystery and no one around you will know what you suffered. 

So I screamed. I told everyone. I told those closest to me I was suicidal. I was fighting a fight that I was losing. And they pulled me in. They held me close and told me they loved me, even though I say now I can not feel it. It didn't matter. They came. They came.

I love my friends. One day I'll feel it, but I know I do. I guess I do.

My life is tough. I'm doing what I can to be functional. To be strong, confident, and progressive and proactive. I have my bad days. I have my worse days. I have days that I wonder how will I ever continue from that point. Oddly enough, my life has ended numerous times. And yet, there is tomorrow. Just the promise of tomorrow.....is enough. At least for now, it's more then enough. 

Shit today. Better tomorrow. 

If I have to go, let it take me. I refuse to do it's fucking work. If I'm not meant to wake in the morning then let it take me. I will not make it's job any easier. I refuse to. So today if hard. I'll eat my caloric need and workout. Work on cover letters and job opportunity. Write when I don't feel like it. Roll up into a ball. And start it all over again tomorrow.

Life is tough. My life is tough.

I'm tough too.

The Worst of Betrayals Come from Good Intentions

This is going to be hard.  This is probably going to set me back a bit socially, but I'm told by my Crazy Doc, for now on known as Crazy Doc, that there are points in my life and mind I avoid because of difficulty and not processing from that point or even now have long lasting effects that can hinder and even hurt. So please tolerate me a bit. I'm going to try to cut to the bone, but as many of you know me well some things are actually worse cutting into the bone instead of taking one's time. 

Also I've realize I can only cut to the bone when I'm emotionally isolated and numb. Not a good thing for me, I'm told. So with that I'm going to try to get to the point.

I think if there's a constant in my life it's that I've disappointed alot of people. Throughout my existence I've have not lived according to the ideals of many and even though plenty of people have never stated what I should or should do somehow I was supposed to adhere to this. Mind you, I've had this talk many times with many of you on what you should do if your family demands some antiquated ritual of obedience only to tell you my advice is to disappoint them. If your family ignores your sexual preference and demands marriage of you since it will fix what never was broken, deny them. Not only deny them, but show up with your partner and show them what you are, even if you have to commit sexual public acts in front of the planning so that they get the point.

Disappoint those who have ideals that do not fit your own or you will exist to deny yourself. Mind you, I'm only speaking of the extreme cases of course, yet for some reasons I'm always approached with these situations. Proper families with open channels of expression and communication somehow doesn't deal with this. It's always families in name only that somehow demand acts that does not suit the collective mind or a patriarch/matriarch whim. And yet, the invisible fear of those involved in this type so situation is almost torturous. Seeing someone weighed down by mental shackles of another's creation is probably the worst thing to witness. Seeing them suffer an existence that can be solved by the word no which has no power in their eyes. It's heartbreaking. Realizing that this person has no ownership of their own fate is heartbreaking as much as watching a dog behave on a strap of leather or cloth.

I digressed some, but it serves benefit. The mental shackles must be explained in order to understand. Even when believed torn off they continue to linger and drag us back if we do not understand how to release them much as Jacob Marley understood his plight. Simply overthrowing one oppressive force without removing the deeply ingrained installations only makes it easier for another oppressive force to take reign. I can not state this enough. This is what I'm dealing with.

I'll continue. *takes breath*

There's honestly something mind fuckingly twisted about realizing that the reason you ended up joining a cult was because you wanted a better situation. I realize that now, especially this week. The fact that the only reason a person would willingly join a cult is that the person was already hurt or broken as much as I would like to think of it, but more accurately its because you've already have the means of submission implemented and a greater oppressive force overrides any "loyalty". It's the reason why those abused either continues the cycle by finding another to continue that abuse or they change roles and administer their form of abuse. 

Yea, this months theme has to be mind fucks. The kind of this that you realize was under your nose and you had no idea until you finally see it behind a veil of rage and shock. I've had a few this month and chances are I'm going to be in store for a ton more. 

*takes deeper breath*

I'm not big with betrayal. Probably the stupidest thing I've ever written. Either way I'll start from here considering that I've stared at the screen long enough. Leaving the cult was probably one of the hardest things I've done and yet realizing that I needed to look after my children still in I had to build up a persona of a father that could do no wrong even if I felt like a piece of shit. I've got a job that put me to work for 30 hours, I took classes at the CC nearest work and home, I spent my money on my children and child support, I've taken my children in for months at a time trying to show them what normal was and show them no matter what kind of hell hole they lived in they would always have dad. For that, the ex wife used any and every chance to defame, malign, slander and belittle me. She knew as many others that there would be a time when they would willingly want to live with me. Yet with enough guilt, abuse, and more mind fuckery they were twisted and turned to different ways that no child should live. If they mentioned a woman's name I would soon get a call about about letting my whore near her children. Usually being told that the kind woman is a friend in a committed relationship who treated her children to food or attention when I was not able to for some reason. 

So to say I had to walked on eggshells would be a bit mild. Even those days I had to carefully look over my shoulder and make certain that I didn't make things worse. Child custody and social workers visited, if only to see if the children had a suitable parent. People around me were told in much shame that I was a divorced father at the age of 21, working full time and attending classes whenever possible. I've never banked on the sympathy of others considering I had shit to do and things to accomplish, but many other would converse and much munchausen would be enjoyed. I mean, how else would you explain a failure of a child? How else could you explain such a family disappointment to everyone else? While others were graduating college or starting businesses what else did you have to declare of your own child? I was branded easily as a fuck up. Black sheep. Worthless. Stupid. Someone who betrayed the family and their ideals. Someone who chose "Others" over his own blood. So at the ripe age of 21 I was worthless failure. 

If you know me. If you honestly know who I am, you know I'm a fucking stubborn person. I don't do things if I don't want to and I do things despite of who says not to. This is not natural. This had to be attained. I had to sit down one day realizing how close to suicidal I was for fucking up my life to realize that my death would serve the benefit of so many. Worthless child killed himself? How much pity would you give someone? Enough for a life time? Ex husband dead? Good. Now you can use him as the Goldstein to your Big Bother. How great of a boogyman would I have been to scare off the rest of the family from doing what ever the fuck you wanted? You go ahead, but when you become a failure like that child you will remember and you will cry.

How great is it when your death would benefit everyone else?

How worthless do you have to be that your death would benefit more?

So.....I did the only thing I can do. Tell everyone to fuck off and do things on my own. On my own I worked 30 hours and spent every moment loving my children who was told their father was a traitor to god, them, and the great ones. I took classes on Saturdays and late nights to rebuild my education. I started in remedial math and worked up to Calculus. I started in general elective science and became a tutor to those who could not understand and who didn't want to be insulted by those that somehow have it easier. I've got into Cal State on my own. I worked out my 125lb tuberculosis frame of a body into a decent 190 lbs by going to the gym from 2 am to 4 am. I've tried to rebuild friendships while enduring the fears of society, the end of the world, and everything sinister and evil that the cult said. I slowly used science to counteract my beliefs. I questioned my sexuality, identity, and being and realized every one must even if they identify as I do. I've endured the insults, slings, back talk of others until I could out debate, reason, and analyze others. 

I built my weak frame up via martial arts so that my words could not be negated by threat or bullying. I could already take a hit, but I would learn to take it, defend against it, prevent it, negate it, and counter. I would no longer be hit or beaten. I would build my body up to be a preventive measure. I would be the one who made others walk across the street or made other move aside on the sidewalk. I pounded and struck stone, wood, flesh, bone learning to break others. I would focus my rage into my own masochistic measures. I would endure the physical hell as well as the mental. I would take the hits so others would not. I would be kind above all, yet install fear into the eyes of whoever I wished. 

In all this I wanted only one thing; a better life for my children. I was not a factor. My happiness was not important and no matter how difficult it was I always tried to make their lives better. Make their hurt less. Offer sanctuary to them despite of what hell they lived. I would do so to many others. I would offer a kind word, inspiration, love to everyone I met. I would listen and offer advice gained from blood and work. I would offer aid and support whenever needed. If I was going to cross the finish line, I would drag other with me. We will all make it. We will all endure and make right what wrong has been given to us. That is what I wanted. I wanted people not to suffer what I endured. Ever. I would not allow it. I have the scars to prove it.

And yet in my time, I had learned that just because you help someone they do not help you. Just because they cheer you does not mean they want you to succeed. Simply because they resemble you, think as you do, or share your blood does not account them to be as or even close to near supportive. Being everyone's hero leaves you open to their hell. People often need something and see you as the best means. Their ails become your barbs. I can say that most of the people I've met never meant to tear me apart, but an apology, if any, has no worth is the damage has been done. 

I'm not big with betrayal. I can say this now without it being stupid. I've endured enough to become smart enough to recognize an abusive relationship. I've cut more ties then some have ever made. I've pulled from numerous places how to see someone coming and know what they want. I've cut myself off from people, endured their form of wrath and moved on. Always moving on. I can say that at this point outside of family, I've cut every bit of abusive people known. I say known since I'm never sure. Yet I can almost see it now. There's always going to be someone throwing stones. And you can endure it with grace and love and let it not change you or you can let it change you.

Guess which one I am?

After a point it doesn't matter. An act of kindness on your part is a come on. A pleasant conversation is a guilt trip. A good morning have double entendre. A smile means so much except for what you want it to mean. So you stop. You continue on and cut people. I don't smile because I don't want to or need to. It's something I might do involuntary, but not a habit I endure unless I lose myself with those I trust. A handful really. Even that I have means of cutting them out. My closet friend now have been in my life for 16 years and I know there is something in me that will cut him out. Something ingrained. The only reason we are still friends is that he know better. Not I, he.

Mind fuck.......things are mind fucks. The moment when you get a glance of something you've always seen in an angle you may have glanced over and it hits you. Or that story where evidence has been in the room, you are the cause of the ruin of multiple lives, you were the medic, you opened the box, your enemy is your father, everything is a manifestation of your guilt and shameful lust, you were always dead. Mind fucks. 

It was always me. I was always trying to push on. I was always moving forward even if I had to crawl or bide my time until I could run. I could trust no one at times and those moments I had to cheer myself on. It's funny when you were considered worthless. It's only your voice leading you on. It's you late at night reminding you why you're doing any of this. Why to keep driving forward even at a death march pace. Why you're doing things. You keep telling yourself to keep going if only to deafen the voices of others. You have to push forward. You have to endure. You have to commit the greater good. If you work hard enough people will file in and help. If you ever pushed a car down the street you know that people will help you if only to see you work less or just to say that they helped someone pushing something bigger then themselves. 

Betrayal happens. It naturally happens when others do not have a control over you or want to make you endure some hell they seem justified. Sometimes it's not even because of you. Just as some will help to say they helped some simply need to pull others down for the sake of pulling them down. Their reasons are usually sad in nature and yet cruel in implementation and usually best addressed as "shitty people are made of shit", the betrayal that hurts the most is always from someone you hold close to. Some one you protect and care for only to have them lash out at you. Sometimes out of pain or fear, but when the lashings are frequent if you have any instinct for survival you'd remove them from you. Once again, betrayal does not care if it was deliberate nor accidental. Damage is damage and any redemption comes from enthusiastic correction and penance on their part. Sometimes you see it coming and know the best is to let them strike and make them think they hurt you. Other times you cut ties and look over shoulders to ensure they do not find you. Other moments their acts are well hidden and can continue to harm you year after they have been removed.

As I mentioned, I've removed the remnants of those who slings were aimed at me outside of family. This week I had a close look at those who remain. Those who cut the deepest and cruelest that still remains. And it angered me. I could not understand why their voices were always the loudest. Why they cut deepest. I saw them as they are, flawed individuals who have difficulty stating their emotions in a healthy manner. They may care for me and they may not. They may know what they are doing or do so out of reaction or folly. As I said before, it doesn't matter until it's mended. Yet seeing them as they are angered me. How are flawed people in control over my well being. How can they affect me.

Crazy Doc: They can only affect you because you allow them.
Me: How is that? I don't want them to. If I don't want them to then they can't. Why isn't this working?
CD: They can because you allow them. You are not only allowing them, but you helping them.
Me: No, how the hell can I help those I do not want to hurt me?
CD: You're the one echoing their them. You're the one who tell yourself that it matters. You have taken up their argument as your own.
Me: No, that's not true. If anything I've against them. Their criticisms. I've used it as a goal to work against.
CD: You may have don't that, but you are echoing it all the same. You give it merit. You make it true instead of negating it. You made them real. You give them worth and you gave it power to lord over you even if you work against them. You made them stronger. You're working against yourself even if you're working against them.
Me: ......no.......wait....no......I ......no
CD: You are working against yourself by making their arguments real. You never had to make them valid, but you have and they're forcing you to push on.
Me:.........but I'm tired......I'm so tired trying to not be....why am I doing this then?
CD: You said it yourself. You work against opposition. You've always have. If anything it proves how resilient you are. How you endure. Now you're fighting against yourself and you know your weaknesses all too well. It's an unfair advantage you've given yourself to fight yourself so that you have opposition to fight against.

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." ~Nietzsche 

Me: ....wait.....no....that's not right....I....

*silent for 10 minutes*

CD: Are you ok?
Me: *mixture of rage and hurt* I should be on my team......I have no one.....I had no one.....I should at least be on my team....why am I fighting myself.....I'm hell on things...I'm losing to myself.....
CD: You have great friends who are your family support. You have numerous people who care for you....
Me: It's not that......it was just me in the beginning.....just me.....everyone was against me or said I was a failure.....I only had me and I was not enough. I had to grow into everything....I had to be my own shield ....I had to against it all.....no one believed in me......I only had me and now......I'm .....fighting me?
CD: I know......but know you know. Know you know and you're able to change all that. 
Me: I'm hell on things......I am.....stubborn....and hard.....and I fight like hell.....I know what I've done and what I can do....and I'm ....the one.....WHY AM I FUCKING FIGHTING ME? I've been against me even when I wasn't.......fuck me....I have no one.
CD: What do you feel?
*five minutes before I could answer, most of it in silence*
Me:.......betrayal. I feel betrayed. 

"To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." ~Sun Tzu

CD: I know. Yet you understand now?
Me: *nods*
CD: Now that you see yourself against yourself, you can stop.
Me: I'm already double thinking what I do and say. How long.....how must I....can I not fight myself.....because I'll never win.
CD: I'm happy you see that.
Me: I know better. I'm hell on anything......I'm the only thing stopping me.....I'm the only thing stopping me.....I'm stopping me.....I'm.....stopping me.....fuck me.....I'm literally stopping me.
CD: Better?
Me: No.....I want to hurt myself.......I want to tear myself into pieces and I know that's the last thing I should ever do.....it's maddening......it's....insane...am I insane? I think I'm insane....
CD: No. The only insanity was that you endured this for so long.
Me:.......yea.....I have.....
CD: Better? 
Me: No, but I'll get there......
CD: Good. We'll start that next week.

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." ~ King

Fuck me.

The only way I've ever lost was because I took myself down.

Mind                 Fuck..............

How do you continue after that?

How do you live knowing you were against yourself in the first place and you were winning.

I mean....how.......I'm asking you......how?

..........because I don't know.........

.......I don't know. I don't know where to go from here......

Taking tally on the tremendous travesty I call trivial.

I have no idea why it looks this way, nor do I care.

Woke up an hour till noon. Slept a total of 9 hours for once. This honestly helps since I've been passing out at 4 am for the last week. I'm going to sneak a nap after a walk with the Short Blonde.

Not really all the way here. I'm not myself and I think that's good.

Realized several things in the last three sessions. Just going to machine gun then then look at them later.

*I'm my own worst enemy. No one else stacks since I'm the hardest on myself and I need to get "out of my head" before I can accomplish anything. It's a great filter considering what does pass is magnificent, but it's fuck all on my mind.

*I'm never dedicated to my own cause. Yours? Sure. A cause? I'll lift all banners. Me? Not ever worth the trouble. I honestly believe that I'm never worth the trouble.

*I'm carrying alot of other peoples' crazy. I'm dumping it as fast as I can, but it amazes me why I had it in the first place.

*Not only would I rather eat molten glass then talk about my pasts, but I would rather be shit faced drunk or numb then to speak about anything about it. Considering that I'm already emotionally numb when speaking or dealing with myself, I know that this is more then needed. I need to be because what little I shared had made people to run. Yea......I lived it and it scares you? Huh, wonder if this has something to do with my difficulty in finding true horror in my writing.

*I still hate orangutans. Always will.

*I'm starting to question my connections. Why are we friends? Are you just tolerating me? Am I worth the effort? Can I just disappear? Would it be better if I ration myself rather then be this open......I know, but I still think I'm wide open.

*The hard question in staring into the abyss is that I'm more it then it is me and I feel more at home with chaos considering it's my oxygen, I mean even to the point where my body does not know how to let go....I'm always on.....then, why am I trying to people when in truth I never was? I'm not people. I know that now. I still don't know what keeps me to go the full way or why I'm not a monster. Just don't want to be. I know it would be justified if I was that person and I know that chance of being one is always there, but.....no. I mean if I hold on to this small concept of my own humanity for some unknown reason, but I can't let it go even if it's as shredded as it was.

Why am I trying to people when people are the cause of everything?

*I don't trust you. Ever. You'd have to work so fucking hard to even have me consider you on my level, much less trusting.

Right?

I'm entertaining worse case scenarios. Going away. Starting a new life. Disappearing. Cutting myself off.

And knowing myself, I need to do the opposite as much as my feet dig in the dragging motion. I want to disappear, so I need to be social....yay......ick.......I'm forcing myself because I'm honestly too open right now and even now I'm only writing this because I need to make a record. I need to document this. I need this said so no one can say they never knew.

No, you need to know that much of only to realize no one cares, including me.

Keith Richards, clumsy fingers and the challenge to make something gracefully beautiful

There's something about Keith Richards. Something that makes you question your taste in music and if you should give certain songs a chance and if you have been hasty to ignore a genre of music. I've never really been a Stones fan at first yet with all our Legends leaving us I can not help to listen to the Stones without any sense of loss or melancholy as I would with Bowie or Freddy. 

Yet my ears have been tweaked because of music. My son introduced me to the guitar some 3 or 4 years ago and I've been playing close to three years now. I'm not good or what I would consider good. Mind you this is my standard and not only have a heard a unison of eye rolls at the moment I am going to offer some ground to say I'm not one to see myself in a favorable light. So I'm not as good as I think I can be, but I see enough potential to keep chasing it.

Well, despite how I see myself I see music as one of the last challenges I'm willing to partake that actually makes me want to push myself through. Much like martial arts or the sciences, I find a joy that most people would get while playing games that are not meant to coddle you. It's a challenge and much after so much work I see the improvements enough to keep on while the challenge continual. It's a beautiful struggle that I am more then happy to partake.

But, Kieth Richards, right? Well, ever since taking up guitar I've been changing my sense of music. and what I consider good and fun. It's kind of sadistic trying to play a song you like. Knowing you're going to take something magnificently perfect and even attached to memories that I'm going to guess have meaning to you and tear that song apart. Analyze and break down every bit of the song to realize what progresses it, what makes it magnificent and what makes you undertake the task of attempting to replay a piece with your own hands only to see it mauled by clumsy fingers and frustrated hope.

I've gained a love for punk songs and their simplicity of two or even three chords with enough speed to make it sound chaotic and rhythmic. How rock songs pull from blues and how blues pull from the pain in your soul only to make you wallow in it. How some artists make a simplistic motion complicated and how a simply song can have depth. It's all so addictive and even challenging. 

So when Richards shared the story of his grandfather and the guitar that sat upon the mantle and how if he was able to touch it he'd finally be able to play it. How the drive for something forbidden and even mysterious caused him to reach and touch and even dream. How once in his hands his grandfather simply taught him one piece of music, just a sliver really only to cause him to train his fingers and drive his new fostered thirst for more. That song is the Malaguna (still wondering how many different ways to write it or are they different songs) and it's divine. 

So starting up learning power chords, full chords and straining with C's, F's, and B's I've was creating something that sounded like noise from beaten birds. Talented fingers trained to puncture, grip, and stab now are being trained to dance on strings of metal in grace and beauty. Something I'm not used to. I can say I'm in now way beautiful, but playing this piece makes me feel joy and grace. Things I've never had much of. Even my martial arts experience is brutal, effective and blunt.

Yet I feel.....free? Happy? Meditative? It's a piece that has driven me to actually do something I am not used to doing or saying, "Let me see if I can try it." I honestly say that I'm not one to try something because fear of instilled failure that I still now wrestle with. Even though I am able to correct and be corrected in science and math, creatively I've been if not stunted, but maimed. There was a memory of who I was that was killed off to nothing. It's hard to explain, but when you see someone attempt something and you see then on the verge of mastering it or even understanding it and you come at that point of time and tell that person that their attempts are stupid, worthless, and not even needed you kill that. Despite if they were inclined to it or bad at it, it dies. It's why I'm so guarded and even more abrasive when someone wishes to correct anyone in that manner near me. 

I play in almost secret. I play with trust that people who hear me will not throw stones and/or bitterness. I play and even become entranced. I strive and attempt to make things better without fear of ridicule, but drive to see if I can. I can say now I regret not having this. Even believing that I would never have been good. I don't think I'll ever make a record, go on tour, or even play in public for tips, but it makes me happy. Few things do that these days. It almost completes me. It offers me hope and grace.

How much of change?

I've grown the fingernails of my right hand long enough to pick strings now. I've painted them black so that I can stop focusing on their unsightly appearance and even painted the rest to not seem odd. I carry picks with me and my guitar at times to play in certain places where even in public I can find some amount of solace while fighting my paranoia of someone running up and telling me I suck. I like this and I regret not having it younger. If I had this younger I think I would have never learned to fight......an odd thought, but I can dream.

So this piece is.....gorgeous. It's delicate and precise. Not thrashing, but it stands alone. I can play this to show mastery, potential and even advancement. Mind you it's not like playing Where is my mind where as you're the only one who knows how good it is without accompaniment. It stands alone. It sounds magnificent without someone filling in the holes where you leave. You can play this anywhere and have people go wow. And it's hard. It's patterns, rhythms, and flare. It's fancy, almost even pretty in the way people put lace on things. 

It's not me, basically. And watching people see me slaughter it or what I think slaughtering is almost make people go, "damn, it's almost there. I wish I can hear this better." Now they can hear it as "hey, I know what that is and that's not bad."

I know it's stupid, but I just paid myself a compliments. Feel so dirty.

Yet, it's so much fun to do. It's hard but in a month of playing it I have more of the parts set and just need to order it and add polish. I've improved now to the point I can finger-pick it all. With a pick I'm graceful. Without it I'm a bit wobbly with less wobble as I get better. I might even play it one day. For people. And not fear of....well......jackals.

So now I pull out Hope, a $50 guitar with plastic frets and heavy strings and punish my fingers until I can not feel them or when they start to bleed. I work my hands as I would have punching stone or wood. I practice and I offer myself some motivation and kindness while they strings cut in and create deeper calluses that will remain with me. I pound at it with Hope until she sings. Until I can make her hard cheap body sound gorgeous, even with stray hums of and clanks. That's when I pull my son's guitar, a $150 wood body with lighter strings and see if I can make it sing it's aria.

One day, I'll get something worth to play. something around $2000 and gloriously magnificent. until then I visit guitar stores, tune them to key and then see how my fingers can make such a work of art sing with rosewood, maple, and mahogany. I borrow and play and yearn. One day, I'll make something beautiful. I'll show others what I think I can create and make them see me not as a thing or monster.

So yea.......it's even making me look at Donovan's Atlantis and Classical Gas. Maybe I can train my fingers to be delicate, graceful and pretty. And then be thrashing, vicious, and blurring when I get into metal. Or insightful and longing when hitting the blues. 

huh....imagine that. My hands learning to create beauty after decades of destroying and dominating.

This will be good for me.

yay me.

yay. 

Thanks, Keith Richards. Thank you very much.

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.

Do robots dream other then electric sheep?

I have trust issues.

I mean I have them. Seriously have them. How bad?

I dreamed last night I was in love with a robot. What kind? Think of the big clunky one you might have gotten as a toy and smoked if you added oil and maybe even sparked. It had no gender. It was a robot. It even had the most robotest voice imaginable.

But why?

It let me be the little spoon. It was programmed to know that I had a drop in temperature and it would bring me a blanket and even heat the room. It would play white noise while I slept and kept on guard to keep all the chaos from getting me. It gently woke me up and even went outside to get groceries, take out the trash and walk the dog with me. It even had an espresso machine and gave me books out of the blue.

Sex?

No.

Right? I mean it never came up nor I wanted it really. It was just there, taking care of me, tending to my needs and saving my world for once. We had intellectual conversation with citations, it helped me cook with recipes, and even launched missiles at anyone who looked at me funny.

Best of all......when I wanted to be alone, it let me. It went into sleep mode and woke when I called it. I mean....wow.

It didn't threaten me, cheat on me, pull a knife on me, tried to sexually take advantage of me or even call me out of my name. It was a robot and it actually cared. And I cared back. It was......blissful, even if it was in no way sexual. Oddly enough I almost felt it wasn't needed.

I know....weird.

How weird?

When I woke up this morning I missed my robot. I honestly felt bad about waking up before Sunday brunch without them and felt sad. I mean......sad that I was living in this reality and not one where I was taken care of by a robot. I always said I could love anyone despite of what they have or don't have physically. I just never realized that it went this far.

I missed my robot, especially when I realized that I needed to wake up and save the world and hope it didn't stab me in the back in return.

Yea......just yea........my dreams are something.