Dad

Dreamt of my dad last night, this morning really. Just realized a little while ago that this is the anniversary of his death. It's been 7 years. I miss him.

Size Matters

Well, it feels like the week-long angerfest/pity party is winding down. At least for the time being. Feeling a little more even-keeled and...normal.

Been thinking about my childhood since the breakup. About the abuse. Pondering the impact it's had on my life. Not the obvious stuff, like sexuality and relationship. Though I clearly have some growing to do in terms of communication about boundary setting (especially in re: being online), I'm pretty content with my sexuality and it's expression.

No, what's occurred to me lately and never before, is that I've let it keep me small. That because I've spent so much time and energy and money dealing with it, healing from it, doing whatever I could to keep it from completely mangling my life, I haven't had much energy to become a vital member of society. The kind of person that I wanted to become. To become the man I could be. I've watched so many dreams and desires just fade away and let them out of this sense of resignation or fear or laziness. I've just assumed they'd die off and disappear, so why bother sweating it?

Or maybe I've preferred them to do so in order to keep myself small. To keep myself hidden. I did my dead-level best as a child to hide. Especially from my peers. Anything that called attention to myself was dangerous and to be feared. I couldn't bear being the center of attention in a group larger than a few.

I've done a lot to change that over the years, but I'm seeing now that I haven't done enough. That I still find ways to keep myself small. And that needs to change.

In Like An Asshole, Out Like A Dick

What's worse than a shart? A shart in public just as you're sitting down to eat. In your last pair of clean underwear. After going to your bank to transfer a meager amount from your meager savings account to cover overages in your checking account while your ex's daughter is your teller.

Alright, March, you suppurating-wound-on-a-leper's-ass of a month. What other humiliations are you going to heap on me before you're through?

Dilemma

I just got a bunch of shit off my chest in a post that I can't bring myself to publish. It hardly matters that only one person reads this (again, hey Pete!). I write for myself, so I can get shit out of my head that needs release. But I can't decide whether (tiny audience or not) it's kosher to upload my judgements about someone in this forum or not. Much as I want it out there, I'm going with not. 

Waste Of A Day

Woke from a nap late afternoon feeling lonely and depressed. I spent the morning on a caravan of pain. I woke early to have breakfast with S, who's having a hard time of it. His mom's dying, being shuttled from assisted living centers to nursing home, he's not making any money, hates his job and doesn't resonate with where he lives. Between the two of us, I'm surprised we made it out of the restaurant wrists intact. Met with A at 11 to go through storage units. Found a scrap book from the trip we met on and looked through it together. Then continued combing through the detritus of our time together. I should never have taken the nap.…

Moving Out

No, not this.

I put the ball in motion tonight. I told Jacquelene that I'm leaving the house. We're going to discuss details tomorrow afternoon.

I have such mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, I love this place. It's been a perfect little bachelor pad (even though I wasn't much of a bachelor). It's in a great location, has great personality, suits me, has a hot tub, cool landlady, etc., etc. So, I'm pretty bummed to be leaving it.

On the other, change is in the air. A new place will reflect that. And it'll do me good to have a different vantage point on the world. More to the point, and more importantly, I'll free up some money for paying down my debt. Or just living.

Besides this place is filled with Debbie's energy. It's time to move on...

Born Again Pessimist

It's finally happened.

For nearly 40 years, despite being sodomized as a four-year-old, despite being molested by my mother, despite 30+ years of conservative ideologues, religious fundamentalists and corporate plantations running my country into the ground, despite a world that's been poisoned and is rapidly falling part, despite watching dreams go unfulfilled, despite heart breaks and divorce, despite financial setbacks, despite years of floundering for a purpose, and despite countless reasons not to be, I had managed to remain an optimist. 

Oh, I wasn't a Pollyanna. I could see the shit in the world. But nevertheless,  the old me would somehow see beyond it to something heartening. Turn the next corner and things will be looking up, I figured. Wait long enough and things will improve. Look at the big pic and be encouraged. 

Well, no more. Nuh uh. Done. 

Clinging to such optimism has led to nothing but bad choices, disappointment, heartache, and pain. It's a childish need that it's time to let go of. Like believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Or god. Or lifelong monogamy. It's time to move forward without it. 

Good riddance. 

I'll Take A Pass

Can anything be more disappointing, infuriating, and maddening than being a human being?

We come into this existence thinking everything revolves around us. We have two people who spend years reinforcing that idea. Then we spend the rest of our years reconciling reality with our faulty formative experience.

Worse, we're these hairless apes who are presumptuous enough to think we're something beyond that: spiritual beings having a human experience. Pffft. Monkey, please. Physically designed and programmed to behave like bonobos, we twist ourselves in knots to believe and act contrary to that nature. We have these diametrically opposed, deep-seated needs: the biological imperative for propagation (variety, pleasure, promiscuity), and intimacy with a mate. Then on top of that, we invent and impose cultural templates which insist we deny or denigrate our physical selves, and cripple ourselves attempting to reconcile our needs and beliefs.

Could we be any more fucked up a species? Seriously, if we're the pinnacle of natural selection (and I'm not saying we are), then, fuck, the competition must have been weaker than a Tea Bagger's reasoning skills.

Now, I've fucked up recently and disappointed myself and wounded someone I loved. I destroyed something dear. So, some of this is the personal projecting out. But I'm not wrong.

We are an exceptionally delusional, self-important bunch of meat sacks, who, at our best, tell good stories and make pretty things.

Really, if this is the best evolution can do, I'll take a pass.

Shadow Lands

Back from an hour and a half walk. It was drizzling and a bit cold, but not too bad. I love walking the streets at night. It's so still. I can think straight. I can walk in the middle of the road without worrying about traffic. I can startle raccoons. Toward the end of the walk, I realized I was passing the post office and decided to go in and check my PO box. Then I remembered. 

The last time I was there was the night that Debbie read the incriminating e-mail. The night my life irrevocably changed. 

The funny thing about that night is that I took both Henry and Pia on the walk to the post office. I couldn't help but notice that, after 10 awkward months, they'd finally reached a rhythm, a way of being together that worked. Nobody snapped at or chased the other. Everybody seemed happy to be out walking together. 

I'd entered the house all excited to tell Debbie about their newfound equilibrium, all happy that our little fur family was finally getting along, when I turned the corner to see her balling. 

Everything from that moment on has been painfully surreal. 

************

I realized tonight that while she's wrong about my intentions with the e-mails, Debbie might be onto something with at least some of her harsh judgements about me. 

Maybe, for instance, I've been too coddled in my life. Maybe not feeling the sting of bitter judgement for past transgressions has kept me from being vigilant about my actions. I don't know.

And it occurs to me that she's right about living in shadow. I've spent years really believing that I'd found a good balance between the dark and the light in myself. Mostly, I pride myself on swimming in the nuances of a world of grays, but still leaning toward white. Mostly, I tell myself that I acknowledge my dark side and maybe indulge it a bit now and again, but that really I feed the more decent and caring aspects of myself. Mostly, I think of myself, on balance, as a pretty decent person who does his best to treat others well and live fully.

But maybe I've been kidding myself. Maybe I cut myself all kinds of slack that I shouldn't. Maybe I'm the monster Debbie's made me out to be. Maybe she sees me more clearly than I see myself. 

I know I've lived more of my life in shadow than most. You spend the fourth through eighth years of your childhood being sodomized by a hillbilly neighbor and you tend towards shame and hiding. After a while, it becomes second nature. 

Even, apparently, after years of therapy, workshops, men's groups, vision quests, hallucinogenic medicines, and loving relationships. 

In my hubris—in my little dream world—I'd banked enough self work to take a year or two off. I'd come to such a good place in my mental, emotional, and spiritual health that I figured I could just chill for awhile and just be a normal fucking person. 

I figured wrong.

And I just had a serious, nasty object lesson as to why. 

The Scars Will Remain

I was thinking recently that breaking up gets easier as you age.

You've been through it all before. You've felt the worst you can feel and got through it. You know that even if the pain kills now, you'll come through it stronger and better and find someone on the other side that matches who you are afterward.

And those things are true....but…

Maybe it doesn't get easier at all, just vaguely familiar. The older we get, the nearer we are to death. The body still absorbs these shocks, but just as our physical wounds take longer to heal, rather than being more capable of dealing with them, maybe we become less so.

Plus each time we fall in love, we have a unique experience. If we go as deep as we'd like and really tap in to the full feeling—really merge with the person we love—then the cessation of that merging will be all the more painful. Or at least uniquely painful, abrogating the sense of having gotten through it before.

And then, of course, with each new break up comes the possibility of becoming jaded or bitter or just plain emotionally spent.

************

The connection I had with Debbie was so deep, so rich, so nourishing, so full, so real. It was literally transformative. I'm not the man I was 10 months ago. And living without that connection is shocking. It's a waking nightmare (god help those who lose a loved one to murder or, worse, lose a child).

I never understood before why the proverbial old man or woman who lost their partner would die soon after just from sheer heart ache. I always figured, hell, mourn, grieve, rebuild your life and start anew. But I get it now. I mean, I'm too young to really have the fullness of that experience, but I have a taste of it. I get it now.

I don't know, I don't need to be melodramatic about this. We'll both still get through this and come out stronger on the other side. We'll move on and in all likelihood find someone who better suits the newer, older us. But the wounds will take longer and need more tending to heal.

And the scars...they'll remain.

Sometimes It Lasts… Sometimes It Hurts Instead

God, the chord changes and melody are just gorgeous. And the refrain…

New Living Space

As I suggested in the previous post, I'm considering finding a new place to live. Like FB, it just feels empty without Debbie there. Everywhere I look is just another reminder of our time together.

There's that, and there's the financial angle. I really need to spend less than I'm making right now. I can't get any traction to dig out of the debt I've gotten myself into, because every time I have a decent chunk of money in my account, the end of the month rolls around and I take a big hit. And I'm just not making enough to mitigate that. 

I hate to let the space go because it's so sweet. It's quirky, has great personality, is perfectly located, has a great landlady, a hot tub, and just feels like home. It was my perfect little bachelor pad....until now. Now, it's just an fucking reminder of the emptiness in my life and of the without-a-doubt stupidest, biggest mistake I've ever made. 

So, I'm going to put feelers out and see if there's anything remotely livable that I can afford. 

Exile

I just deactivated my Facebook account. This will be the first time since signing up in late 2007 that I won't be at least tangentially connected to that community.

It feels weird already. Just before starting this post, I hit the Facebook bookmark out of habit. I had to delete it so I won't keep repeating that over the next few days.

This is an exile of sorts. Self-imposed ostracization. I can't handle the exposure right now. Don't trust myself to be out and open. And all my interactions have been feeling vapid and superficial.

And it's empty space without Debbie.

Don't know how long it'll last. Maybe only a few days. But going there right now feels so...different. I can't stand it.

Now to find another living space....

James Benjamin Altemus 1928–2004

In honor of my father, Jim, who died four years ago today. I miss you, dad.  

This Is The Life

So, I'm sitting here in my living room enjoying some chill electronica and a raging fire, while getting ready to work on some AnnieMac poster designs, when I thought back on what a sweet little day today was.

It started badly—I still felt sick and got up too late to meet the guys for breakfast. But after a nice hot shower, it got better fast. I spent a couple of hours with a double cappucino blogging and working on a new ad for the Soul Reminders. Then in late afternoon, I went for a long hike with my good friend, Akiva, and Bella. Early evening I grabbed dinner with Annie, then we came home for a relaxing evening. She lit a fire and took a shower and is now in her office working on lyrics, while I hang out in the living room working. 

Anyway, at one point, I looked up and saw Bella, Finn, and Henry napping around the fire—a perfect little scene. And I think, wow, how lucky am I?