Mid-Life Crisis, Much?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ~Dylan Thomas

If aging is hard for the average person, imagine how hard it is for someone who has no current social circle, no family, no children, who works at home, is an HSP, an atheist, and a single lesbian. 

The greatest of these challenges is, for me, being without a partner. I am not suited to singlehood. I hate everything about it. I need someone to cook dinner for when she comes home each day; I need someone to nurture, talk to, explore with, bond with, hold hands with, cuddle with, to sexually please and be pleased by.  I need to go to sleep next to that woman each night and wake up with her every morning. I need the security and comfort a life partner provides. As I get older, that's even more important, and its absence even more stark.

One could say that being single at this age is just as difficult no matter what your orientation. But I would beg to differ. When you're dealing with finding a mate amid a small percentage of the population, on top of all the usual fears of getting older and facing your own mortality and all that entails, along with being a minority in so many ways, the challenge is a formidable one.

Those of us without a big circle of friends, or a family, are even more likely to be depressed and frightened all the time. Friends in the same age group or only a few years older start losing their grandparents, and parents, and they themselves begin developing health issues, having surgeries and other scares, and you begin to see that trajectory, that you are in that same boat and wonder what it is that might cripple you, devastate you, take you down. You realize you are closer to your death than to your birth and your life isn't exactly as you'd planned it to be. Is it enough? Did I succeed in building a life worth living?

About two years ago, I began to notice things about my body...skin changes, mostly. I would look in the mirror and see that my baby-face now had some wrinkles forming below my eyes, and my cheeks seemed to be sort of dripping slowly toward my jawline. I looked down at my hands and thought These are not my hands. These are my mother's hands. And what's that? An age-spot? I have a fucking age spot now? It did not compute. It made me feel ugly and old and despondent.

When I hear of someone entering their 50's and saying these are the best years to come, or 50 is the new 40, I feel they are speaking a foreign language. I am facing the big 5-0 and it has nothing to do with Hawaii. In only 5 months, I will be dragged kicking and screaming into that awful room, my fingers clawing at the door jamb to stop the suction. I can't wrap my head around turning 50. It makes no sense to me, it simply can't be accurate. I don't feel like I'm about to enter that decade of life. I have an overwhelming desire to lie to everyone about my age, because I feel the number is misleading. I'm not that old. I'm not. Each day now is to me a stark reminder of the hideous inevitability of all things dreadful. It's a train I'm riding in at high speed and I can't see the scenery anymore because it's moving by too fast; a train locked onto tracks arrow-straight and unforgiving, stopping only to board more dark passengers--fear, loneliness, pain, illness. sadness, and death.

Just recently I watched as a friend of a friend was suddenly stricken by an aneurism and did not wake from her coma in the three weeks before she died. She was only  6 years older than me. Now, I could say her health status and lifestyle predisposed her to it, but then again, how do you ever really know that there is some weak blood vessel wall somewhere in your body, and its cause? You can do everything in your power to eat right, exercise and take the right supplements, and meditate and avoid stress, as I do, but ultimately, you still don't know if it will matter. Maybe there's just a fate with your name on it. Never mind the accidental or simply unfortunate methods of your demise. You could get hit by a bus or a bullet. Or a building could fall on your head.

The scary part is, health or accidental events like those I mentioned will always happen suddenly and there is little we can do to provide ourselves an early warning system. It's like a vicious mugger waiting around some impending corner and no matter what route we take that mugger will know where we are and will be there, primed to take something precious from our pockets, our minds, our hearts or our bodies. Or I'm reminded of those scenes in movies and shows like The Tudors where innocent people are dragged toward the gallows to be hanged or beheaded and there is no escape, no last minute pardon from the King--and notably, no merciful God who saves his devout follower from an unjust death. There is nothing they can do about it other than choose the level of dignity with which they face their demise. And where does one find that dignity? That quiet acceptance? I am not one to ever go gentle into that good night. Someone has already tried to kill me and I didn't die. Because to me that darkness is repugnant. It represents the tragedy and cruelty of limited time. There will never be enough time in my single lifespan to do and see and feel and explore and create and savor all that I wish to. 

One of the greatest tragedies in life is the swiftness and certainty of death, and moreover, when you finally reach a level of wisdom and understanding that would allow you to do your best work, offer your best advise, experience your greatest love, your most harmonious and satisfying relationships--just when you finally evolve to that level of maturity--your clock ticks down to nothing and you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. 

 

It really pisses me off. 

Bring me the magic elixir of life-extension, and I will drink it.

Twice.

Mid-Life Crisis, Much?

Food, Sex & Purpose

I wanted Chinese. Had a hankering, you might say. And i thought of how great it would be to go have Chinese with some new friend I've made. But they are all busy. I guess it will take longer than 10 days for me to get in sync with everyone else's schedules here.

But i still craved Chinese.

So i went for Fast Chinese food At Panda Express.

I've never been to a fast food Chinese place before. Pretty cool. Like Subway. You tell them what you want and they put it in the box.

I had fried rice, orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp with crab rangoon with a side of sweet and sour sauce. It was pretty good. I watched a Netflix and ate in my recliner. It's not so bad being alone when you have plenty of options. Like options for good food that you don't have to drive an hour and a half to find. I adore eating out, because I've frankly had everything i can buy at the grocery, and I'm bored with it. I am hoping the groceries here are a little more diverse. I think it's a getting older thing. You just get bored with things. It's BTDT--Been There Done That syndrome.

My friend Veep says that she thinks it all comes down to food and sex. I'd venture to add another, and say it comes down to food and sex and purpose. Though i do believe your purpose must sometimes change.

My purpose has morphed repeatedly.
Here's an explanatory snippet from a segment of my life:

First, my purpose was to walk again, regardless of what they told me my fate was.
Then it was to work on my writing skills in my spare time, and full-time, be the best singer-songwriter i could be and always try to put on a good show.
Then it was to get over my broken heart.
Then it was to finish writing all those books i started.
Then it was to find a way to enjoy food again.
Then it was to find a lifemate.
Then it was to get laid.
Then it was to be more social.
Then it was to write and find a lifemate.
Then it was to write and get laid.
Then it was to create art to distract me from the fact that i was bored with food, and couldn't get laid.
Then it was to lose all this extra weight finally.
Then it was to find happiness.
Then it was to recover from my disc injury.
Then it was to move to Colorado.
Now, it is to write more books, create more art, record more music, be more social, get laid and find my lifemate.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. But i do see a pattern there. And it is about food (sometimes--because i love to eat out), and sex (because i always like to eat in--sorry, i could not let that one go), then it was, repeatedly, about purpose. Every single thing on that list was about purpose. Am I giving something to this world and the people in it? Is my life meaningful? Am I attractive, desirable? Am I worthy? Am i good? Boil all that down, and it is the gruel of Do I matter, or am I just disappearing?

It took me a while (too long) to figure out that I had painted myself into a corner. Now that I walked through that wet paint and traveled far enough for it to finally wear off my shoes, I'm standing here at the entrance to my new life, hoping I can finally have the things i long for, but never find.

They say that when you eat Chinese Food, you're hungry an hour later. That's my life. Momentary satisfaction, punctuated by long periods of hunger.

Oh, and that fortune cookie. Funny thing about that. That's the fortune i got a few weeks ago, too. SO the first change for the better was moving, i suppose. The second--not sure yet.

Maybe that's tomorrow. Can't be as simple as dealing with old storage....gotta be more dramatic or romantic than that.

I suspect it's not about what I'm doing, but who i run into along the way.

Let's hope that's not in the literal sense: I'm still learning to drive in big city traffic.

Food, Sex & Purpose

Brain Dump: Mortality & Meaning

Okay, I know this is going to be less a blog, and more a journal entry, but whatever. Consider it the first in a series of brain dumps.
<<--Look, i even made a graphic for it....

Onward.... I usually try to see the bright side of things, and when I can't do that, I try to see the funny side. Anyone who reads this blog knows that. And often the dark side can be funny, if you know how to manipulate the data.

But this morning, I think my brain is in some other gear....PARK, maybe. It hits me like this every so often when it gets triggered by news from loved ones, or dreams I have.

I dreamed I had my ex girlfriend's parrots. Like they were mine or I had inherited them or something. Maybe in the dream she had died...I don't know...(and no, i don't wish any ill toward any of my ex's. They all tend to merge after a while anyway...E Pluribus unum.*) But I was enjoying the parrots. I was always playing with the Cockatoo, named Sophee (that was her real name) but in the dream she wasn't crippled and her personality was more like Keegan's--the African Grey of the pair, who was talkative and personable. I was living in my father's house --have no idea why. A few days ago, I dreamed my father died, too...I'm sure all this came from finding out that another one of my ex girlfriends lost her mother. And once you hear that, there's this mortality bacteria in your brain...and it sort of infiltrates your life for a while, until you get back into the bliss of ignoring all those harsh realities.

When I woke from all this, I lay there with Shoes curled up with half her body on my shoulder, purring softly. (Yeah, my cat. Women don't seem to purr...well, okay, if I'm doing it right, they do.) For a long time I just laid there, and thought about things. Like you do when you're sleepy and just waking up and the brain starts to make that trip back to rational consciousness again.

I felt sad. Like why doesn't my ex, the one who lost her mother--why does she feel she can't be in my life somewhere? Why can't I be one of those friends to her that she seeks out during times like these, for support? Why does she continue to judge me by the person I was 10 years ago? And why does it still matter to me at all? Because she was the only woman I was ever so madly in love with? Because it was the only time I've ever had my heart ripped out of my chest and handed back to me as that person walks out of my life, while I hold my bloody thumping, dying heart in my own hands? Is that why?? (Okay, that was graphic, but that's what the emotion surrounding it is like for me).

And I thought of how sad it is that I am alone so much. Is it mostly my choice, or is it part and parcel of being an author-artist-songster- type person? Everything I do is something I do alone....And I stayed sad as my thoughts wandered to the two dreams of my father.

How tragic that I have a biological family who rejects me on the basis of who I am, (an oxymoron in and of itself) and that it somehow offends their sensibilities to the degree that they would abandon their own child; and I thought maybe it wasn't their sensibilities. Maybe they were all just selfish, shallow people, and I can still feel good about my decision to remove all toxic people from my life. Maybe it's a blessing that I might never know when any of them die.

And I thought of my own mortality. I coughed. I thought for the umpteenth time, that I should quit smoking. It was the last thing left on this "take good care of yourself" train. Addiction to cigarettes is so hard to conquer. I've stopped smoking a large number of times, (yeah, quitting is easy: I've done it a bunch of times) and it was okay for a while, but then I would need that---what? comfort? is smoking really like having a Friend? And I know it makes my brain feel better. It's like I can't think clearly without cigarettes. A crazy excuse from an addicted smoker?

And then I thought about all the weird things that happen to your body as you get older, and how it's a little frightening. The older I get, the more frightened I become. I lament the lost years--wishing I'd known 20 years ago, what I know now. Wishing I had more time. Wishing, as I've mentioned before, that I really could live forever. (Ironic, since there have been so many times that i wished to die). So many things on the horizon, other than a mushroom cloud (if we're lucky). Things I'd like to see and experience....but as each birthday comes and goes, I find myself lying about my age more and more...and I get this dread in my gut...knowing I won't grow old gracefully. That I'll be kicking and screaming the whole way. Never mind all those big personal cosmology questions that arise about death and life and life after death. Just dealing with your own declining vessel is enough to worry about....Like when you're driving a car that starts to have problems, and then there's a whole list of problems on its heels and you know at some point it won't be worth fixing and it should just be given over to the great junk heap. Is that my fate as well?

And will I face this progressing disintegration by myself, with no one to support me, care for me, love me? (I am so thankful for my best friend). Will I live out this timeline of mine without being able to give my heart to someone who deserves it? And why is it so hard for me to give my heart away? Why don't I fall in love easily? Why is it so rare for me to even be sparkin' on a woman? That's only happened a grand total of 2 times in....god...how many years? And the first spark was doused with water pretty quickly. Well, not water. Wine. The second one--I don't know about that. It's current. I have no idea what this woman feels toward me, and I'm too chicken to ask, so I'm focusing on the friendship, which is very important to me anyway.

But amid this, The same questions continue to arise. Will I never find my PERSON? Will I meet my ultimate demise without knowing what it feels like again to be so in love with woman that the thought of her not being there aches like a case of restless legs and angina, combined. After all I've done to evolve and become the type of person who would be considered a valuable discovery for some lovely, evolved, intelligent, and funny woman out there, will it not matter? Is fate just fate? How much control do we really have over how our lives go? And I wondered if maybe my high ideals and constant concern for the practice of sound ethics has gotten me here. Is it just subterfuge? Does it really matter if I'm a quality person? Finding love seems to have almost nothing to do with how great a person you are. Rude awakening, that. Maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis.

So today I must try to coax myself back over into my concerted efforts to ignore these things that simmer on the burner at the back of my mind.

R. D. Laing, a British psychiatrist noted for his alternative approach to the treatment of schizophrenia, once said, “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.” I wish I didn't resonate with that quote quite so much.

--------------------------------
*Latin for "out of many, one."

Brain Dump: Mortality & Meaning

Stupid & Happy VS. Smart & Troubled

I was asked, "Given the opportunity to choose between: (a). being delusional and believing in an intangible, even illogical, philosophy that brings you much peace and bliss or (b). seeing the "reality" of things and cutting straight into the truthful heart of all there is, yet along with that comes despair and grief . . . Which would you choose? Would you rather be "stupid and happy" or "smart and troubled"?

"Thou hast vexed me marvelous much," as Shakespeare would say. Questions like this tend to spiral me into the abyss of darkness and nail-biting. My addendum to this, (which seems to be more a preface, at the moment) reflects the objection I have to the suggested absolute that there must necessarily be Despair and Grief. . . I feel there are few, if any, absolutes on this earth plane. (Except maybe that a Krispy Kreme Glazed donut is manna from heaven). Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to respond with a sufficient amount of brain cellage...

One cannot know or appreciate joy without experiencing the depths of despair. Happiness via stupidity is an artificial happiness. To go STUPIDLY amid the noise and haste and know what peace there may be in IDIOCY, smacks of a big fat waste of energy and a sad frittering away of a lifetime meant for learning and evolution. Thus, I'll take Reality with a Truthful Heart of All There Is glaze, and a side of Despair and Grief. Since nothing short of severe head trauma would return me to ignorance, I am thus shackled/blessed with the task of creating the best result from the tools I have available to me. Reality is not always a tangible thing. Many things are real, and yet simultaneously invisible, misconstrued or beyond comprehension. Refer to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, String Theory, Unified Field Theory, the Power of positive thought, or wind for fine examples of this point.

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I agree.

Stupid & Happy VS. Smart & Troubled

Is that What Really Happened?

...and then there are times when our view of a situation is tainted by erroneous beliefs. It only takes one morsel of misunderstanding, one particle of perpetuation, and all proverbial hell breaks loose. And this Hell might be just the catalyst for a solution. Maybe even the ONLY catalyst that would serve the purpose. As thinking humans, we learn from our experience. We understand through associations. If we have a repeated experience, we soon believe that it is in fact the SAME experience. It is a reflection of the old adage, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck...it's a duck." But the irony is....sometimes it's a chicken. Both may be fowl/foul...(sorry) but they are not exactly the same. Perhaps these similar/dissimilar experiences serve to keep us open to new possibilities--new directions in our thinking, our beliefs, hope, when hopelessness so effortlessly seeps into us...so that we don't become jaded, even though all around us appears to be the same old song and dance. The song is always the same song. But it's not. The dance is always the same dance. But it's not. Nothing is ever as it seems, yet everything is just what you think it is. This is the eternal conundrum of life on this plane of existence. There is meaning in it, even amid frustration. In fact, the more frustrating it is, the more meaningful it usually turns out to be. And still, there is order in the chaos, method to the madness, peace amid the battle.

Is that What Really Happened?

Crossing Paths

(from my book, Crossing Paths)

Sometimes there are people who cross paths with us, and it takes a little time to figure out the big picture of just why they do. Sometimes the big picture becomes unpretty. When it becomes clear that these two people are not good for each other for whatever reason, it is not always a thing to be regretted. I firmly believe that we can choose to see it as a valuable lesson, an enrichment of us on many levels. Some people are not meant to share any kind of path, but only to cross for a brief moment and continue the journey individually. We can feel wronged by this; we can feel cheated, frustrated. We can suffer the sandpaper of anger when the eventual truth blooms in our minds that this is not to be a journey shared. It's easy to allow this kind of discord to escalate until words become caustic, biting rapiers of injury. When that happens, it is often easier to hide behind that anger so we can mask the sadness of it. If we instead try to sever the ties with as much simplicity and kindness as we can muster, it is always best--but not always easiest. When we let go of our need to defend and accuse and beat the proverbial dead horse, we are left with just the compassion that one or both people are hurting. And the anger doesn't save us from that. We have to feel it and still know that it was the honorable thing to do, even if it leaves us with a cloying sadness.

Crossing Paths

Weapons of Heart Destruction

“There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives.” ~ Cyril Connolly

As a creative person, it is necessary for me to open myself up and take chances. To create art of any kind, you must be able to dig down and reveal yourself in order for the creative result to be honest and visceral and meaningful. I have learned that when you open yourself up to SOMEONE, a specific someone, thinking they might be significant in your life--a future lifemate, a soulmate, perhaps--you always take the chance of having that personal information twisted and thrown in your face when things don't turn out they way they want. You might be having a spiritual/emotional crisis that you are trying desperately to work through, but the minute the situation disappoints them and their own goals, they reduce your feelings to mere character flaws, they spit venom at your self-worth, Then everything they embraced and loved and understood about you morphs into this ugly Grendel, and you suddenly become the embodiment of all their own angst and fear and ugliness. They turn on you, they load their weapons and they begin to fill you full of holes. I have learned it is best to hold back the deeper aspects of your heart, and never reveal any past demons you've conquered and learned from, because others are capable of forging them into weapons with which to cut you, bludgeon you and inflict the deepest emotional harm--harm that can render you faithless and hopeless and wounded. I can't fathom ever opening myself up again--even if it's the small amount i managed to do it this time...and if i do manage to be foolish or brave enough to attempt it once more, it won't be until i have an extended period of proof that they are not capable of such carnage and such viciousness, and what they tell you about themselves is not merely words... "When are you going to understand, that i am not like those others?" they say, over and over, "You are too hard on yourself. You just have to learn to let go and be in the moment and allow yourself to feel..." You open that door just a little, and you take a step inside, And then they demonstrate themselves as clones of those others with their hatefulness, and have the gall to say it is somehow all your own doing. WE are all humans and we all have our limits, and can only be impaled with a sharp stick so many times before we will do anything to make it stop. I have learned that i am capable of attacking back when these wounds are so deep that they feel like life or death. I abhor the way it makes me feel about myself to lash out, or inflict reciprocal harm, to lower myself to such a level of pain that i will hurt someone else out of some need to protect myself, i also recognize it is a perfectly natural human reaction to such a overwhelming amount of injury to my heart, my psyche, my wounds. Thus, I will use every ounce of strength i have left and that i manage to collect afterward to never allow myself to be that vulnerable again. No one will ever be able to hurt me like that again. No one will have my heart for awhile. It's too bruised and battered for handling. Even by me.

Weapons of Heart Destruction

Not So Vain

I'm not so vain as to think that any of you were despondent that i haven't been on this site much lately...so i won't apologize for my absence. I've been myspaced-out for a while, fighting their stubborn coding problems... maybe it's my tiny little control issue in regard to my own work....it's way more time-effective than trying to conquer the Myspace Coding Beast...wow...i need some coffee, i'm rambling like a tumbleweed....

anyway, what have I been up to? Well,

I've been in and out of a relationship. It took 6 months to realize that we were not suitable partners. I had high hopes, but alas. She is a lovely, sweet person, and we remain friends.

Thoughts on that: I no longer suspect, but rather am convinced, that the only way to find and keep the right partner for yourself, is to adhere to the tenets of Old Fashioned Dating, Here's the deal: it has been proven that a person cannot put up a facade--be something they are not--for longer than 3 to 4 months. Therefore, if you date a person (note, i didn't say "live with" or "shack up") for that period of time, you will begin to see anything that they have been hiding from you, i.e., you will see the deal-breakers and red flags. Ideally, you will be able to see the red flags and deal breakers before that, but just know that if someone is determined to be something they are not, their facade will not be able to hold past that point. (For more on this subject, buy my book--ISO (In Search Of: Dating, Relationships, and Sex for the Discerning Lesbian. Available now where quality books are sold; that is to say, jaebaeli.com). Similar to this, is the "17 Dates Method" (credit to Justice Harlow) wherein, if want to really get to know someone, agree to go out on 17 dates. In that amount of time, you will have learned all you need to learn and will know the person in many different situations, and around many different types of people...so these two methods seem to work well together. It is my intention to stick to this during this round of singlehood...my best friend and i are finally single at the same time, so we're going to do this as a team (not that she will go on all my dates with me, but...um...you know.)

I've been writing a lot too. I now have 9 books and one screenplay published. (with LightSwitcher Books), and am still searching for a good agent and a mainstream publisher. I fired one agency in New York because i wasn't happy with the way they did business. I am in the middle of my brand new mainstream novel, "Baggage" right now. It's about a family whose lives are swirled around by the events of Hurricane Katrina, and how these lives intersect with other lives, and how we all have our own baggage: lies, deception, secrets.... (Okay, so i haven't worked out the blurb, yet, but there ya go).
Thoughts on that: Unless you're on the bestseller lists and Oprah and other spotlight venues, you are largely ignored as a writer. It costs money to market yourself, and there's a million bad writers out there mucking it up for the rest of us. And Writing isn't easy. But i love it. I must be a glutton for punishment.

I recently began a phone job as an intuitive counselor/life coach kinda person. I only have time to do that part time, though, and it remains to be seen if that will be good enough for the company. I like the idea of helping people, though.
Thoughts on that: it seems that most of the women who call me are some version of fucked up. Most of the men that call me are trying to understand the fucked up women.

I've rededicated my attention to the Law of Attraction and the Power of Intention.
Thoughts on that: Since we know that miraculous things happen in our bodies, sheerly in response to our thoughts (see this article for a fabulous exposition on this topic), it is not so magical to believe that our thoughts are things. They are things that can make things happen. The Law of Attraction has recently been repackaged as "The Secret" but it's not really a secret. It's been around a very long time. Even in the eighties, a channel was imparting this information (google or P2P abraham hicks). I've already been given many signs that the Law of Attraction works...but it seems there are 2 tricks to it: (1) You have to manifest in terms of the present; like if you say "my dream girl is right around the next corner..." then what happens is, your dream girl is right around the next corner...always...never the corner you've just turned, but the NEXT one. You have to make statements like: "My dream girl is in my life right now" or even, "I will meet my dream girl by the Fourth of July" and (2) You have to place yourself in the emotion you would be having, when your desire is reality. Now, some of us have trouble cranking up an emotion for something that. To our linear-time-imprisoned minds, is not real to us. According to Unified Field Theory and Quantum physics, everything exists RIGHT NOW. I have mentioned before in other writings, that i am not naturally a visual person...my brain operates from emotional memory, and emotion itself, so visualizing is not something i do well without great concentration ( this is a whole other topic i touch on in ISO and in My Friend the Synesthete) although, i have surprised myself on my counseling job when i told people things that came to me, and it turned out to be true--spooky, really. So one thing I've been doing to get around the visualization gap, is to listen to music that makes me feel happy or joyous...then i begin to think of those things i desire while in that state. I hope it proves effective...we'll see.
I'm trying to get a Hen Party started here, (Bella Vista) and if any of you live in the area and wish to participate, please let me know. Hens only, no roosters.
Thoughts on that: Hens can lay eggs WITH NO HELP from a rooster. Modern science can already fertilized a human egg WITHOUT sperm....it's only a matter of time before we'll only need men to lift heavy things...we're due for a matriarchy anyway.

My best friend is also recently singled, as i said, and we've made a pact. We will be dating as much as possible (other people, not each other ) and having as much fun as we can over the next year (while being open to those perfect lifemates/partners who are just waiting to find us).
Thoughts on that: if you've read any of my profiles and feel we would enjoy each other's company, please, contact me.

I'm about to begin recording my 3rd CD, too, entitled "Feng Shui Tragedy."

Thoughts on that: note that i said, "about to begin..." That means i keep turning on my 16 track digital recorder, marveling at how cool it is, and thinking about how many songs i have to choose from, and then losing the mood and turning it back off.

Okay, I'm refilling my coffee. Stay tuned.

Not So Vain

Truth or Consequences

When it comes to lasting relationships with people in your life, I guess it might all come down to two things: Do I want to be right or do I want to be happy? I can, without hesitation, say that being happy

The next question becomes: can I be happy with the way things are right now, and with the way another person in my life is right now, warts and all? That answer remains to be seen and might take a little more time.

The thing is, after 8 years of college and some pretty hard knocks, I'd like to think that education counts for something. If it doesn't then I might as well have skipped the whole thing and just done drugs and partied and had lots of meaningless sex. Yeah, that would have been the school of life, but would it have given me a healthy view of the world and my place in it? Would it have helped make me the best person i could be? Would it have provided me with happiness and contentment and a sense of well-being? Would it have taught me how to have healthy relationships? Part of me thinks that the answer to that is a resounding "No"--so what am I left with? A compromise? a total denial? Perhaps honoring my own truths while allowing the truths of others?

It is a myth that one answer is the only answer and that one truth is the only truth. The only solution then, must be that compromise can be beneficial, and acknowledgment of our own tenuous grip on reality is only as real as we believe it to be.

Truth or Consequences

Monster on a Half-Shell

(from an email to an Ex)

.....whew, okay. let me see if I can tackle this one....

My intent in contacting you was simple: I knew we would eventually cross paths and I didn't want to dredge up the past. I am in a space where I want my life to move forward. I have learned a lot about myself, and about the dark rooms I wandered in for so many years. I cannot begin to tell you how many lights have been switched on. I didn't like what I saw. As long as it was shrouded in darkness, I could deny its power over me, and the fear and repulsion it engendered in others. I have come to understand in the last few years that I have been ill-equipped to deal with a lot of things. I have my demons, like anyone else. But in knowing about those demons, I cannot pretend they do not exist, simply because I don't want them to.

I am loathe to wallow in past mistakes, and loathe to reopen those wounds, but for the sake of clarity, I will say that I know I was a difficult person to be around. I was pathetic and depressed and unbalanced. I was eaten alive by fear and pain and confusion and insecurity. The dynamic of you and I together was created by both of us. I simply will not shoulder all the responsibility or the sequence of events, but I will take on the portions that belong to me. I should never have started a relationship with you, simply because I was still so broken hearted and lonely and wounded from my breakup with T. I was an injured child. It was unfair to you to lead you down that path with me. But as I said, I was not equipped to see that at the time. I only knew that there was someone who thought I was somehow special, and she came along when I felt like a useless monster on a half-shell. By the time the fog lifted, I was ensconced in a relationship and then allowed myself to feel obligated to continue, for fear that you would be another person on the list who thought badly of me. The result, as you know, was that those fears were ironically realized by that decision.

You represent 3 years of a profound learning experience, so yes--you are important to me. And yes, I have thought of you; initially with bitterness and pain and frustration, then with more understanding and compassion. Any residual betrayal or anger I felt toward you has long since vanished. That's part of the growth process--for those who are open to it. But that did not mean I excused myself from the equation. After forgiving you, I had to then forgive myself. I'm not entirely certain I have done that completely. But we are all human, and we have human shortcomings and it would be inaccurate to say that we were not both responsible for what happened. Our last days together were profoundly upsetting. I received information secondhand about things you said I did or said, that I know I did not. I had no idea where you were in your head--we had gone too horribly far to communicate in a healthy way. You knew where all my own triggers were, and you used them against me. I realize now that it was partly a defense mechanism on your part. You used the only weapons you had, because you felt cornered. I have been guilty of the same on many occasions. The chasm between us was built by many differences in our experience, our psyches and our individual demons.

But no matter what you may think of me now, I recognize that you are a person of value and quality, and you have a good heart and a potential for greatness. And I don't want to use my new strength to carry more burdens. I was constantly frustrated by the continual siege upon my psyche, brought by my battle with the VA, with a family who abandoned me, and an overwhelming feeling that I was blindly feeling my way through my life. I had great expectations for starting fresh, but all I managed to do was take the chaos with me. For as you know...the most formidable chaos is the one we carry within. And I could not run far enough to release myself from its grip. I was lucky enough to meet someone who was equipped to show me those things with a firm and loving hand, and am eternally grateful to her. We remain the closest and dearest of friends and I love no one more deeply than I love her. But I know that until I reach a space where I am at peace with my life, I cannot inflict myself on a partner on a daily basis. I would be bringing half a person to the relationship.

I have many things to build right now. Many roads to travel, and many ghosts to face. I am finally prepared to do that, and that's one reason I knew that I had to come back here. I had to make this place a place of possibility, rather than of doom; a refuge rather than a battlefield. I had to face these things head on, and be able to hold my head up and know that with all the mistakes I've made, others made mistakes as well, and I remain a person with something to offer. I just have to offer it in a way that does not suck the life out of those around me.

I am more content than I have ever been, and I do feel very much like this is the first chapter of a new book--the series that is my life. I can put an entirely different story on these pages. I can do nothing to change what was already committed to print in previous "books." It's a journey, and I am on it, now, without the old constraints. I can only hope the path will be more smooth than the last time.

I want to start LIVING my life for once. I want to be social, have fun, experience the pleasure of creation in art and writing and music, and I want to avoid those dark rooms that serve only to keep me bound within my own sickness.

I hope that answers at least some of your questions.

Peace.

Monster on a Half-Shell

Breath of Life

I am fascinated by the unknowable. Some people spend their whole lives saying "I Don't Know" to those esoteric questions that arise. Me, i like to explore the issue and come to some sort of conclusion. It's that propensity i have to bring order to the chaos. That's another reason why all my bathroom accouterments are neatly stored in transparent shoe bags on the wall....

One monstrous "unknowable" is the question of when our souls enter our bodies. When does a life become something more than a tumor on life support, and instead a human complete with its own soul? I've spent a great deal of time turning this one over in my head and listening to the input from other deep-thinkers. I've come to a conclusion; a sort of encapsulation that i believe sufficiently explains this enigma so that i can move on to more important things like finding lost socks.

I think that the soul enters the body when a newborn takes its first breath. I think the decision a soul entity makes to take on that particular body of that particular human is a decision made from a position of higher consciousness. There are specific karmic lessons to be learned by belonging to that body,in that situation, with those parents, in that location, with those specific circumstances. In the case of a newborn that might die, that soul may have decided that the best lesson to be had for all concerned was for the parents to lose the child. And perhaps that soul only needed the experience of being an infant for a few hours or days or weeks. As difficult as this experience might be on a human level, we cannot impose our human limitations, weaknesses and spiritual blindness on something as beautiful and wise as a Soul.

Breath of Life

It Only Hurts When I Think About it

(From "The Misadventures of No One Famous" my memoir)

I flipped through the TV channels and found nothing of interest, read some, put the book down and stared at the dust on my alarm clock, and then started thinking about living in my van. How it would be. Would I be able to maintain the fiction that it's a romantic idea once I was actually there, and the temperature drops to freezing? Would my cigarette lighter work so that I could plug the power inverter into it for a space heater? Could I live on ready-to-eat foods? Would I be able to find a place to shower and go to the bathroom when I needed to?

And I won't be able to leave the van for very long because Giz and Bingo would be there and it's cold, and I can't leave them without heat. So I won't be able to sit in warm coffee-shops and bookstores and libraries and movie houses. I will be making my pain, their pain, and I would not let them suffer more than me. It wouldn't be fair.

I hate the fact that I have to depend on anyone else to survive. I want to depend only on me. But I'm undependable. I hate that I can't pick up something heavy and walk across the room without excruciating pain afterward, or during. I hate the way one disability leads to another. . . if my back is out, I have to walk on crutches, then I get a catch in my spine just outside my shoulder blade, and carpal tunnel in my wrists, then I can't write or use my hands without pain, then I can't use the crutches, so then I can't walk. Then I have to lie down a lot, and I smoke and drink to have something to do with my hands, and to numb the pain and to feel like I'm indulging in some guilty pleasure. And when I eat, I know all those calories are just going to turn to fat.

I hate, then, that I'm fat and can't lose weight because I can't exercise. I don't look good in any of my clothes and can't buy new clothes because I can't work and earn the money. I hate that I can't play racquetball or softball or volleyball anymore. I hate that I have to watch other people do that. And I can't dance, so going out becomes a form of self-torture and self-loathing. Then I hate how I feel about myself and I get depressed. And I long to be thin and nice- looking, but I know I never will be.

I hate that I can't have sex when my back is out, even though I might need it-- Need it to feel human, to escape from the confines of my disabilities. And when I can have sex, I can't stop thinking about how I'm fat and ugly, and that no one could possibly be attracted to me. And then I can't enjoy the sex, and I don't get what I need. Then I'm angry and bitter and I push everyone away from me with my rage and caustic words. Then I just hate the Army and the V.A. and that drill sergeant who got me hurt, and I hate that they've taken away my life. Why wouldn't I want to kill myself? It's just finishing a job, isn't it?

Sometimes the subject will come up--the "suicide gesture" as the hospital form said-- When I talk to Terra. about it, she can't hear it. She tells me to stop, it's disturbing. She's more traumatized than I am about it. The only thing I find disturbing is that it doesn't disturb me. Like it was someone else. Or a dream. Or someone else's dream.

I wasn't just depressed when I did it. I was angry. I wanted it all to stop. I didn't have the strength to face another day of starting over. And there was this other part to it. When I got that denial of my claim that day on the 16th of December, 1999, it was like they were saying, "You don't exist. Your pain isn't real. You aren't real." Maybe I thought that if I could bleed, I was real, and that would be proof enough.

Life blood.

The blood of life.

Alive.

If I bled, I was alive.

Isn't it ironic that you have to try to die before you know you're really alive? And then what did that prove?

I was alive, but still pathetic?

It Only Hurts When I Think About it