On Second Chances

For so many nights since I lost the one I love I have laid awake thinking, "How could she do this to me, how could she not give me one more chance?"  I started to hate her for not issuing me one final ultimatum, "Do _______ or I am going to leave you."  Instead she just left me.  No goodbye, no last kiss and no closure whatsoever.  I have never felt so much pain and bitterness in my life, it has begun to consume me.  Why didn't I get just one more second chance?

I am slowly coming to the realization that I did not deserve another chance.  What a painful thing to have to come to terms with.  Even harder to deal with is the fact that she did give me second chances, third chances, fourth chances and so on.  I was simply too fucking stupid and lazy to realize that she was trying.  I was too fucking stupid and lazy to change when she asked me too and it cost me everything. 

So many times she asked me not to get fucked up and I went ahead and did it anyway.  So many times she asked me to be completely honest and I went ahead and lied to her anyway.  So many times she asked me to put my all into my treatment and I went ahead and half-assed it anyway.  No wonder she left me, I did not deserve her.  I was too blind to see how badly I was hurting her and finally she could not take it anymore.

So here I sit, all alone and so depressed.  How do I move forward with this "second chance" that has been laid so cruelly in front of me?  See, the truth is that I have not truly viewed this as another chance.  I have been seeing my current situation as a product of my failure and in a sense it is nothing but that.  In another sense, this is the chance to look deep into my heart and try so hard to turn myself into someone deserving of another shot.

I want nothing more than to fall in love again, to get another chance at giving my gift to someone who needs it.  I so badly want the opportunity to hold another beautiful woman and to have her tell me that she loves me.  What I want more than anything is to not need another second chance, or at least to be deserving of one.  Right now, in my current state, I am not worthy of love.  I need to change my ways so that I do not hurt another woman I proclaim my love to.  I need to change my ways so that I do not force her to leave me and rip my heart out again.

I need another shot, maybe not with the one I still love, but another shot nonetheless.  I can only pray that I do not fall short again.  God only knows what it will do to me if I do. 

Starting Over

I wish I didn't have to write this, but it is essential.  I relapsed, more accurately I have been relapsing for the past week.  I'm sure this is information my insurance company would love to know but you will be the only ones.  For now at least.

It isn't as if I was out shooting up or blowing lines, no, I simply had a beer or two and hit a bowl a few times over the last week.  I should be beating myself up, as it is my M.O., but I cannot go that route.  I don't really know what to do except to admit it.  So here I am admitting it.

A lot of people would say, "what's the big deal, it was just a few beers and a couple hits," but I know I can't operate under that way of thinking.  I took a step onto a very slippery slope and I need to get off of it.  The trouble with relapsing for me is not so much the using, it is the lying.  I let lies destroy my life far more times than I care to admit and I stepped back onto that slope again tonight.

I went to my NA meeting that I go to every Monday night and my sponsor immediately said to me, "Hey it's thirty days for you, let's get you a key tag."  I was too ashamed to admit to him that I did not deserve it.  He read off the key tags and called me up when he got to the thirty day tag.  I took it. 

I feel like a fucking thief.  I don't know why I took that tag, or why I haven't told him that I relapsed (even if it was minor).  I am ashamed of my actions and I don't know what to do about it.  I know the answer is honesty, but I do not wish to hear the disappointment in his voice when I tell him.  I guess that has been my problem for a while now; I don't want to hear disappointment in the voices of people who care about me so I lie to them.  Sometimes they find out and decide to be done with me, other times they never find out...but I always know.

This pattern of behavior makes me hate myself.  I am disgusted that after such a short time I am back committing the same sins that got me into this position.  I cannot continue to act like this if I ever expect to be happy and to love myself.  If I do not love myself, how can I possibly love someone else?  Love is what I want more than anything.  I want someone to love me unconditionally, something I have never known, and I want to be the person that she deserves...whoever she is.

Right now I am not that person nor do I think I ever have been.

It is time to change.  I say that all the fucking time, don't I?  Now it is time to actually do something about it.  Tomorrow I will call my sponsor and tell him that I did not deserve that key tag, but I will still keep it.  I am going to pin it to my bulletin board to remind me that I have more than one problem to fight.  I am an addict and a liar.  They are both intertwined.  One feeds off of the other and they both seek to ruin my life.  They have both succeeded in the past and if I continue on this road they will succeed again.

So unfortunately it is time to start over, I guess I am not as strong as I thought.  Maybe I should stop trying to be strong.  Maybe I should listen to the suggestions that others have given me.  Maybe it is time to actually surrender and to start over again.  Maybe it is time to admit (and actually believe) that I am powerless.  I just have to keep coming back, no matter how many times I fall short...I have to keep trying.

A Letter to a Friend

I see you every day and I wonder how you are still carrying on.  You have been shit on so much in your life and you still keep on going.  You have overcome abuse, beatings and a few serious drug problems and you still persevere.  You are far stronger than I ever thought you could be, don't you see that?  You can get over this too and you will be fucking fire tested when you come out on the other side.  Don't you see that you have so much strength and so much potential for love and good?  I don't really know why I'm asking you that, I know that right now you don't.  That's alright, it doesn't make it any less true. 

Remember that phrase they tell you in the meetings?  "You are not responsible for your disease.  You are responsible for your recovery."  You have to take that advice seriously and we both know that you are trying so fucking hard.  Don't give up.  Make sure that you keep in mind that recovery is not just you learning to live clean, it is you learning how to live honest and well.  It is about learning to be happy, don't you see that? 

You think that you don't deserve to be happy and I think you don't deserve the criticism you constantly level on yourself.  Take the nail out of the board before you beat yourself over the head with it, will you?  You have just lost the love of your life, it is OK to hurt right now.  It is healthy to hurt right now.  If you weren't something would be wrong with you, but you are and you are learning how to live with that pain and that takes strength. 

I know you are tired of fighting, I see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice.  You think it would be easier to blame yourself, give up and go under.  We both know that you have too much conviction to do that.  You were born to fight, my friend, and this is the fight of your life.  I know you won't shy away from it.

You keep saying that the worst thing about this whole breakup is the fact that you have no closure and I get that, I really do.  The thing is, she does not want to give it to you and you need to learn to live with that.  You hurt her, but do not forget that she hurt you too.  I know that deep down you want her back, no matter how much you try to tell me otherwise.  The simple truth of the matter is that you are not going to get her back, regardless of how much you straighten your life up.  You need to grow accustomed to that fact and learn how to move on; more importantly, you need to learn how to be happy.  Happy with yourself.  I know that is something you haven't been in a long time and it is something that I know you want.

"How am I going to do that?"

Well my friend I really don't know, but what I do know is that if you don't try then you will never succeed.  Just try, OK?  You don't need to worry about everything that will happen in the future, you just need to worry about today.  I'm not saying that you should just give up trying to better yourself, I'm just saying you need to take it slowly.  Remember, you are home now.  You are with your family and your friends, the people who REALLY care about you, not just SAY that they do.  It is OK to lean on them a little, they love you. 

Look, all I want is for you to be the brilliant person you know that you are.  Someday, if you learn to be happy with yourself, you will make some woman happier than she ever has been.  If you are ready she will make you happier than you ever have been.  If you are ready, that is the key, you have to be ready.  Just keep fighting, I know you will. 

Sincerely,
You

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

An important discovery has seemingly placed itself on me this past weekend.  As I have been wrestling with the two sides to every argument idea, it seems like this is the last position anyone wants to see.  Jake is the master at this, he is the most opinionated and ridiculous know it all that I have ever met.

I am reminded of that class lecture Dr. Larson taught about how to support a false argument like denying the Holocaust.  Jake makes some of the same obscene comments about life that he supports with useless facts and misleading argumentative tactics.  When he claims to think that it is a good idea to wear a swastika or something, he thinks he is being a rule changer when in all actuality he is just acting like an idiot.

I found some sort of peace there for that night in Chicago.  I took a shit on a statue of Shakespeare while tripping on mushrooms.  It seemed so modernist at the time, however it was still hugely unnecessary.  Me, Dave and Dan came back and saw it the next morning.  Funny, but totally unnecessary.  People are too quick to reject the past and they do it in the name of progress.  The problem is that too many people are not being taught how to advance a society these days.

People are too busy and caught up in the new modern life that they don't spend nearly as much time respecting the past as they used to.  One shouldn't live in the past, but one should respect its rules and then bend them and add to them where they were lacking in order to create a vastly new society.  This doesn't just happen lightly, as the last time it happened was WWI and WWII.  Hopefully we learned how to advance with the, "destroy and rebuild anew" philisophy that was formulated after the wars.

Today if one looks at the worlds political, cultural and economic situations, one would realize that this world greatly resembles the world that was parent to the restless years from WWI to WWII.  Hopefully we learned, but like I said, I think it will not be such a nice outcome.  Remember who you were and know who you are, but don't let who you were define who you are and who you should be. 

1:15 AM 5/30/05

You must have been drunk when you wrote this, it makes very little sense.

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Ten and Eleven

Chapter Ten

The more I think about it the more I realize that my sadness is always (almost) caused by my own mind.  I am in love with my sadness, but then I have these moments of clairvoyance that remind me that I really don't have reason to bitch.  While I am lonely, and it does hurt, I have to realize that I can't let this shit run my life and I can't let it stop me from having fun and being the real me.  Sad might define me, but only in my own mind.

10:54 PM 5/24/05

Chapter Eleven

It seems important for me to note the fact that most people don't see things from both sides.  They don't approach problems the right way.  I increasingly find myself hanging out with these kids.  Does that mean I am becoming one of them?

1:12 AM 5/28/05

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

I must have been wasted last night but I guess I wonder why I think that my problems are anymore unique than any other fucker's.  I whine a lot, but I don't know if I am really sad like other people.  I am just lonely.  Sure I could have stayed Lauren but I lied to her enough.  I just really don't know what to write, or what to do with myself.

I want to see Amanda but I know it is exactly the last thing I need.  I do give thanks for some damn good friends.  Without Dan and Annie and Sarah and so on I wouldn't probably be able to function.  I only wonder why they put up with my shit so much.  I guess I don't exactly know what's wrong with me.  I feel insignificant and it hurts.  A lot.  

Like I said, I know something is wrong with me, I just need someone to hold me.  I mean is that really so much to ask?  Just someone who will say, "Yeah I feel like that too," and actually mean it.  I just don't know what to write.

11:41 AM 5/22/05

Wheels

Here I am again, sitting alone at my fucking computer spinning the same damn wheels I have spun for the past month.  You'd think that sooner or later I would get sick of writing about you, but since you're all I fucking think about...well.

I honestly wish that I could just hate you.  I tried really hard to convince myself that I did, even wrote it down a few times.  They feel fake and that pisses me off.  If I could just hate you this would be so much easier, but I don't.  No matter how much I want to curse you I cannot. 

I can't tell if you have so much control over me still because I let you or because I am just that broken.  I guess it really doesn't matter, pretty soon I'll have written about this enough that the few readers I have will give up and it will just be me talking to myself like it was in the beginning.  Maybe it would be better that way, maybe not.

Now I don't mean to let you slide on how badly you hurt me, but I know why you did it.  At least I think I do.  You sure did open my eyes to everything I was doing wrong, I just wish you could have done it in a way that didn't completely destroy my life.  Oh well I guess.  It's funny because normally I would just run into the arms of someone else, but this time I can't.  Or maybe it is that I won't.  In some sick way I feel like I deserve this pain, like it is my punishment for hurting you by not giving my all to battling my illnesses.  I guess that is why I can't hate you; I know how much pain I have caused you.

I know how you operate, when things are over you would just prefer to go about life as if I had never existed.  That really hurts because you know I am the exact opposite.  I think the lack of closure is eating away at me even worse than it did before.  Maybe I'm just not in shock anymore or maybe the cloud of pot smoke has finally cleared from my head and I can finally feel pain the way it was meant to be felt.  One way or another I cannot describe to you the pain I feel when I find myself thinking about you even when I try so hard not to.  It is slowly eating my soul.  I know that if I do relapse that the pain of losing you will be the reason.

I guess for that reason I wish that I could hate you, so that I could propel my recovery forward out of spite but that just isn't me.  I love you too much and I would prefer that the fading memory I have of you be a good one. 

They tell me that this stage of grief is one of the most painful.  Depression.  I should really stop writing about this, I really should.  I honestly wish that I could, but I write what I am thinking and feeling.  It hurts but I don't know what else to say.  I don't know if I actually have anything left to say.  I guess it strikes me as odd that I met you because of this blog.  This blog that made me so happy and now completely depresses the fuck out of me. 

I wish I would have never started it but unfortunately there is nothing I can do about the past anymore. 

The damage is done.  I'll just be here spinning my wheels, trying to heal and wondering if I will ever love like this again.  I almost hope I never do.  Such great love has brought me such great pain.  I don't know if I ever want either again.

Surrender

When I look back at my life I realize that I have spent much, if not most, of it fighting.  Fighting people, feelings, fears or failures.  It cannot be mistaken that all of this fighting has gotten me absolutely nowhere.  All I have to show for my years of struggle are scars, bad memories and a series of failures.  I cannot do this anymore.  I give up.  Fighting is not going to get me anywhere, so I surrender.

Do you hear that?  I give up.  I surrender.

For so long I thought that surrendering was a sign of weakness.  I would take any fight that came my way, regardless of the size of the opponent.  Even if I lost, at least I put up a fight.  At least I could look at my black eye or my broken knuckles and know that I did not give up.  The trouble is that in the end all I had was my pride and a fucked up face or hands.  Pride, ah pride, what a long and dysfunctional relationship we have had.

Too many fucking times I let my pride drive my decisions, I would take any beating or face any foe...at least I had my pride.  Now the problem is that my pride has been stolen from me.  I have nothing to be proud of anymore.  Maybe that isn't the worst thing in the world.  All I really have is today, it is the only guarantee I can make. 

So again, I surrender.

I cannot go back and fix the errors of my ways and I cannot go forward and set up my future, all I have is today.  I have a single choice each day and it is very simple.  I can choose to get fucked up and push all this shit inside of me back down, or I can choose to stay clean and face my pain like a man.  I surrender to the fact that I am an addict.  I surrender to the fact that I cannot change my past.  I surrender to the fact that I cannot guarantee my future.  I give up.

I can't fix this shit excuse for a life that I have been living, so I give up.  All I can do is stay clean and face my demons today.  Not tomorrow, not yesterday and not next week...just today.  All I can do is say, "fuck it."  That is the healthiest thing I have said all week.  Fuck it.  I give that up to you, God, or whoever the hell you are.  I am not strong enough to survive a fight with all the shit that has been laid on my table, so I won't.  I can worry about one thing and one thing alone: staying clean.

Listen to me, a few weeks clean and a few meetings under my belt and I am beginning to sound like a NA bible thumper.  Right now though, clean time is the only thing that I have and I must protect it at all costs.  If I don't I will continue in the same vicious cycle that I have been living the majority of my life in.  If I keep that up, someday I will meet another woman I love and someday she will rip my still beating heart from my chest and stomp on it, just like the last one did.  If that happens again I can make one guarantee.  I will take my own life.

I tried my hardest to fight this battle for the love of my life, but she rejected me because I was not doing it for myself.  I did everything for her and tried as hard as I possibly could, but in the end that was not enough.  It hurts so much to say but it is the simple fact of the matter.  My best wasn't good enough for her and as a result she has left my broken heart behind her.  I lost my whole life and came so very close to extinguishing my own breath.  I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot win this fight against myself, against my addiction and against the pain that she caused me.  So...I give up.  Fuck it, I surrender.

I leave this all up to you God or higher power or whatever I'll call you.  You can fix all this shit.  You have much bigger guns in your arsenal than I do in mine, so you fight this fucking war because I am not doing it anymore.  You fix this shit and I will fight the only battle that I know I can win: the battle of today.  Today I stayed clean and I will fight that battle again when I wake up tomorrow, but I'm not going to worry about tomorrow until I wake up. 

Fuck it.  You hear me?  Fuck it.  Tomorrow is your problem and the past is your problem.  I am going to leave that all up to you.  I cannot control any of that shit and I certainly can't fix it, so fuck it.  I can control one...no two things.  I can control whether I stay clean or not and I can control whether I do the next good thing or not.  I can only do those two things today.  So on every other day but today, I surrender. 

Fuck it, what else could I possibly have to lose.

The Delicate Balance

I have been on a binge of sadness lately and I cannot seem to get over this hump.  They tell me in therapy that it is going to take a long time, well that's just fucking great.  I constantly find myself swinging back and forth between anger directed at two people.  One week I am angry as hell at her for leaving me in my darkest hour, the next I cannot even look myself in the mirror because I know that I caused all of the problems that led her to do so.  I am not rational right now, I am not seeing things as they truly are.  I see only the negatives, even though I know there are some positives.

I am told that I need to find a balance between these emotions that I am feeling because today I am in full self-crucifying mode and it is wholly detrimental to my battle with addiction.  I could go back and cite countless examples of when I went out and got fucked up when I was feeling down on myself and not a single one of those times would be more painful than this one.  I guess that is the trick, isn't it?  I'm not fucked up all the time so I am feeling the pain in a much stronger dose than I ever have before.  There is no escape from this now, I have to face it head on...balls forward, as they say.

The deck was stacked against me from the start when I moved to New York.  I had no family, no friends and in the end no real support network to help me when I needed it.  I had only her to rely on, far too much to ask of one person.  Or was it?  I know that what happened was caused mostly by my actions, or lack thereof, but I was the one who took all the risk.  I was the one who moved.  I was the one who changed jobs.  I was the one who left his friends and family.  I was the one who lost the money I put into the ring.  Was unconditional support really that much to ask?  I know that I did not work as hard as I should have to fix my problems, but I did work.  I fucking tried, I just did not know how bad it really was. 

It doesn't matter anymore.  I am just so sick of this pain.  I honestly have no idea what propels me to wake up each day.  I have no fucking closure at all.  Just a raw ending and speculation as to why it happened.  I truly wonder if I will ever recover from this pain, I know it will be nearly impossible with no forgiveness from the woman I loved...and still love so much.  I hate saying that, it makes me feel so weak.  Honestly though, I am so tired of being strong.  It has gotten me nowhere. 

I get that this is a wake-up call to change my life, but why does it have to be so fucking painful?  Had I truly become so wicked that I deserved to be hurt in this fashion to have my eyes opened?  I am so tired of this.  I see so little in my future, regardless of how many fucking people tell me otherwise.  Why did she have to leave me when I was fighting the battle for my life?  I understand that she left because she did not feel that I was putting in the effort to get better, but my God, why did I not get a sterner warning?  Why do all these questions have to stay unanswered?

She said not to contact her so that we could both heal, but this is doing nothing but making it worse for me.  I honestly do not know how to press on anymore.  I am quite unsure of what good will come of me fighting this anymore.  I am so tired of waking up each day and having all of these questions, this guilt, this anger and this pain crushing my throat.  I guess the pain is how I know I am still alive, it is defining my life so much more than it ever has. 

So I guess this is the delicate balance, a combination of anger and sadness over how she left and anger and sadness over what I did to cause her to leave.  It feels so much worse than directing my anger solely at her or solely at myself, but at least it is real.  Real fucking painful.  I need a reprieve from this, I honestly do not know how much more I can take.  I just need some closure.  I need to be forgiven and to forgive.  I need to forget.  I can only hope I get one of those, it would relieve so much of the sadness.  I, however, have a very real fear that I will never get to feel that reprieve.  I fear that I will live in this pain for a long long time.  That makes me wonder why I continue, and that is a thought that truly scares me.

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Perhaps the question is just, why do I continue to subject myself to torture when it comes to a fling such as the one on my mind right now?  This is so irrational that I can't believe it.  The constant up and go pace of my life from work to school, friends, constant city changes leaves me exhausted maybe more than I had realized in the past.

Then I fall into the emotional traps that kill me and haunt me when I turn the lights out.  It just doesn't seem like me who is out there living life to the "fullest."  I always feel like I'm putting on a show for one fuck or another.  I am positive people would like me so much better if I wasn't always so strung out on sadness which most of the times is greatly exaggerated or quite possibly fabricated.

Maybe I take comfort in in, and I do have artistic surges and ideas of epic proportions when I'm down.  Perhaps I'm in love with my sadness.  I must be, if I was a bitch I would be the biggest drama queen.  I miss Climax and Dan and Mike.  I miss the unpredictability and potential of a day in the Nati.  But maybe that was why shit hit the fan when I went psycho in Chi Town on the Saturday when I got back.  I was just keeping myself distracted.  But my gosh does it work.

It was painful, though when I was done being preoccupied.  But for a while it was fun.  At this moment all explanation escapes me.  Waking up at 6:00 AM every weekday is gonna kill me, but I'm getting paid bitches.

1:28 AM 5/21/05

Your Lies Become You

There is a great difference between character defects and the disease of addiction., unfortunately I suffer from both.  The trouble is that my addiction brought my defects out into the light in a nasty way.  You've heard this before, I am a liar.

A friend wrote to me that they thought that my writing was just for me, true to an extent, but I am guilty of playing the persona game and exaggerating or completely fabricating details of my life to help me tell the story of it.  This space was supposed to be my place to be honest with myself and I have failed in that task.  I have failed in that task for most of my life and for that I carry a great amount of shame.  For too fucking long my lies have become me.  For too long I have watched my relationships fall apart and for too long I have carried that blame on my overburdened heart.  Being an addict only made this worse, I constantly had to hide things from those I love and eventually I turned them against me.  This last time hurt more than all of the other times combined, I realized tonight that it was the last straw.  I cannot do this anymore and expect to be happy.  I have to change.

Too little too late.  I've lost so much and am so embarrassed.

I cannot go back and erase the errors of my past, no matter how much I wish I could.  I cannot go back and unhurt the people I have caused so much grief to.  I can only go forward and make sure that I do not lay waste to someone else I love so dearly as I did the last. 

"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

How true that statement is.  There are so many people that I know who will forever look at me with skepticism whenever I say something.  The only truth that I see right now is that I cannot change that fact, I can only move forward.  If I continue to sit in the shit I will only be sitting in the shit.  I have to get up and change the fact that I am a liar.  I may not be able to go back in time and right all of my wrongs, but I can look at my life today and make sure that I do not commit any more sins as I move forward.

I have to see myself for what I am, for what I have become.  I cannot run from this anymore and I certainly cannot hide behind more lies.  Look what it did to me the last time, I barely survived it, God only knows what will happen the next.  The truth is that there can be no next time, I must make sure of that each and every fucking day I draw breath.  If I do not, no one will ever believe me again.

I listen to this song almost every day.  It helps remind me that I must fight this battle against my lying tenancies every day.  If not my lies will become me and I will be forever remembered as a no good liar.

How did I get here without you
It's a miracle we're all sane
We're kinda like sucking a vacuum
Or booking a flight on a doomed plane
Well you claimed you could read the future
And I'd say that you've nailed that down

You still want everyone to love you
Well here's a tip of my hat to your big brain
Do you really believe they can't see through
A circus punk playing a foul game

Let me cast you a light, one that's natural
And with me you can strike that pose
And you melt for the camera
Cause your lies become you
Yes, your lies become you
Yes, your lies become you after all

How am I living without you?
I'm not even sure now that I'm sane
But this little dog's got enough sense
To know not to sleep in the cold rain

How are you doing without me?
I'm sure you've found some new game
I never wanted to miss you
But then I never thought I could dig pain

Hope it's warmer for you, princess
I in fact hope it's hot as hell
And you get what you asked for
Cause your lies become you
Yes, your lies become you
Yes, your lies become you after all

-Monster Magnet

Praying

It is something I haven't found much time to do over the past few years of my life.  It is something I didn't have much use for over the past few years of my life.  It is something I haven't taken the effort to do over the past few years of my life. 

I lost my religion many years ago, partly my fault and partly the fault of the church.  I stopped going years ago and stopped praying many years before that.  Now here I find myself issuing one to whatever higher power exists up there.  It is a truly humbling experience and I've been having a lot of those lately.  I have truly been knocked off of my high horse and am discovering that the earth feels a lot worse than I remember it to be before I climbed up onto it.  Here I sit.

I don't know what to say to you, whoever you are, but I know something is out there.  There are no coincidences, no such thing as luck and no such thing as meaningless events.  Now that the haze has cleared I am finding out that I sit here in this chair for a reason.  I understand that you are trying to show me something, I just wish you would make it more clear.  I'm asking you for a favor here.

I need so much from you these days that it isn't even funny.  Show me the way.  Show me why you put me in this situation.  Show me why you have taken me down so far.  I know you want to see me reformed, but I really do not see the light on the other end of the tunnel.  I am not going to give up, I just wish you would give me something to strive for.  I wish there was some end that I could see to this. 

I am quite confused these days.  All I ask is that you show me something here, show me a sign.  Give me something to work for, something to hold on to.  I am not asking for much, just something to keep me going.  I will keep working, like I always do, just give me a bit of a lift here.  I suppose it will all come with time but I sure am sick of wading through the shit to get there.

Like I said, just show me a sign.  Show me something to remind me on nights like this why it is I continue to fight.  I know there is a reason, I'm just praying that you make it clear.

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Six and Seven

Chapter Six

It seems odd that after only a few days of writing in this notebook I have found some of the strangest qualities of life, ones I had never noticed before.  It's like I think of an opinion that could be considered bias, for some reason I think, "there has to be a person, just like me, who believes just so strongly as me, but with the exact opposite opinion."  It is crazy this has happened just since I have been home.

There really is something about this place that I don't know if I will ever find anywhere else.  I don't even know what to say about this.  I always thought that I would be somebody different, but it doesn't bother me.  It just makes me realize just how much bigger this world is than me.  This is quite the trip (to sound so painfully cliche [probably not spelled right {why do I keep writing sidebar notes?}]).  So henceforth I dedicate this notebook to whatever being (or non being) or God, whatever God.  Whoever that is.

12:14 AM 5/19/05

Chapter Seven

I will see Amanda tomorrow.  This is not exactly the best thing in the world, I will be sad on Saturday.  At least I can sleep in.  I am going to tell her something I shouldn't cuz she swiped my Vcard.  I will regret it.  At least I get paid tomorrow.  When I'm sad I can always cound on the Lady in the Moon.

11:47 PM 5/19/05

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Four and Five

Chapter Four

It seems like, nevermind that's not how I wanted to start this.  Why the hell do I lie?  To my friends, strangers, parents, classmates.  I am really concerned w/ what other people think of me.  I have been telling friends that a girl lied to me (funny eh?) and told me she was pregnant.  I even told Annie.  I know she loves me.  So therefore I have come to the conclusion that I am mental.

I don't understand why I do this.  I have lost so many friends over this, people still hate me for it.  It would make sense for me to lie if I had a reason, but this is ridiculous.  My biggest flaw is that it drives me up the wall when others (who shouldn't matter) think I'm not cool.  Seriously who gives a shit?  Me I guess.

I'm really not as great as I think, my well formulated opinions on world affairs just piss people off.  But I believe in them.  Suicide crosses my mind and awful lot these days.  I don't have the guts to do it though.  I hope I don't die soon, cause I'm a fucking hypocrite.

12:57 AM 5/17/05

Chapter Five

I really love meeting new people and then starting to hang out w/ them routinely.  They don't know about what I have been in my past.

12:21 AM 5/18/05 

Götterdämmerung

Reading this old notebook is really something.  It is like I was writing myself notes to reread in the future so I did not forget where I came from and what I had been through.  I must admit, however, that a lot of what I am finding inside it truly disturbs me.  I read back into my life six or so years ago and realize that I have come so far but am still stuck spinning the same wheels I did when I was twenty.

I know that I have grown and learned so much about life, but I still see so much of myself in these pages.  I am still and addict, I am still a liar, I am still a womanizer and a heartbroken fool.  I think I am beginning to see the reason why I decided to pick this scab and put this all down again.  There are things about myself that I despise and that have constantly ruined my life and fucked up my plans.  I cannot run from these things anymore, for they always seem to find me one way or another.

It seems that no matter what I do, lie or truth, something always goes wrong.  Something always blows up.  It does, however, seem more and more apparent that as I walk through life I am only hindered by my own demons.  If I do not face them and defeat them they will destroy me or at the very least turn me into something completely evil and unrecognizable.  I must delve deep into the depths of my soul and weed out the evil that has taken its hold on me.  For too long my addictions have forced me to lie.  For too long those lies have turned those I love against me.  For too long my loved ones turning against me has caused me to run to drugs and drink.  For too long I have repeated this cycle in my life.  It is wearing me down.

Götterdämmerung is a German word which roughly translates to the downfall, twilight or doom of the gods (or so my computer tells me), but it is a word that I have been meditating on quite a bit lately.  I know its translation but am just beginning to understand its meaning and how it applies to my life.  I do not yet know the full answer, but am beginning to realize it.

Digging into the meaning of the word I came upon the story of Ragnarok, an old Norse tale about the end of the world.  It speaks of a terrible battle which in the end will destroy the earth, causing it to sink into the sea.  In this battle the forces of good and evil will collide and eventually the fire giant Surt will set the world on fire.  After the fire, however, a new world will arise from the sea.  This world will be green, verdant and peaceful.  According to the legend neither pain nor misery will survive in this new world and everything will exist in harmony.

I seek this harmony in myself as I always have, but have forever struggled to find the means to attain it.  My answer lies again in fire.  In order to find harmony in myself I must purge all of my old knowledge and behaviors with fire.  Fire is the great cleanser, ridding the world of plague and disease.  I must apply this fire to myself.  When the burn has been completed a new life will spring from the forest which was once choked with overgrowth. 

I have already begun to set the fire.  I seek to purge myself of the evil that consumes me.  I must be victorious, for my very life depends on it.  I must break the cycle and restore order to a body and mind which have not known it in many years.  When properly ordered I will flourish and reap the rewards that have always alluded me in the past.  I seek to better myself from within.  I seek redemption for my sins.  I seek to become whole.  I seek to live up to my potential.  This will be the most difficult battle I have ever fought.  It will take me years to wage this war, but wage war I must.  I cannot simply let this enemy live inside of me any longer.  It has hurt too many people, myself included. 

There may come a time someday when I feel that I have attained my goal and restored order to my spirit.  It is at that time that I will know my battle is not yet finished.  I must wrap my mind around the fact that this battle for harmony and peace will never be finished, I will forever be waging this war. 

Sometimes I wonder how I can possibly carry on fighting a war inside of myself every single day.  How can I fight day in and day out and not grow weary?  The answer is that I cannot, no one can.  I cannot fight myself and expect to survive, I have to surrender to the fact that I am not a perfect being.  This does not mean that I will give up, simply that I will resign myself to the knowledge that I will never be perfect.  Sooner or later I will slip up and someone will get hurt, regardless of how hard I try.  I cannot fight the fire, I have to sit back and watch it burn.  In doing so I hope to learn what it is about myself that makes me hurt others.  You can only fight an enemy that you know and know well.

I find myself very confused as I attempt to conclude this.  I do not know whether to fight or surrender.  Perhaps I must strive for a balance between the two.  Perhaps it is better to surrender myself to the fact that I am a wicked being and fight that wickedness when it arises.  Perhaps not.  It seems like it will be a never ending struggle, but a struggle that I willfully engage in.  I cannot simply sit on my ass and expect to change, it is something I must struggle for. 

The Blue Notebook: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The dream starts in my old room at school (but it is one of the crazy versions of the school that I have in my dreams).  For some reason I am then running through a series of giant white rooms with dirt on the floor.  The walls are made of some temporary plastic tarp that I run through easily.  Every time I go through one I have to jump lower to the next dirt floor.  The thought crosses my mind that they are like biohazard tents or something, but I keep running.

The last tarp I run through puts me in a forest with a river in the middle.  I run down and something happens with a lockbox or safe (not sure what) but a gun ends up in my hand.  It is in a pouch that resembles one for a pipe.  It says "Craftsman" on it.

Now my directions changes, I am now running parallel to the river.  I didn't realize it before, but in the tents I was running perpendicular to the river.  The gun is now in my hand.  I make it to a clearing and for some reason turn around and head back the way I came except I take a more wooded path through the woods cause there is a team of some sort coming through my previous path.  

Now I am in a different version of the Greenspace at school and I see Brown exiting a building to my left.  We say our goodbyes (apparently it is move out day) I say something about him visiting.  Before that I ask him if there is still an RA in our room so I can check out.  He says she feels better and is expecting me.  Then Brown says that if me and Pat want, "to come down to visit in the mist."  

I wake up.  It is overcast again.  I didn't go to church.  It's going to be a weird day.

2:11 PM 5/15/05

The Blue Notebook: Prologue, Chapter One and Chapter Two

Prologue

I was going through some old files I have to sort out this afternoon when I came upon something very interesting.  I don't know quite what to make of my finding the old blue notebook, but I have come to believe that everything has its purpose and happens for a reason.  I hadn't looked inside of it in almost five years so I decided I might have a read.  I found some incredibly strange things written down in there by a person who existed six years ago.  That person still exists but has changed immensely since he covered the pages in blue ink.  In some ways I do not recognize him at all; in other ways he seems to be right here with me again.  I decided that I should write them down again but I don't quite know why.  Maybe it will help me learn something about myself.  Maybe it might help me grow, I don't really know.  I imagine by the time I finish rewriting the entire thing I will have my answer.  Maybe I won't, but I'll never know if I don't try.

I will copy them down in the exact same fashion that they are written.  Improper punctuation (some things never change), misspellings and insecurities will not be edited.  This is a word for word exercise.  I truly hope I learn something from it.

Chapter One

Hopefully I have the motivation to write this down when I wake up.  I think it might help me realize something, however, what that is, I have no clue.

1:31 AM 5/11/05

Chapter Two

Maybe realizing something was not really the purpose of this endeavor (words will certainly be misspelled [who am I writing this to?]).  There are thoughts in my head that seem to perfectly explain my self absorbed stupidity lately.  I am actually a big enough moron to go out and argue serious points that I claim to believe in, and then go and do the exact opposite when all eyes aren't on me.  WHO am I trying to prove myself to?  It always seems to be about making other people aware of my problems (which half the time don't even exist) so that they will feel bad for me and then shower me with sympathy that I will most certainly dismiss.  Why does shit always hit the fan when I come to Milwaukee?  Maybe it's cause I'm poor and I can't keep myself incoherent anymore.  I don't even know who I am.

3:35 AM 5/15/05

Dick

I'll just make this real simple for you; I'm having a fucking hard time keeping it in my pants.

I've really not been single for nearly six years so I'm having a bit of difficulty adjusting to my new situation.  I "graduated" from my partial hospitalization program today with what one might call flying colors, but my counselor had two final pieces of advice for me.

One:
"Remember that you need never settle again.  Choose your next lover very very carefully."

Two:
"Either your computer is going to catch a virus or your dick will.  Your choice."

I had to laugh at that one, not because it was so humorous to hear him say, but because it was so fucking true.  You see, since I've been off the drugs and not drinking I've been more horny than a goddamn teenager.  Anyone who tries to tell you that smoking weed constantly does not kill your sex drive is either stupid or a liar.  I feel like I am fucking sixteen all over again, Christ I've had more erotic dreams in the past three weeks than I think I've had in my entire life.

Now you might be sitting there asking yourself, "Well what's the big deal, just go out and get fucked."  Therein lies the problem, I'm on the rebound. 

Since I'm back in Milwaukee and single, you could say I've ran into a few girls I used to know when I wasn't single and...well you can put two and two together.  Or can you?  See the trouble is that I've been turning them all down, I haven't had a wet dick since New York.  Now I bet you're really confused aren't you?  Well let me spell it out for you.  I can't afford to jeopardize my clean time or my life with sex. 

If you've been reading this for long enough you'll know I used to have a little segment called, "Story Time."  Sure it was fun to sit and write up all those old stories of fucking girls I really didn't care about, but there was one problem with each one.  After my dick went off, I felt like shit.  I am one of those guys you might call a "romantic."  I have a hard time fucking a girl I don't care about because I always feel like I'm using her for sex, regardless of whether or not she was using me too.  Right now I don't need to be out fucking girls I don't give a shit about because after a while I'm going to start feeling like dick about myself.  When I feel like that I want to get high or drunk.  If I do that, Lord only knows what will happen next.  I seem to remember being quite good at going on self-destructive benders when I was down on myself.  We don't need that happening again.

There is a second reason I can't get into bed, and it is far more dangerous than the first.  If I catch feelings, I'm in big fucking trouble.  As much as I dislike admitting it, I am extremely vulnerable right now.  I have had my heart ripped out of my chest in such a manner that it has completely redefined my understanding of pain.  Before last month I didn't think it was possible to experience the level of sheer agony that I felt after being dropped like 8:30 am Philosophy class.  I am in full rebuilding mode, standing in the middle of the reconstruction site that was my heart.  I cannot bear to have the progress I've so rapidly made come crashing down.  If it did I could very easily find myself at the bottom of a bottle or staring at the point of a needle again.  It's just that fucking simple.

I'm like a raw egg right now; one little crack and my guts will come pouring out.  I need a bit more time in the pot before I am hard-boiled enough to withstand a bit of a drop.  So if I find my cock wrapped nicely inside some pretty lady somewhere sometime soon and I happen to get feelings for, her who the hell knows where I'll end up.  I might end up with my future wife, but I could just as easily end up with the woman who will RE redefine pain for me.  I sure as hell don't need that because I am so fucking fragile you might as well put a stamp on my forehead. 

So let's get back to my dick, shall we?  I've decided it best to put a little sentence on my little friend, one year.  I figure it will take me at least one year to get my shit fully together and be at the point where I can put my heart back at risk.  Who actually knows if I'll actually make it that long, honestly I'm surprised I've made it this long, but the point still remains.  I am too vulnerable right now to risk having my heart broken again.  If it does I will most likely end up doing a back flip straight off the deep end.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I am built with a heart that falls in love easily.  I figure the quickest way for that to happen is to be out getting laid, I might just end up sticking my dick into a razor wire trap.  I am just not strong enough right now to be out there hanging that fucking thing in the air and waiting to see what lands on it.  I just can't take that risk.  I have to put myself and my recovery first at all costs.  Let's not bullshit each other here, my addictions came quite close to killing me.  Too fucking close for my liking, at the very least they helped destroy a life I had worked so goddamn  hard to build.  I simply cannot afford to put my new work at risk.  God only knows what will happen. 

So there you have it, no pussy.  I'm not gonna lie, it really sucks.  I mean it really fucking sucks, but this is the position I have put myself in.  I've made my bed and now I've got to lie in it.  Alone.  At least for now.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with my right hand.  Have a nice night.

Burn

I started a big ass fire today in my parent's backyard, big enough at one point to singe my mom's rose bushes nearly fifteen feet away.  They both watched me out the window as I fed the fire more and more fuel.  When I ran out I stood there watching until my dad walked around the house carrying a handful of wood.

"Figured you could use some more," he said as he went to set it down on the gravel skirt around the fire pit.  "Maybe you should toss a couple on too," I suggested.  He threw more than a few in, we were both burning for the same reason.  When the fire got big enough I began to throw things into it other than wood.  Pictures, cards, books, a hat and some tee-shirts.  You see I was not setting any ordinary fire, this was a funeral pyre.

There has been a lot of hurt going around in the past month, too damn much to process all at once.  Too damn many people have been burned by the fire I set, but I wasn't the only one throwing fuel in.  Some threw sticks in, others threw gas and others still fanned the flames as they grew.  Regardless of that fact, my family has been seriously hurt by all that has happened.  They were not the ones feeding the fire; they were a thousand miles away in the dark as their oldest son self-destructed.  On the other side of the fence there was a family who acted like they were trying to put the fire out, but in all actuality they were fueling it.  For that they all had to burn.

This fire I set in the backyard was not some foolish act of spite, it was a cleansing ritual that we all needed.  When the switch flipped in her head, they showed their true colors.  They cut and ran, leaving behind four shocked and very hurt people with no explanation as to why they were making the moves they were making.  When my dad threw the first log in the fire I saw something release from him, the same thing I had been releasing with each log I contributed.  Anger, spite and hate.  These three words do not hold water in my family.  For too long they have defined me, but no longer.  They have been burned.

I've been having a lot of trouble letting go, something I'm certain my former "better half" is not struggling with.  I've been talking about it a lot in "crazy camp" each day.  Talking about the loneliness, the guilt, the pain and the betrayal.  My counselor suggested something very simple.

"Patrick, go set a big fucking fire and throw all the shit that she gave you on it until there is nothing left."

I did just that.  I burned it all, well everything except my Brian Williams autograph because I fucking love that dude, but moving on.  The wind flipped the pages on the burning books that I threw in and I felt like something inside of me was dying.  It was something that needed to be killed, something that I was having trouble letting go of.  Someone I was having trouble letting go of.

I watched that fire burn for almost two hours until the flames began to finally die off one by one, and then I turned my back on it and went inside to have dinner with my parents.  I can still smell the smoke in the clothes I am wearing, a cleansing smoke.  You see, I cannot go on fighting the battle for myself if I am constantly weighed down by the events of the past.  I must move forward at all costs.  The past must be left in the past.  I cannot have constant reminders of her around my house if I am expect myself to be able to let her go.  They had to burn.

There is one reminder, however, that I can never burn away for it is a result of past burns.  This reminder resides about eight inches up from the inside of my wrist on my left arm.  My "tattoo," a result of countless cigarettes snuffed out in the same spot after each time in my life that I have self-destructed.  It is a scar that will never go away, but I do not want it to.  It is a reminder to be vigilant, lest I end up in the same mess again.  We keep what we have through vigilance and I must remain forever on guard against my disease.

I was at my uncle's meat processing plant on Saturday cleaning up the trash in the front yard before I cut the grass when I ran into a very stunning reminder of what it means to be vigilant.  This butcher shop is located in one of the worst areas of Milwaukee and let's just say that one finds some particularly interesting garbage along the small strip of grass between the building and 35th Street.  As I reached down to pick up a coffee cup I found something sticking straight up in the air, slightly hidden in the grass.  A hypodermic needle.  I came not more than an inch from being stuck by it and having all the trauma and associated stress that comes with that, but I missed it.  Such a clever metaphor someone somewhere had left for me in the grass.

As I go through my life picking up the trash that has been left behind, I must remain forever vigilant or I will get stuck.  My addiction is always there, waiting to swallow me whole.  It is a fearless enemy that never needs to eat, sleep or drink.  It is resilient, will never give up and if I let it, it will destroy me once again.  Maybe next time it does I will actually make that long dive into the Hudson River, but I'm not going to let that happen.  You see, it was for that reason that I set the fire this evening.  I set that fire to put one distraction that had its foot on my throat out of its misery.  I don't need her preventing from the one thing that I need to focus on right now.  Me.

For that, she had to burn. 

The Unlearned Mind

 This is a very difficult subject for a know it all such as myself to write about, but I have been realizing lately that being a know it all means you know nothing at all.

"The only way you'll ever learn a thing is to admit that you know absolutely nothing"

Ah, how the lyrics of the songs I have been listening to for years sound so different when they finally make sense.  The problem with a know it all is that they have a full cup of tea, as I wrote about last night.  There is no room for new knowledge in their minds and they cling to the foolish ways of the past.  The learned mind is one full of the impossibilities of life.  The learned mind sees only what it wants to see and believes what it has been taught.  This action in itself limits the human mind and destroys the unlimited potential of the human spirit. 

If you read the news often enough you will hear stories of a grandmother or a mother who lifts a two thousand pound car off of a small child.  Think about that for a second.  Realize that it is an impossibility.  Think logically.  If you put that weight on most any human being's shoulders their arms would rip out of their sockets.  However, for some reason it was possible for these people.  Something in their minds activated and they truly believed that they could lift a ton's worth of mangled steel off of a child.  When they believed, they succeeded.  Scientists call it a singularity, something which has no possible explanation, but somehow is possible. 

In 1963 Thich Quang Duc was set on fire and burned to death on a busy Saigon street while protesting the Vietnam war.  Take a moment and think about his action.  As he burned he sat in peaceful silence, meditating while the flames consumed his flesh.  This in itself is an impossibility.  Think about the last time you were really burned and the pain that it caused, I bet it was excruciating and caused you to cringe, did it not?  He did not stop, drop or roll; instead he sat peacefully as he burned to death.  The thing about Thich Quang Duc was that he had removed the element of pain from his mind completely.  He truly exemplified the unlearned mind.

The unlearned mind is one which holds no impossibilities.  The unlearned mind sees no boundaries or roadblocks.  The unlearned mind is able to accomplish things that the most brilliant scientists on earth can only dream of.  The key is limitations.  When we limit ourselves we are nothing more than speaking versions of apes, but only when we realize that the human mind is limitless do we realize our full potential. 

We are creatures of circumstance, however, when we realize that no circumstance is without reason do we become the full versions of ourselves.  This is my true quest.  I truly wish to heal my broken heart and to conquer my addiction, but what I really desire is the ability to know that my mind is limitless.  It sounds silly but think about, "The Little Engine That Could."  He climbed the hill with sheer determination.  We can all be that engine.  We can be the engine of change in our lives that will take us to a higher plateau of understanding.  We are much more than we believe. 

This is the essence of the unlearned mind.  We must admit that we know nothing, that all our acquired knowledge is bullshit and accept a new way of being.  I desire to unlock this potential in my own self.  I am not looking to set myself on fire in a busy street, but I am looking to realize the full potential of the brain that my higher power put in my head.  I am truly limitless, I simply need to realize it. 

The only one who limits us is ourselves.  We must empty our cups and unlearn the knowledge that has been crammed into our already stuffed minds.  We must unlearn and than relearn.  We must learn that we are limitless.  It sounds so cliche, but we can do anything we put our minds to...we just have to believe in the possibility.

Don't Think Twice

I received a package in the mail yesterday.  It contained the final small amount of possessions that I had left in New York but it also helped bring closure and an understanding that I could not see until this evening.  I have been fighting through the pain I have been experiencing since the 14th of last month in the wrong way.  I last wrote out of sheer anger: at you, myself and my addiction.  Anger and rage have been defining me since I've returned and they have kept me strong in my fight, but they are not the weapons I need to truly win the battle taking place inside my head.  Allow me to share a story about a Zen master, a professor and a cup of tea...

The Zen master asked if the professor would like some tea. So as they were talking the master was filling the tea cup. Slowly the cup filled, overflowing onto the saucer, flowing across the table on onto the professor’s pants. The professor jumped up and yelled, "You fool, the cup is already too full!" The Zen master put the tea pot down and stated, "And you too professor are already too full. I cannot teach you about Zen until you empty yourself."

I am the professor.  My pants are wet.

For too long I have let hate, anger and fear define me.  They have kept me somewhat safe, but in the long run they have been slowly killing me; killing the man I am supposed to be.  It breaks my heart that I was too late to realize that I am the professor and you the Zen master.  You had been telling me for months what I needed to do in order to care for myself and to grow our love, I was just too blind to see it.  My cup was full, full of the erroneous behaviors and thought patterns I brought with me across the country and inflicted on you.

When I broke down you were there for me, but my blindness prevented you from continuing to do so.  The shame lies on my heart, not yours, for I was the fool.  I thought I knew everything, could handle anything and that you would put up with my unchecked illness no matter what.  How wrong I was, but this guilt does not belong on your heart, it belongs on mine.

I may have moved across the country to be with you, but you did everything in your power to make that transition as smooth as possible.  You forced me into counseling, cradled me like a baby when I was broken and eventually saved my life.  I could not be honest with you because I could not be honest with myself.  This is not an excuse, just an admission of fault.  I have begun to take a fearless moral inventory of the 26 years that I have been on this earth and I have begun to see the error of my ways.  I hope that someday you will forgive me, but I cannot lay blame on you if you do not.

I have slowly realized that I was unworthy of your love.  My cup was full and when you tried to pour your love and knowledge into me, it spilled over and was lost.  What a fool I was.  I was so blind, full of pride and brimming with anger that I was unable to concentrate on the person who loved me the most.  I failed to see the hurt I had been inflicting on you and I reaped what I had sown.

But there is a new seed, one you have unknowingly planted.  This seed has started to slowly sprout and now that the shoot has passed through the dirt, it breathes new air and sees a new light.  You had been trying to tell me for so long, I was just too deaf to hear.

I have come to understand that I must unlearn and make amends for my sins, for they are great and weigh down my soul.  I cannot fight my illness and my addiction with anger and it is far from fair to direct that anger at you.  I thought I could rest my hat on anger at the way you left me, but I have finally realized why you did it in the manner that you did.  I was too deaf, blind and dumb to comprehend the message you had been trying to send me for so long.  When you sent your final goodbye it crushed me like I have never been before, but it planted a seed even I was unaware of until this evening.

Slowly but surely my eyes have been opening and I am seeing the light you had been trying so damn hard to shine on me, unfortunately too late to save the greatest love of my life.  I can honestly say that now I understand what you had been trying to tell me for so long.  There is only one way to fight this battle against my own mind: peace, serenity, sobriety and hard work.  Rage, anger and spite will only lead me back to my old ways and if I follow that path again I will ruin the new love I hope to gain someday in the future.  You gave me one final gift, the gift of intervention.  For that I will always love you.  You saved my life and motivated me to get myself together so that I do not destroy my it again.  I am sorry beyond words for the pain I caused you and the time that I wasted, for I know I did both.

I am a fool no longer.  I must fight my battle on my own, with new weapons by my side.  Peace.  Calm.  Levelheadedness.  Sobriety.  Honestly.  Serenity.  I have laid down my battle worn weapons of anger, hate, rage, spite, pride and fear.  I have done so because of you.  I have done so because I never wish to hurt another soul in the way I hurt you ever again.  This is the most humble moment of my life.  I caused all the pain we are both suffering now, and I understand if you cannot forgive me for that.  I must ask regardless of that fact.

I saved one thing that you went out of your way to get me, an autograph.  It reads, "To Patrick, You chose so well!  We missed you, Brian Williams," and it is pinned to the bulletin board above my desk.  I finally understand why I kept it and hung it up, he was right, I did choose well.  I chose someone who, even in departing, cared enough about me to send me the message I had refused to hear for so long...the message that has saved my life and is helping me grow.

So tonight I empty my cup of tea, I shed the armor I have been wearing for so long and I admit my sins.  There is no one to blame but myself.  But I must thank you for the fight you put into me, for today I am grateful for you.  We may never speak again, but I must tell you this as my departing words.  You gave me the gift of life and a second chance at making something of myself, something far greater than I have ever been before.  You have turned me into a warrior, a warrior for my sanity and my life, but not every warrior fights with weapons.  Strength and growth through peace.  Progress and victory through hard work.  Love and understanding through honesty.   

With that I will say my final goodbye.  I love you, not only the love I felt for you in the city, but the love I feel for you now as I realize the gift you have given me.  Life and rebirth.

I'll send you off with a song, and I'll pick Susan's version over Bob's because it just makes more sense and I finally understand its meaning.  I hope to speak to you again someday and I pray that you will find the happiness that I was never quite able to give you.  I will try my hardest to forgive myself for that and I hope with time you will do the same, but if that day never comes just know one thing: I love you and am eternally grateful for the gift you have given me, for without it I would surely have perished.

Goodbye my love,
Patrick

Ain't no use to sit an wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
Oh now ain't no use to sit and wonder why
It won't ever do somehow

Oh when your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and know I'll be gone
Oh you're the reason I'm travelin on
Don't think twice, it's alright

There ain't no use in turnin on your light, babe
The light I've never known
Oh now it ain't no use in turnin on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road

Oh now I'm thinkin and I'm wonderin, walkin down the road
Oh I once loved a man of child I am told
Oh I gave him my heart, but he wanted my soul
Don't think twice, it's alright

There ain't no use in callin out my name, boy
Like you never done before
Oh now ain't no use in callin out my name now
Cause i can't hear anymore

Oh I wish there was something you might do or say
Oh to try to make me change my mind and stay
Oh but we never did too much talkin anyways
Don't think twice, it's alright

So long, honey baby
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
Oh but good-bye is too good a word now
So I'll just say fare-thee-well

Oh now I ain't sayin that you treated me unkind
Ooh you coulda done better, but oh I don't mind
Oh you just kinda wasted all of my precious time
Don't think twice, it's alright

Oh you just kinda wasted all of my precious time
Don't think twice, it's alright

Don't Think Twice- Susan Tedeschi 

War Paint

Resilient
adj
1. (of a person) recovering easily and quickly from shock, illness, hardship, etc.; irrepressible.

Let's get fucking serious here, shall we?  I am in the middle of a war and the battleground is inside my head.  I fight this battle each and every moment of each and every day, sleep included.  I was fighting this battle when I lived in New York, but I did not know the colors of the enemy.  With each passing day they become more clear.  So, like I said, let's get fucking serious.  It's time to batten down the hatches and prepare for war.

You are my enemy.  I am my enemy.  My addiction is my enemy.  I must defeat the trio at all costs, regardless of the pain it may cause me.  I will not lose.  I never lose, I am too fucking strong to be defeated by a coward like you, a liar like me and a poison like my addiction.  Today I don my suit of armor, grab my sword and put on my war paint.  You may have been firing the first shots, but now it is my turn to volley.  I will not be defeated, I have never been defeated and I do not give up.  You should know that by now.  I always win in the end, I may leave scarred and broken, but I never lose a fight I put my all into.

Step one is to defeat you, flank your position and mercilessly crush you.  Since you refuse to acknowledge my existence and will not communicate your feelings to me, I have determined you to be enemy number one.  You will die.  I do not mean this in a literal sense, but more in the sense that I must kill you inside my head.  I must see the forest for the trees, you are a pitiful coward.  You left the man you supposedly loved over the phone.  You pussy.  You could not even stand to face me and tell me the truth.  Secondly, you left me while I was in a fucking mental ward, at my absolute lowest and when I needed you the most.  You left me high and dry, with no one to care for me and no way to contact the outside world.  You fucking coward.  Regardless of what you wish to believe, I know that your parents had a hand in your decision.  You fucking child.  You would not fight for the man that you supposedly loved, and you would not issue me the ultimatum that I truly needed to get myself on track.  You just cut and ran when the going got tough, and then decided that it would be a good idea to hold my personal possessions hostage.  You let your dad do the talking because you were too much of a coward to admit that you betrayed me when I needed you the most.  You may say that you loved me, but we both know that you sat back and waited for your perfect man to come and be molded into your perfect rich Long Island boy.  I dropped everything, gave up everything for you and you just sat on your ass and waited.  I would not or could not change and you did not have the guts to truly confront me with what you needed to say.  You let daddy do it for you.  You are pathetic, you are a liar and you are gutless.  I am glad that you left me because I cannot believe I asked a piece of shit like you to be my wife.  How delusional I was.

I will crush you for I am far stronger than you.  You can deny it all you want, but we both know that I am the victor.  I do not fight this battle to get you back, I don't fucking want you back.  I fight this battle out of spite.  I fight this battle to show you that you missed out on the one man who truly cared about you, warts and all.  I fight this battle with a smile on my face because I know that you are running out of time, something I have plenty of.  Deny it all you want, I couldn't care less.  When that younger, sexier, smarter and more loyal woman does finally come around I will have been fire tested and I will know how to please her in ways you never imagined.  You are such a fool.  I will extinguish you from my mind, you will not rule my nightmares.  I will be your nightmare while you lie in bed with another man who values you only half as much as I did.  It's too late now you coward, you lost your chance.  I gave it all up for you and you rejected me, good luck finding a man to make the sacrifices I did.  I truly mean it.  Good fucking luck.

Step two is to defeat myself.  I am a liar.  I lied to you and I lied to myself.  I was in total denial about how deep my mental health issues ran.  I too was a coward, a pussy and a baby.  I was too afraid to hear the truth about how fucked up my head was and I let it destroy everything I worked so hard to build.  Never will I let that happen again.  I was too busy fighting the battle in my head for the wrong reason, to please you.  Now I see that I must fight this battle for me and me alone.  I am the important one now, I know that my recovery will only benefit me.  I am through doing it for you and your yellow-bellied family.  I am number one.  However, being number one means that I must admit my faults and address them with the sword.  I shall chop out the liar from my heart, I will cut out the coward from my soul and I will dissect the disease that nearly consumed me for I am far stronger than anything inside my head.  Thank you for clearing the fog of war for me, helping me see what was wrong with me and what made me a pitiful excuse for a man.  I am pitiful no longer.  I am strong.  I will not be defeated, I will take the sword to my chest and cut out the disgusting man that I became in New York.  I will crush his throat, taste his flesh and burn his corpse.  As I stand on my battlefield smelling the stench of burning flesh, I will watch the phoenix rise from the ashes of the slug that I once was.  For again, I will be the victor.  I will not be defeated.  I have applied the red blood of my enemies to my face.  I am ready for battle and I will destroy each and every thing that gave you an excuse to cut and run.  I am strong, but I will grow stronger. 

Step three is to defeat the addiction which ruined everything I had worked for.  I have something to be proud of, it's called clean time.  I piss in a cup every other day, not because I am forced to but because I force myself to.  I am accountable to no one but myself.  I know what my smoking and drinking did to our relationship and my life in general.  I know that it turned me into a paranoid mess.  I know that it is a disease that seeks to rob the very breath from my lungs.  I could have come home and wallowed in my sorrows with a bourbon and a bowl, but I choose to fight them instead.  If I owe you for anything, it is for opening my eyes to the most deceptive and cunning enemy I have ever faced.  Addiction is a tricky little fucker, a slimy worm, but by going to my meetings and working my program I will be the victor.  I will not be defeated.  Nothing can stop me now, certainly not a stupid plant and a glass of cheap liquor.  I will throw my all into battling this, my most dangerous enemy, because I wish to prove to myself that I am stronger than you chose to give me credit for.  I will defeat it because it will prove to me that I am stronger than I chose to give myself credit for.  I am a survivor.  I am resilient and I will not fucking die.  Just try and kill me, you will have the fight of your life.  I will not be defeated.  I will conquer my addiction, ripping it from my brain and spitting on its grave.  I will not be defeated.

This is my war song and I sing it with violence in my heart.  My three enemies have evoked such a powerful anger inside of me that I was afraid of my very dreams but no longer.  No longer will I be the victim.  No longer will I be beaten down by nonconstructive criticism, my own pitfalls or by my dependance on mind altering substances.  I will walk through this fire and I'll take my fucking time doing it, I want to feel the pain because now I feel.  I may only feel hate, rage and anger; but at least I feel something.  I am no longer masked by your false love, my lies or the haze of smoke and drink I chose to place myself in.  I have torn the mask off and I have applied my war paint.

I will be the victor.

I will crush you.

I will crush the pathetic lying me.

I will crush my addiction.

I will not be defeated and that is a fucking promise. 

On Terror

I want to forget about you so badly.  You are the first thing I think about every morning and the last thing I think about every night.  I reach out to the side of the bed that you used to sleep on and find it empty, the tears follow shortly after.  They tell me in group that I am supposed to let you go, accept what has happened and move on.  The trouble is that I seem unable to.

I have never had this problem before and it terrifies me that I am powerless over your control on my mind.  Even from a thousand miles away you have a death grip on me.  I feel your hand tightening around my throat as I lie in my bed, robbing the breath from my lungs.  I try to exercise the deep breathing techniques to calm myself down that I have learned and sooner or later I drift off to sleep.  Sleep, my greatest fear.

When my eyes close the real terror begins and it refuses to let me go.  I see you every single fucking night in my dreams, or nightmares to be more accurate.  You laugh at me, throw stones at me and usually end up literally ripping out my heart and eating it in front of me.  The trouble is that I do not wake up, the terror grips me and does not let me go.  When I do wake up I find my throat sore from screaming while I was under.  The dreams have been getting worse with each passing night and each day they seem to define my first few hours awake.  They are so real that I have trouble distinguishing reality from my dreams.  I pinch myself constantly to see if I am awake, I know that is not normal.  I feel like I am living waking life, not knowing if what is happening is real or a dream.  It is an utterly terrifying feeling.

Last night we were both in a house that was square shaped, with an opening in the middle so you could see across to the other side.  I was lying in a room full of broken glass, rolling around in agony and losing blood rapidly.  I remember calling out to you as you watched me from the landing on the other side of the house.  You were laughing hysterically as I bled out.  The last thing I remember from the "dream" was you walking around the landing to stand above me.  "You did this to yourself," you said.  I woke up covered in sweat and out of breath, completely terrified. 

The thing that bothers me, and I know causes these nightmares, is that you do not care.  You want to pretend I never existed, that these three years we shared together never happened.  To you I am just a piece of roadkill in your rear-view mirror, to me you are the thing I miss the most.  I cannot tell you the pain this causes me, the detriment to my mental health it causes and the desire to get high that it constantly lays on my mind.  I want forgiveness.  I want you to say that you understand.  I want so much from you that I know I will never get and my sub-conscious is not letting me forget it.  I know I will never hold you again and am coming to terms with that, but not talking to you is so painful.  To not be able to tell you how I feel and how sorry I am is absolutely killing me.  I feel it eating away at me every single moment of every single day.  Sooner or later there will be nothing left of me.  You once told me you were scared of the power I had over your heart.  I am terrified of the power you hold over me to this day.  I wonder if you always will.

I wish I had someone I could talk to about this terror.  It has a stranglehold on my life and is keeping me from healing from the deepest wound I have ever suffered.  I wish someone understood how this felt, plenty of people tell me that they do, but I know they do not.  They may know some of it, but only I am trapped in my head.  Only I see these nightmares.  Only I feel this pain.  I know you bury it, but for me it is always just below the surface just waiting to drown me again.  I am so confused.  You torment me every night and I cannot let you go because of it.  I wish I could be like you, just cutting me out of your life and forgetting me, but I don't want to.  You are too special to me, I still love you and I always will.

To me that is the definition of terror.

... --- ...

Written 9/15/11

I didn't know quite what he was doing, tapping out that rhythm on my head.  Took me a few minutes to get it but after a bit of explanation I got it.

S.O.S.

I'm sitting in a psych ward, terrified, paranoid and the like.  Figure that when I got here I'd be sitting around with a bunch of nuts banging their heads against the wall.  Maybe I'm right, maybe not, but I seem to think that I am more right than wrong.  Sitting in the lunch room watching two guys almost beat the shit out of each other over something so utterly minor makes me think, "this place is fucking nuts and I don't belong here."

But then there is this guy, "Mr. S.O.S.," I'll call him.  He was the patient I first saw when I walked into this minimum security prison and I knew he could see the fear in my eyes.  He didn't say anything at first, kind of took a moment to size me up (as I have found myself doing since I've been in here), but after a minute he just said his name and shook my hand.  I went to the nurse's station, got my drugs and went to bed.

I awoke to blinding sunlight in my eyes (no shades, guess they figure I'll try to hang myself from them) and the nurses banging on my door to get my vital signs.  Suddenly I remembered I was not in my nice bed next to my love, I was here.  A mental hospital.  I cried as they took my blood pressure and the thought washed over me.  Finally I got myself together and went (was forced) into the cafeteria for breakfast.

Strangely enough, Mr. S.O.S. had saved a seat for me and waved me over.  We started talking, not about why we were here, just talking.  It was like he could see in my face that I was freaking out.  HE made stupid jokes and managed to eke a smile out of me.  I barely knew this guy, I figured that I'd be in here for months until he told me he had arrived only a few hours before me.

I really don't know what else to say about Mr. S.O.S., like I said, I barely know him.  He saw me starting to freak out in the hallway and took me back to my room to lay down.  But before he left, he knocked out the following pattern very gently on either side of my head.

... --- ...

S.O.S.

I don't know quite what it means yet, but I have an idea and nothing but time to think about it.  "Think about what this means," he said softly and then left the room.  Strangely enough, he is a patient just like me, but he has helped me more in the 24 or so hours I have been here than any doctor has.

I don't know what else to say about that.