Free Hand

            February is a tough month for me. There are so many days to commemorate that I get lost in the melancholy that I have known for over twenty-three years now. I get through those twenty-eight days, every time. It is not always an easy feat. The past I have known can haunt me, it tends to call out for me, bidding me to suffer some more. I give little heed to such notions. I have gone on with my life and in spite of the baggage I still carry, I do not fixate on such things. I have put them behind me and I do not like to visit them. This otherland is not a welcoming space. Sometimes they come to me without permission and I am left with little choice. Whether the day he committed suicide or the day I did, my visions at this time of year are not leftover sugarplums that want to dance in my head. These memories are hard and cold and often rather malignant. Focusing on them only makes things worse. There is nothing more freeing than a good dose of denial. All this getting over each moment, year after year, is both repugnant and redundant. I have learned a long time ago that one needs to let things go. There is nothing wrong with ignoring something and just going through the motions. Anything to just get through it. You can talk about it. You can even blog about it but find something better to think about. Life is loud so you have to learn to silence the noise.

“All that time I was searching, nowhere to run to, it started me thinking,

Wondering what I could make of my life, and who'd be waiting,

Asking all kinds of questions, to myself, but never finding the answers,

Crying at the top of my voice, and no one listening,

All this time, I still remember everything you said

There's so much you promised, how could I ever forget?”

            People tend to fixate on their problems. I don’t mean the daily motions that we all experience. Some people just cling to their own misery. They focus all their energies on what doesn’t serve them and abandon all that does. They hold to the pain like it is a cherished pet or a lost love letter now found. They can even seem to welcome the suffering. Perhaps this is a way for them to feel alive. Perhaps they have little else and find comfort in the world of “better than nothing.” Its okay to hold to whatever you want. If  you want to live in a make believe world where unicorns sing then more power to you. If you want to linger in your own doom, repeating again and again, my proverbial hat is off to you. Memories should sooth not scar. I’m not surprised by how many people I know who ruminate in them. Whether the death of a loved one or a horrible accident, each person should be given the time they need to process and deal. Every person will address the event in their own time. Many lose track of time and spend their lives being chased by ghosts and monsters. It can appear that some people get off on the pain. Its the only way they can function in the day to day. We all strive to have the familiar. We want to feel the way it used to feel, at least how we believe it did. Not every memory should be cherished. Sometimes you need to just move on. I know that is easier said than done but it is true none the less. Memories can be joyful but memories can also bring pain, great pain for many. So I try not to think about the nasty things that have happened in my life. I think I paid my dues a long time ago. I have no need to remember the  horrible landscape that made up my past. I’ll just pretend and go on living.

            Moving beyond your history does not mean that those memories disappear, never to be heard from again. If there is one thing for certain, the past doesn’t go away. It is always there, ready to release itself upon our happiness. Letting go isn’t just about not remembering, its about how you react to that stimulation. Its about the power you give to such negative things. Its about focusing on the pleasant things you have known rather than the pain and strife you have experienced. Its all about dwelling and moderating yourself. Rather than allowing something to haunt you, just ignore it and it will go away. You may have to repeat this cycle for the rest of your life but eventually it plays out easier than each time before. You have to learn to vanquish rather than embracing. Pay the bad, no heed. You don’t have to like every thought that you ever think. They can bring much damage given the right circumstances. This is one way I have managed to move past my life. I just don’t invest in my memories like other people do. I recognize the joyful, lovely things that have happened to me. I recognize the mundane, the everyday kind of inspiration. I am aware of the worst things my life has offered. I only visit these on rare occasions. I try to never outstay my welcome. I am cold to them otherwise. I try not to think about it, let alone fixate on it, even if its not for my own good. I have trained myself to go beyond my emotions, to control by “turning off,” so to speak. I no longer surrender, I moderate. I experience the memories but I dictate them, not the other way around. It is inevitable, in spite of my defensive position, that here and there I will not be able to avoid my true feelings. I just shut them off and start to vacuum. Any distraction is a key to a healthy mind set. Get up and stop rolling in the mud. Think about something else for God’s sake.

“I know you're going, but I can't believe

It's the way that you're leaving,

It's like we never knew each other at all, it may be my fault,

I gave you too many reasons, being alone, when I didn't want to

I thought you'd always be there, I almost believed you,

All this time, I still remember everything you said, oh

There's so much you promised, how could I ever forget?”

            He lived his life through the past. He hung on every memory, every moment that he had ever experienced. At least, he thought he did. Life had become unbearable, all his time spent focusing on what was instead of having what is. It was all so empty, so barren in spite of the pain it brought and the sorrow it manifested. He built his world around his escape, but he was escaping into something else. He could not find his way out of this otherland. He was trapped by what used to be and crippled by each day of existence. It all became an excuse, an excuse for not caring, an excuse for in action. Everything became secondary to his struggle, to his pain. The world went on without him. Chances came and went without a thought. Life became disposable, irrelevant. He once was not all alone. She left him when she couldn’t compete. His past was simply more important and it strangled their love for one another. He ignored it into silence and she silenced it all. She walked away without even a goodbye. Now he has more to relish. He made it so. Everything he took for granted, everything he failed to notice simply added to his misery. He had more to blame it all on.  He had fresh agony to mire him further down. Day after day he tells himself that life is unfair. He is greatly burdened by the weight of the things he once knew. His pain tells the story. He is an old man much before his time. When he reaches, the past does not reach back. It does not keep him warm at night and his days are just as empty. The past may come back to haunt you, indeed.

“You know I love you, but I just can't take this,

You know I love you, but I'm playing for keeps,

Although I need you, I'm not gonna make this,

You know I want to, but I'm in too deep.”

            Its true that if you chase away the past it will end up haunting you. It always comes back. This does not imply that we should ask it to move in and live with us. The things which have affected us throughout our lives may hold lessons. They may even have some form of importance in the greater scheme of things. The past is not meant to rule us. In fact, the past should free us. Once the past is past, you must move past it. You have to refuse it sometimes and just how you let it impact you. Make peace with your past or your past will steal your peace. Refocus, think of something better. Its like taking a pee. Sometimes you have to use your free hand.

“So listen, listen to me,

I can feel your eyes go thru me

It seems I've spent too long

Only thinking about myself

Now I want to spend my life

Just caring bout somebody else.”

(In Too Deep, Genesis 1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G5UwCyr_g8

Photo

http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-07-08/new-urinal-design-tries-to-get-men-to-wash-their-hands-more-after-peeing/

https://leadingwithtrust.com/2017/07/09/10-signs-youre-suffering-from-rear-view-mirror-leadership/

The Territory

            I have always said that if one does not condemn a person’s behaviour then one condones it. There is a fine line between the two. Sometimes there is little room for either. We get to swallow it whole or puke it out. We are left with little option but to bite our tongue and ignore the obvious. It’s never easy deciding what to do. We have choices but those choices often leave us in a worse position than when we were assaulted, offended or found fault with another person’s point of view. There is little decorum left in this world. Even the people we are close to usually end up treating each other as if quite disposable. There is no excuse for such bad behaviour. It doesn’t matter if circumstance silences the truth. Sometimes we just have to distinguish between sinking to someone’s level or rising above it. We have to discern who to and not to listen to.

“Don’t take a ride from a stranger

No way to know where they go

You may be left on a long dark road

Lost and alone

Don’t you recall what your Mama told

You’ve got to learn hot from cold

When you're afraid that you might get burned

Where do you turn?”

            There is no question that I love me some comic books. To my surprise, I recently found a retailer who fit my requirements for collection. The warehouse is filled to the rafters with box after box of paper gold. I had never seen anything like it the first time I entered the split level library of joy. I am still overcome with some degree of happiness whenever I walk through the doors. My second visit was a tad less inspiring. As I stood thumbing through one of the Marvel sections, a group of four or five nerd-men gathered around the checkout and started a discussion on the best qualities of a woman’s vagina. I was not amused. The entire time I spent there that day was filled with misogynistic detail and inappropriate conversation. It was as if the owner and his minions didn’t even think about the customers they exposed to this repugnant thinking. I didn’t say a thing and spent $53.00 that day. Round three. The next visit was all about “the fags”. For over an hour, I leafed through Wonder Woman comic books (for my partner) and searched for titles from The Man Called Nova. One gay joke after another found me lacking. I still purchased $66.00 worth of my favourite things that day. It’s been going on like this for the past 2 years. Every visit just adds more, an unending diatribe of racism, bigotry and conservatism. I quite often feel like good old mister 45 is breathing down my neck. He hides among the boxes and baggies. He watches me flip through comics like I am North Korea and my missile is aimed at him. It can be distracting but it comes with the territory. It could be argued that by frequenting this establishment that I am excusing the behaviour but the truth be told, I don’t want to give up access to the library as I know it.  I can handle the xenophobia but I can’t handle restrictions on that wonderful hoard. Let them have their thinking. It can even be amusing, listening in on such conversations. I’ll take my comic books and I’ll pay the price for listening.

“You’ve got to know who to

Who not to listen to

You’ve gotta know who to

Who not to listen to

They’re gonna hit you from all sides

Better make up your mind

Who to, who not to listen to”

            I have family scattered throughout Ontario, Canada. Local towns like Strathroy, London, and St. Thomas all house immediate relatives like my siblings and their children. While my Mother’s side reaches far into Northwestern Ontario and Sioux Lookout, the concentration of her kin reside in the Central Ontario town of Hanover. My father’s family is primarily located just to the south in Wingham. I grew up playing there, bonding with my cousins there. Throughout my teens and twenties, I spent a great deal of time partying and puking in this rural slice of Canadiana. My relationship with the place and the people was long-lasting and the memories of such times hold great meaning for me. I suppose life looks after life and things change whether we want them to or not. Often, we don’t really have a choice. Eventually, spending time in Wingham became a part of yesteryear. Other things became more immediate, more important and the past suffered to one degree or another. Sometimes distance and time and obligation interfere with the way it used to be.  I always planned on dropping in again, on trying to restore some semblance of what was and making it what is. Once again, life tends to get in the way. I have a great deal of regret and remorse over my lack of involvement with my family in that little Central Ontario town. Somehow over the years, the people I was once so close to have faded away. I could use time and space as an excuse. I can justify my absence because of their mistakes. Perhaps, in the end, it is my mistakes that have dictated my lack of interest. In particular, it is my cousin Lisa I miss the most. We had a closeness all our lives but it has been shelved, dismissed, and for no real good reason. We should be more. It takes effort to fix the past. It takes motivation and exertion to resolve such issues. There is really very little that needs to be fixed. It takes commitment and work. This seems to be the explanation I have been looking for. I’m lazy, unmotivated and I have fallen into a safer place. It’s not that I have  issues with any of them (other than the Bear killers). I cannot think of one thing that really stands in the way. I can’t speak for them but I feel this rant will have little consequence. I suppose, to some degree, that just comes with the territory. There is something to be said for denial and it’s easier to hope than it is to actually do something.

“How can you learn what is true and just

How to know who to trust

Here comes a man with a scam to sell

How can you tell?

You've got to know there’s a bigger plan

Room to fall, room to stand

Pray for the plan to begin in you

Keep your heart true”

            Being Bi-Polar, unpredictability and imbalance come with the territory. Even long-term treatment has meant little difference in terms of constant control and moderation. It doesn’t matter just how treated I am, there is still a part of the disease that pops up given the right circumstance. It is all about degrees. While years of medication and therapy have granted me some influence over my emotions, impulse can often overcome instinct. I can seem quite rabid, although these moments are fleeting. It is often not about whether the pills are working but whether I can work the variables and maintain myself. It’s a constant battle, always managing my mood in case it flares or accelerates out of control. Most days there is little struggle. Everything works just the way it is supposed to. Something always comes along to interfere with my stability. Occasionally, nothing is responsible and the noise comes with no regard for anything at all. One is best served just getting out of my way. Oddly enough, I don’t usually have any problem with my depressive state. The meds apparently have seen to that. I still get sad, sometimes blue, but I have not had a depressive episode in well over a decade. The same cannot be said about my mania. It is the beast and is best served cold. It comes with little warning and tends to stay even after it’s done. I stand fighting, battling to keep it in tow. Eventually, if left unchecked, it pulls me apart, almost in two. The entire time I experience this hypomania, I am contending inside. There is a challenge in knowing what to and what not to listen to. I have had to learn to discern between what is all in my head and what is based in my being. The two do not exclusively go hand in hand. The challenge, in a manic state, is figuring out the voices from your voice. I can be my own worst enemy. It isn’t ever easy and I fail far more than I succeed. The lasting battle has always been the internal struggle, not the external manifestation. It can be laborious distinguishing between myself and myself, given the right circumstance, given the right mood. Who am I anyway? Am I that raging monster, the one who is a part of me, my natural state? Am I something better, now more instinct that impulse ever was? Am I rising above it all or sinking to my own level? This duality, apparently, is part of the package.  

“You’ve got to know who to

Who not to listen to

You’ve gotta know who to

Who not to listen to

They’re gonna hit you from all sides

Better make up your mind

Who to, who not to listen to”

            I think people get confused by the voice of God. I doubt very highly God even speaks to us. What we believe to be a Divine communication is simply an internal dialogue, manifested through the ego. We hear what we want to hear and convince ourselves accordingly. It is not that I claim there is nothing to have a dialogue with. I still believe but I don’t believe the way I used to. God has become rather intangible these days. I see in terms of vastness rather than flesh and bone. God has become so much more than mere mortal, despite any human condition that may have begged to differ. It’s tough being stuck in this earthly coil. It’s even tougher given the choices we must make. Sometimes, it is hard to know which way to go. If God is speaking to us, then surely there would be no doubt. If He spoke to anyone, there would be no doubt. I guess you have to recognize just who you are listening to. You have to discern between that which is Holy and that which only serves our own purposes. It would be unfair for God to reach out to one person and not to the rest of us. If He plays no favourites (Romans 2:11), then why is this person and that person granted access and the sum of us remain to flounder about in misery? Even if the voices are clear, how can we identify just who we are talking to or just who is talking to us? I believe that most times, we are speaking to ourselves. We project our wants and desires, expecting answers that never really come. When they don’t, we convince ourselves that they have. We make it so, even if it isn’t. With the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, we do the dance that we do. We tell ourselves we are puppets of this God or that God, all the while pulling our own strings. We create our own reality by believing everything we tell ourselves. We usually end up far worse off than when we started. Still, God never comes down. God never speaks directly to anyone. I am not sure that He ever did. I suppose that chance just comes with the territory. Only a foolish man can fool himself.

“Everyone will have their words to say

Find the word to help you find your way”

(Who To Listen To, Amy Grant 1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP8LYXj5HYQ

            There is more than one of me. There is more than one of you as well. One strives for right and the other can’t see. It rules in the shadows, back to back with the light. Who knows which will be stronger today? Most people walk the fine line. All those fences simply mark the way we go. The roads we travel are paved with all the choices we have made. Each choice dissecting all of the good and shadow in me and in you and in everyone. Any goodness speaks for itself but the shadows move in secret. You have to watch for them, learn to discern them from the rest of the noise. We keep trying to get into heaven but the darkness withdraws, it pulls us away. If you want to have sunshine, you have to learn to live with the shadows. They come with the territory.

Photo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde

Seek, First

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-46, NIV)

            Specifically in the Christian tradition, seeking God is supposed to be the priority. We are to pursue “heavenly things” and not the trappings of this life. Unfortunately, along the path to Holiness, we aren’t basking in the glow of our own divinity. We are pretty much on our own, regardless of whether the Bible tells us so or not. We know little of any real truth and have nothing but the religious tradition we are indoctrinated into as the proverbial shoulder to lean on. There is nothing there, I fear. At least, there is nothing there for me. If there really is a God, the entire process of “seek and you shall find” can seem anticlimactic to any one hunting for treasure. After all, “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14, NIV). Salvation comes with no guarantee yet we are instructed that it is inherent in any coming kingdom, not because of its lesson but because it holds “greater value than all the world’s riches.” How apropos. In the New Testament, Jesus is purported to have taught that our focus in life should not fall upon the ways of the world. We must first seek God (“and his righteousness”) and then all the things we search for will be freely given to us (Matthew 6:33). This never happens. At least, it never happens for me.  To be clear, until we abandon all earthly things and ignore any allurement they might offer us, we cannot be saved. Submit or suffer, I suppose. We should place utmost importance on God’s favour and in so doing we must then repent and believe in the good news that the Christ has offered to mankind. I’m still waiting on the afternoon edition.

            It can seem rather futile to search for God. We are told that if one looks for Him with “all your heart and all your soul” that one can “find Him” (Deuteronomy 4:29, NIV).  It can be a difficult task hunting for something that cannot be found. At least, I can never find anything, anything worth keeping at any rate. Maybe it’s not God, maybe it’s me. Perhaps I have been blinded and perhaps I have failed to see the truth before my very eyes. I think I know my way but I find myself lost, lost and fumbling in the futility of it all. It’s like hunting for Easter eggs on Halloween or opening Christmas presents on Labour Day. For all the struggle, for the challenges it brings, I always find there is nothing, there is nothing there, it would appear. God promised to take care of those who love Him, He would provide for His own, supplying every need (Philippians 4:19). Semantics aside, if God can thusly provide, then arguably there would be no one hurting, there would be no one hungry, there would be no pain, no separation and no misery. No one would have to rest in the doom this life can bring. If God supplies our every need then we would have none. This is the only explanation that makes sense to me. For all our hollering, for the bluster we crash about in, perhaps the God we thought was there was never there to begin with. Perhaps there is something else, something that, in a sense, reveals to us the answer, or some semblance of it at any rate.  Since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23, NIV), the playing field would be level. Any blessing a “Christian” or a “Muslim” would receive from God would be a blessing that everyone receives. If we all are all equal, if there are no favourites, then we would all share in the wealth. Not even the righteous fall under the Grace of their Lord. We all suffer and continue to do so. We all hunger, we know misery. We are all truly alone. It is just not true that those who diligently seek God will find God (Proverbs 8:17).  

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8, NIV)

            It can be taken personally when you ask God for assistance and don’t receive it. You can wait and wait but it’s all for nothing, All the promises made in scripture really don’t meet the expectations we have regarding Divine intervention. I don’t believe that there is intervention, at least not in the conventional sense. God no more hands out blessings than he does hardship. Life is life and along the way we thrive and then we suffer. By asking God for assistance or favour or more blessings, we are simply clinging to what, apparently, never can be. Our struggle is ours alone and God dropping in to help us along seems to defeat the purpose of all our trials and tribulations. How can one learn from struggle if every time we fumble, the Lord makes it all better? It just doesn’t work that way, at least it doesn’t work that way for me. In all my years, God has never once directly answered a prayer or followed through on a promise made. I thought He did but I was mistaken. Yes, the mere idea of God can bring peace and contentment to a weary soul but that is simply you manifesting, not the Holy. We really do create what we need when it comes right down to it, whether Jesus lived that way or not. We want to find God’s favour. We want to feel special, enchanted and we particularly want to fall under God’s protection. Why worry when God will look after it? Why try to be better when we can let God take up the slack? The rub is, once we believe that God has elected us, we have little responsibility. It is now God’s will, not ours. Freedom will become an illusion. If God interferes with a person’s journey then it isn’t really a journey. It is more an amusement park ride we get off of in around 5 minutes time. If God steps in, if He intervenes in our affairs, what does that say about God? Most certainly, the world is full of starving, broken and damaged people but God, of course, helps the frustrated white housewife looking to lose weight instead. Rather than assisting the weak and the battered, Blake Shelton gets another Grammy, by the Grace of God. If you look, you can find this deity, he is the father who loves some children more than the others. If you look, you can find him ignoring everyone but the chosen few. If God works this way, if only the elect matter, then the rest of us are lost.

            I believe in God as much as I ever have. It is my definition of Him that has changed over the years. I have spent countless time looking, seeking for even a morsel of sustenance. I mostly got nothing. There have been moments throughout my life I felt a presence, when I thought God was near. While those experiences seemed real to me at the time, I am no longer sure exactly what they were. For all the bells and whistles, I never received anything that I could not have manifested myself. God is not a feeling, even if we tell ourselves He is. I have fully surrendered. I have reached and wrestled and earnestly sought to not only understand but have the rewards I was taught would be mine should I relinquish my will to God’s will. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I keep looking, striving to find it but I rarely do. It has taken me a great deal of time to let go of the God that I knew growing up. I had to dump it into the ether. It became clear to me that “sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing” (Tolle). I have had to abandon my upbringing, cancel the course. I have had to re-examine everything I was taught about the Christian God. While seeking Jesus got me nowhere, the disconnection garnered me everything. When you pray and beg for mercy and it never comes, you eventually turn to a position that explains that away. If there is nothing then there is no reason, it’s not personal, it is just the way God really works. One day I woke up and I realized, I came to see that we are not to know, we cannot see. All the searching in the world accomplishes nothing if the truth just isn’t there. There is no Otherland in these terms. I consider myself a man of god, despite what my worst critics would claim. I have much faith that I am right in my thinking. I stand firm. It is not that we cannot seek better things and hope for a better life. There is nothing wrong with gaining knowledge or strengthening your mortal resolve. I don’t believe God has anything to do with it. He just isn’t involved, not because He isn’t there, or doesn’t care, but because He can’t be.

“The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” (2 Chronicles 15:2, NIV)

            It would be easy for me to give in and fall in line. I have enough faith to serve the cause. The problem is that I no longer believe that any Christian cause I may follow holds any more real truths than any other religion, cult or belief structure. God is not exclusive to “the Way.” I could fake it. I could artificially earn my salvation, appearing saved to others while lost within myself. I just can’t do it. I just can’t say that I am okay with the representation of God claimed through the Judeo-Christian scriptures. It’s not okay for God to be more human than Holy, more punisher than Prince. It’s not okay. I would have to once again trust that any entity watching over me has my best interests in mind. Such a deity that would be willing to disrupt reality with magical answers to prayers, prayers, that for the most part are self-serving. In fact, the Church and the Bible have been so misguided when telling us just where we came from that I find it impossible to listen when they tell me where I am going. It is a narrow path indeed. I seek but cannot find. I knock but no doors open. I have found it and its like there is nothing there. 

“God warned the people of an earthquake that would swallow up the waters of the land. The water that replaced them would make everyone insane. Only the prophet took God seriously. He saved up a supply of water in his mountain cave to last him till he died. Sure enough, the earthquake came, the water vanished and new water tilled the streams and lakes and rivers. A few months later the prophet came down to the plains. Everyone had indeed gone mad, and attacked him, for they thought it was he who was insane. So the prophet went back to his mountain cave, glad for the water he had saved. But he could not bear his loneliness so he went down to the plains once more. Again he was rejected by the people for he was so unlike them. The prophet then succumbed. He threw away the water he had saved, drank the new water with the people and became one with them in their insanity. The way to Truth is narrow. You always walk alone.”

(The Narrow Path - Song of the Bird, Anthony De Mello 1982)

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Photo

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-14463112-stock-footage-boston-ma-feb-studying-holy-bible-with-magnifying-glass-on-february-the-holy-bible.html?src=rel/3668972:9

Sources

https://www.gotquestions.org/seek-first-kingdom-God.html

https://lifehopeandtruth.com/prophecy/kingdom-of-god/seek-ye-first-the-kingdom-of-god/

http://www.tellthelordthankyou.com/blog/2017/8/31/matthew-633-god-first

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/songofbird.pdf

Inventory

            When I was a young man, running away from life was my forte. Over a ten year period, I visited almost every major city on both the continental US and in Canada. At the slightest sign of trouble, I packed a bag and roamed. It became a habit of sorts. When life got me down, or backfired against me, I fired back with escapism and abandon. One could argue that I was driven to this reoccurring state. Due to my untreated chemical imbalance, I never really needed any help throwing it all away. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles may have been my destination but it was the journey that determined my sense of self. Without fail, as soon as I reached over the rainbow, something in me cracked, resulting in guilt, and contrition, and a Greyhound bus ride back from whence I came. I repeated this cycle over and over again, weekend after weekend, year after year. Granted, I have a flood of memories that many people will never get the chance to know for themselves. I was able to travel without limit and discover for myself the world outside my reality. In my mind, they were all a trip to bountiful. As destructive as the behaviour was at the time, in hindsight each flight was so much more. If I had been well-treated, if someone had bothered, I would not hold memories of the purple beaches at Big Sur, or scuba diving just outside Corpus Christi, or watching the Twin Towers fade in the distance on a warm July evening. Regardless of the pleasure, whenever I returned to my place in life, a greater struggle always waited for me. It’s true, you can run but you cannot hide. Life will simply wait until you’re sleeping and ghosts will always come back to haunt you. There is no refuge, no calm in the storm. The deep down, broken, choking, suffocating misery that life will hand you is not easily dismissed.

           

“I’ve been bound to leave you, we’ve known that for awhile

I’m sure it’s something I can’t do if I can’t leave you with a smile

I don't know how far I’ll have to go ‘til I'm sure those eyes won’t cry

And in my mind I’ve left enough to know that I can’t leave you

With a bad goodbye”

(Bad Goodbye, Clint Black w/ Wynonna 1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLA8sUvCLeU

            The hardest thing I have ever had to do was move past the suicide of my first partner. After six years together, I did not see it coming. I was instantly thrown into a world in which I did not belong. Day after day, I kept thinking this couldn’t be real. Somehow, I concluded, I had been tossed into some otherland from which I could not escape. My grief was intense and long-suffering. My entire life had to be placed on hold while I spent a year bawling my eyes out. I then believed I was getting exactly what I deserved. It goes without saying that the first few months were the worst. It wasn’t until a pre-existing condition forced me on pain management that the world shifted into a new direction. For four months in the summer of 1995, I sat in my parents’ basement and I gave in. The Morphine was just the ticket. Once engaged, I felt nothing but the nagging urge to shoot up some more. Between the injections and the oral prescription, I didn’t have to really do anything but fucking float. I lingered in this ether, visiting this prescribed otherland any chance I could. It was heaven floating, even if I was in hell. Once the scripts ran out and the doctors caught on, I was left to withdraw, cold turkey. In a week I was walking like Frankenstein, rigid and sore and throbbing. I have rarely known such pain. The discomfort was even greater. It was like every spot where I had injected turned to stone underneath my skin. Moving was agony. I thought it was all better than my other options. When I came out of the daze, I was standing in exactly the same place I had gathered before. Nothing had changed and I was left with the same sadness, the same misery I held all those months behind me. There was no escape. It would be weeks before I finally stopped this new bought of crying. I remember the last time I wept so. I felt like a wolf howling in the furnace room. I have never broken down that like again.

“I’ve gotta keep on paying the rent

And I’ve gotta keep on making the bed

And I’ve gotta keep on walking around acting normal

And I’ve gotta keep on saying a prayer

And I’ve gotta keep on giving a care

And I’ve gotta keep on breathing

And I don't think I will

If there’s ever no more me and you”

(No More Me and You, Amanda Wilkinson 2005)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRfXPHNDwDY

            I am sorry but I cannot stand people who whine and complain about how hard life has been for them. Life has been difficult for me too but I don’t cry and pout because it was unfair. Everyone at some point shares their story. It’s important that we use our past to teach ourselves and others the lessons our experience presents. You don’t need to snivel, you don’t need to sob like an infant to put your point across. I have always assumed that it is a sign of weakness or emotional immaturity that causes people to break apart like a bad puzzle would. Sometimes people just can’t hold it together. I have been in this place and managed to falter in private. Initially, I fell to pieces anywhere the feelings met me. The identification of the body cut me to the core and the funeral did little to quell the chaos. Somewhere in those first few days of my nightmare, I managed to harden like cement. I felt it all inside but I refused to allow anyone to see any trace of the emotional baggage I was carrying. Over twenty years later and I am still made of stone. I have become an unfeeling rock, a monument to control and self-discipline. When someone whines or destabilizes in a public forum, I cringe. I’m not saying that people who express themselves in extreme manners or belittle themselves with public displays of rejection are lesser people than me. I’m not even saying that I view them as I would a crying toddler, hell-bent on screaming until it gets what it wants. Perhaps I am the weakling. Perhaps expressing one’s pain is far better, a testament to a different kind of strength. I really had no choice in the matter. If I had not turned myself off, I would have self-destructed. The madness left me barren but intact. In private, I was a basket case. In public, the iceman cometh. It has become my natural state of being. I am a self-taught  roadblock that appears to feel nothing at all. It all lies just beneath the surface. I would argue that I experience far more now, in my walled up state, than I ever did in the land of the feeling. I just shut it up in a much more pretty manner than the whiners do. 

“And even though our love is doomed

And even though we’re all messed up

You're the only thing worth fighting for

You're the only thing worth dying for

Even though our love is doomed”

(Even Though Our Love is Doomed, Garbage 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lpcdAR9ij0

            Sometimes, it is a better idea to walk away then stand and face the music. I am not cynical about music but I digress. Sometimes, we don’t have a choice, there is no other option than to tuck our tail and run as fast as we can to safety. It’s never easy, letting go. Moving on with one’s life can be, at times, a greater struggle than remaining to fight another day. It can be quite difficult, the process I mean. There is not one goodbye I have no regrets about. There is no way I would be the man I am without some sense of futility and wasted time. Each life touches another and we are changed in increments. For the few months directly after the funeral, long before my arms became an injection site, I struggled to maintain any semblance of the life I knew at the time. I suppose, in a direct way, it was my own fault for expecting anything more of people. As I battled my grief, one by one the friendships I had maintained for years began to drop off like flies. It was like the burial had sealed my doom as well. Almost every single person I had a relationship with suddenly decided that enough was enough. Not one had the courage to say goodbye. Yes, I had lied to them for years regarding my sexual orientation. Yes, I came out to them all in a fury, rushed by circumstance and the longing for recognition. While I understand their reservations, their withdrawal only added to the chaos. It was as if they did little to consider me. Perhaps it was the death of my partner or my suicide attempt a week later. Perhaps it was the complexities of the situation, in a sense each one abandoned what they viewed as a sinking ship. Some just pulled off the band-aid, some rubbed salt into the wounds. As the morphine became a thing of the past, I recognized they had all used the opportunity to vamoose. It was at this point that I decided the best thing to do. I gave up on every single one of them. I could have chased them all down and tried to force myself back but I realized anything resembling what once was would now be artificial. Over the last 23 years, I have had little to do with anyone from that time in my life. It just wasn’t worth it. I’ve seen glimpses of some throughout that time. The bleakness of each failure only serves to remind me that I made it through with little to no help from even one them. I have come to the conclusion that I saved myself a lot of time and energy. Not one of them was deserving.

“If I’m not over you by the time I get to Georgia

I’ll be Alabama bound

There was a time when I’d do anything for ya

But this time baby, I won’t turn around”

(Georgia, Carolyn Dawn Johnson 2000)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El1M3dJDFv0

            If there is one thing I have learned over all my years of paying attention, it is not to fear my mistakes. The truth is, there really are no mistakes, just platforms for understanding and learning and survival. Treasure lies within our scars. There are no bad goodbyes. Everything we know in life contributes to our inventory. It is what you take from each experience that will determine whether you simply survive or whether you flourish. You may need to learn to make lemonade. You may need to learn when enough is enough. Sometimes we don’t need to walk away, we need to run away. More often than not, we don’t even need that final goodbye to know things are over. Years later, you might just get to see that those things which once governed you were nothing but a waste, useless moments that in the end meant nothing at all. Every February 12^th, I stand looking at the headstone, remembering our time together. He has been gone for decades but I still have yet to really say goodbye. I’m not sure that I ever will, if the truth be told. I am never really alone there. I always flash back to the funeral service, to the coffin and to the dozens of people who stood with me in the final goodbye. Ashes to ashes and all that jazz. I believed them all when they made their promises. Their tears more performance art than any real sorrow. Only a handful of those mourners remain in my life and my life is completely different these days. I do not look the same and I do not feel the same. I fear my late friend would not even know me if our paths cross again someday. If there is something to learn from all this pain and sadness, I can, we can, survive anything if given half the chance. I don’t run away anymore, looking for a place to hide. I don’t escape anymore, there are no pinpricks in my life (speaking literally of course). I am set in stone, walled in for real. I live in a state of mind rather than a state of impulse. I do not escape as a knee-jerk reaction. I have come to realize that all those missing people are a blessing rather than some curse. I never really had to run away to realize not one of them held any value except in their absence.

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