Tales on the Time Clock

Back to the Start

2012-02-12T12:16:00.002-06:00

The irony is not at all lost on me. It was a Friday that day as well, just a little under four years ago. I
distinctly remember spending the first half of that boring day reading various sex blogs while I was
supposed to be working, something I had been doing for a few months at that point. Mainly I was just
looking for a way to help speed the clock along. After a little while I figured I could kill a few more hours
if I started writing one myself.

I sometimes think about how that day has so greatly impacted my path over these last 4 years, it started
in motion a chain of events that I wouldn’t have believed if you’d told me back then. That little domino
chain moved me halfway across the country and back, found me falling in love and having my heart
broken and left me generally wondering where the hell my place in this world is.

I won’t pretend to know how to frame this chapter of my life in the grand scheme of things, I have a
feeling it is going to take some years to gain an understanding a bit further removed from raw emotions.
One way or another, this little adventure has brought me home and left me with so much to process
that most of the time I don’t even bother.

I liked to think that when I put that ring on her finger that this blog would finally outlive its usefulness.
Man plans while God laughs, right? It seems this is a hard thing to kill. It seems this whole thing is hard
to kill.

For some reason I keep looking for closure, regardless of the fact that I know I won’t ever get any. I
thought it might ease some of the slowly fading pain, but I’ve come to discover that it only prolongs the
forgetting process. I, however, have a distinct feeling that this is not something I will ever forget, nor is
it something I am meant to forget.

I walked through that old neighborhood on the last day of 2011 and sat on the steps of the high school
across the street from our old apartment. I wasn’t meeting my friends up in the Bronx for a few hours, I
wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t there to do anything stupid, more so just to try and find some sort of comfort
on that street corner in Brooklyn. I dropped the note with her name on it in the mail slot, lit another
cigarette and looked up at the light in our old place one last time as I walked away. I never did hear back
from her, which was not shocking, I just had to say that last thing.

From the first day I started writing this blog until that last day of the year I have had some of the
happiest and some of the most painful moments of my life. So with that being said, if I could go back to
the start and fix everything or do something differently, I wouldn’t.

See, in one sense I am actually back at the start. I’m back at a desk doing a job for the same pay as I was
four years ago. I’m looking out the window watching the snow pile up and hoping five comes soon. It’s
Friday and I’m bored at work so here I am…back at the start.

I'll Be Waiting

2011-12-15T23:54:00.000-06:00

I find it quite ironic that I have finally gotten to the point where I am only reader. I've been wanting for this for a long time. I thought I could avoid it, but this website fails to let me forget it. I guess it is just you and I reading this...and let's be honest, we both know you have no interest in reading this.

I thought about it a lot tonight as I was driving home, which is funny because I didn't think about it when I was driving out there. East on National Ave doesn't seem to be a problem, west is a totally different story. I'm not stupid, I have a great fear of being alone. I am so completely content when I head east, I have all my friends waiting for me, but headed west...that is a totally different story.

It's strange to see a pillow next to me in this bed. I think each time as I get in what it was like to have you lying next to me, but when I wake I see nothing and I remember. I had this dream the other night, I don't know quite how to explain it. You were there, you wanted me back...funny, right? I should have known it was a dream right then, but I couldn't help being sucked back into the life that was you. I guess I don't know what I thought about the whole thing, I just know that when I woke up and found the right side of the bed empty and...well.....

I miss you. I don't know, maybe I more so miss the idea of you. I miss knowing someone was always going to be there next to me when I laid down for the night. Who am I kidding? I miss you. You know, I'm alright with that. My dear, I'll be waiting.

I am going to try so hard to spread out those eastbound times, times when I am feeling on top of this town. I am not going to concentrate on the westbound blues that always call your name into my head. I miss you, regardless of whether the feeling is mutual or not, and I don't feel any shame about it. I'll be waiting.

Maybe it will be you, I would take you back if you would have me. The thing is, I know you won't. I suppose I'll be waiting for someone to take your place. My sponsor keeps telling me that I will never find a woman who will top you and I agree, I don't want someone to make me forget about you. I want someone who I can use the knowledge I learned with you. I want someone who will be there for me when I fuck up. I want someone who I can be there for when she fucks up. You were just too perfect...I could never live up to your standards.

I just want someone, but in the meantime I am happy enough with me. I know she will come along someday and I hope he comes along for you. I don't know about you but...I'll be waiting.

When I Lie, I'm High

2011-12-06T23:26:00.001-06:00

Hi my name is Patrick and I am an addict.

"Hi Patrick."

I don't know how to start saying all of this and I don't quite care what anyone thinks of me for saying it. It must be said and it must be said aloud. No more hiding and no more lies.

Some of you now what it took to get me here and I'm not going to rehash an entire life to get the point across to those who don't, so you'll have to settle for the abridged version. Suffice to say that I am an addict who had someone who truly tried to save me from myself. I dropped my life and moved to New York for that woman. I worked my ass off when I got there to make a life with that woman. I asked that woman to be my wife.

They say that there is no one too stupid for recover, only those who are too smart for it. Some think that they can do this on their own, that they are somehow better than their addicted peers. I would be that oh so smart dumbass, but we'll get to that in a minute.

As I was saying, I had this woman once who took it upon herself to save me from my malfeasance. I lost that woman because I am an liar and a addict. She left me over the phone while I sat in green scrubs in a psych ward a thousand miles away from home. So there you go, background. Now, moving right along, I have a few things I need to say.

I've been having a really rough time getting over what happened in New York, I just can't seem to shake it. I have been half-assing this program from the minute I didn't have to piss in a cup for this very hospital. I can't seem to deal with the pain on my own, I keep taking the so-called "easy route." I wrote this email the other night to said ex, I was drunk and feeling sorry for myself, hoping maybe she would say something that would take this pain away. Maybe she forgives me, you know, maybe she understands.

The old quote keeps ringing in my head:

"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that I can never trust you again."

Shockingly enough she responded, I don't know what I was expecting to hear. I wanted her to say that she loved me, that she knew that I loved her as well...I guess maybe I'm dumber than I thought.

"I never doubted that you loved me. But the lying came before me. The alcohol came before me. The drugs came before me. I was always last on your list of priorities."

Oh how that stung. I feel it beating in my chest now, crushing me and begging me to get drunk and forget. Trouble is that no matter how much I smoke, how much I snort or how much I drink...I don't fucking forget. That's what makes this next part hurt so much. You see, she ordered the three things I put in front of her just as they were intended. They say the steps were written in order for a reason, so were her words.

Lies

Alcohol

Drugs

I'm might be dumb but I ain't stupid, I know why she left me and I fucking knew it before she ever wrote me back. I've been living a lie my whole life and that lie has taken nearly everything from me, it almost seems I won't be satisfied until it truly takes the last things I have. That brings me to my point.

I have these two orange keytags, "Orange you glad you're in recovery," you know? It is more like, "orange you supposed to be clean when you take those fucking things?" I took both of them under false pretense. I lied about my clean time, talked out of both sides of my mouth in these meetings and fell back into the same piss poor routine that I have lived my whole life. I thought for a while it was no big deal, I could hit that bowl one time or have just that one drink. Kinda threw that theory out the fucking window driving home drunk the other night. Took a keytag the next night, cause I was to embarrassed to admit it...pretty pathetic, huh?

So like I said before, "there is no one too stupid for recovery, only those who are too smart." I guess I'm not so smart after all. See, that email from the woman who ripped my heart out of my goddamn chest told me something I knew all along but did not want to admit. I am fucking lying again, just like always.

When I lie, I'm high.

I want to give these two keytags back, I do not deserve them and I never should have taken them. Think of me what you will for this, but it is better to feel the pain now than later. It is time to take responsibility for my actions and stop hiding. The lies have to stop or I will never get clean, I will never be happy, I will never hold down a job and I will never find love again. I can't handle that thought, at least I can't handle the thought of preventing myself from the chance at each of those. I would ask for your forgiveness but I know the only reprieve that matters is the one I give to myself. I may fail again but for God's sake I must be honest about it and learn from my stumble. Life on life's terms, right?

Hiding My Heart

2011-12-05T00:03:00.001-06:00

"I wish I could lay down beside you when the day is done,
And wake up to your face against the morning sun,
But like everything I've ever known you disappeared one day,
So I spend my whole life hiding my heart away."

I guess I should be sad as I write this, who am I kidding, I am sad as fuck. I've had tears in my eyes for the past hour. I am still so desperately in love with Nicole and nothing makes me feel weaker than that. I gave up everything for a chance at our love and it was all thrown back in my face. Quite frankly I am not sure how I am supposed to recover from this. Not only did I lose her but I lost my career, my independence, my savings and my dignity. I am almost 27 years old, unemployed and living with my parents. Even more embarrassing is the fact that they are paying for my Cobra and my car insurance, simply because I have no money to pay for it on my own. Look where love got me.

Ah love, it got me sneaking bourbons in my parent's basement and having my dad come down and asking me what the ice was for. I'm through lying, I'd rather just admit the disgusting human being that I am. He handed me the drink and told me, "I can't change anything, they are your choices." Funny, isn't it? They have always been my choices, just ones I have made so poorly. These last few weeks I have been in such a cloud of depression that I have a hard time seeing the good in my life. I, in fact, wonder if there is any good in this life of mine. I've been thinking a lot about joining the infantry, going to war and seeing if that would change me in some way. Crazy thought isn't it? My dad told me it was just another way I was trying to commit suicide. I told him at least it would be a noble death. That would be a delusional person speaking.

Now that we are over that (I might as well note that it was blended Canadian Whiskey) I should get back to what I wanted to talk about. I sat around with the old man for a while tonight, seems like he finally gets me to an extent. He sat outside as I smoked and listened to me cry over how much I missed Nic. He told me something that hurt more than anything, "I saw you happy with her." I couldn't control the tears when he told me that because it was totally true. I have not been happier than I was with that beautiful woman by my side. Of course he went into the, "remember how badly she fucked you over," conversation. I just can't see that right now, I am too much in love. I truly wish I wasn't. I wish I could hate her and curse her name, all I can do is miss her like no one else. I am paralyzed by this woman. Unable to move forward without a dream or thought of her that pulls me down into such sadness. I do, however, have a solution.

That was it, I am fucking done. I wrote earlier on this stupid website that I didn't want to find my dick getting wet in some unknown woman. I don't care about that anymore, I just don't want my heart getting involved. My dad kept telling me that no matter what I would someday find a woman who would change all that, someone who I would fall head over heels for. The trouble is that I've already done that, look where it has gotten me. I have never felt such pain in my life. Not facial reconstruction surgery, not kidney stones and not nut cancer. Nothing has been nearly as bad as this. So...I've come to a conclusion. I've stolen it from an Adele song, I plan on hiding my heart.

I guess that someday I will meet a woman who will blow me away, I just want nothing to do with her. It is not worth the risk. This pain is so intense that I would rather be lonely than experience it again. So now we come to the title of this post. I plan on burying my heart as if it did not exist. I don't have anything to give anyway, why should I waste my time? What is the point in putting my heart out there again? Loneliness seems like such a better option. I never want to feel this pain again. This rejection was too much for me to handle, something I still can't cope with. Why in god's name would I want to do it again?

I'd much rather be alone.

Until You Remember

2011-11-29T23:29:00.001-06:00

I don't know how I didn't stress over it the few weeks before I left, maybe it was the stop over in Louisville that kept my mind off of it. I wasn't even thinking about it as I read the signs passing by, the miles peeling away with each passing minute.

"Cincinnati: 90 mi"

"Cincinnati: 50 mi"

"Cincinnati: 20 mi"

I'm doubting you would remember that distance, you never were good with directions, but it was the distance from the I-275 bypass exit onto I-71 headed up toward my old place. It hit me hard right when I saw the sign for the airport and only got stronger as I grew closer. Every mile marker on that fucking freeway had some memory of things we had said or done together. Telling you about the now finished hospital building that I had shipped steel to when it was being built. Having you nearly naked in my front seat as we passed the Reading Rd. exit. The feeling I in the pit of my stomach as we would hit the off-ramp at exit 5, knowing that in just a few short minutes nothing would be between us. Holding your hand for dear life as we drove through the blinding rain to send you back on that fucking plane.

I remember all that shit, same as I did when we visited together.

The difference is now I have to remember all this on my own. I drove past my old place on Dana Ave., the one we used to make the bed on the floor in, the one I fell in love with you in. I wanted so badly to pull into the parking lot and sit out on those three steps where we used to smoke together. Tears already clouded my eyes and I figured I would be better off just passing by.

I could go on and on about all the places I saw your face in, I just don't feel like rehashing that hurt again. Suffice to say that I saw you everywhere, even in places where so many other memories were born...you took over all of them. I knew the second I crawled into the spare bed at TJ's house that I was fucked. I remembered exactly how it felt to have you there next to me, proud as hell that you loved me. It's no wonder I spent the whole weekend drinking and smoking.

Then again, that is what you wanted to hear...right?

I saw you so much in that place that I could not bear to handle "life on life's terms." The only thing I could think to do...want to do...was numb the feeling of you out. Like I said, this is what you wanted to hear, right? I keep getting the feeling inside that deep down you want me to fall flat so that your decision to ditch me is justified. That being said, I truly have no fucking idea what you want for me...you won't even speak to me. Makes me wonder if you're going through the same thing I am. Am I really alone in this hurt? Are there nights when you think about me as much as I do you? Do you ever wake up thinking I'm lying next to you like I do you?

I don't know and I know I never will.

I don't really wonder why you left me, I would be a fool for doing that, I wonder if it hurt to do so. You damn well know it hurt me, I just wish I could know that I made enough of an impact that you still think about me. I remember all of the reasons why I fell in love with you, everywhere I turn I see something that reminds me of you. What I really want to know is if you think about any of the reasons why you fell in love with me? Do you ever remember me fondly? Do you ever miss me? Do you think of me as a waste of your time? Do you think of me as nothing but a morally weak addict and liar?

Things without an answer, right?

I hope that someday you remember the good things about me. I hope someday that we will speak again, that I will get a chance to tell you I'm sorry and hear your voice again. I am holding out on such a stupid and unrealistic hope, something my head clearly knows but my heart doesn't. I'm not stupid, I just want to know if you remember. Do you remember me like I do you? Do you care what happens to me? Will I ever speak to you again?

Am I the only one of the two of us that feels this pain? Am I the only one who misses you? I've never felt so alone. I miss you Nic. I wish I didn't but I just can't help it. Please don't forget me. I know I'll never forget you.

Family

2011-11-28T23:32:00.001-06:00

I decided to kill myself a bit over two months ago. I don’t know right now what I was thinkingand what my motivation was, but I wanted to do it. There was one thing…person who held meback. I thought about her, looking overmy grave, unable to forgive me for what I had done. That thought right there made me turn aroundand check myself in.

It sure is ironic now that she wants nothing to do with meand couldn’t care less what happens to me. If I died tonight when I went to sleep she wouldn’t shed a tear, letalone know that I left this world. Amazing how she totally defined my world. I would have done anything for her, anythingand I probably still would. I could notbear hurting her…and so I turned that car around.

Tonight I sat out on the back porch of my cousin Leslie’shouse smoking a cigarette and thinking about that afternoon. I thought about all the people inside thishouse who actually love me, not ones who just say they do. Why weren’t they the ones I thought aboutwhen I made that U-turn? I can only seeit now, but why didn’t I think about the people who have loved me and proven itwhen I made that fateful decision?

I was blinded by the “love” of a woman who told me she wouldnever leave me. Les told me a storyyesterday that really hit me hard, a story about when she and her husband gottogether. He had back surgery only a fewmonths before they bought this beautiful house that I am in right now and hadbeen given a serious prescription to painkillers. It seems almost needless to say that hebecame addicted to them. Les told meabout how much of a mess he was and how she thought about leaving him so manytimes…but didn’t. She told me that theyhad invested too much into their relationship and that she couldn’t possiblywalk away from him, she cared for him too much.

I sat there wondering why I was not granted the samefavor. Why was I not good enough for thewoman I loved to stand with me when I needed her the most? I finally realized tonight why my normallypassive and quiet brother says he would kill her if he ever saw her again. She left me in my darkest hour. She ran because it was the easiest thing todo. She told me she loved me but wouldnot be my rock when I needed her the most.

So I thought again about that U-turn and why I thought abouther instead of the family that would love me no matter how far I hadfallen. They cried when I told them howbadly she had crushed me, I could see my brother gritting his teeth. You see, there are people in this world whowill love you for who you are…no matter what. There are also people in this world who will say that they do but don’tmean it, they will run when the going gets tough. I am finally realizing the difference.

I may be without the one I loved, but am never without theones who love me. I wouldn’t trade thatfor the world. I know she loved me; itjust hurts to realize that she did not love me enough to stay with me when Ineeded her the most. She could say itall she wanted…it just wasn’t the same. On the other hand, my family never have to sayit and yet I know anyways.

I am thankful for my family. Thankful for those who actually love me, not who just say they do. I am thankful to be done with the pain andbetrayal that was New York. Thankful tobe back in a place with people who care about me no matter how far I fall. Thankful to be with people who see the goodthings about me that I cannot. Thankfulfor my family, the ones who truly matter.

Thankful that I now see that.

It's In The Pudding, Dumbass

2011-11-21T17:20:00.001-06:00

"There is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in ourrecovery; this is an attitude of indifference or intolerance toward spiritualprinciples."

This is a passage from one of the readings at the beginning of every Narcotics Anonymous meeting. It is one I have been struggling with since I first entered (was forced into) the program. More accurately it is something I have been struggling with since I became old enough to think for myself. I have always believed that there was something greater than myself working in this world, guiding me through this life...I just didn't know quite what.

I'll be completely honest when I say I still don't have a fucking clue. They call it the "God of our understanding" at meetings, but my sponsor wisely calls it "the God of my misunderstanding." I guess I am not so good at accepting things that I do not understand. The trouble is that right now I am completely lost. I have no idea what the hell I am supposed to be doing, let alone why I have to endure this heaviness in my chest. I guess that is the definition of "the God of our misunderstanding," isn't it?

A friend suggested that I keep a "proof" list, a list of ways that I see something greater than myself working in this fucked up world. I started last night with my writing about how her letter to me was a hell of a sign. Tonight I want to document one more that has been on my mind a lot since I have returned to Wisconsin, you might even call it proof.

When I got back into town, completely heartbroken and defeated, I went back to work at the meatpacking plant that I worked at growing up. Needless to say it was what you might call...well...fucking demoralizing. Every time I was there I thought about her and how far I had fallen, for fuck's sake I was working here in high school! Just a month ago I was making a good salary, living in Brooklyn and engaged to a beautiful and smart woman. Look at where I am now...

I came in one Saturday and it was just me and my uncle (who owns the place). We chatted for a few minutes before he asked me to pick up the garbage in the front lawn and cut the grass. The first thought was, "fucking awesome, I won't have to work in the freezer," and I grabbed some imitation latex gloves and headed outside.

The thing about the plant is that it is located smack dab in the middle of the worst fucking neighborhood in Milwaukee. I headed outside and started picking up the ridiculous amount of trash in the front yard on that warm fall day. I got about a quarter of the way before I bent down to pick up a coffee cup. It was covered in dirt, obviously there for a long time, waterlogged to the point of near disintegration.

I bent down to pick it up, not paying attention as I reached my hand down for it. As I lifted the cup up I noticed something sticking straight up at me from the grass, a hypodermic needle. I felt the wind leave my lungs. I sat down in the grass, completely terrified at how close I had come to Hep C or HIV or something fun like that. What the fuck? I just came an inch from getting stuck by an AIDS needle, that shit was just too much to handle.

I threw the needle out onto the street and cut the grass, angry music blasting in my ear-buds. I didn't think much more about it, but for some reason it kept popping into my mind.

I went to a meeting that night at the psych facility in a posh little town by my parent's house and could not help but thinking about that brush with infectious disease on the way there. I was clean for the first time in a long fucking while, thoughts seemed so...real. Why did this encounter happen? What did this mean?

I walked into that meeting and realized what it meant as soon as I planted my ass in the chair. My addiction is always waiting in the grass, ready to prick me and send me down the same old path if I am not paying attention. What else could I see that as but proof that something somewhere is trying to tell me something? How naive could I be to think that was just a simple coincidence.

I don't believe in fucking coincidences.

I suppose this is another notch on my "proof" list. Proof that something greater than me has a hand in my life, something my stupid ass addict brain cannot control. Something I have to open my eyes to see. Strange because for so long I didn't want to believe that something was taking place beyond my understanding. Strange because it is something I have to take my fogged up glasses off to see. Strange because now that I have them off, I see better than I ever have before.

An Answer

2011-11-20T22:44:00.001-06:00

I was outside on the back deck a few minutes ago, watching the tail end of the Sunday Night Football game through the living room window while I smoked my cigarette. I had been thinking for an hour or so about the next post I was going to write, "Hell Hath No Fury," about how I wondered if this suffering I am feeling right now was her revenge on me for the hurt I caused her. I looked up to the sky and I asked (pleaded) something along the lines of, "what does this mean?"

I went back inside, sat down and turned on my computer all set to write yet another post that would send me to bed depressed. I went to my reader and saw that there was a new post I wanted to read by someone I follow. I felt tears welling up in my eyes when I read the first line:

"Dear ez cheese,"

At first it reminded me of a time when someone else whose blog has long been deleted wrote to and about me, that memory hurt. After a few lines I realized it was something written by someone who does not know me but has felt this pain and wants to see me relieved of it. It is a feeling I am still unable to put into words.

There is a line that struck me in that post, "You truly start to believe (and, eventually, trust) that there is a Higher Power and a plan for you, for me, for her, for him." The "Higher Power" concept is something I have truly been struggling with as I wade through the muck and mire. I grew up believing but came to have that belief shattered as I grew older and things started to get bad in my life. I know now that an indifference to spiritual principles will hinder what little recovery I have gained to this point. Correction, it is something I know in my head but have yet to understand and accept in my heart.

I asked the above mentioned question and looked around as if a fucking bush was going to start on fire or some lighting was going to strike out of the sky. It didn't happen, I flicked my smoke and walked back inside wondering why the hell I even bothered. Then I found this letter, written to me, and I realized that I had my answer.

This is my opportunity to fix the shattered definition of a life and to bring happiness into my world. I have finally started to come to terms with the fact that I am never going to get her back. Notice I use the word "started," I use it on purpose. I can say it as much as I want, "I am never going to get her back," see I just did it, but I know it is going to take time to believe it. What is going to take even more time to believe is that I will someday gain the happiness that I have always missed out on. The catch is I'll only get there if I work for it.

It takes a lot of conversations with my boys, support from my family and reminders from friends I barely know to keep me on track. I find myself truly grateful for all of them but for right now I am grateful for my first "A."

An answer.

Things Without an Answer

2011-11-19T00:24:00.001-06:00

It has been like this every night for almost two months. I just can't seem to forget and I'm beginning to wonder if I ever will. I wish these thoughts didn't paralyze me every day, but then again I wish for a lot of things.

Mostly I wish for a fucking time machine.

When the sun is up I think of her but I seem to be able to pass the thoughts quickly. I hear the TV turn on and it plays the same tune the one in our apartment did. I put on the Rangers sweatshirt her parents bought me for Christmas. I watch the old shows we used to watch together. I don't do these things because I miss her so much, I do them because they are part of me now. When the sun is up I find it much easier to send my mind in a different direction. Right now is a completely different story.

She comes to me as I try to close my eyes and sleep, something that seems to elude with me each passing night. I truly wish I could let go of this but I seem to be unable. There are too many questions that remain and always will remain unanswered. My mind seems to rekindle the hurt in my sleep. Funny how you wake up from a great dream (like winning the lottery or something) and then go back to sleep and it is gone. Funny how you can wake up from a nightmare about being in a hospital and getting shitcanned and then go back to sleep and it picks up right where it left off.

I don't know if this is part of the process of dealing with the pain of a loss so great as this. I don't know when, if ever, this wound will not be so raw. Mostly I hate all of these "I don't knows" that come over me when I hit the hay at night. I hate that I wish I could go back in time and do everything differently, but the fact is that I wish I could and I can't change that. She told me once she hated that I had such a power over her, a power over her heart. I guess I can only laugh when I think that she has much more power over me than I ever thought anyone would. Well, to be quite honest, I can't laugh at it. I can't even cry over it. I fear I would never stop.

I often wonder if I am the only one out of the two of us who feels this hurt. I wonder if I am the only one who lies awake at night thinking of the one they used to love. I suppose I shouldn't lie and come right out and say "the one I still love." Again, I hate that she still has this power over me. I wonder if she has found someone new, I wonder if she is looking and then I cringe at the thought that I let her slip through my fingers. I lose sleep thinking about everything I did wrong and everything I had the chance to change.

It seems I always come back to the one moment when everything came crashing down around me, the phone call. I remember hearing her voice, so grateful that I had someone who loved me regardless of the fact that I was in a psych ward. Every night. Every night I relive the question I asked her...

"What time are you coming to visit tonight?"

"I'm not."

It never seems to end. The questions never seem to answer themselves and I am beginning to think that they never will. I go back to all those nights that I cried over how lost I felt in New York and all the times she was my only comfort. The one I moved across the country for. The only one I ever considered asking to be my wife. The only one I ever truly loved. My questions always remain the same: what is she doing, how is she feeling...does she miss me like I miss her?

Things without an answer. Things I will never know. A woman I loved like I never thought possible. A woman who does not want to speak to me again. So many questions. So many answers I will never get. So much hurt to swallow each time the alarm goes off. So many questions and so much pain. Never had I loved like I did with her and never have I hurt like I have without her.

Another sleepless night.

Things without an answer.

What the Hell?

2011-11-13T23:26:00.001-06:00

So I met this girl today when I was out with my friend Dave watching football. She was crude, vulgar and telling dirty jokes...needless to say I was smitten. That's the fucking trouble though, isn't it? I have gone and made this little promise to myself that I wouldn't get into any kind of relationship. The thing is, I hung out this girl for the better part of three hours. Three fucking hours, that's it. It wasn't like I've known her for months or anything.

What the hell?

I guess this is what my return to being single holds for me, falling for every girl who so much as bats an eyelash at me. I'm thinking I might be better off putting saltpeter in my eggs because this is ridiculous. When I got home I fucking looked up the makeup place she owns and found a picture of her. Now that shit is just creepy and not something I've ever done before. I was honestly kind of disgusted with myself. Am I really back to this high school type bullshit?

Then I have the other side of this new little adventure I am unwittingly going on. That would be the "I can't stop thinking about the girl who broke my heart" side. I am getting sick of pining for her every fucking night. A few days ago my dad could see it was getting to me and told me something his dad told him a long time ago, "best way to get over one is to get under another." I had to laugh, not just because he said it but because that very concept has been seriously fucking with my head. I know that old adage works to an extent, I know it because I have done it before...a few times. I also know that it could wind up throwing me right back down on my face. I sure as hell need to learn how to be single and to be comfortable with myself but I sure as hell miss having someone.

I am one co-dependent son of a bitch, aren't I? What the hell? I can't believe I'm actually writing this, much less going to post it. It's like I'm sixteen all over again.

Graduation Day

2011-11-09T22:04:00.000-06:00

So my insurance company decided that I am both sane and not an addict anymore, I didn't realize that shit had a cut off date.

I "graduated" from my intensive outpatient program yesterday and have finally finished up almost two months of treatment. I don't really know what to say about it, I don't feel any different but maybe that is the point. I went to a meeting tonight at the hospital where I did my treatment and the staff brought up a bunch of the "no shoe crew" (inpatients) to join the meeting. They said the typical shit that most newcomers have to say at a meeting.

"I did this this and this and the cops did this this and this and now I know I have a problem."

"I feel like this is the beginning of something new for me, I am never going to get high again."

"I had just hit such a bad rock bottom that I knew I had to change."

I guess you should probably pardon me for being such a pessimist, but that sure as fuck wasn't the way I felt when I was inpatient. It was more like, "When the fuck can I get out of this fucking place and smoke a goddamn cigarette?" I don't know maybe that was just me, but I always wonder how many of them are being forced to go to these meetings and have some sort of "awakening" while there and then go back and plan out how they are gonna buy a bag when they get out. Again, call me a pessimist or an asshole if you must...I never claimed to be anything else.

The thing is, I truly do want to see them at meetings. I want them to get their lives in order and realize all the things that the program can do for you when it is properly followed. I sure as hell ain't perfect and I've had my fair share of fuck ups, but I know I want it...I just hope they do too. I hope they realize that it is going to get so much worse if they go out and conduct more "research and development."

The time came at the meeting to share. I had honestly gotten quite fucking sick of hearing the, "I had a gram in my pocket and a bunch of rigs in my glove box," stories when I decided to say something. I figured I would talk about graduation.

"I graduated from the inpatient program here just yesterday."

They clapped for a second before I told them to hold it. I got the usual "what is wrong with this asshole" looks I get from time to time.

"So like I said, I graduated. All the people in the group told me what they liked about me and wished me good luck and all that shit before they gave me a little coin with the Serenity Prayer written on the back of it. I'm not gonna lie, it felt good to hear them say these things about me, that they see the strength I can't see in myself and so on. The thing is, I left there feeling vulnerable."

They looked at me kind of strangely.

"The truth of the matter is there is no such thing as a 'graduation day.' You don't graduate from addiction, you don't graduate from sneaking around and you sure as hell don't graduate from being a liar. The real fight begins when they don't have you pissing in a cup every day and you don't have the structure of a forced recovery program. This shit is on you now. You don't graduate from addiction, you can only fight it, study it and learn about it. Know your enemy. Know that you can not fight this disease unless you understand it and recognize how it shows itself in your life. Know that you very well might fail but know that you can't give up so easily. Did you give up when your first guy didn't have the shit you needed to get high? No, you went on to the next one. Just remember...you will always be fighting this battle. We only protect what we have through vigilance."

"Thank you Patrick," they said before continuing on with the war stories.

My sponsor came up to me at the meeting and said something along the lines of, "Well didn't you learn it all overnight?" I told him that wasn't the case, just that I saw a bunch of people in the room who wanted to want it but didn't truly want it yet. The newcomer doesn't need a bunch of bullshit thrown at them, they need someone to be honest and brutally so if necessary. They need to know the truth: you aren't gonna be normal ever again.

You...no...we will fight this battle until the day we die.

We only protect what we have through vigilance.

Sweet Forgiveness

2011-11-07T23:48:00.003-06:00

There is a song that I had been listening to a lot when I first moved home. "Sweet Forgiveness" by Susan Tedeschi was listened to quite a bit before that as well, most often after I had fucked something up. It talks about someone who has done wrong but has their lover there by their side, supporting them with love and helping them move on. I thought for a long time that I would always be forgiven by her but I was wrong. I stopped listening to that song a few weeks ago because it had become too painful. I had no one to forgive me and the pain of that realization was too much to take.

I've got this fortune cookie saying that I keep in my wallet which reads, "the first and only love is self-love." I guess I kept it because I knew it meant something, I just did not know what. Every time I would open my wallet I would see it and think about what it meant to me. I had heard the old adage, "you can't love another without loving yourself first," plenty of times in my life and I just brushed it off. I did love someone and I sure as hell wasn't so in love with myself so it didn't seem to apply much to me. I would often times be lead to another thought when I saw it, "maybe because I didn't love myself I didn't love her in the way she needed to be loved." Again, a thought too painful to think. I considered getting rid of the little slip of paper but for some reason never did.

I went to a meeting tonight, my usual Monday night one, which normally is a meeting on one of the twelve steps. I was a little excited when they said that we were having a topic meeting instead and that we would be discussing the topic which an old-timer named Kurt had chosen. He opened his mouth and as soon as the words "Self-Forgiveness" came out I knew there was someone somewhere that was trying to tell me something.

He asked that when he turned the topic over to the group for discussion that we concentrate our "shares" on how we had gone about forgiving ourselves for our past indiscretions. I sat there listening and realized that I didn't know how I went about forgiving myself which led me to the conclusion that I never really have. It seemed so clear to me that what was hindering my recovery, my love life and my overall happiness was my inability to love myself; a condition brought on by feeling guilty for everything I had done and the people I had hurt in the past.

I started thinking about how I had tried to atone for my sins and realized I had been beating myself up about each one of them for as long as I could remember. I guess deep down somewhere I had always thought that the way to make up for my errors was to destroy myself emotionally so that I felt the maximum amount of pain each time and would therefore be conditioned to avoid such hurt in the future. The problem was that I was fucking high every time I went through this process. High because I did not want to feel the extreme level of torment I had become so efficient inflicting myself which, something that in the end made me feel even worse. Sooner or later, after enough suffering, I would go back to my old friend self pity which got me right back to getting drunk of high and making the same mistakes I had fallen victim to time and time again.

I listened to that Susan Tedeschi song on the way home from the meeting and for the first time I found a different meaning in it. I can't rely on a woman, a friend or even a parent to forgive me for what I have done in the past. No, there is only one person whose forgiveness really matters in the long run: my own. You see, the first and only love is self-love. It all seemed to click so suddenly but in the same instant seemed so unattainable.

How does one who has been beating themselves to the bone over every mistake go about changing their frame of mind and cutting themselves a break? That is something I just haven't quite figured out yet, but is something I know I must learn to do if I ever plan on being happy again...or for the first time. I really quarrel with the notion of not crucifying myself after I have fucked up. I know it is a foolish and detrimental way to deal with my past but I know no other way. What is for certain is that I must find a way to take it easy on myself. I am my own worst critic, as most of us are, but I need to learn to be my own savior as well.

No forgiveness matters as much as my own but finding out how to get to that point is proving much more difficult than I ever imagined. I know I have to start somewhere but I just don't know how. I'm hoping that the answer will make itself clear with enough thought. I know it is in there somewhere.

On Trauma

2011-11-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

For a while I thought my little bout with PTSD was caused by this incident on the left. I did end up being jumped in a parking lot mercilessly by three men and then having my face completely reconstructed after all. The more and more I go through therapy, however, the more I realize that this illness has been plaguing me since I was young.

I started talking about it in group this morning and was describing how I used to clear my apartment at gun point and how I would keep it loaded under my bed. I used to take it with me all the time, regardless of where I was. Then I realized that I was doing that long before I ever got jumped. I started thinking about this pattern of behavior and realize it began to take its hold on me during adolescence.

They said I was an angry kid who couldn't concentrate in class. I was constantly getting in fights, disrupting class and quarreling with authority. Of course the standard therapist M.O. at the time for kids acting out was none other than Ritalin. I hated it, it made me feel like a different person in all the worst ways. It was able to curb the class disrupting, but couldn't seem to stop the fighting. I fought my way through grade school and into high school, losing a great majority of them.

I was nothing short of depressed when I got to high school, nerdy suburban kid in a gigantic city school who didn't fit in. I didn't fit in until I discovered pot, that is. Sooner than I expected, I was buying bags constantly and getting stoned as many times a day as possible. I realize that now I was using it to cope with the things happening in my brain that I did not yet understand. The same can be said when I got into heroin, cocaine, hallucinogens and pills. I was fucking stoned on something almost every waking moment of every single day. Before too long I didn't feel much of anything at all.

I moved to Cincinnati for college so that I could get away from all the drugs here, I truly wanted to clean myself up, but the drug use just followed me there. I was having a lot of trouble dealing with the pressure of school and the homesickness that accompanied it and before too long I was fighting again. It seemed that almost every fucking Monday I was coming into class with a black eye or cut up knuckles. It only got worse when I got jumped at a music festival here in Milwaukee one summer break. The kids broke my cheekbone completely in half; turns out that night would come back to haunt me for a long time.

When I graduated and my relationship with my first serious girlfriend broke up I went off the deep end. I started getting paranoid all the time, thinking everyone was plotting against me. I bought guns and got a concealed carry permit, I was rarely without my Springfield. I sat around at home a lot drinking so I wouldn't have to think about all the shit that I had done and that I had endured, trouble is that only made it worse. It was around that time that I began to re-live the sexual abuse I underwent as a child. I began plotting ways to find her and kill her, I was getting out of control but I was too blind to see it.

Then I met someone, completely by accident, and everything changed. She genuinely cared about me, wanted me to stop using and helped me "deal" with some of my demons. I was still living on the edge, but once we met in person for the first time things slowly began to change for the better. Or so I thought.

It happened on the first of December. I pulled into the gas station before work in the morning and apparently had "driven too close" to some jaywalking piece of shit on the street. He and his buddies decided that it would be a good idea to punch me in the face and then proceed to stomp my head into the ground as a bunch of fucking dickbags stood by, watched and did nothing. I remember when they let me go, seeing the blood pouring out of my face as I drove the half mile back to my apartment. I remember being completely consumed by rage as I loaded my AK-47 and prepared to go back to the gas station with the intention of killing every single person there. I only stopped when I saw my eye hanging out of my head, it was time to call an ambulance.

I moved to New York City not long after that to be with the woman I loved. For the first few months everything was perfect: I got a job quickly, we got a beautiful apartment and our relationship was going well. I felt like I had finally stepped out of my shadow, not realizing that it was slowly working its way back into my soul. It started with the nightmares, awful terrors in which I saw the people I loved kicking my face in at that gas station. It continued at work where I was extremely aggressive to the point that it got me suspended twice. I was drinking and smoking constantly and the fighting was getting worse at home. I was lying to my therapist who diagnosed my PTSD and abusing the benzos they had prescribed me for anxiety. I was coming apart at the seams, but I was too scared to admit it. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital where I was so cruelly dumped on the phone. Just another trauma in a long line of them, something they call the "kindling effect."

You see, when I came back to Milwaukee the nightmares got worse, I had them again last night as I do most nights. I can't fucking sleep anymore regardless of the fact that I am so tired I can barely function during the day. I'm having flashbacks that I can't get out of my mind. They haunt me constantly, tormenting me the most as I lie in my bed. I see her face in my dreams, laughing at me as I fail again and again. I cry out to her but she only turns away laughing. I see her and her family stomping on my head at the gas station. I see her ambushing me at Summerfest. I see her touching me and holding matches to my face when I was a little kid. I see all of my horrors personified by her in my dreams and yet when I wake up I miss her so.

Just another trauma in a long line of traumas. Just another mountain I can't seem to climb. Just another event preventing me from healing. A heart so broken, battered and abused that I wonder if it will ever love again.

On Second Chances

2011-10-31T22:44:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-31T21:49:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-24T22:50:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-24T18:47:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-23T19:23:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-21T23:55:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-20T15:06:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-19T22:26:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-19T17:41:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-17T21:45:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-17T00:38:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-17T00:05:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-15T23:32:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-14T15:23:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-13T13:10:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-13T00:48:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-10T22:42:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-10T00:02:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-09T03:19:00.004-05:00

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

2011-10-06T17:16:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

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.

... --- ...

2011-10-01T20:51:00.000-05:00

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.

The Gift

2011-09-29T22:43:00.001-05:00

"The value of the gift given is not measured by the manner in which it was received."

I gave a gift once. One I have never given to anyone else in this world and one I will find it incredibly difficult to give again. I learned something today in group, as I do most days, but today it was something I really needed to hear. They do this little exercise to teach people that they are not worthless, I'm going to teach it to you.

Take a bill from your pocket, it doesn't matter the number on the bill, just take it out and look at it. What is it worth? The one I am holding is worth five American dollars. Now crumple it up, throw it on the floor, step on it and grind it into the surface below you. Look at the bill again, how much is the one you were holding worth? Mine is still worth five American dollars. I would be willing to bet yours is still worth the same value as when we started this little exercise. It will spend the same, because the value of that bill is not decided by how many times it has been pissed on or tucked into some stripper's thong. The value of my bill is decided by the United States Treasury. Let's move on shall we?

I wrote to myself last night and revealed it this morning in treatment. I took their little game and turned it on its head. I wrote about a penny, a worthless piece of change that I don't even bother carrying around. I told them this morning that I felt like a penny that had been cut in half by surgical scissors, even more worthless than when we started. I told my dad that last night and he said that there are a lot of people out there who pick up the pennies I have been throwing away for years. They might be worthless to me, but to some they are the opposite.

I woke up this morning depressed and lonely until I walked out to the car and found something sitting face up on the door handle. A brand new penny. "Clever fucker," I thought to myself. I picked it up and put it into my pocket and went on about the day.

I got called into the counselor's office today and he wanted to talk about something I have only been able to voice in anger when there, my ex. He told me that he was going to try and drag the pain out of me so I could feel it and that it would not be pleasant. So I told him the story, in all its bloody detail and found myself crying by the end. I tried to keep talking but he stopped me.

"Patrick, the value of the gift given is not measured by the manner in which it was received," he said to me. It took me longer than it normally does to get such metaphors, but eventually I got it. He explained that I gave the greatest gift I could have given to someone. I dropped my life, moved across the country into hostile territory and gave my love to a woman who I believed loved me just as much. It does not matter that she did not accept the gift, it only matters that I gave it and gave it sincerely.

He told me that it was not my fault that I was left in the manner that I was, it was hers. He told me that I might be to blame for a lot of what happened in our relationship's failure, but that there is a simple thing you say to your spouse when you get married. "For better, for worse. In sickness and in health." She left me when I was at the sickest point in my life, so sick that I was in denial about it and getting high constantly to stay that way. She left me when I needed the most support and comfort. She left me in a mental hospital with no connection to the outside world. She is the offender. She is the quitter. She does not deserve me and she never did.

I read her blog so long ago and saw a woman who was so beautiful, smart and funny but had been treated like shit by so many men in the past. I wanted to give her the gift of being the man who would never do that to her, who would do anything at all costs to protect her from hurt. I may have failed in that task, but it was not without trying.

"The funny thing," he told me, "is that you are getting your life back on track and learning to deal with your problems while she most likely sits in New York in denial and blames it all on you." Then he said something really powerful to me.

"Fuck her, dude, she never deserved you in the first place. If she was willing to leave you at the drop of a hat in your darkest hour, she never really loved you as much as you loved her." He said that he saw so much in me and that someday some woman would be glad that this happened to me, because it will have made me hers. Someday someone will come around who will accept my gift and who will stand by me in my darkest hour. Someday I will be there to stand by her in her darkest hour. Someday I will find the perfect woman because I love too much not to.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me with a dick that cannot be used for a while, that's for sure. I need to take it easy and stay away from women until I rebuild myself again. Better and stronger than I ever was in that cesspool known as New York City. Someday, however, when I am ready I will give my gift again and it will be received in the way that my ex failed to take it.

Right now, I couldn't give a fuck what happens to her. She will probably end up with the same shitty guys who didn't value her as much as I did. Maybe she will end up alone and maybe she deserves it, but honestly, I don't fucking care anymore. Sure, she hurt me and she did it in the most brutal way possible, but I will be stronger in the end. Stronger than I was to begin with. Strong for the woman somewhere out there who does deserve me.

Contrary to what she may believe or have tried to make me believe, I am not worthless. I am worth loving and I have so much to give. Until then, it is time to focus on me. Fix. Rebuild. Grow. Fight for it. You should all know by now, I am no quitter.

And I am certainly no penny.

The Bitter Pill

2011-09-28T16:31:00.001-05:00

I am sick. I am an addict. I am an alcoholic. I fucking hate saying that, but I have to face the fact that it's true. Much like the bracelet on my arm says, I am toxic. There is one more thing that defines me at the current moment, utterly heartbroken.

So I went out with Molly last night and had an amazing time. We went out for pizza and ended up back at her apartment down the road. We sat listening to music for a while, and before long I found her in my arms. We laid down on the couch and I held her for the better part of two hours. I could tell she knew I had a raging hard on, and I knew we shouldn't be where we were. I kissed her on the forehead and left, standing outside her apartment smoking cigarettes and trying to process what the fuck had just happened.

I came to the hospital today on an absolute emotional high, so naturally I shared it with the group. A few hours later I found myself sitting face to face with my counselor, asking about this new relationship. He immediately knew who it was, "you follow her around like a fucking puppy dude," he said to me. I knew what he was going to say next, but for the love of God I did not want to hear it. The sad truth is that I needed to.

The point was direct and honest. "You are heartbroken and an addict, I normally tell people to wait one year sober before they engage in a new relationship," he said to me. He asked me a ton of questions about where I saw this going and if I thought it was a good idea, it was obvious he did not. Frankly, I knew in the back of my head it wasn't either. He gave me an assignment, a very simple one, don't speak to her tonight and see how it makes me feel. He said that it would help us both gauge how sick I really am. I already fucking know how it is going to make me feel, therefore I am sick as fuck.

I sent her a text saying I was busy tonight and couldn't talk, as instructed, and am now sitting here with tears in my eyes as I write this. I have just come out of the most serious relationship of my life, one that I thought would be the last I would ever have. Now I am single, heartbroken and more fucking lonely than I have been in my entire life. He told me a very simple statement, "you want her to be your new drug so you don't have to face the pain of being left." He couldn't be more right.

I told him that all I wanted to do was go home, get drunk and smoke a fucking joint. He said he already knew that, but all it was doing was casting a fog over me. I had been using that fog in the past to hide from the hurt I have so constantly felt throughout my life. He told me it is time to face the music, and that is was going to be more painful than any other pain I have ever experienced. That's what scares me. I have no comfort, no one to reassure me in the way that my ex did. I am lonely, I am sad and I feel like I am trapped at the bottom of a well. I am so sick of this pain, all I want to do is numb it out, but I can't.

For the first time in my life it is time to actually swallow the bitter pill and face my broken heart with a clear head. I am a victim, he told me, and have been most of my life. I said I'm fucking tired of bring the victim. The only way to avoid being the victim again is to face my pain and to tackle it. I am so scared and alone that I don't know if I can do this. I feel betrayed on every level possible and I don't know how to get over it. He told me that getting fucked up is just going to prolong the pain, and I know that is true, but I do not want to climb this mountain.

I am tired. Tired of this pain. Tired of being the victim. Tired of being the fuck up all the time. I just need forgiveness and comfort and I know both of those are nowhere to be found. I am going to be living with this misery for the next few years and I don't know if it will swallow me as it almost did a few weeks ago. The trouble now is that the misery is multiplied by 1000%. I was looking for comfort from Molly, but I now know that is the wrong place to be looking. I have to look within to find it. I have to man up and swallow the bitter pill. I can only pray that I will be strong enough because right now I have never felt more weak. I just want this to stop, but I know it won't.

The bitter pill is that things are going to get significantly worse before they get anything close to better. I just hope I am strong enough to fight this and win. I guess it is time to put back on the armor I took off almost three years ago and prepare for war because this is going to be the fight of my life, in fact, this is going to be the fight FOR my life. God help me I am so alone. Please just walk me through this. I cannot do this alone.

Molly

2011-09-27T13:53:00.000-05:00

So I met this girl named Molly in my PHP program. It didn't take long before we were talking on breaks and exchanging phone numbers. The trouble I am having right now is learning what it means to be single. Does she want to be friends? Does she want to fuck? Does she want something real? I have not a clue, and honestly I don't know what I want right now either. I guess I really am still in shock.

I asked her if she would like to hang out tomorrow night and she said yes. Let's just say my parent's basement is not the place to host a lady, so we are going out for dinner. Now my primary reasoning behind pursuing this whatever the hell it is, is because I need someone to talk to about the hurt I have been through. Someone who understands and won't judge me. Someone who is clean and sober and can maybe offer me some sort of comfort.

Basically I just need a new friend, not to say that the ones I have are in any inadequate, but they hang out in bars and will occasionally hit the bowl. I don't really need to be in either of those situations quite yet because I haven't mastered the skills I need to stay sober quite yet. I'm hoping she might help me with that. But honestly I think I am hoping for something more and I feel guilty for it.

All these people tell me that being single after so long is like being free, I couldn't disagree more. I feel lost, not free. When I was not single I knew the role I was supposed to play. I wanted to protect her, care about her and eventually provide for her. Most of all I wanted to love her, in the way she needed to be loved. Right now, on the other hand, I have no idea what the fuck I am supposed to be doing as far as relationships with the opposite sex go. I feel like I'm going through puberty again I'm so fucking awkward.

I don't know whether I should be out there trying to get laid or meet someone new, or whether I am supposed to be laying in my bed crying and being lonely. Since I really had no idea that this was coming, I had no time to mentally prepare myself for being single. I figured being single was over. I was promised that no matter what, I would never be single again. The fact of the matter is that I am just hurting so bad I don't know my ass from my elbows. Over the past few weeks I have been coming to terms that I have been in some kind of pain for most of my life, a good amount of it caused by myself, but regardless; I do not know what it means to be happy anymore.

So that brings me back to where I started, Molly. I don't know if I want to put another woman through what I just put the last one through, but I sure as hell don't want to be alone for the rest of my life.

My mom was telling me last night how much I remind her of her brother who died when I was 7. She kept saying that I was exactly like him in the sense that I would reach my hand out to anyone who needed it, even at my own expense. Too many times that hand has come back bloody. Too many times I have trusted when my head was telling me that I should be more careful. For Christ's sake, look where it got me. I'm sitting in my parents fucking basement after eight years of doing it on my own. What a lesson in humility, but we'll cover that topic at a later date. In any case, after she finished telling me that, she told me that she believed it was the reason he never married, he had been hurt by too many women he put too much trust in. I can actually see myself headed in that direction for the first time in my life.

I am so fucking lonely and good God does it scare the shit out of me. What the hell am I going to do now?

Anywhere But Here

2011-09-26T18:53:00.000-05:00

I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know,
Will never take me anywhere but here.

-The Weakerthans

It's funny and I honestly thought I'd never say this, but I am so relieved that after almost nine years away I am living in Milwaukee again. Earlier tonight I was sitting in a small efficiency apartment with three of the men who were to be my groomsmen brewing a fresh batch of beer. For the first time in so long I felt comfortable. Comfortable enough to have only one beer. Comfortable enough to pass on the bowl. Comfortable to open up and not have to worry about what they would think of me.

Since I left Brooklyn a little more than a week ago I have really been realizing just how much I did not belong there. Too much stress, activity and traffic. It was slowly wearing me down, especially since I only wanted to be there because of the deep love I felt. God that's strange and sad to say, but honestly, after tonight I feel more at home than I ever did in Cincinnati or Brooklyn.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is it was just another act of love from a beautiful, intelligent and caring woman. Leaving me, that is. She knew better than any that I didn't belong in New York and she let me go. Maybe that wasn't her reason, but it turned out that way in the end. She sent me home, my real home, the place where more than one or two people love me. She sent me back to the town where I know everyone's name and they know mine.

Sure I've come back with many more scars in my head and heart, but I am back. It's so nice to say, "oh yeah, I have friends again." It might seem strange, but the place I couldn't wait to get away from eight years ago is now the place I am happier than ever to be.

For that I owe you my greatest thanks. By letting me go, you let me go back to the place I love. Back with the streets I know will never take me anywhere but here, right? That being said, I couldn't be more OK with that right now. There is nowhere on earth I would rather be than right here, even if it did take breaking my heart to get me to figure it out.

I always said I can only learn one way, the hard way. This was by far the hardest way to learn but it sure as hell taught me where my home is and where I truly belong.

Right here

The Other Side of the Coin

2011-09-25T21:26:00.002-05:00

Last night I wrote about all the things I regret, miss and want. Tonight I write about something different. This is my space. This is how I deal with my grief.

I hate you and I hate your family. I bear my fair share of guilt, but let me be clear, if you or your family intended on sparing me and my family any hurt, you all failed miserably. I have never seen such a lack of compassion in my life. I honestly cannot believe I overestimated all of you as much as I did. I really thought you guys cared about me. As the details about how events went down while I was in the hospital I really realize that you guys decided to stop giving a shit about me and my family in an instant.

I think that it is totally gutless that you would not speak to my parents when you knew they were confused and terrified about what was happening to their son. Had the coin been flipped, your family would not have suffered such treatment. I don't often see my father cry, but he did when he made one of the better points I've heard in the past week. They called you and you damn well knew they were so worried about their son, but you would not answer their calls. That is heartless and cold. Beyond that I find it utterly pathetic that you had your father respond for you. I thought adults handled shit like adults but I guess I was wrong.

I almost started laughing when they told me that your dad sent an email late at night saying that you, "would not be available to them," when they needed help as you did in the past. I laugh when I realize you and your family were actually holding important things, things that I needed for my well being and things I love as collateral until you got back your fucking EZ-Pass. How utterly pathetic and lacking in compassion could you guys possibly be. Like I said I now realize I greatly overestimated the character of you and your family. I knew all along I would never live up to your parents standards, and quite frankly I don't think I could have ever lived up to yours either. I wonder if any man will. I truly wish you good luck in finding another one who will try as hard as I did.

Now I am not writing this to alleviate any of the guilt I feel for what happened or to shift the blame. I just need to know that I am not the only one with a burden to carry here. Let me spell this out very clearly. You left me while I was in a mental hospital. Actually you didn't leave me, you didn't have the guts to say it until I forced you to. All you would say was, "I think you need to go home with your parents." All that being said, you did it on the phone so honestly, grow some balls. Come and tell me in person and face the consequences of your decision the same way that I have to face mine every morning noon and night.

You left me all alone in there, no way to call out, no one to cry with and no one to help pick me up off the ground. We both know I had problems and that I wasn't confronting them, but you need to realize that you lied to me. Had the coin been flipped, I would have stood by you until the very end and I think you know that. I actually don't care if you believe that or not. I do and I know it is true.

I find it pathetic that I had to find out from other people the real reason why you were, "asking me to go home with my parents." I find it utterly heartbreaking that you didn't have the courage to help me in the time I needed it the most. I know I hurt you a lot, but I now know this after the fact. We both know that I could not see it either. You should have said more and you should have listened when I told you that your family and their expectations were too much and that they were crushing me. You just did not want to hear it. Turns out in the end that you didn't care after all, we both know who was more important to you. I left my family and friends for you. You sat back and waited for a man to come and be molded into your perfect vision of a husband. Sorry I couldn't live up to it, but at least I tried. You fucking sat on your ass and reeled me in.

Sure your parents were kind enough to me at the time and they supported us, but in all actuality they only cared about you. My father mentioned to me how seriously hurt he was that we had taken you into our home, broken bread with you and that you would not even do them the courtesy of telling them how I was doing or what was going on. How spineless.

Again, I pause to mention that I recognize that I was not 100% behind my treatment, but leaving me in the shape you did was not at all something someone who loved another human being as much as you claimed to would do. And let's just come right out and finish this, you fucking lied to me. I asked all the time because I knew somehow in the back of my head that when I needed you the most or when things got tough you would cut and run. Thank you for showing me your true colors.

The funny thing is that I am sober. The funny thing is that I spend six hours every day trying to tackle my illness, guilt and grief. I throw my all into it, and I do it for me. Two weeks ago I wanted to do it for you. But honestly, fuck you. You and I both know that I would do anything for you, but we both know the same was not true for you. You would have never left your comfy security blanket in New York in order to help me get a sense of peace even though you knew, or should have known since I said it so many fucking times, that it was eating away at me each day.

So you're right. We both need to move on. But I need to move on because I want nothing to do with you. Like I said, you showed your true colors. You ran like a child back to mommy and daddy when things got tough. I had to swallow my pride and be forced to live with mine. But I will rebuild and you know I will. I am much stronger than you, I have been beaten, abused and left to hang out to dry so many times but here I sit. I don't give a shit who believes me, I believe me, the people who truly know and care about me believe me and we all know it is true. Call me delusional or tell me I'm trying to rationalize all you want, but you know that some of this burden is yours.

The difference between us, however, is that I will face my guilt and I will defeat it. You will bury yours and blame me for everything. And honestly, go right ahead, I want nothing to do with you. The thing that is so funny to me and sad at the same time is that I know I will find another woman who will care about me as much as I cared about you. You on the other hand will be hardpressed to find another like me who would give everything up for you, especially in that disgusting place you call "home."

So with that, I bid you good luck. Like your dad so cruelly put it to me, "you play the hand life deals you." Enjoy playing the lonely hand, and good luck finding someone who cares about you as much as I did and do ever again. Don't forget, as your family never failed to remind me, your clock is ticking. Mine is not.

Goodbye my love. I hate you.

What I Want, What I Miss and What I Regret

2011-09-25T03:21:00.002-05:00

I don't know if you read this anymore, my guess would be that you deleted it from your reader when you were doing heart surgery. I've given up on that stupid stat counter shit anyways, all it is is narcissism. Anyway, this is what they call a "Do Not Send Letter," in therapy. I owe us both one.

I miss looking at you, coming home to you after a day spent looking at the dirty and disgusting creatures I interacted with. I want that back, but I know it is now impossible for I am not that much of a fool. What I regret the most, however, is all the nights I took that evening with you for granted. Smoked pot. Drank beer. Played video games. What a waste. I had everything I needed right in front of me but didn't ever quite realize it.

I regret that I realized it too late. I regret that I hurt us both. I want your forgiveness and I want to forgive myself, but I know both of those are impossible. I do miss the times you held me close after yet another fuck up and told me that everything would be ok and that you would never leave me. I regret that I forced you to go back on that promise. I want you to know that there is only one person to blame here. We both know that it is I.

I want you to know that I am truly sorry, but I regret that I used that word so many times that you will never believe it from me again. I miss the days when it meant something to you, when it wasn't just another excuse I was using to cover up for being a fuck up. Quite honestly, the thing I regret the most is fucking up the best thing I ever had going for me. I regret hurting you. I miss the days when it was only love that passed between us. I regret that I have ended those days.

They tell me in group that I'm not supposed to feel shame or guilt for what happened, I think that is bullshit. I regret using my illness as an excuse and I regret not realizing its seriousness until it was too late. I miss the days when I wasn't consumed by this. I miss you.

I want to be able to tell you all of these things, but I know I can't. Like you said when I asked if we could still be friends, "We can't, I need to heal and move on. So do you." So I guess this my regret, that I can never tell you how I feel ever again. I regret that I have to write it by myself in a cold basement in my parent's house at three in the morning. How can I not feel like a failure? I just don't understand. I failed you and me at the same fucking time without ever even realizing it.

I don't know how much more of this I can take. I want to come down from this cross that I've nailed my bloody hands to. There is too much on my hands, but it doesn't feel right, just blaming this on my illness and not taking responsibility for my actions or lack thereof. I failed you my love and I will always regret that.

Before I stop this torture there is one last thing I want to tell you. I want to thank you for saving my life. You may not be in my life anymore, but if it wasn't for you I would be resting in a nice plot of land in Loretto, Kentucky. I want to thank you for getting me into treatment. I want to thank you for leaving me. As much as I hate to say that, you leaving was the wake up call that I needed to get my house in order. I regret not taking on this pain sooner, I had grown used to it always being there. I regret not believing you when you told me I was strong enough to beat this. I regret that only now I realize that.

But most of all, above everything else, I regret breaking your heart. For that there is no forgiveness. That is a burden I must carry, for I deserve it. It is mine now. I keep it in a little place in my heart and in my head. Just like the burn on my arm, I cannot forget. I know I should, but I don't think I ever will.

There will always be a place that you own in my heart, and I regret that it is no longer something you want. Goodbye my love.

Til the Rain Comes Tumblin' Down

2011-09-23T14:58:00.003-05:00

So I've been meeting with a close friend who you might call a "spiritual director," and she gave me a gift on Tuesday. She asked me to reach my hand into a bucket and pick out a "Livestrong" type bracelet, all of which have a different saying on them. We both gave each other a strange look when the blue one I pulled out had the word "toxic," written on it.

"I didn't even know that one was in there," she said, "if I did, I would have taken it out."

"Everything has a reason, Judy," I responded.

This bracelet does have a meaning to me, it reminds me I am toxic and so are my behaviors.

I got back from my annual Tour de Wisconsin with my best friends in the end of August and had been having an extremely difficult time dealing with my PTSD. It was so bad that I was having trouble recognizing the difference between what was real and what was paranoia. I was grading every person I passed on the street or met with an A through F grade based on their perceived threat level to me. I was thinking people were plotting against me, unfortunately the only plot I was missing was the one taking place in the heart of the woman I love.

As Kurt Cobain so eloquently put it, "Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you." That was me to a "T." So I guess that's where the story takes its turn, something I need to write out and get off my chest.

The story begins years back, but the real course of events began on September 11th, ironically enough. My fiancee and I went out to her parents house for her Grandpa's 90th birthday party and she made a simple request while we were driving out there, one that should have been easy to respect. Don't drink.

I bet you can see where this is going. I got frustrated and was having a panic attack and wanted to leave after about five hours of being there, she said no. So what did I do? Drink. Well let's just say that alcohol doesn't exactly interact with my new prescription medicine so well and I ended up having it out with her parents. I said more than I should have and got into an argument with her drunk dad, needless to say it did not end up well.

We left a few hours later and did not talk on the ride home and then proceeded to argue all night long. Her dad made it clear that he did not want us getting married (we had been planning on a civil ceremony so I could go on her insurance in order to get myself into better treatment) until I fixed my head. So I'm thinking to myself, "this fucking guy doesn't give a shit about me or my recovery," and I proceeded to emotionally nail myself to the cross over the next two days. Which brings me to the 13th.

On the 13th I left work early, I was suicidal. I had a note and a plan. Park on the George Washington Bridge and leap to freedom from the mess in my head, but something stopped me, the thought of her crying over my casket, something I could never do to her. So I called her and we decided that I needed to be hospitalized. I was checked into my mental ward at about 0030 on the 13th and spent the next 6 days locked in that hell. I had never felt so alone in my life until she came to visit me that night. I cried on her shoulder and she told me everything would be alright. That, unfortunately, was a bold faced lie because when I called her the next day she informed me that we were done and I was to go home with my parents who were flying in for what was supposed to be our engagement party. It was the last time I heard her voice.

Breathe. Ok.

So now I was sitting in a fucking locked mental ward with schizos and other non-functioning people all alone and more depressed than I had ever been in my life. Long story short, my parents came in Friday, packed my apartment on Saturday and when I was discharged on Sunday we hit the road for Wisconsin. All I could think was that I failed. She told me she was leaving because I was not 100% behind my recovery, which was totally true. I was too afraid to admit to my doctors what was wrong with me because I did not want to hear what they had to say. I was too afraid of the diagnoses that they would lay on my shoulders. She said I was only dedicated to getting my head right for her and not for myself and that she could not take it any longer. I guess I can't blame her for that, but it doesn't stop the tears one bit.

When it rains, it fucking pours.

I spent the next two days in the car with my parents telling them everything I had written in this stupid blog and coming to terms with the fact that I was truly alone and more lonely than I had felt in my entire life. We talked about a lot of things, but most of all how my number one job would be to get my head back together, for me this time. Unfortunately it took me losing the love of my life, the woman I moved to fucking New York for, to realize that fact.

So here I sit, at my parent's kitchen table crying and writing the most painful thing I have ever had to write. I am in treatment Monday through Friday from nine til three trying to figure out how to let go of the massive amount of shame and guilt I feel for destroying my life in New York. Or more accurately, letting my illness destroy my relationship and my life in New York.

I guess I don't know what to say about this. I don't know how to be single, I don't know how to not be in love with her and I don't fucking know what I did to deserve this mountain of shit that has rained down on me. I imagine it is going to be a long time before I can come to terms with it, but until then all I can do is live. I don't know what else to do. I cry every night, I want to drink and smoke but I can't and I am feeling even more lost than I ever have before. I know I've said I don't know who I am anymore, but now I really have no fucking clue. For so long my life revolved around her and now she is gone and here I am, broken and emotionally destroyed.

But at least I am alive.

The only thing I can hope to accomplish is to make sure that I don't make this mistake again and break another two hearts, but let me tell you I'm sure mine will take much longer to heal than hers. Where do I go from here? Why am I here? What did I do to deserve this? The doctors tell me it isn't my fault but I just don't fucking believe them. I guess I just have to wait and see. I guess I just have to figure out how to heal, but I have no idea how to do so. I feel in one sense that my life is meaningless, but in another sense I feel that I have nowhere to go but up from here. I don't know which one I believe more. All I do know for sure is that I am alone and I need to heal. I just don't know how.

"Inch by inch, row by row,
Gonna make this garden grow,
All it takes is a rake and a hoe,
And a piece of fertile ground.

Inch by inch, row by row,
Someone bless these seeds I sow,
Someone warm them from below,
'Till the rain comes tumblin' down"

The Garden Song

Tired

2011-09-12T14:25:00.002-05:00

I've spent the better part of the last 24 hours either sleeping or in tears, I am completely exhausted. I'm exhausted every damn day, come to think of it. Not one single one passes without a battle being fought inside my head. Fear paralyzes me, keeps me from even recognizing myself. Thank God for the mirror. But then again, there's the catch, every time I look in the mirror I see the past. There is no getting around it, I see what no one else sees. Every day I look in that mirror and wonder who is looking back at me.

I have to give this fight everything I have and I haven't been doing that so far, but there is a reason. Some fights you get into not knowing how tough the opponent is going to be, others you make a good calculation and you win. This fight is the former. I feel it eating at me, deep inside of me. I feel it in my shoulders, in my neck and in my back. I feel it taking the weight off my already tiny frame. I can't lose anymore of myself to this fight. Trouble is, I had no idea the Pandora's Box I opened when I started actually started trying to deal with this. How could I have possibly anticipated what this would do to me? I went in totally blind. It was a fucking ambush.

I don't know what to say, I don't even know if I'm punctuating properly and I don't even know what I'm writing right now. The reason I am writing is because it shuts my mind up. Shuts up the unnervingly rapid speed and paranoia. Shuts it all up. All the doubt, the worry, the fear...it shuts it up.

I don't even know why I started this stupid blog in the first place, all I've done is bullshit and play a fucking persona. "Cue 'The Nutjob' on three please." It was fun to go out, get fucked up, ruin my life and wake up and write about it. For some reason there was a part I felt I needed to play. Who knows? Who even fucking cares? All I am is a stranger to you. I'm a fucking stranger to myself. That's why I stopped writing this crap down. Now here I am back, grovelling at its feet begging it to help me shut my fucking head up.

I'm just tired of all this shit. All this fucking worrying and these fucking doctors and their diagnosis and the fucking drugs. I hate the fact that I need them. I fucking hate that I have to be dependent on this shit to keep myself from flying off the handle like I seem to do every god damn time I have a beer. I'm sick of letting everyone down, all these people who care about me. I'm paranoid that they will leave me and it eats at me every second of every day. I can feel it creeping in from the back of my head now. The speed of my typing is going up so I concentrate on wrinting instead of thinking that everyone hates me and is destined to leave me. See, now its back.

Thats the fucking catch, isn't it? It always comes back. I can feel the soreness in my shoulders and my feet. My eyes are dry and I'm hungry but I don't want to eat. Who the hell is this? Who am I? I'm tired of asking these questions. I'm tired of this weight on my shoulders. I'm tired of the sadness and the guilt. I can't take too much more of this, I just really don't think I'm strong enough.

But don't feel sorry for me. Don't forget that there is only one person driving the nails into my cross. Me.

Weak and Powerless

2011-09-12T09:35:00.001-05:00

I wrote a long time ago about a burn I put in my right arm. It is a constant reminder of every single failure I've been through in my life. I thought that moving to New York might make that scar fade, but as I sit here and look at the smoking ash burning into my wrist I realize it has only gotten deeper.

I look at that scar every fucking day. I remember every fucking event that caused me to put it there. The play through my mind in videos I've made so I never forget. Seems like there are more and more videos in my head. More and more shit that I've done wrong. One more time I fucked up and lost control.

I sit here on my roof looking out at the site where the two beams of light fail to penetrate the evenings clouds and I wonder why I am here. I don't mean in this city. I mean on this planet.
I feel more and more like I am dragging the woman I love into a pitiful life which I can't even control. More and more I feel like I will never become the man I am supposed to be. More and more I feel like that man is gone all together.

I was sitting outside work on Friday thinking about all the fights I had been in. Thinking about how I was able to shake off every one of them and get back to business as usual. I started crying when I realize it's been almost two years since the attack and I have lost every shred of my sanity. Tony Adams spent 180 days in jail for what he did to me, but what hurts me more than my face is the chain of events he set in motion with the first punch. Ever since that first punch I have been slowly losing control of my life. Losing control of my vision, of the things that made me beautiful once. I feel like all that is gone. I don't know who I am anymore.

I can't control myself. More than likely I am a danger to my own safety and that scares me so. Losing control is terrifying. But what is even more terrifying is that I don't know how to get it back. I don't even know who I am anymore. All I do know is I feel weak and powerless. Powerless to fight this demon in my head. Too weak to defeat him. Weak. Powerless. A failure.

Maybe that's what I'm destined to be. It is an utterly soul crushing feeling. And if it really is true, I have to ask the God I knew when I was a child, "why?"

"What sin did I commit to deserve this fate?"

"Why me?"

Day by Day

2011-06-30T18:06:00.003-05:00

"Victory belongs to the most persevering." Napoleon Bonaparte.

So apparently me telling my boss to, "suck my dick," didn't go over so well with my company's human resources department, being that they suspended me for five days without pay. The real kicker was the letter telling me that if any (stress induced, mind you) outbursts occur again I will be, "subject to immediate termination and removal from the payroll." Now, I haven't gotten into how insanely stressful and poorly managed my company is, but take my word when I say you wouldn't believe some of the stories I could tell you about this place. Trouble is that with my triple diagnosis of PTSD, Anxiety Adjustment Disorder and Panic/Paranoia Disorder, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Now I'm not listing these diagnoses to try and make some sort of excuse here, before all these doctors I honestly just thought I was fucking nuts (see every other post I've written for further reference on that subject). The thing is, before all these new co-pays and, "uh, about half hour to forty five minutes behind schedule," doctors, I had no idea how to help deal with what was happening in my mind. For a long time I treated it with drugs and drinking, which gradually evolved into an anger outburst issue...the ,"suspended for five days without pay," type. Now that I'm on low-dose medication, thinking before I speak and learning to cope with stress, things have gotten better.

I spent that week off readjusting my attitude and preparing myself for the bombardment of stress that would be coming my way when I came back, but let me be clear, I did all that so I would be ready for battle. They expected me to return with the same arguments and the same negative attitude, but they were wrong. I was ready for them. I know I have to be their "yes man," but if that's what it takes then so be it. Since I came back last Thursday I have worked every single day (unpaid weekends, mind you) and busted my ass while keeping my cool and proving them wrong...at least for now.

Today I went into the HR guy's office to hand in my 401K paperwork and mentioned to him that I had a good week and had adjusted my attitude as instructed. He told me, "It's a day by day process for you," meaning, "If you fuck up tomorrow, your ass is history." So be it, I knew I was stepping back into the fire at 7:00 AM last Thursday and I knew it wasn't gonna change anytime soon.

Like I said, I spent that week off preparing for battle and readying my mind. I plan on keeping this red-alert in my mind for as long as it takes, they will not get the best of me, I will not allow them. The point is, they will not beat me, I will not be defeated and maybe I'll win them over in the process.

But please let me make this very clear one last time, they will not beat me...they will not fucking beat me.

Fight or Flight

2011-06-15T17:18:00.002-05:00

I always tell people at work, "you know, I really did used to be a nice person." I usually follow that up with explaining how all this bad shit that has happened to me has turned me into a spitefully angry bastard. They always dismiss me as a whiner, but I know in my heart what I'm telling them is true.

I frequently talk to the shrink(s) about how poorly I react in times of confrontation or stress, mainly confrontation. Lately whenever someone gets in my face or when I get the sense I am being attacked (regardless of the situation) I respond with gloves off. I feel like a fucking bull charging after a red carpet while not having any idea why. A guy told me at work today, "you just don't think when you talk while you're angry and then you wish you could take it all back." Couldn't have said it better myself.

Getting back to the shrink, who says that I have essentially destroyed my flight reflex and am now geared toward the fight reaction whenever confronted. I explained in great detail how every time I've tried to be the nice guy and back down from a situation it has ended up fucking me in the long run. Once I tried to be a nice guy at a gas station; got my fucking face kicked in. Case in point.

Problem is, in a high stress industry like mine, you are going to encounter stress and confrontation on a daily basis. As my actions of telling my boss to, "suck my dick," today after telling me to do something that wasn't my job demonstrate, I am clearly in no position to adequately handle situations of conflict. This is going to fuck me in the long run at work. Sure I'll talk to the shrink about it tomorrow night and I'm sure she will up the dose of whatever shit she has me taking now, but I just wonder what the hell happened to that nice kid I spoke of earlier, the one who never needed drugs to be himself. I wonder what happened to the kid who people used to say would turn out to be a great employee, the kid who impressed his company so much during the interview that they called him twenty minutes after to offer him the job. I wonder what happened to the kid who used to laugh his way out of these situations and deal with them lightly. Now I'm just a medicated and miserable fuck who can't control himself like an adult.

Some fucking progress...

In any case, I'm sure that they are going to suspend me at work, after this being my third such insubordination incident in the past six months. Someone told me maybe it would be a good time to clear my head. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, I've discovered there is no clearing this head. This anger never seems to go away. The rush to raise my voice and get confrontational is always in the back of my mind, some days I just can't control it.

Today was one such day, one of many lately. More and more this makes me wonder who the hell I am turning into. I never know when I wake up who I will be that day, Dr. Jeckell or Mr. Hyde.

Problem is, Mr. Hyde is gonna get my ass fired.

Atlantic Ave.

2011-05-19T17:44:00.004-05:00

It’s every fucking day with you isn’t it? 45 minutes every afternoon you are the bane of my existence. The fact that you are my only logical option to get home makes you even worse. I must say you are a worthy adversary, but good god do I despise you and it’s only partly due to the fact that you take me through the worst sections of Brooklyn. There is so much I hate about you that I had to fucking record it on my phone so I would remember what EXACTLY pisses me off about you so much.

So, without further ado…

We already covered the part where you are my only option home, so let’s move right along to your traffic situation. The funny thing is that since you have two and a half lanes (and I say that because of the randomly double parked cars in your third lane) you don’t actually have that much traffic…just enough to make the drive annoyingly frustrating for a 6 mile trip. Your poorly timed lights make sure that I have the privilege of sitting for every fucking homeless guy to have the chance to hassle me for change or a cigarette or god knows what.

When I sit on your street looking at the disgusting buildings covered in shitty looking gang graffiti (they look like they were done by blind people) I feel like puking, but not because of that…because of the fucking bus sitting right next to me blowing exhaust in my window. I have to say, I wish you had one ounce of beauty to look at because you are fucking disgusting. Your elevated LIRR tracks are as ugly as my ass and are constantly under construction thus causing the, for some unknown reason, necessary lane closure. To work on the tracks. Which are not in the street. Why do you need to close the fucking street? The tracks aren’t in the street. Honestly, the logic escapes me.

But moving on…

When I do actually get moving it is at an alarmingly fast rate which causes me to have to dodge your constantly changing craterous network of potholes…excuse me, potholes is not the word…fucking craters is the word. As if that wasn’t enough your asshole drivers (present company included) cut each other off to get one or two car lengths ahead like it’s a game. Mixed in with that are your general behind the wheel retards who just should not be on the road, who I constantly have to dodge like a fucking racecar driver. What’s up with those bastards turning right from the middle lane? Where are the cops? Where is the sense of courtesy? Where is the general fucking knowledge of how to operate an automobile? Where is the sensibility? What is wrong with you?

Happy now? You’ve gone and gotten me all worked up.

The thing about you is that every day I dread the turn which brings us together and every day I wish there was another way. You make me miss the days I used to drive down US 50 along the Ohio River with a cold beer or a nice joint, the windows open and the music blasting after a hard day’s work. I miss the trees and the river and the lack of traffic, let alone traffic lights. I miss the barges in the water, I miss the 50 MPH speed limit and I miss the constantly maintained roads.

But honestly, there is nothing worse than getting out of work knowing you and I are going to have a pissing match. I don’t really miss all that shit in Ohio that much, sure it was a nice drive but I wanted to get the fuck home and it was an easy drive. You are the complete and total opposite, the epitome of everything bad about an afternoon commute (aside from the short physical distance we spend together) and a general scourge of my being.

Well that about covers it I guess. Honestly I was just thinking in the car on the way home how much I fucking hate driving on you. I think you’ve cost me at least $1500 in car repairs since I’ve moved here, so yeah, I fucking hate you. See you tomorrow dick.

What I Left Behind

2011-05-19T09:52:00.003-05:00

I knew it was going to be hard when I stood crying on Thomas’ porch before getting in the U-Haul with my Dad. I knew it would be hard when Ashlee cried when I told her and TJ it was certain I would be leaving in a month. They were excited for me, I was excited for me and I knew I would miss them. But until I got here and got settled in, I had no idea how hard losing my closest friends, once again, would be.

I had done this once before, when leaving Milwaukee for college, but making new friends in college is easy when you come equipped your first week with a giant bag of Wisconsin’s best weed. Moving to New York City on the other hand, not so easy. Between the time spent with Nic and the time spent at work it is nearly impossible to make new friends, much less become close to them. This fact has been taking a serious toll on my life since I’ve been here. I feel it is about to get worse.

I am going back to Cincinnati over Memorial Day weekend for the first time since I left, and was quite frankly shocked by the number of people texting and calling to say how excited they are to see me. I thought it would be only about 3 people who would come around, but apparently I was wrong…I am missed in Cinci. I have to be honest, that makes me feel good. Trouble is, I’ll be leaving on that Monday and probably won’t see any of them again for a year. I’ll get back here and remember that the closeness I have with my people in Cincinnati is sorely lacking with people in NYC.

I know it takes time, I am no fool, and without Nic I wouldn’t be able to do this at all, but the fact of the matter is that I need close friends. People I can trust and I know will have my back. Problem here is that no one has had the chance to earn that trust, I’ve just been too busy. But that always seems to be my story these days, doesn’t it? Too busy for this, too busy for that. At some point in time I am going to have to put more time and effort into bonding with the few decent friends I have here so that I don’t find myself in this same position in four years.

Because believe me, having no friends is no fun, it just adds to the stress and the sadness. Like I said I know this isn’t an overnight thing, but something has to change…I can’t keep living like this.

Procrastination

2011-05-18T10:03:00.001-05:00

Everyone in New York City has a shrink. I must say, those fuckers have one hell of a recession-proof industry. Well, now you can count me as one of those jaded, therapy seeking New Yorkers (and I use that term to describe me based on location only) who spend their cash weekly on co-pays to have someone give them more shit to think about.

The new doctor tells me I am a classic PTSD case. I practically laughed at her as I thought about the guys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who actually have PTSD. She tells me, “no, PTSD is very common after any traumatic event.” I’m sitting there thinking the whole time that I’ve never really thought of getting my face rearranged as a “traumatic event.” How foolish of me.

So the problem is that the year and a half since I got jumped has been the toughest, busiest and most stressful year and a half of my life. Between moving here (and all the effort that took) to getting acclimated, between trying to make friends and finding a job, I put my assault on the back burner. She asked me if I have dreams about it, “Dreams,” I asked, “I don’t even think about it,” and the truth is, I really don’t. The problem is that regardless of whether or not I think about it, it is there and good god does it make an impact.

I really started noticing it a few months ago. First it was little things, like analyzing each and every person who passed on the street and assessing their threat level. Then it was flipping out behind the wheel when I got cut off, then it was getting in shouting matches at work. Holes in walls, let’s not get into specifics here but suffice to say I was becoming a paranoid, angry individual. I could and can feel it consume me from time to time, like there is no stopping it once it starts. I liken it to a wildfire, starts small but in a short time is a gigantic blaze totally out of control. That describes me to the letter.

Trouble is that I was too busy to really deal with any of these problems, I just relied on my old friend Mary Jane to help me through the stress. But now life has slowed down a bit, things are settling into place and the “symptoms,” if you want to call them that, are now front and center. I blew up at a family event in front of a bunch of people, embarrassed myself and completely flipped out. It took that night to push myself to go see a shrink, or more accurately it took that night for the people who care about me to push me to see a shrink. I had been procrastinating too long.

I don’t like feeling like a patient, or like something is wrong with me…but something is wrong with me. Can’t fucking wait to sort this one out.

When I'm Like This

2011-05-18T07:21:00.002-05:00

When I feel like this I just want to get high and play videogames. Chain smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Smoke something or take some pills to calm me down, keep me from thinking about…well about nothing, really. I don’t feel like talking, not to the boss or my friends or even my love. I just want to be alone, but at the same time I want to be held.

My thoughts are constantly racing, driving me insane with possibilities…er, possible problems. Then, next thing you know I’m so down I can’t even speak and can barely get out of bed. It comes and goes, medicine or no medicine. They are noticing at work, she is noticing at home and I am noticing when I close my eyes at night that something is wrong. The doctor tells me something is wrong…I think I finally believe her.

The trouble is that nothing really is wrong. I’m engaged, in a beautiful apartment and at a job that pays well, so what’s the issue you ask? I’m asking the same question. I feel like I just want to get in bed and hold her but at the same time I just want to be alone. What is wrong with me? Delaying dealing with all my issues has really come back to bite me in the ass. I’m working at it, but let me tell you…I just hope I can make it.

Left and Leaving

2010-02-19T11:22:00.005-06:00

The sun is out today. The snow is melting, falling from the rooftops. The light blinds the eyes, squinting. It has been dark for so long, it had become difficult to tell night from day. No reason to venture out and no reason to wake up for so long.

But today...the sun is out.

Some say the Earth was made in seven days. Seven days to make the waters, the heavens and the ground. Seven days to put man in the place he was destined to rule. Seven days. The same amount of time left in this place. The bittersweet taste stains the lips.

So this is it. This is what it all comes down to, what every moment of the past two years has been leading up to. Some days it seemed so far away, as if it would never come. Some days it wasn't wanted anyhow. Today is not one of those days. Today is not an end...today is the beginning of creation.

Let there be light.

There is a place waiting for me, one I do not yet know. There is a life waiting for me, one I have yet to live. There is a woman waiting for me, one I have yet to truly demonstrate my love for.

So, my anonymous friends, this moment in time is coming to an end as all things do, but with its death comes the birth of something new. There is no more time clock, no more punching in, no more paychecks to cash. There is nothing left here for me, or the boy I used to be. In seven days a man sets out for a new life...one he thought he would never have.

I sit here and write this as a testament to how hard I have worked. There has not been a moment since I started here that has not been pushing me toward this inevitable conclusion. Not a decision has been made that has not lead me here. Here is the crossroads, the rebirth and the chance to start over. Here, my friends, is the new life I have so desperately longed for.

So I will leave you with something simple, something I hope you will think about...something I hope has meaning for you.

There was once a boy on the edge of his sanity, pushed to his wits end. Battered and bruised. Abused and taken advantage of. Laughed at and disbelieved. That boy no longer exists, in his place stands a man. Resolute in his decision, yearning for the future and hoping on the promise of a new day. One where the sun finally shines. One where the grass truly is greener. One where a life full of happiness is not just a story you tell your kids to put them to sleep.

This is it. This is the end. This is the beginning. This is Patrick...the real Patrick, the Patrick I have never known. The Patrick I cannot wait to discover.

Goodbye my friends. Goodbye for now and forever. It has been a pleasure telling you this story, the story of how I became a man. The story of how all good things come to those who wait.

Nerves

2010-02-02T18:14:00.002-06:00

I haven't been this nervous in a long time. I'm losing sleep and smoking more cigarettes than I do when I'm drunk. I get sick to my stomach and have a hard time eating properly. I've lost weight, sanity and a few hair follicles to be sure. The good news though, is it will all be over Monday.

That being said, the bad news is it could all be over Monday.

Two months ago today I got jumped by two thugs at the Marathon station less than a mile from my house. I ended up with a crushed right cheek and destroyed right eye socket. My eye was sinking into my head and my sinus was fractured. I got a nice ride to the hospital in an overpriced ambulance and spent the night in the hospital. Thanks to the marvels of modern plastic surgery, and a damn good doctor, I now look about the same as I did the day before it happened. I've got a fancy new indestructible titanium cheek and an eye-socket implant I need to have replaced on Friday. I lost some wages (and some hearing) and gained some pretty expensive bills (and a semi-permanent black eye), none of which are things I can't handle. Shit happens. It always has and it always will, but that isn't what worries me.

What worries me is the subpoena that I found taped to the door of my apartment complex last week. I am hereby summoned to testify in the case of the State of Ohio v. Tony Adams (the one thug that they did catch). What's the big deal, you ask? The big deal is that he is a gangster, a drug dealer and a fucking piece of shit waste of skin with no regard for human life. How do I know this, you ask? I listened to him laugh as he repeatedly punched my nearsighted ass while I searched for my glasses on the parking lot asphalt. I listened to him tell me not to come back or the next time would be worse. I listened to him tell me I was lucky.

By this point it should be apparent why I am worried. What would this shit hole do to keep himself out of trouble, I ask myself while lying awake at night? What would his little fuck face gangbanger inbred fuck friends do to keep him out of prison, I ask myself as I suck down cigarette after cigarette? What happens if........

The questions are never ending.

So I go to court on Monday, hopefully to put this fucking cunt in jail so someone named Bubba can send him to bed at night with an ass full of semen and blood. I'm hoping someone can make him feel my pain and my terror. I'm hoping he can hear the sadistic laugh of someone way worse than he. I'm hoping someone beats his face in. I'm hoping someone stomps his head on the ground. I'm hoping someone turns him into a pulp...shit, I'm hoping someone kills him. Painfully.

The problem, however, is that I have to get there first.

You could say I'm overreacting and that nothing will happen, I would tell you to come and look at the neighborhood I share with this degenerate fuck. I would tell you to come look at the conditions he grew up in. I would tell you to come look at the drugs they try to sell in the morning at the gas station. I would tell you to come see the gang signs they flash or the graffiti marking their territory in the neighborhood I drive through to get home each night. I would tell you to put yourself in my shoes, think about what taking a bullet would feel like and imagine what bleeding out on a street just blocks from the courthouse would feel like.

Yeah, so maybe I'm overreacting. It is very probable that I am worrying myself for no good reason. The odds are so stacked in my favor, nothing could possibly happen...right? Well come spend a day in my life and see what luck looks like to me...or doesn't for that matter. If all I have to be lucky about is him and his shit fuck friends not beating my ass harder then they did, well I don't consider that lucky at all.

I've got a long streak of fucked up shit that has happened to me in the six and a half years I've lived in this asshole of a town. I just pray that it ends Monday.

Or Lack Thereof...

2010-01-13T20:59:00.003-06:00

There isn't really anything to say. Sorry doesn't cut it, it never has. I know it, you know it, let's just get down to brass tacks. There's no point in mounting some feeble defense or making excuses for actions I wish I never made. Words really have no meaning, especially since I've gone and devalued them to the point I have.

What can I say?

My dad told me a long time ago that when you lose the trust of someone you love it is never fully regained. It will forever be a shell of what it once was, shoes too big to grow into. A liar thinks about these words endlessly.

How do you go back in time and fix what you've done, the things you regret most? You don't. You can't. You can't just repair something like trust, once it's gone it never comes back the way it used to be. It's just that fucking simple. Might as well get used to the way you're going to be looked at from now on...the lack of respect you see in the eyes you love. Them, forever seeing someone new, someone ugly, someone wholly undeserving.

The only thing I can think about is the million ways I want to die, the ways I wish I could weasel out of how you will look at me from now on. The ways I can bitch out of my responsibility. It's funny because you could point a finger at me and say, "look at what you've done," while I have none to point back. I have nothing. You've never done anything wrong. I guess that just shows you the difference in character here...or lack thereof

So I guess it leads me back to what I've thought about myself all along, what I've always known to be true. I'm no man, it is time to stop pretending. A man does not act like this. A man is honest, a man is good...I am far from either. One wonders why I even bother trying to figure out what it takes to be a good man when I all I see is how far I am from being one.

The Noble Risk

2009-11-12T10:18:00.003-06:00

It used to be just about the fucking. It was all about my cock in her mouth, her pussy on my face. It was about her taste on my lips, the fingers I couldn't stop smelling on the plane ride home. It was about penetration, thrusting, pounding. It was about the cry from her lips, the look on her face and the trembling of her legs as she let go. It was about the glisten of my cum on her tits, the red throbbing as I pulled out of her. It used to be about that tingling in my ass when I felt myself squirting. It used to be strictly sex, strictly fucking, strictly bodies moving in unison.

I would think all day long about the shape of her breasts, their weight in my hands. I thought about the curve of her ass and how I held on for dear life as she rode up and down on my cock. I thought about the look of glee on her face as I sprayed her with my juice. I didn't think of much else but that. I wrote about it and got off obsessing about it, it occupied my idle mind. The tension would build until I couldn't take it anymore, I know she was the same...but now it is so much more.

Now don't get me wrong, I still think about the fucking often...well maybe more than often, but these days I think about something so much more...something. It happened slowly, kind of like aging, you don't notice it when it's happening but then one day you look at a picture of yourself from days past and think, "look how I've changed." One day I realized I was thinking less and less about fucking her and more and more about just hanging out. I thought so much more about her company, her touch, her voice, the way she looks at me. At first I didn't know how to define it, the thoughts frightened me, us being so far apart and all. It didn't take too long for me to find a name to call it by, the "L" word I struggled to avoid saying, let alone meaning.

This feeling grew in me as the weeks passed and I began to realize I could not be without it. Each hurdle we flew over assured me that she was the one, I could not be without her. But then logic would kick in and ask me how I planned to make this work, how would I get there, how would I live, where would I work? I told her I was coming, I wanted to come and I wanted so badly to believe it, but something inside of me was telling me, "the risk is too great." Something in me wanted this to fail, simply so my life would become easy again...so everything would once again become ordinary.

But ordinary is a curse, a cop out, a denial of the possibility of greatness. Ordinary is what deprives you of everything that makes life worth living. I made a simple commitment to myself, I would not let this thing we have be destroyed by my cold feet.

So I talked to my dad a few nights ago, really drilled it into his head that I'm going and nothing will stop me. I expected an argument, I expected him to come forward with all the reasons why the risk was unreasonable and why it might not work. The truth is, it might not work and it is a great risk, probably the biggest risk I've ever played...a hand with everything in the pot. But I didn't get the argument I had expected, in fact I got an argument I had not expected.

An argument for taking the risk.

He told me there was only one way to know if she truly is the one I am meant to spend my life with...going and finding out. He said the risk of failure is far outweighed by the reward of success, he called it "a noble risk." He told me they would help me as much as they could to make my way out there. "What if," was not a question he wanted his son asking...he told me he had asked it too many times himself.

"Take the risk," he said, "'what if' is a horrible thing to live with."

Blackout

2009-11-06T07:19:00.003-06:00

The alarm sounded like a fucking jet engine taking off next to my bed. There are just some days when you shouldn't even wake up. The text messages from the night before were my only clue as to what happened. Just as I suspected, nothing good was said.

Sitting here now I wonder what the fuck was I thinking. Now it seems everyone is pissed off at me and in no short order making it known that I need to grow up, that I am a moron, that I was a mess, that there was no reason to drink that much. YES I GET IT.

Sometimes I guess I just see how far I have gotten and I feel like I need to destroy all my progress with some form of amber liquid. I don't remember anything, my stomach feels like it is turning over and everyone is pissed off at me. I don't even know why I'm wasting my fucking time writing this. I don't need any more reminders of how fucking stupid I am.

I see it on a daily basis.

Dreams of Snakes

2009-11-04T07:52:00.004-06:00

It happens every time I polish off a bottle of red wine before bed. The dreams are insane, and for the most part indecipherable and violent. Most of the time I can't remember what happened when I wake up, let alone what they mean...if, that is, dreams are supposed to mean something in the first place. Upon waking, the dream usually fades off back into my subconscious, last night was not one of those cases.

My boss had given me a present, for what reason I have no idea. He placed a small .22 caliber pistol equipped with a silencer into my hand and thanked me for my hard work. I got the feeling it was a going away gift but there is no way to be sure. Then, in the strange manner that dreams progress, I found myself lost in a jungle.

It seemed that every few feet I walked a snake would materialize from the bush and attempt to bite my ankles. After some time of evading their strikes one succeeded, I looked down and saw the blood running down my leg. I bent over and picked the snake up, it bit me again on the hand before I tightened my grip around its throat. I held its head steady and leveled the .22 under its chin and pulled the trigger.

Suddenly I was in the living room of a house I had not lived in for a few years. The snake was dead in my hands and its blood splattered on the wall. I tossed the still wriggling carcass to the ground before being awoken by the fucking garbage truck emptying the dumpster in my parking lot.

I thought about it as I drove into work this morning, what it meant...it didn't take me long to come to a conclusion. You see Monday I got a text message from my ex-girlfriend, the one who tried her hardest to destroy me only a few months ago. She needed her flash drive back and would buy me a bourbon for my trouble. I responded, telling her I would meet her at 6:30.

I put my cigarette out on the curb and walked in, I was early. I sat there thinking about how pissed my actual girlfriend was that I was meeting Meg for a drink, but my curiosity got the better of me...I could not resist. The waitress took my order, a bourbon and a High Life, and asked if someone was meeting me. I nodded and then noticed her walk in. She sat down. We said hello. It was silent for a moment...

She was visibly nervous, chattering away as I sat there sipping my drink and listening to the details of her life for the past year. She was skirting around the obvious, "It's ok, you can talk about Mike if you want," I told her. Of course no matter how much I hate my former best friend, I was immensely curious how the two of them had been getting on since the beginning of their little "behind the back affair." She told me he was getting ready to be transferred down to Georgia, apparently that's where you get sent when you're the top tobacco salesman in Ohio. She answered the way I figured she would when I asked if she was going to move with him.

She didn't give much away, but I could tell it was weighing heavy on her. I pressed on, telling her about my girl and how I couldn't be happier with her. As I said it I was flooded with a whole list of reasons why she is everything Meg never was. It came to me suddenly and I understood that all the pain was completely worth it.

We stood outside of the bar for a minute as I finished a cigarette, finishing the game of catch up we were playing. I said goodbye and turned to walk away, she stood there for a second, as if I was going to come back. I got into the car and called my notably pissed off girlfriend to tell her it had gone "well," whatever that meant. I showed her and myself I was happier without her, regardless of how hard they had both tried to put me under and I realized all over again why I am so lucky today.

But more importantly, I proved something to myself, that I am the bigger man, the one who isn't going to harbor hard feelings or act like a child. I had told her honestly I hoped things worked out for her and I meant it. I finally realized I had what I needed all along, closure. I had moved on and I ended up on top.

As for my dear "friend" Mike, now he is another story. From what it sounded like, he had assumed all along that Meg would make the move with him when he got transferred. For someone who had never been more than 50 miles from home, that must have been important to him. But once again, my free-spirited ex proved to me that she had not changed a bit...she wasn't going with him. He had thrown away the 6 years of good times we had for a woman who never saw him in her future anyways. Besides, I never understood how her...or any girl for that matter could go for a guy who spent more money than her on hair care products.

Hair gel was invented to identify assholes from a distance.

He told me once, a long time ago, that he wanted to get out of here just as bad as I did, he just didn't want to go by himself. He was afraid of being so far from home and knowing no one. He said this place was getting to him, killing him, so to speak. I bet he thought he had it all worked out, he sacrificed me for her...but look what he ended up with.

So it quickly became apparent, on my ride in, what my dream meant. The snakes in my life may bite and for a while think I am defeated....but in the end I will win. I will always win, no matter how hard they try to make me fall. In the end, the inevitable end, I will watch with a grin on my face as the pieces of the life he thought he built on my back are sprayed all over the wall like the snake in my dream.

Good riddance you cunt.

Shame on Me

2009-11-03T13:39:00.002-06:00

A little back story 7/14/09

Now that I have had more than a little time to process the...situation, maybe I can come to some sort of conclusion. I had this rotten suspicion in the pit of my stomach but everyone kept telling me…no, assuring me, “Oh come on Cheese, don’t be paranoid, they’d never do that to you.” I should have known better than that, I have always trusted my gut…it's the reason I am still alive. I just knew it, no matter what they said I fucking knew it was happening behind my back.

It was the night before the big interview and I was sitting in the back of a Manhattan bar, putting down bourbon a bit too quickly. If ever there was an example of how this truly is a tale of two cities, it was that night. We were having fun, maybe...definitely too much fun for the night before an interview, but regardless, I remember the call and suddenly I was not in New York, I was stuck back in Ohio. This fucking place, dragging me back kicking and screaming. It took only a few moments, a few words, to change from having one of my best nights, to feeling completely stabbed in the back. My new friends reassured me, my girlfriend consoled me and I calmed down enough (I'm sure the bourbon helped) to enjoy the rest of the night.

The next morning I woke up slightly hung over and got dressed for my interview. I choked down the feelings of betrayal, determined not to let it show in front of the panel set to quiz me. “What would you say your greatest weakness is?” I answered their questions with calculated lies; I told them what they wanted to hear. We cried when I left for the airport, like always, but I cried not only because I was losing the one I love yet again…but because I knew I was headed back into the war zone of my life.

Wheels down, here we go again.

I don’t even remember what he said, honestly, I’m not entirely hard to convince.

“What would you say your greatest weakness is?”

“Well Mr. Interviewer, I would say my greatest weakness is the fact that I have fucked so many people over in my life. See let me explain, I have screwed quite a few in my day and while some have told me to burn in hell, a few forgave me and we are now very close. Now follow me here, see since I have been forgiven by so many people who I cared about I feel it's only fair to do the same to people that screw me. Why is that a weakness you ask?”

It’s like fucking turning your back so it’s easier to stab you.

I was drunk, surprisingly, when he apologized. He called me, wanted to make amends and even brought the bourbon. He talked about the guilt, about not sleeping and about how he knew that he was my oldest friend here. He told me he knew how wrong it was to go behind my back. I told him I wasn’t still in love with her, I was just angry he didn’t tell me. He understood, I understood. “Bros before hoes,” he told me, “bros before hoes.”

Fast forward a few months. I had been wondering for a week or two why he wasn’t returning calls or texts anymore. I thought maybe I was just hanging out with TJ and Smash too much and he resented it, maybe it was my fault. I wasn’t exactly going up to his neck of the woods to hang out anymore, yeah…it had to be my fault. To think that I actually lied awake at night worrying about my friendship with him makes me sick now. But then I suppose I haven’t told that part of the story yet, now have I?

I stood on the porch at Simon’s admiring the downtown view he paid way too much for, finishing the end of a blunt and drinking my High Life. Smash and I had been talking on the patio for a while, I had been wondering why it was just her and I out there when everyone else was inside. The generally lighthearted conversation turned in a second, I don’t know what prompted her, but she said she had something she needed to tell me but she was afraid of my reaction. Simon, TJ and Adrianna stared at the two of us through the glass patio door as I asked her. “What the fuck is going on here?”

And then she dropped it.

Only a few seconds later, Simon grabbed me and pushed me back against the wall, “Man I know you’re pissed but if you keep punching that you’re going to break it.” It wasn’t even me that he was talking to, I had lost all control and my rage totally blinded me. The blood from my fists formed two streaked imprints on the wooden siding of his apartment; I fell back into a chair. TJ told me he was sorry, they had just found out and told me as soon as they knew. I believe him. They told me they were sorry, “If we had known earlier we would have told you.”

The difference between friend and enemy became very clear as I went though one by one my friends who must have been laughing behind my back. “Dude, his best friend is not only fucking, but going out with his ex…and he has no idea. How dumb can you be?”

I let her have it; I spewed every possible wish of evil onto her. I told her I hope she died; I hoped her whole family died but I left him alone. I didn’t know what to say. After a few days to think about it I realized I wasn’t upset with her, sure knowing would have been nice but she knows me and how I would have reacted. If I was her, I wouldn’t have told me either.

But him…that is a whole other story.

He didn’t say anything for a week, but at some point waiting him out got to be too much. I sent a text reading quite simply, “You are not a man, grow a pair of balls and admit it to me.” He didn’t respond for more than a day. When he did it was half assed, “It’s a shitty situation and I don’t know what to do. I know it’s fucked up man and I’m sorry.” For the first time in my life I knew what to say back immediately.

“I don’t care, do whatever you want. You are as good as dead to me.”

And that is how you erase six years in one sentence. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you don’t exist.

Off Balance

2009-11-02T14:56:00.003-06:00

Herein lies the trouble with getting your hopes up. What goes up must, inevitably, come down. When you do finally come crashing back to earth it takes a little while to hit the ground. It isn't instantaneous. It might take days, it might take years but don't ever forget that it is inevitable.

I have a notorious habit of overreacting. Bad news comes and I flip out, good news comes and I get overexcited. I am incapable of maintaining any sense of balance. I can't manage to get myself into that little space that lies between these two extremes. Well, that isn't entirely accurate as that's where I find myself now.

You see, balancing in between is where I am right now. Balance is the lack of everything dramatic, everything exciting, everything bad and everything good. Balance has me sitting here, choking the life out of me as I rot away at this desk. When you spend all most of your time high on excitement or drowning in depression there is not much time for any sort of sanity in life. So when I do get these momentary glances of what it must be like to be...normal...well...I don't know who I am.

I don't do much anymore. I drink, I smoke, I make my social rounds but increasingly, I feel at a loss for words with the closest of friends. No one says anything, but I see the looks in their eyes...they wonder what my major malfunction is. I get tired of those looks really quickly and since they aren't going anywhere, neither am I. So now while I spend my time alone, playing my guitar, getting the most out of my Netflix subscription and jerking off to pass the hours, my friends wonder where I am. Then, slowly but surely, they stop wondering. It isn't their fault, I just give them no reason to. As the days pass the invitations to fun nights out or simple phone calls to kick it slowly disappear until one day I realize this is my own doing.

So here I am. I've got nothing really going for me. I have a woman who loves me more than anything, but this wait has been nothing if not painful...for the both of us. There is no land in sight, I am just out here sailing around trying to find out how to get where I want to be going. Captains in the heyday of exploration used to miss their intended destinations by hundreds of miles, I fear the same will happen to me. I don't want to end up anywhere else than the place I am trying to get to, I just don't know how to get there.

I have nothing to be bitter, sad or angry about. I have nothing to be excited, nervous or happy about. I am stuck in limbo, in between up and down. Everything just...is, nothing more nothing less. I am just here, my life is just happening, I have no idea if I am in control. Days pass without the slightest recognition of their going. Not out of control but not charging forward just the same. Just here.

So here I wait, residing in my state of equilibrium. If that's the case then why do I feel so off balance?

The Sacrifice

2009-10-30T12:30:00.006-05:00

I don’t mean for this to be taken the wrong way, but how else am I supposed to put it?

I’ve been thinking about it ever since we decided, I mean, how could I not? I know you love me and that I never doubted, but I am sacrificing everything here and I feel alone in that. I don’t know what to say…I guess I owe it to you to be honest, this isn’t fair. I had two choices: give you up or come and get you. You knew my choice before I even made it. I get that you were stood up in the past, but I just don’t know. It just pisses me off.

You always say that you understand what I’m going through. The fact of the matter is that you don’t and you never fucking will. I’m going to give it all up for you and no matter how much I say I hate it here…this is still my home, this is where I have my friends and this is where I have my life. I think at some point you need to look at this objectively and see that I am risking everything and you are risking nothing.

We can say it all we want, but I have absolutely nothing more than your word. You know I’m a skeptic, I don’t mean to be and I want you to remember that I love you. I hate feeling this way and I wish I could change it, but the simple fact is it’s just the way I am. I’ve been screwed constantly by women my entire life, it hurts me to say but…I would be a fool if I wasn’t cautious.

You have selfish aims in this and I don’t blame you for them, not in the slightest, but you need to get it. Start to understand. I’m a kid, you have everything you need in New York…I have you and nothing else. No family, no friends, no bank, no car, no money…no nothing. I’m all on my own. You can’t save me if I drown, and I can barely tread water let alone swim. What happens if everything falls apart? What happens if I lose it? What happens if…

Never mind, I’m sure you’d be sickened to read this and think I don’t love you for writing it, but it is the way I feel. I know you worry about how long it will take me to get there, but take one fucking second and think about what is worrying me…what happens when I actually get there? Think about that the next time you think we are fighting.

We aren’t fighting, you just don’t understand.

Cut me a little fucking slack here before you make me change my mind.

5/16/09

Problems

2009-10-28T07:22:00.002-05:00

We both know what is going to keep this from happening if you don’t nip it in the bud before it gets any worse. Don’t sit here and dance around the subject. Just say it out loud so the both of us can see it plain as day.

It’s becoming a problem isn’t it, my friend? You cannot honestly expect to move forward like this, can you? Didn’t Einstein say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result? Take a look back at the lessons you don’t seem to want to learn.

You let this fuck everything up the first time we got another chance so I stepped in and took control; I cut the ties so you could start again fresh. Think about the sacrifices I made for us when I did that. I risked it all for us. What if it didn’t work out? What if it still doesn’t work out? If that’s the case you will have to be much stronger than you are now. If not, you’re really screwed.

You can’t fuck when you’ve been drinking, you know that…don’t you? I know the answer; it is in my head as well my friend. Don’t dance around the subject. When you can’t fuck the most important person to you knows something is wrong. You can’t hide it.

Get a grip. Get control of yourself. If you piss in that cup and you aren’t clean, we both know what will happen. I’m not just talking about losing a job…I’m talking about losing it all.

So think about that from now on, will you? Remember what we did to get to this point, how far we’ve come. Don’t you dare fuck this up. I can’t promise you’ll like what happens if you do.

Consider yourself warned.

5/13/09

Zero to Sixty

2009-10-26T17:28:00.002-05:00

He calls every now and then just to say "what's up?" It's the typical call you would expect from a close friend who moved away. For the first couple months we would talk roughly once a week, lengthy conversations that were ended long before they were truly finished. As time moved on the chats got shorter while the dead space in between our words grew longer.

It isn't something that really bothers me on a nightly basis, just every once in a while. I can't really place the blame on him, just as he cannot on me, it's just a result of the differing paths we took after leaving college in 2007. I stayed here, stagnant essentially, while he moved to Texas and jammed his foot down on the gas pedal.

So here I am, two and a half years out of school with a mediocre job, a steady girlfriend and basically all the freedom to do what I want when I want. I might have battles with my demons but all in all things aren't all that bad. For the first time in a while I feel like I'm playing my hand the way that I want to play it, not the way everyone else is telling me too. So like I said, here I am.

But then, on the other end of the spectrum, there he is.

I don't even think he has turned twenty-five yet but already he's just .5 kids short of the American Dream (if that's how you want to define it, that is). Two kids under five, a wife, two dogs, a mortgage, car payments and all the responsibility that goes along with it. I think all he's missing is the white picket fence. If you were to look back at how similar we were back in school, you would have never seen this coming. I know I sure didn't.

Originally I thought the increasingly awkward telephone silences and the dwindling number of phone calls was on account of the stress and time constraints of going zero to sixty from single stoner to married family man. Now that I put a little more thought into it, it isn't an entirely unreasonable excuse, I have no idea what it is like so I obviously can't be upset. It is what it is.

But that gets me thinking, back in the day we were inseparable. We made money, got drunk, started fights and just generally caused trouble. "Fish and Cheese," they would call us, it was never one without the other. Nowadays we couldn't be more different and it's strange to think how quickly his life changed and just how much of a rift has opened between us.

It has me contemplating my own future, where am I going and where will I end up? What will I be like? How hard will it be for my friends to relate to me? Will they even know what to say to me anymore? Will they recognize a settled down version of Cheese? Will they even be able to call me that anymore?

Speculation will get me nowhere but it's something I have never been able to keep out of my head. It's a constant nusiance, gaining speed and volume each time the calender moves forward. I see my youth fading, the jeans and T-shirt soon to be replaced by a suit and tie. The bowls and beers will give way to baby bottles and bank statements. Recklessness will fade away into responsibility. I wonder if I'll even recognize myself.

Everyone knows you can't stem the tide.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't terrify me as I watch it come in.

Back in the Saddle Again.

2009-10-26T15:42:00.003-05:00

This was inevitable, it really was.

So after May of this year I essentially pictured myself riding off into the metaphorical sunset. I figured it would progress like a line of carefully placed dominoes tipped over by a starry eyed little kid. Boy oh fucking boy I sure sold myself on that idea when I boarded that plane to NYC back in May. I mean, who in their right mind would have thought it would be difficult to find a job in a new city during a terrible recession. Well not me obviously, because when I came crashing back down it sure did hurt.

And so…here we are again, back to square one.

It’s strange, I used to drive home after work and think of all the things I needed off my chest, things I needed to say to anyone who would listen but no one in particular. I would get home, open a beer, smoke a bowl and write aimlessly until I felt like my chest was less….uh, chesty? I wouldn’t necessarily say it felt good, but I felt something…at the very least a sense of accomplishment in the fact that I toned down my ADHD long enough to put my mind to something from start to finish.

Now it’s different.

When I first stopped, I would still have those “chesty” moments on the way home, when I felt like I was really getting at some piece of myself that I didn’t normally see, but I had nowhere to write them down. As time passed the clairvoyance disappeared to the point of nonexistence, for a while I just thought there was nothing else wrong with me, nothing else that needed sorting out. Oh how a few nights of heavy drinking corrected that very incorrect assumption. The more and more I looked at myself in the mirror, the more I realized I am an unsolvable Rubik’s Cube. I wasn’t having those “moments” because I chose not to think about them, but they were still there…just swimming beneath the surface.

Out of sight, out of mind (aka bottling shit up) never has quite been a philosophy that’s worked for me. In fact I think it may or may not have led to heavy drug use, depression, suicide attempt etc. So, along those lines I started a new blog where I attempted to deal with the things I was no longer writing here, but something was different. I would spell something out and it would float off into the air, it was off my chest but I wouldn’t think anything more about it. Out of sight out of mind right? Well not so much. I used that “clean slate” to bottle things up, it became a place to put things I didn’t want to think about anymore.

So that effort failed, but there was still that hole. Something was missing.

I, however, really have no idea what exactly that might be. Something is missing but I can’t put my finger on my pulse to determine what it is. I feel like I’m a stranger in my own skin again. So here I am, I have something to say, but what that is I haven’t the foggiest.

I’m sure we’ll get there.

On Coincidences

2009-05-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

To be perfectly honest, it’s purely coincidental and since I don’t really believe in coincidences, I’m at a loss for what to call it. I suppose we’ll get there.

I started writing Tales on the Timeclock one year ago today. Now before we get started here, I’m not going to spend the next few minutes rehashing events from the past year like I need to give you some fucking synopsis of my life. If you’re that interested, and I doubt you are, go read it.

If I remember quite correctly I was taking short trips to the bathroom at work to finish up the bag of blow I had left over from the night before. I’m not going to pretend like I remember why I started writing this, I was so fucked up that it’s hard to remember major events of the past two years, let alone something insignificant like my motivations for writing a blog. The point is that, for whatever reason, I did start writing this. I think I intended to shock people or something like that.

“Hey let’s put some fucked up stories from the past few years on the internet and see if people read it,” is what I’m guessing my motive was. Regardless, it’s here and you’ve read it. I’ve been heard.

I don’t know what I’ve said and I don’t know what I meant to say, but I’ve said something and I’ve been heard, I just never expected my audience to be what it was. If I really think back on the past year, one of the most fucked up of my life, I am surprised I survived. The fact of the matter is that I did, but I did not do it alone.

Now you can fuck off and say, “Oh here this moron goes talking about his blog girlfriend that he met again,” but I don’t really care. Some of you have loyal fan bases, some of you garner critical acclaim, some of you make money and some of you even become famous. I don’t care about any of that; I’ve gained something much more important.

I didn’t do this alone. I look at the past year of writing as a cry for help from someone stuck with one foot still in childhood and the other in adulthood. Over the past year a few have answered that call. Some of you took the time you normally spent with your kids, your lovers, your spouses or your televisions to talk to a kid who genuinely needed someone to listen to what he couldn’t say to anyone else. You have no idea what that means to me.

One person in particular spent way too much time and way too much worry on my dumb ass. She was my first reader, the first to respond to what I wrote and the first to write me. If you read her blog you know that there just a few men who would kill to do vile things to her. I don’t quite know her that way, I know A. Secret as a friend. This might seem stupid to you and you might not know why I’m doing this, but I do and so does she.

I want to tell you that the time you spent talking me down from insanity, talking me up when I was down and giving me advice like I was one of your kids is something that I will never forget. If I gained nothing else but the obvious from writing this blog, I gained you as a friend, as a confidant and as someone I know I can wholeheartedly trust with anything. You introduced me to the most important person in my life; in fact you talked me up in the first place, telling her I wasn’t a creeper so she would speak to me. For that alone I owe you everything I have. For everything you have done for me, all the time you’ve spent, all the worry you’ve been troubled with I will be forever in your debt. I hope you know, and I want every person who reads this to know, that I would do anything for you.

That brings me to the real reason I’m writing this post. I’m leaving today in a few hours. This time, when I get on that Delta flight bound for New York, I won’t be going for just some simple visit. I’m actually beginning to think that the interview I have on Monday isn’t so much of an interview as it is a “meet your new coworkers” day. I’ll come “home” when I’m done, I’ll make my arrangements and by June (if all goes to plan) I’ll be leaving the state of Ohio for good.

So there you have it, all the whining I’ve been doing over the past year has actually paid off. But, you see, that isn’t where I’m going to end this post. I mean to tell you something more.

I am ashamed that I avoid telling people that I’m moving to New York for a woman. I don’t want to hear them tell me how it will probably fall apart in a few months and I’ll be up shit creek with no paddle. I’ve lied to my parents and friends and told them that while I am involved with a woman out there, I am moving solely for the career opportunity. Well I think if anyone knows the truth, it is you.

I am moving to New York City for a woman. No, I am not moving to New York City for a woman, I am moving for the woman I love. No one went as far as she did for me.

I remember when we first started emailing each other; I still read the old correspondence from time to time. “What the fuck does this bitch care if I drive drunk?” Every day she would say something that would make me think that. It is difficult to pick out sincerity from an email, but hers was blatant. For some reason this woman, seven years older than me and six hundred miles away gives a shit if I lose control on the freeway and die a flaming, painful death while killing a school bus full of nuns holding babies. It only grew from there.

I screamed to her on the phone about the pain of being betrayed. I cried about the sorrow of having my heart broken. I complained about the difficulty of growing up. All she ever did was listen. She cared; it was totally alien to me. “I am not sleeping with this woman and she cares about me like I am.” She listened to everything and anything I had to say, without judgment. Before long I found myself calling long distance to talk out my problems instead of heading to a friend’s house for a blunt and a brew.

I guess that’s why I started writing this; I needed someone to talk to, even if it was no one more than me. I was completely lost and fucked in the head; in fact, I’ve spent the past year repairing the damage. I needed advice, consoling and just a general smack upside my dumb ass head, when I started writing here…I got it. I kept coming back to spill out my problems onto page after page because it alleviated some of the pain, stress or sorrow that I was feeling at the time…I rarely wrote out of joy. I won’t downplay the few times I did write when I felt on top of the world, specifically the first trip to New York, but they are not the reason this blog has gone on so long. I came here because I needed someone to tell me I am still the man I’m supposed to be…I have that now.

So I guess you see where this is going, don’t you? It is just too great of a coincidence. I started writing a year ago today and today I leave to move for reasons directly related to and caused by my writing. I have someone to listen to me now, someone that will not leave anonymous judgmental comments about my insecurities. I no longer need to spell-check my feelings. I don’t need to capitalize my troubles and I don’t have to wonder if a comma or a semicolon is used when I’m pouring out my heart.

In short, I don’t need this anymore.

She is flesh and blood. She is warm and beautiful. She is there and she is real. She is not text, she is not words and she is not digital. I will no longer have this woman as an electronic part of my life. She belongs to me, no other man will have her and I will make it so she never thinks of another. For what she has done for me, I will give her everything and I demand everything from her in return. She has yet to disappoint me and I don’t see her starting now.

I know what I want and I am taking it, it’s just that simple.

So I guess this is where we part ways. I don’t have a reason to write here anymore, I don’t have the will and I don’t have the time. I had been thinking about giving it the axe for a while now, just couldn’t think of any better time than now. One year from the date I started writing this blog, I am taking the first step into the world. The light is blinding my eyes, my hands are shaking and my stomach is upset. I’m nervous, can’t sleep and can’t get my mind off of what is about to happen. I’m leaving this place; it is time for me to start over again. I need a clean slate to dirty; I just can’t get over the luck of the dates. Exactly one year…what a coincidence. But like I said, I don’t believe in coincidences so let’s just call it what it is…

Fate.

Alone Again Or?

2009-04-30T10:42:00.001-05:00

“It really all comes down to how you see it,” she said to me.

We sat on her back deck smoking cigarettes and waiting for the Xanax to kick in. It had been a long day, emotionally draining in the way that only a funeral can be. We had spent the afternoon watching our parents cry and the evening drinking beer in the muggy Kentucky air. We never really were keen on small talk, we didn’t see each other often and she knew there was always something I needed to talk about. There was no time to be wasted.

So, like every other visit, we talked.

Family events on my mom’s side of the family couldn’t be more different than the ones on my dad’s. It had been seventeen years since my uncle had died in the plane crash, which meant it had been seventeen years since my mom’s side had all been together. Over the course of the six hour reception, I stood at her side as she introduced me one by one to her eighty nine first cousins, each proceeding to tell me they last saw me when I was “this” tall. It is crazy to think that my mom has cousins who are two and three years older than her mother, whose funeral we were attending.

The cousins and their children came by one by one to pay their respects to my grandmother and offer their support to my mother and her siblings. Each one spent their four or five minutes rehashing a shared childhood memory with my mom and asking her if they could do anything for her. After a moment or so they continued on to my uncle and aunt, but their words were not lost on my mother. She leaned in to me more than once to tell me she couldn’t remember this cousin or that cousin’s first name or how many siblings they had, I’m sure they would have been the same if it was their mother’s funeral. Regardless of whether they remembered how old I was or how long my mom had been married, the simple fact was that their sympathy was genuine in only a way that a family member’s could be. It was clear that they were all there for each other, no matter how far apart they had grown.

So right, by the end of the night I was exhausted, Leslie and I sat on the back deck smoking and waiting for the Xanax to hit. She wasted no time. “Why are you going to New York?” “Are you really in love with this girl?” “Are you going to be able to afford it?” “Are you going to come and visit us still?” She sounded like my mother, just minus the annoyed “what the hell are you doing with your life” tone that she had taken with me since high school. She was concerned, asking about my drinking and if it was still eroding my mental health. She asked the questions I had been trying to avoid answering for the past few months. I don’t know; there is too much to put down here and too much back-story that needs telling for me to accurately explain it. I just remember sitting there looking at her nonjudgmental eyes and thinking that she was listening to my blabbering like only family could.

The drive through the hills to the funeral was long and hot, the sweet smell of the sour mash hung in the hills of the bourbon country that runs in my blood. Blasted out limestone lined both sides of the road and the ash trees let the sun though in small beams. We drove the winding roads my grandfather used to run moonshine as a teenager and past the farm where my grandma worked the land. It had been too long since I had been to the country; I feel a connection with my past when I am out in those woods, something that the city lights will forever blind me to.

The men didn’t cry and the women did; a typical country funeral. I stood at the front of the church and read from the scripture, hearing my voice begin to crack over the microphone as I grew choked up. I got back to my pew and quickly stopped the welling in my eyes, sitting down as the rest of mass passed. We buried her; I almost fainted in the hot sun as we listened to the priest’s final words. We hung around for a minute before going to visit my grandpa and uncle, arguing over who would remove the red wax from the Maker’s Mark bottle we had purchased to pour over their graves. I watched the brown liquid soak back into the ground where it was born just three miles away. My grandma always said we buried them there so they could have a drink whenever they pleased.

I’ll lie there as well.

I sat down on my couch that night and can honestly say I haven’t been that tired in years. The fifteen hour days and seventy hour weeks have nothing on that Sunday night. It takes a lot to hold in those emotions, to be strong for your mother and your aunt. The men don’t cry in our family; that’s how it has been forever, we just don’t. I remember my uncle telling me he had no sympathy for me as I cried at his father’s funeral. “That’s my pa, boy, if anyone should be crying it’s me and ya don’t see me cryin away now do ya?” He had a point.

I didn’t cry at his funeral six months later.

But that isn’t me, not in the slightest. My family knows me well, but not so well that they have picked up on the things I’ve been hiding from them. I’ve learned to hide my emotions from my family, even the ones like Leslie, who know me so well. It has grown over the years to the point where I find it hard to talk to my parents and even my brother about things I need off of my chest. Hiding the way I feel is terrible for my mental stability and just provides more fodder for the inevitable emotional explosion that takes place every few weeks. It has driven me insane my whole life.

So I got into bed that night and I called her to say goodnight. I had been waiting for that voice all day long, as soon as I heard it, the levees broke. As the previous week was poured out in tears and screaming, she just listened patiently. I could feel it leaving me, my heart slowed down and my breathing calmed. I just needed to let it out. The whole weekend I was in the company of my family, but I couldn’t help feeling completely alone…whether I really was or not. I spent five minutes on the phone with her and everything I had been building up for the previous five days was gone in an instant. I don’t know yet know what this means, but I’m slowly beginning to realize.

The ease of release and the judgment free listening, they are the reasons I started writing here. I started writing when I was alone, and the truth is…I was alone.

I don’t feel that way so much anymore.

Damage Control

2009-04-22T16:07:00.006-05:00

I get these fits of rage from time to time which lead me to seriously question my mental stability. I’ve been feeling his grip around my throat lately and I don’t know why he is back inside of my head. I thought I had shut him up. It has been a while since we’ve been totally out of control, but it was close this weekend. I managed to keep my hands on the reigns because she was here, and that was the only reason. The lack of hard amphetamine drugs in my system had made it easier to cope with his anger, but in the same token the lack of hard opiates is making it more difficult to keep him at bay. It all comes down to the alcohol and the pot these days; cigarettes don’t even faze me anymore. In any case, EZ is back and he is stronger than ever this time.

It’s strange how some nights I can literally drink a case of beer and be the happiest, friendliest man on earth. On other nights I’ll have four pints and be on the wrong side of sanity before the bars close. I can’t control myself. My brain is a bed of tinder and the slightest spark will set me off in the worst way. You might remember someone else occupies my head besides me. Tell me to stop drinking and he will slam down the rest of the pint I’m holding just to piss you off. Tell him to quiet down and he will scream in your face. Tell him to slow down and the accelerator will be on the floor. I’m on the verge, fighting for control, moments away from punching bricks and putting out cigarettes on my flesh.

We both know I don’t want to, but I can’t stop him.

It takes just a few words or a passing glance to set him off. It’s strange because when I was younger I never had these fits, but as I’ve grown they have actually gotten worse, considerably worse. I never knew I had someone else controlling me. It used to happen only when I was really depressed and I started drinking, then it started to happen regardless of the mood. When I stopped shooting up it got really bad. Naturally I was spending less time half-conscious on my couch so I could spend more time drunk and angry. As I started drinking bourbon to get over the withdrawal I began another addiction.

The bourbon put me over the edge; and let him out of his cage. We would flip out at a bar and get kicked out night after night. We would get into my car and, gripping the wheel with white knuckles, we would hit the gas on the interstate. I found myself on the street at night, stumbling home, cursing the whole way. One such evening, EZ pissed someone off and they tried to cut our throat. I was piss drunk but I can still feel the breeze across my neck as his knife missed my windpipe by an inch or so. I ran home as fast as I could and we stood on the second floor porch with a pint glass full of bourbon, a loaded AK-47 and ninety rounds of ammunition while I waited for the police. If I would have found him before the cops did we would have blown holes in his torso. It is a frightening thing to think about, but it isn’t the first time I have lost control and he has been mad enough to kill.

I’ve calmed down in the past few months and managed to put EZ back in his cage, but only due to the settling of insanity in my life. This doesn’t mean that I’ve got myself in control; I’ve just got no reason to lose it. Lately though I’ve been discovering that if you give me one it won’t take much. It used to be that it was only when I was drunk, but more and more I find it happening when I am stone sober…that scares the shit out of me. It happens at work when 80s Hair gets on my bad side. I can feel myself losing it but I can’t stop. He is there, in my head, screaming at me to feed the anger.

I can’t fight him, I try, but it is impossible.

It is almost like watching yourself on TV. I want to stop him, but I can’t. When he gets control he does everything in his power to feed the anger, he lives for it. As he takes control the grip on the glass tightens, the drag on the smoke is deepens and the voice I utter takes on a different tone. There are no thoughts of consequences when he is in control, just immediate release of anger. I am floating above watching him rip through my life with a grand smile on his face. Destruction is his drug and anger is his release. Everything I have built, he will destroy. We are opposite sides of the same coin simply waiting to see who lands heads up.

He blinds my eyes to rationality and drowns out the sound of loved ones begging me to come back to reality. He shows me only what he wants me to see, that which sets me off. He is always waiting, waiting for that little glimpse which tells him the opportunity is now. It is then that the door slams open and it is too late. He knows the fears I hide from others and he knows just how to express them, pure unadulterated rage. He knows it fights off tears and he knows it wards off anxiety; it is the only thing he knows how to do.

This has taken on a different tone since I started writing it. At the beginning it was just an admission of the facts, it is quickly becoming a plea for help. Don’t tell me the things I already know. I know drinking makes it worse so just shut up, will you? It is going to be hard tonight, a bitter struggle. I can’t be alone with my apartment full of alcohol, not tonight. Bad news comes in floods in my life and now that it has started I know there will be no quarter. I’m waiting for the grief to pour in like a fucking thunderstorm.

I’m right there on the edge and tonight will be the test of a lifetime.

I can feel it as I type these words. I’m wiping tears away from under my glasses and counting the thirty minutes until the nicotine gets into me. It’s only going to help for a minute. After a few more I’ll be passing the drive thru liquor store and I know the 40 ounces will be calling me. I need a drink, no ifs ands or buts about it, I need a fucking drink. The trick is going to be keeping him under control. He won’t shut up on his own, a drink might help for a minute. Other than that, I know only two ways to do it, putting a bullet in my skull or a needle in my vein…neither of which I plan on doing.

It is going to be a fight, it always is. It’s me versus EZ tonight. Main event, everything is on the line. Gripping at my sanity, holding on for dear life. Who will win? Who will perish? If I win, he is put back in his cage and lives to fight another day. If he wins, I lose control and something bad inevitably happens. Under his control I’ve lost friends, broken bones, destroyed property and started fights. These are the least of my worries. This battle seems never ending, but I can’t go on fighting him forever.

One of these days when he gets control he is going to kill me. This blog will go dormant and the emails will stop. Maybe you’ll wonder what happened to me, but after a while you’ll forget who I ever was. If I let him, he will kill me and any memory of me. If I continue to fight this battle with no end in sight, I will lose my life much sooner than I want. Everything is on the line. Every time something goes wrong, everything is on the line. It is do or die.

I have to find a way to kill him before he kills me, it’s just that simple.

If I let you, you would make me destroy myself.
In order to survive you, I must first survive myself.
I can sink no further, and I cannot forgive you.

There's no choice but to confront you, to engage you, to erase you.
I've gone to great lengths to expand my threshold of pain.
I will use my mistakes against you, there's no other choice.
I'm shameless now, I'm nameless now, I'm nothing now, I'm no one now.

But my soul must be iron.
Cause my fear is naked.
I'm naked and fearless.
And my fear is naked.

From "Bottom" by Tool

Numbered

2009-04-21T10:13:00.002-05:00

I’ve got a knot in the pit of my gut that will not go away. I’m finding it harder and harder to sleep at night, let alone concentrate during the day. I can’t sit still and bouncing my leg nervously as I talk on the phone has become routine. I’m biting my nails and smoking more than I have in the past few months, I can only think about one thing.

I’m sure my friends think I’m talking out of my ass. Over the years I’ve known them; they’ve heard hundreds of schemes and master plans which never went further than the end of the joint we were smoking. I’ve contemplated the Peace Corps, law school, crab fishing, the Army, and teaching, among other things. Not a single one of them was pursued. The thing is, those plots were usually hatched over more than a few drinks and typically forgotten by the time I woke up to a headache in the morning. It’s to be expected that they think I’m full of shit.

The fact of the matter is that this time, I’m not.

Quite frankly I’ve never been full of shit, I was always serious about the plans, no matter how batty they seemed. Trouble was I just never had the motivation…or maybe I just smoked it. What I always needed but never had, was a catalyst, something to kick me in the ass and get me started. I found that being comfortable is easier, no one likes change and I am no exception. But comfortable is boring, and I am not ready to be bored yet…there is so much I haven’t seen.

I’m doing it, for real this time, and when my friends ask me if I’m just talking shit again, I’m going to tell them. I’m not kidding; my days here were numbered as of April 13th. It’s just a matter of time.

The Noose

2009-04-09T12:48:00.005-05:00

It was this weekend four years ago; I was home in Milwaukee, staying with my parents over the Easter holiday. Spring and Easter breaks were always my favorite, usually coinciding with the weather turning for the better, they were the signal that the school year was, at last, coming to an end. I could taste summer vacation as I spent the long weekend hanging out with my high school friends. The perfect recharge before the stress of the end of the term and finals began.

Most of the weekend was spend with my two closest friends. I hadn’t seen them since my last trip home over Christmas, so they were excited I was home. Excited enough that one of them had decided to buy a half ounce of mushrooms for us to take in the creepy barn behind his house on the south side of the city the night before I left. I hadn’t eaten mushrooms since being dosed in Cincinnati the year before, I had tripped on other drugs since then, but never mushrooms. I was scared that my night might end up like the one the year before had, but I was in my hometown in the company of my best friends.

“What could possibly go wrong,” I figured.

I don’t remember much of the trip and if I did it wouldn’t make any sense for me to explain it to you. You either know what I’m talking about or you don’t, it’s that simple. We talked circles around each other, the light of the lantern casting eerie shadows throughout the barn filled with the product of years of spring lawn sale hunting. Being surrounded with the knickknacks and oddities from decades of his father’s packrat tendencies made the barn the ideal place to sit in near darkness and debate the fate of the world while tripping your face off. We sat up there for hours, shouting like madmen and scribbling the secrets of our enlightenment on little scraps of paper to read when we were sane again. I was still tripping when I looked at my watch and realized it was sometime after one in the morning. I had a six hour drive the next morning and the incredibly difficult task of falling asleep on mushrooms to deal with so I said my goodbyes and climbed the ladder down to the driveway.

I remember it being very blue that evening and the sensation which ran through my body when I sat down in my cold car and pulled down the driveway. The streets were empty; I decided to take the long way and give myself some time to straighten out before going home. I don’t remember much of the car ride except when a fox ran across the road in front of me, forcing me to slam on the breaks and come to a jarring stop in the road. I sat there for a second, watching it run off into the park before I decided it wasn’t a good idea to be parked in the middle of the street.

The rest of the drive home I couldn’t stop thinking about how strange it was seeing that fox, it had to be a sign or something. I had never seen a fox outside of a zoo in my life. I couldn’t quit thinking that it meant something.

It was a few minutes past one thirty in the morning when I caught the red light at the corner of 124th St. and National Ave. Nothing was any different than the hundreds of times I had caught this light, only 24 blocks from home. The after hours lights from the Speedway on the corner cast a faint glow on the intersection. I noticed a brightly dressed man in a t-shirt and running shorts on the other side of the street, in my state it took a moment for my eyes to focus on him.

“Who the fuck jogs at one thirty in the morning?”

The situation was growing odder by the second as the man slowed from his jog and began to stumble back and forth on the corner.

“Is he fucking drunk?”

The light turned green and I pulled forward slowly, getting halfway through the intersection before I saw him collapse on the corner to my right. At this point I had no idea what was happening, was it a joke? Some kind of prank? A junkie? When he didn’t get up I thought for a second and pulled my car into the Speedway parking lot. I got out and headed across the lot. My head was spinning as I jumped up onto the retaining wall and across the lawn to where he lay on the sidewalk.

I can’t remember if his eyes were open or not but I can recall his face with absolute clarity. I never found out if it was him or the drugs in my system, but he did not look human. He wasn’t responding to my shouting and when I started shaking him he didn’t move. I remember the shades of black on his face, it was contorted and it looked like a cheap Halloween mask. The skin was wrinkled and blotchy with spots of red, painting a terrifying contrast amongst the black streaks. He was making sounds that I cannot bring myself to think about, let alone describe, to this day. His breath was heavy and his chest was heaving.

He did not look human.

I had been standing there for a good thirty seconds before it struck me. He was dying.

I was in shock instantly, the mushrooms made each movement seem as though it happened underwater. I managed to get my phone out and dialed 911, fighting the trip as my eyes went in and out of focus. I walked in tight circles as I spoke to the dispatcher. My words came out slowly and deliberately:

“There is a man dying on the corner of 124th and National.”

I hung up the phone and stood there, staring at his face, the image searing itself into my brain. I had no idea what to do, I stood there and watched. There was no one in the gas station and the street was deserted, not a soul on that block but the two of us. It was the most intimate moment of my life but also the most terrifying. I have never felt as helpless as I did that night watching that man die.

Five minutes passed before I heard the faint sirens growing closer. He had stopped moving two minutes prior. Tears ran down my face but I was not crying. The realization of what had happened hit me so hard that I was in complete shock. The sirens grew louder and louder and I slowly began to grow paranoid, wondering if I would be found out. The cop walked me over to me as I sat down on the retaining wall, trying to tell him what happened. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the stretcher going into the back of the ambulance, the white sheet drawn over his face.

I lay down in my bed that night but I did not sleep…I didn’t sleep for a while after that.

This is the noose.

The noose is no longer a physical object of death robbing the life from my lungs. It is something different. I bear events like this on my conscience and few days pass that one does not come to mind. I’ve been thinking about this one lately as it happened this coming weekend. I realize that four years later I still feel like I didn’t do everything in my power to keep him from dying at my feet on that cool night. I am well aware that it is completely ridiculous to blame myself for that man’s death, but I can’t help thinking that if I wouldn’t have been tripping I would have been quicker or I could have given him CPR or something. Maybe I could have done something; maybe I could have been more comfort to him as he died.

I don’t know.

I never knew his name and I never knew what killed him, but what I do know is that I carry his life on my conscience. It is part of the noose that chokes me back to the ground whenever I get back on my feet, forever serving to remind me of the past. Whether it be justified or not, I have often felt it was my fault that I couldn’t save him. If only I was faster, smarter, stronger.

If only I was……if only.

I can’t live with the grip of that noose around my throat. This guilt I have chosen to bear will eventually drag me into the undertow. It has to be let go. I will never forget it, but in order to function I must learn to give this memory and the others like it their leave. I have carried these weights for too long, they must be let go. I just have no idea how. Where does one begin?

Where do I begin?

As I get older the noose gets tighter, more guilt joins the rest. Unless I learn to let these burdens go will kill me. My own mind is the most dangerous weapon, more dangerous than any bullet, rope, pills or cliff.

If I let it, it will kill me.

So glad to see you have overcome them
Completely silent now
With heaven's help
You cast your demons out

And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you off your cloud
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about making your amends
To the dead

Recall the deeds as if
They're all someone else's atrocious stories
Now you stand reborn before us all
So glad to see you well

And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about making your amends
To the dead

With your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping
Your halo slipping down

With your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping
Your halo slipping down

Your halo slipping down to choke you now

"The Noose" A Perfect Circle

Not Cool

2009-04-07T09:29:00.002-05:00

This is just not cool.

I used to think about who I was going to go out drinking with after work and which tried and true drunk driving route I would take home. I used to wonder who I was going to sell my last ounce to and where this weekend’s blow would come from. I thought about women and obsessed over money. I cheated, lied and generally didn’t give a shit about the consequences. I often wondered why I didn’t feel guilty or bad about any of the objectionable decisions I was routinely making. I was drinking bourbon like they were bringing back Prohibition, but hell, I was having fun. I was going nuts like I had never before in my life and I had more than enough to write about. I went into depth explaining the late night fights, the morning hangovers and the crazy shit I barely remembered doing. I wrote about shit that was haunting me and looked at myself through cynical eyes.

But now it’s all different, and I blame you.

You see now I don’t think about the drugs, sex and drinking like I used to, I think about……..other things. Nowadays I think about things like sending you flowers on your birthday and what presents I want to give you. I talk in this gay ass voice when we speak on the phone and have used the words “luvee,” “sweetheart,” and “baby,” way more than I ever wanted to. I think about candlelit baths, oil massages and romantic dinners. My thoughts are filled with cuddling, touching and holding you close.

My God, gag me with a spoon.

Damn it, now look at what you’ve done, you fucker. You’ve gone and turned me into a sap. I honestly thank God on a nightly basis that no one I know has heard me talk in that cutesy voice I use to say goodnight to you. Damn it woman! What’s happened to us? I mean we used to talk about how hard I was going to spank you, how I was going to choke you and how I’d tie you up and use you like a toy. Now we talk about things like how much I love you and how incredibly gay we are.

Honestly, I’m blaming you.

Look, sooner or later someone is going to find us out and they are going to fucking make fun of us. You met my friends, could you imagine the shit I would take if they heard the nicknames we have for each other? We have essentially purchased a one way ticket to doucheville and we are boarding the train of no return. We have got to formulate a plan of action here or the inevitable gayness that ensues will blow our current level of douchebaggery out of the water. Eventually one of us will become completely overwhelmed by it and spontaneously combust.

You may have noticed that the frequency of posts on this blog has decreased lately. That is because the only things I can think to write about are saturated with douchey sappiness. Again, damn you woman, you have taken away my reckless lifestyle, my normal speaking voice and now my blog.

This is just not cool.

Learning to Walk...Again.

2009-04-06T12:13:00.002-05:00

It’s been about six years but I still figured I would pick it back up easily, muscle memory and all. The trucks were looser than I like and I stepped back off just as quickly as I stepped on. TJ watched me, quite amused, as I struggled to gain my balance on the board and started rolling. It took a moment, but after a few minutes I was skating around the parking lot like I had for countless hours when I was growing up. The sound of the urethane wheels rolling over the pavement was drowning out my apparently shouting former roommate.

“C’mon Cheese Hawk, let’s see a trick.”

I positioned myself, back to the dumpster, and pushed off toward the other side of the parking lot. About halfway across, I kicked down hard on the tail while lifting the front foot up and forward. I brought my front foot down hard, where the board should have been. Unfortunately this was not the case.

“You suck, I’m going home,” I heard as I picked myself up and dusted the gravel off my ass. I dodged the empty Coke bottle thrown at me out the window of his car as he pulled away. I grabbed the board and made my way for the front door. I stood there for a minute, key in the door, before I thought, “Why not just stay out here and skate, it’s gorgeous and all you’re going to do is shoot zombies on Xbox while you drink beer at a way too early hour.” I lit cigarette, emptied my pockets, took off my shirt and rolled the board out into the lot.

I also got a beer.

For the few minutes I rolled back and forth across the parking lot, failing attempt after attempt at the trick that used to be second nature to me. My glasses kept falling off as I looked down at the position of my feet on the board, I used to wear contacts. Regardless, after a few minutes I had landed the ollie and was suddenly feeling sixteen again. Except for the fact that every time I would stop, I had to catch my breath…I don’t remember ever being that winded after a skate when I was younger.

I stayed out in the hot sun for the next forty or so minutes, trying increasingly difficult tricks with little to no success before finally attempting to jump off my stoop onto the board, which ended with my face slamming directly into the GMC Yukon parked next to me. I picked up my glasses and checked to make sure all teeth were in place before heading inside.

I sat down on my couch and twisted a High Life, realizing that I was pouring sweat with a rapidly beating heart. “Shit,” I thought to myself, “I used to do this all day everyday and I never got this winded.” I stripped down and headed into the bathroom, lifting my foot to step into the tub and wincing as I realized my legs were stiff as shit. I stood there watching the steam roll over the top of the curtain, thinking about just how fucking sore I was.

When I woke this morning, my goddamn legs felt like they were going to break and my face hurt a little but was thankfully bruise free as far as I could tell. All I could think about for the entire drive to work was how badly I wanted to skate when I got home, and how badly my legs were begging me not to. I realized that, even at twenty four, my body is getting older.

I used to skate a few days a week from sunrise to sunset and never had the tight feeling in my legs like I do today. Then again I haven’t been so obsessed with skating since before I left for college, I’m hitting the lot as soon as work lets out this evening. I’m sure that I’ll bust my shit more than a few times, but I’ll get some cool looking scars in the process. Plus, the only strenuous activity I have gotten in the past year strangely coincides with Pitseleh coming to visit; needless to say I could use the exercise.

But one thing’s for sure, when I got back on that board yesterday afternoon for the first time in years, it felt good. I suddenly started thinking about the long summer days spent in the back lot of a Wal-Mart, an empty basketball court or a city park. I remember sitting with friends, smoking, skating and listening to music all day long. It felt good to feel that wind in my face, even if it has to get through a beard now. I felt like the Cheese of the past, not the bad one but the one I miss and wish I could still remember. That hour or so on the skateboard brought me closer to him than I have been in the past six years.

I can’t wait to get out again tonight.

Muzzle

2009-03-31T07:18:00.004-05:00

I fear that I am ordinary, just like everyone

To lie here and die among the sorrows

Adrift among the days

For everything I ever said

And everything I've ever done is gone and dead

As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world

My life has been extraordinary
Blessed and cursed and won
Time heals but I'm forever broken
By and by the way...
Have you ever heard the words I'm singing in these songs
Its for the girl I've loved all along
Can a taste of love be so wrong

As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world

And in my mind as I was floating
Far above the clouds
Some children laughed I'd fall for certain
For thinking that I'd last forever

But I knew exactly where I was
And I knew the meaning of it all
And I knew the distance to the sun
And I knew the echo that is love
And I knew the the secrets in your spires
And I knew the emptiness of youth
And I knew the solitude of heart
And I knew the murmurs of the soul

And the world is drawn into your hands
And the world is etched upon your heart
And the world so hard to understand
And the world you can't live without
And I knew the silence of the world
And I knew the silence of the world

And I knew the silence of the world

"Muzzle" The Smashing Pumpkins

Sunglasses in the Bathtub Excited

2009-03-26T08:33:00.003-05:00

Oh I am so excited right now I can barely sit still. At least I have a good reason for not working all day and surfing espn.com looking for more awesomeness like this.

GO XAVIER.

Sorry I couldn't resist this chance to shamelessly plug my alma mater. So yeah, I'm excited.

Oh and this doesn't hurt either.

New York-Kennedy, NY (JFK) to Cincinnati, OH (CVG) $69 One Way.

EDIT: For an explanation of the being sunglasses in the bathtub excited please see THIS video

Eyes

2009-03-24T10:11:00.001-05:00

This is not a means to an end. There is a time and a place for games and aliases; now it’s just you and I. It is easy to dance around it from a distance, easy to hide a look or dismiss a comment. I can stare through you. I can see in your eyes what is in your mind. You may look away, but when your eyes return you will find mine have never left. Time is against me, I must learn as quickly as possible. Study the subject, take in everything laid out before me and construct an image.

I breathe. You breathe.

There is no way out from under this gaze. I will grab your face and fill my hands with your thick black hair to exert my control. I will memorize the lines of your face, the squint of your eyes and the fullness of your lips. The gaze deconstructs, pulling away layer after layer. Careful note is taken, the images reconstructed in my mind. Existence framed, it will look after me in your absence.

Eventually it fades from memory. The lines of your face blur from a picture to an idea, the squint of your eyes is lost on me and the feeling of your lips seems just out of reach in my mind. Like a man stuck in quicksand, the more is struggle to keep them, the faster they disappear. I try to remember how you looked at me when I stared through you. I can barely recall the things I saw in your eyes, I simply remember the expression. I wonder what my eyes revealed when you met my gaze. I wonder if you remember the things I was telling you, for I remember them clearly.

Eyes show us everything, they cannot lie. I remember you by your eyes, not the image of them, but what you compelled me to feel when I looked into them.

Constipated

2009-03-23T16:04:00.002-05:00

There is a levee holding back a flood of shit in my mind these days. I am overloaded, I feel like it is finals week all over again. There are hundreds of thoughts boiling to the top of the pot, but it won’t ever boil over. It’s like the constipation you get from heroin; it twists your insides and doubles you over as you sit at work. So many ideas flying around in my mind, none of which I can seem to get out. I am distant and my gaze is distracted. I’m finding it hard to focus on reality when I can’t escape from my daydreams.

I’ll drift into fantasy on the freeway or in conversation, only to be startled by a honking horn or an annoyed friend. It is beginning to affect my work and my basic ability to socialize. I feel like there are so many things I need to sort out before I can start functioning again, I just don’t know where to start. They trickle out in little spurts, but never enough to provide sanity. I ended up getting distracted. TV, video games, phone calls, blogs, drugs, porn, beer. By the time I realize it, it’s time for sleep, or more accurately time for bed.

Sleep is elusive.

The sleep I do get is full of vivid dreams, some relevant and others zombie related. I dream far more in times when my mind is cluttered, it seems to be my brain’s way of housecleaning when I’m not there to dirty it up. I tend to believe that my dreams reflect the themes of my everyday life, especially the ones I have trouble realizing...or plain don’t want to.

Someone told me once that if you look at a task as a whole it seems impossible, take writing a research paper for example. You have to come up with an idea, research it (multiple tasks in itself), outline, write and revise in order to produce a paper worth reading. Looking at it as a whole makes it seem daunting. You might feel helpless, like a man standing in front of a mountain with no idea where to start.

So I had a dream the other night that seemed to follow this general plotline.

I am in a Wal-Mart, she is with me. We are exhausted, scared and alone in the store. I know it immediately that this is a zombie dream, I have them frequently. I have varying degrees of control over my dreams, and in my zombie dreams I go for weapons as soon as I realize the dream’s…genre, if you can call it that. We are in sporting goods. No ammo for the guns, no arrows for the bows and nothing else that looks like it could cause a human head to explode. At this point the theme is becoming obvious…helplessness. It’s like the dreams where I can’t seem to remember how to run or where my punches slow as if they were being thrown underwater, dreams of futility. She has a hedge clipper and I practice swing a Louisville Slugger as we hear them coming. I don’t remember much else, just the feeling of frustration when the blows from my bat do not kill the zombies. In fact, they don’t even seem to wound them. It’s all part of the theme of futility.

I wake up in a sweat just as we are overrun in the tire section.

This dream manifests itself in different ways during certain points in my life, it conveys frustration and helplessness. The dream only comes in times when a particularly daunting task lies ahead of me. But I know how to stop the dream.

Let’s get back to this looking at a task as a whole point. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, you’ll simply end up dying while your co patrons wonder why no one in the restaurant knows the Heimlich. Instead you have to look at a problem in segments, take our research paper, for example. Don’t think about the revision process while you’re still coming up with an idea, you’ll simply get yourself worked up. Take things one step at a time and keep your eyes focused on the task at hand, before you know it you’ll be at the finish line. Of course this sounds way easier than it really is, it’s much less difficult to let the shit all flood to the levee and drive you insane.

I’ve been taking that easy road, hoping for a lucky break in the completing of the task I have at hand. It isn’t going to solve itself, but one has to realize that it won’t happen overnight. Taking small steps toward the completion of my task is the only way to prevent the mental constipation that comes from over thinking every little thing. But over thinking is my specialty, I analyze everything to the point of unhealthiness. I must admit though, it feels good when you accomplish little pieces of the task at hand. I started putting my resume together this weekend. One wouldn’t think it would work such wonders for my sanity but it does. It is just one little task in a massive undertaking but it makes me feel better, helps me function and helps me get to sleep at night.

Every little chip off the stone eases the pressure.

Occasionally

2009-03-17T18:05:00.000-05:00

Occasionally I wish my parents had bought a proper ceiling fan, one that wouldn’t break under the weight of someone hanging from their neck. There are days when I come home and beer hits my lips before the door is locked. There are other days when this is not the case, but the former outnumber the latter. Some days I feel like shooting someone, other days I feel like shooting myself. Occasionally I think about setting my apartment building on fire and watching as tenants scramble to decide what to save from the flames. Sometimes I think about setting my work on fire and jamming the exits. Some days I wonder how long it would take work to notice if I did nothing at all. There are some days when it seems like a good idea to strangle the unruly neighbors in the projects behind my building. Other days it doesn’t seem like such a good idea, but the former outnumber the latter. Some days I feel like I should shoot my TV, others I feel I should attack with fists. Once in a while I feel like crying my eyes out. Sometimes I do cry my eyes out. Some days I want to shoot up again. Some days I want to snort coke until my nose bleeds. From time to time I think about allowing my car to veer off the road at 80 mph. Every now and again I think about becoming homeless. Some days I don’t feel like brushing my teeth, applying deodorant, showering, putting on clean clothing or cleaning up my beard. Some days I don’t want anything in my stomach but alcohol. Some days I think about quitting and often I think about shooting my boss in the process. Occasionally I feel like ceasing contact with every human being who knows me. There are times when I hate myself. There are times when I don’t, but the former outnumber the latter. Sometimes I think about blowing up buildings. Sometimes I think about how painful drowning would be, other times I think about drowning, period. There are some days when I don’t want to leave the apartment. Sometimes I don’t answer my phone because I want to be alone. Other times I think about making people hate me, so I will be alone. From time to time I think about giving up. Some days I think about how long it would take me to die from not drinking water. More often than not I think about how it would feel. Every once in a great while I think about punches I’ve taken. Sometimes I even think about ones I’ve given, but the former outnumber the latter. There are days when I don’t care about global hunger or AIDS. There are also days when I don’t care about the unemployed or the struggling. There are days when I’m the most selfish person on earth…many. Frequently I think about how it would feel to be tortured. There are days when I think about joining the Army. Some days I think about what it would be like to live with the knowledge that you have killed someone. From time to time I think about who will come to my funeral. Occasionally I think I’m sick for assuming my parents will be there. Sometimes I think about what I will be like to be fired. Every so often I think about what it means to be a failure. Some days I want to go apeshit with my credit card. Other days I want to go apeshit with my .45, but I won’t say which outnumbers the other. There are days when I wonder if you can throw a CD hard enough to decapitate someone. Other days I wonder if people hope their children don’t turn out like me. I wonder, from time to time, how much of a disappointment I am to my family. There are days I loathe my brother for being the favorite. Some days I wish my mom had a miscarriage. On other days I wish I was stillborn…better story. More often than not I wonder where that bright eyed kid I used to be disappeared to. More often than that I wonder how I managed to kill him. There are many days when I think about my friends who are more successful than me. Many more still when I think about the ones who are happier than me. I often wonder what to do tonight. I wonder daily what people see in me. I especially wonder how the hell I got the woman I did. There are many days when I don’t understand what she sees in me. Sometimes I want to know just how much I can drink before I die. Sometimes I wonder if drinking alone makes me an alcoholic. Sometimes I have a bad case of denial. I frequently wonder how and when I will die. Some days I want to get in bed and stay there. A lot of the time I wonder how long it would take for someone to realize I had died if I just went unexpectedly. I think about how thinking about my death probably makes me insane, or in need of help or counseling. I think about how I don’t care. From time to time I think about the amount of money I have spent on marijuana over my lifetime. I try not to think about how much I’ve spent on alcohol. Often I wonder if I will pass this on to my children. More often than that I wonder if I’ll live to have children. I think about a lot of things over the course of a day. I don’t know why. I try to put them out of my head but I can’t. Sometimes I think it is strange that I have more than one voice in my head. I find it stranger still that they say different things but have the same voice. Often I wonder who I am. I very frequently wonder what my purpose is, but as I grow older…I wonder if I have one at all.

Shame

2009-03-11T23:29:00.002-05:00

I don’t even know where to start.

I remember going to confession when I was young, I imagine I had the same problem I do right now. For me, confession occurs when my hands are red. Never are they spurred from a guilty need to right wrongs. In a sense…no, in plain truth I am the epitome of the person who thinks it’s only wrong if you get caught. My friends, I have a confession to make…

I am a liar.

When I think about what would define Cheese’s Seven Circles of Hell, I must say, I have a special place for the liars. Liars are a disgusting people…well they aren’t even people; they are rats…no…roaches. Liars are vile, repulsive and they make me sick. When I think about liars, I think about people who are too worthless to live. There are some people who don’t deserve to breathe…I am one…I am a liar.

It started with the Sega Genesis I never really did have. I was so cool…no one else had a Sega Genesis, shit they had hit the stores the night before. No one was smart enough to doubt me and no one was ballsy enough to call me on my blatant lie. From a young age I knew that I was more devious than most…it was to my advantage. It is a bad habit borne out of arrogance, the inherent belief that I am better than everyone. This belief is the most putrid part of my personality, and the really sickening part is that I totally believe it. Think about it as you read this, right now I am sitting facing my unmade bed, dirty (mostly cum filled) laundry surrounds me, I am drinking a black and tan and smoking a joint.

Take that all in.

I still think I’m better than you.

Don’t you just want to slap me? Oh, trust me, I want to kick my own ass too, and the truth is that I really hate this about myself. For some unknown reason I have an unquenchable thirst to be fucking way better than you. I think I am better than everyone, even while I drink on an empty stomach. Who am I kidding? Honestly I blame you, reader. It is your job to tell me that I am an arrogant sloth. I need someone who will knock me down a peg and say to me, “hey douche, shut the fuck up.”

Really though I do need someone to tell me to shut the fuck up now and again. I need to be brought down off of my self-righteous cloud of “I’m better than youness.” You know it, I know it…I am no better than you nor am I any better than the homeless guy with a sign that says, “Why lie, need a beer.” But here we are, back to the beginning because I seem to think I am better than everyone, when the truth is that I am less than or equal to the rest of humanity.

This doesn’t change the fact that I still feel the need to be something special, aka better than you. Ah, so we are even further back to the beginning now. Herein lies the reason I…uh, well…lie. It’s the same as the One Hour Life Story Game, except it is much more serious and totally real. Lie to make yourself more interesting than your friends. That, my friends, is the object of my game.

That’s pretty disgusting. I have been drinking while writing the duration of this post and to this exact point I have not read what is above. The beauty of drinking and writing is that you forget what you were writing, you completely forget the point you were trying to make. I, however, cannot drink enough to forget the point I am stumbling around making. The point I’m (probably not) making is that I violated someone’s trust.

Took me 649 words to say that. True testament of a liar. They fucking talk way too much. Henceforth do not believe a word I say, consider every statement I make and assume I am lying. In fact everything I have ever told you is a lie. Every single word you should consider a lie. No wait, that’s a lie. Actually, that is a lie. But what if I’m lying to you about this, what if only some of what I’ve written is lies and some is not? How will you ever know? You have no idea, do you? It’s all lies, my friend. It’s all true, my friend. Whose word are you going to take? Whose side are you on? What is fact? What is fiction?

What am I talking about?

I have this stupid ass story. My dad is from Ireland. He really isn’t. I might have told you this, but frankly I don’t really care about you. I told this to her. Listen, actually I’m lying so don’t listen, but really…do listen, I lied to her. I started this nonsense to leave all the lies I had told behind. Some of them…they were so elaborate that they could have been books. The scum of it was that I was lying to people I care about, for god knows what reason. I’ll use the 649 words above to rationalize it but between you and me, I have no real explanation.

I have this strange desire to lie to people about trivial things in order to make them think that I am something (cool) that I am not.

In twenty four (I’m actually thirty four………kidding) years of my life I have never put this into writing or even into clear thought. This is the most vile aspect of my personality, the bad side that far outweighs the good in me. I started writing this blog in order to come to terms with the fake life I was living. Here is where I have admitted my secrets and here is where I escaped the fantasy world I had created. But here is also where I met someone that I fell in love with, and you can throw up from my gayness but you can also kiss my ass…I love this woman. I fucking mean it, I love her. I lied to her. I’m still using more words than necessary. It should take a sentence.

I lied. I said that my father was from Ireland, he is not.

I realize that this throws everything you have read into question and frankly I could not give a fuck less. The reason this appears here, in public is to prove to myself that this is a space to confess. Always has been and it always will be, regardless of audience. I’m not going to explain myself to you, frankly because I don’t have to.

This is a diary of truth, penned by a liar. Everything you read must be questioned. Take everything with a grain of salt. Is he lying? Is he telling the truth? I’ll tell you truthfully that the paternal heritage lie is the only lie you have ever heard from me, but it is your choice whether to believe me or not.

Is he lying? Is he telling the truth?

This is a diary of truth, penned by a liar, it’s your choice to believe or not…I don’t care.

The Good Ol Days?

2009-03-11T15:27:00.002-05:00

There was a time that no less than $4,000 cash was in my apartment. I had an assault rifle hidden under my bed, loaded. I carried a knife and on occasion, a gun. Everyone knew my name and everyone wanted my number. I threw away dollars like they were pennies. I paid for a year of college, paid for dinner, paid for drinks…I paid for everything. My wallet hurt my ass from sitting on so much cash. I was up early and asleep late, meeting the demand while staying one step ahead of the police. My roommate and I ran our school. If you wanted to get high you called us.

We thought we were hot shit; turns out we were just douche bags who had connections. We have both grown up, but it is hard to forget about the “good ol days” when we ran the show. Sometimes we sit around and discuss the market, what we did wrong, what we did right and why we never got caught. We are a few years older, most certainly wiser, and when we reminisce the conversation always ends in how lucky we were.

Lucky that we didn’t get caught, killed or robbed.

But the more and more I think back on it, the thing I think I am luckiest for is that I escaped with my personality intact. If you knew me before I started dealing you wouldn’t have recognized me while I was knee deep in it. I spent a good portion of my days counting stacks of cash and then I spent the other portion recounting them. I cleaned and trained with my guns incessantly, ever prepared to fight off the seemingly inevitable home invasion. I bought things for people and threw my money around like it actually bought friends. I thought about the dollar, obsessed about the dollar, counted the dollar and worshipped the dollar.

I was the dollar, it was my life.

I am lucky that those few years of distribution didn’t destroy me. The obsession with money and power was out of hand, and I was what you could call small time. I often talk to my old roommate about what would have happened had we gone big time...the conclusions drawn are never pretty. As much as I loathe the person I was for those few years, I love to reminisce.

The following is the roommate’s take on our past occupation:

why is it that at 4:20 every day i stop and think...

if only I was a drug dealer again...

i would be sitting on a couch instead of at a desk...

i would be making more money than i am now...

i could spend more time with [my dog]... (Notice he doesn't say "my girlfriend")

not pay a lot for taxes...

get back my bull shit 20 hours of work at whole foods...

walk to work...

reducing my carbon footprint...

effects: a less stressful life in that i am not a harrassing telemarketer...

my customers would come to me because i have a good product that they all want...

i wouldnt be restructuring loans...

lets get drunk after work.