Atlantic Ave.

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.