No one ever teaches you how to grieve. People spend lifetimes telling other people how to live and how to be but no one ever actively says "No, this is how you grieve." Because really we all have to do it our own way.I've spent a year with grief on a daily basis, on a level I'm fairly certain isn't healthy and these last few months I've been slowly coming away from it and it feels goddamned great and strange at the same time. I missed my Aunt long before she died but I don't think we know what its really like to miss someone until theres a hole in your heart that they used to fill. The details of her death weren't simple and easily packaged , the behaviour of her husband wasn't that of the poor grieving husband - more like that of the raging junky addict who hit the jackpot but blew it long before the body was even cold, But the fact remains she's dead. He's miraculously still living and I can choose to carry all of this with me or I can let it go and try with everything I have to do the forgiveness thing. How do you forgive the devil? Do you kill him in your mind? Do you just pretend it never happened? How do you do that when the hole is still there to remind you it did. There is so much more to forgiving this kind of hurt than just letting go of it. Or is there.
I've been crying less and dancing more and more and more and there's a few reasons for this but I have to believe she is contributing to all of these and while I know she is never coming back to this home. I know she is home. I know she is dancing and I know the only thing that was keeping me from dancin was the weight of hating her husband. While that weight is lifting it is all but dissipated and now to break free of that there is this choice, this chore of forgiveness and to do that I need to try to let go and keep it movin. I've got big plans and a bright future and no time or energy to hate someone for something that just won't change. Fuck if that ain't easier said than done but a year is long enough for me to hold to something so painful as loss. I'd rather dance, feet, heart, spirit and head light, I'd rather smile and laugh and dance and love.
My Aunt Nancy was one in a million but isn't that what everyone thinks about the people they love? She really was though and she laughed and loved and danced and she did it all kinda heavy with the crap she carried with her. I don't want to be heavy like that but I do want to be strong like that. Life is too short, too precious and too important to waste holdin on to the sad parts. Give me the joy and the memories and season it with sadness so I remember to appreciate the better days. I don't need to carry the heavy shit, it'll stay right where I leave it. As long as I keep moving and groovin everything will work itself out.
~ Got no time for spreadin roots
The time has come to be gone
and though I healthily drank
a thousand times
Its time to ramble on...
Monday, December 26, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Daddy is a football Coach...
The thing about a town like Stratford is, if people know you, then well they know you and that's not to say they really truly know you, but they know your name. Sometimes its just your family name and other times its more than that but I'm not talking about friends here. This is about the village inside the town. The people that watch you when your parents aren't there, the people that taunt you when your siblings can't and the people that have your back even when you don't know it. As I get older I gain a respect for the village inside the town that I've been trying to escape since birth. At the same time it's that same village mentality, that hypocratic bullshit that in some ways fuels my desire to get the fuck out.
I grew up in a home where football was life and the rest was just details. As I get older I learn knew things about how this shaped me as a person. The reality i know now is that it was much more than football and much more than life. Growing up in my family we were told the kids my father coached were our brothers. Some of them we got to know and some of them not so much. They were our babysitters, our siblings, once in a while a friend and occasionally that dick that told us how tough our dad was. Honestly, as a kid I hated football and hated those kids. At the time they got more of my Dad than I did. As an adult I realize things weren't what they seemed and maybe, just maybe they needed him just as much as I did.
My father doesn't coach anymore and I'm over that teenage anger, but that village mentality still lives in some half assed way in this silly town where everything and nothing change all at once. As a kid I wanted nothing more than to have my Dad to myself. As this whole adulthood thing kicks in I want the village to step up. Not a month goes by where I don't run into one of my fathers football players somewhere in this town. Not once in recent years have they not told me how great my Dad is, or asked me how he's doin. The thing is talk is cheap, free in fact and it gets old. Generally,I have a stock answer for these conversations ~ Go see him, tell him yourself. I'm aware people grow up get lives and move on but if even half of everyone who gives me this "How's your mom and Dad, hows Coach?" Bullshit, took an hour, one day a year to go visit the man that honestly worried about your grades, your well being and your future, maybe I wouldn't be such a bitch everytime someone said it. The difference between the teachers, coaches and influences we remember and have love for as adults and the ones we don't is that the ones we remember and wonder about are the same ones that wonder and remember us 10, 20, 30 years later.
I'm no longer afraid these villagers, football players or otherwise are going to tell my family I was smokin a cigerette, out late partyin or anything else a kid might worry about. What scares me is that someday, the kids I may (or may not) have, won't have that village to look after them. Granted, the whole village isn't made up of football players. They're just the group that pissed me off today. Mostly my point is if someone influenced you, helped you, gave a fuck about you, don't just ask other people how they're doin, find out for yourself. Don't go telling everyone but them how they made a difference in your life, tell them. The losses of the last few years have taught me that much atleast...
I grew up in a home where football was life and the rest was just details. As I get older I learn knew things about how this shaped me as a person. The reality i know now is that it was much more than football and much more than life. Growing up in my family we were told the kids my father coached were our brothers. Some of them we got to know and some of them not so much. They were our babysitters, our siblings, once in a while a friend and occasionally that dick that told us how tough our dad was. Honestly, as a kid I hated football and hated those kids. At the time they got more of my Dad than I did. As an adult I realize things weren't what they seemed and maybe, just maybe they needed him just as much as I did.
My father doesn't coach anymore and I'm over that teenage anger, but that village mentality still lives in some half assed way in this silly town where everything and nothing change all at once. As a kid I wanted nothing more than to have my Dad to myself. As this whole adulthood thing kicks in I want the village to step up. Not a month goes by where I don't run into one of my fathers football players somewhere in this town. Not once in recent years have they not told me how great my Dad is, or asked me how he's doin. The thing is talk is cheap, free in fact and it gets old. Generally,I have a stock answer for these conversations ~ Go see him, tell him yourself. I'm aware people grow up get lives and move on but if even half of everyone who gives me this "How's your mom and Dad, hows Coach?" Bullshit, took an hour, one day a year to go visit the man that honestly worried about your grades, your well being and your future, maybe I wouldn't be such a bitch everytime someone said it. The difference between the teachers, coaches and influences we remember and have love for as adults and the ones we don't is that the ones we remember and wonder about are the same ones that wonder and remember us 10, 20, 30 years later.
I'm no longer afraid these villagers, football players or otherwise are going to tell my family I was smokin a cigerette, out late partyin or anything else a kid might worry about. What scares me is that someday, the kids I may (or may not) have, won't have that village to look after them. Granted, the whole village isn't made up of football players. They're just the group that pissed me off today. Mostly my point is if someone influenced you, helped you, gave a fuck about you, don't just ask other people how they're doin, find out for yourself. Don't go telling everyone but them how they made a difference in your life, tell them. The losses of the last few years have taught me that much atleast...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Flutterby war
Tonight as I left work I attempted to save a butterfly. It was sitting on the ground in the center of the doorway. I'm not sure why but in that moment it seemed so beautiful and so important to save that one creature from being stomped on by some asshole in too much of a rush to notice it. The next person to walk by, as I blocked the doorway with this intense need not to let someone kill beauty, he said firmly "its not a butterfly, its a moth."~ he still tried right along with me to save this creature. I'm not much of a buddhist and normally I'd have been the asshole in a rush but a little more each day I'm noticing there are times to trust my instincts even if they send me places I wouldn't naturally go. I believe in magic, signs and souls as much as I believe in science and logic. Perhaps more even. In a world filled with craziness I think maybe all we can believe in and trust is our intuitions and these intense moments that many of us dismiss in our insistance on being rational adults. As aware as I am that every butterfly must die and as odd it is that I spent five minutes today doing my best to prolong that creatures life, It was far and away the best five minutes of my day. I wonder what kind of world it would be if every minute of every day could be as beautiful as that winged creature.
For two weeks now I've been grasping for perspective and dodging the urge to trust myself in this newly prescribed "adult" version of me I'm desperately trying to become. Everything we do leads us to the person we are meant to be and maybe it was just a moth, and maybe it only lived a short time longer, but in a society where life is so easily taken for granted, who decides the chain of events? How does the fate of that creature or any other get decided? Nature? What is nature really, aside from a series of scientific combinations and reactions? Is there a natural order to the way each and everything happens or is it all just chaos and we rationalize it down to understandable bits so that we can go on with our day to day, me, me, you, us and back to me, bullshit? Are we so removed from ourselves that we forget to take the warnings our hearts, our souls give us about the things we have yet to do. Where did our adventure go? Have we lost our trust and hope to a world so much more a machine than it was ever meant to be or can we still pull back the line and get our spirits back. Eventually every machine will shut down and "civilization" will begin again with a whole new set of tools and rules and creatures to save. By denying our nature do we damage the natural order of existance for generations to come or will this denial of nature and instinct prove a positive contribution to the future?
As individuals the impact we have on the world around us both naturally and socially can be much more important in the little things we do or don't do, than we will ever know. Had I walked out a different door that butterfly may have died or maybe it wouldn't, for me that is enough to show me the importance of the minor details I normally ignore. Wether I saved a butterfly or a small child, life comes with no guarauntees and we are all left to decide at our own pace if we will be part of the machine made by man or the order created by the chaos of nature. As uncertain and frightening as the world without modern day societal structure may seem, a time is coming fast around the bend where chaos will once again put us in our place. What would you do if you knew you were dying? If you knew the world around you was about to drastically change? There's adventure in the wind and that is the chaos I'd live to live in. How about you?
For two weeks now I've been grasping for perspective and dodging the urge to trust myself in this newly prescribed "adult" version of me I'm desperately trying to become. Everything we do leads us to the person we are meant to be and maybe it was just a moth, and maybe it only lived a short time longer, but in a society where life is so easily taken for granted, who decides the chain of events? How does the fate of that creature or any other get decided? Nature? What is nature really, aside from a series of scientific combinations and reactions? Is there a natural order to the way each and everything happens or is it all just chaos and we rationalize it down to understandable bits so that we can go on with our day to day, me, me, you, us and back to me, bullshit? Are we so removed from ourselves that we forget to take the warnings our hearts, our souls give us about the things we have yet to do. Where did our adventure go? Have we lost our trust and hope to a world so much more a machine than it was ever meant to be or can we still pull back the line and get our spirits back. Eventually every machine will shut down and "civilization" will begin again with a whole new set of tools and rules and creatures to save. By denying our nature do we damage the natural order of existance for generations to come or will this denial of nature and instinct prove a positive contribution to the future?
As individuals the impact we have on the world around us both naturally and socially can be much more important in the little things we do or don't do, than we will ever know. Had I walked out a different door that butterfly may have died or maybe it wouldn't, for me that is enough to show me the importance of the minor details I normally ignore. Wether I saved a butterfly or a small child, life comes with no guarauntees and we are all left to decide at our own pace if we will be part of the machine made by man or the order created by the chaos of nature. As uncertain and frightening as the world without modern day societal structure may seem, a time is coming fast around the bend where chaos will once again put us in our place. What would you do if you knew you were dying? If you knew the world around you was about to drastically change? There's adventure in the wind and that is the chaos I'd live to live in. How about you?
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Boxes made of plastic fortunes.
As a child I believed a priveledge was something lost when you were bad, priorities were not embarrassing the mommy, pasta was better than beans and poverty was what happened if you ran away from home. As an adult I know that priveledge is every freedom we take for granted, priorities are surviving much more than embarrassment and poverty tastes much worse than beans. I grow up knowing struggle was and always will be part of life and as time passes I learn to roll more readily with the punches. I am reminded daily of my goals and inspired more in these past few weeks to push harder. Each day I go to work dreaming of a time I can enjoy what I do and each night I come home hoping I can somehow forget how utterly ignorant people are. I spend 8 hours a day listening to people cry poverty over a non-essential expense and each time I think - if you can still consider this a priority you cannot be that poor.
Is this just my opinion or is it fact? Am I thinking too far outside the box or has the box moved and I've been left behind. It seems that somewhere along the way society has added a third mirage group of haves to the traditional haves and have nots. Keeping up appearances and charging it all the way home. We are a society living the lie I hear in the voices of wildly disillusioned customers every day. Believing each in our own way that having things is a right we earn simply by wanting. Building debts to ensure our place among the economically priveledged, creating a false sense of security and entitlement all to "fit in". A commodity is defined most simply as anything that is bought and sold. A necessity on the other hand is defined as essential. When did the two become so very intertwined? We systematically live beyond our means and wake up expecting things to get better but they won't. Nothing about the way we live as a society is built to survive the inevitable reality check that has been left unopened on the table.
The ones who will survive won't be the haves or the underpriveledged over entitled "mirage" haves. The survivors will be the have nots for they are the most prepared. The have nots are the most skilled at survival and know the art of living simple. They alone have the truest appreciation for life and the most real understanding of happiness. I aspire to be as strong, happy, aware and prepared for the downturns of life as this socially overlooked group of people. I am not embarrassed of my experiences, I'll not be ashamed of my means or forget my priorities. It is my belief the have nots have more support, love and ability to thrive under even the worst of circumstances and I am not there yet but I am fortunate enough to be very, very close.
Is this just my opinion or is it fact? Am I thinking too far outside the box or has the box moved and I've been left behind. It seems that somewhere along the way society has added a third mirage group of haves to the traditional haves and have nots. Keeping up appearances and charging it all the way home. We are a society living the lie I hear in the voices of wildly disillusioned customers every day. Believing each in our own way that having things is a right we earn simply by wanting. Building debts to ensure our place among the economically priveledged, creating a false sense of security and entitlement all to "fit in". A commodity is defined most simply as anything that is bought and sold. A necessity on the other hand is defined as essential. When did the two become so very intertwined? We systematically live beyond our means and wake up expecting things to get better but they won't. Nothing about the way we live as a society is built to survive the inevitable reality check that has been left unopened on the table.
The ones who will survive won't be the haves or the underpriveledged over entitled "mirage" haves. The survivors will be the have nots for they are the most prepared. The have nots are the most skilled at survival and know the art of living simple. They alone have the truest appreciation for life and the most real understanding of happiness. I aspire to be as strong, happy, aware and prepared for the downturns of life as this socially overlooked group of people. I am not embarrassed of my experiences, I'll not be ashamed of my means or forget my priorities. It is my belief the have nots have more support, love and ability to thrive under even the worst of circumstances and I am not there yet but I am fortunate enough to be very, very close.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Feeds on life, feeds on you.
"To all my friends present past and beyond, though you weren't with us too long, while you were here the fun was neverending. Laugh a minute only the beginning..." ~ Pennywise, Brohymn.
How do you measure a year? By time, experience, pain, love, joy? Every change that could happen in a year also happens a million times in a life. What makes one year stand out from any other? How does the mind choose which memories to hold close and which to let fade away? Every person is built by the memories they keep but what happens to the ones we don't? In a year I've watched my world change in ways I never imagined but how is that any different from anyone else's? Maybe I'm just paying attention now. In a year I've gained a sense of self I'm not certain I even knew I needed. My reality has been checked and rechecked. Still the things standing out don't seem real.
A year ago this month I lost a job I only loved when I was drinking the Koolaid. Since losing that job I've learned alot about who I am, not the least of which being toothpaste can double as deodarant in bind and pasta is the poor mans filet mignon (mothafucka)! A year later I think finally, I'm reaching a point where the standard corporate bureacracy applied to carry out my firing, by a company insisting they were different, no longer stings quite as bad. Still, I'm not able to say it was just business. Getting fired is always personal and though it may not have been personal for a single person at that company aside from me, I'd be willing to bet the majority of Americans who've been fired over the last few years would agree. It's fucking personal. It's not personal in any one singular way, yes at points you cry and your angry and you have your little pity parties and your depression but the reality of your fears and the overwhelming feeling of failure is not nearly as personally affecting as your literal reality. It's not that I was fired, but that I couldn't find my way, couldn't be sure how the bills would get paid or how long I could live off of pasta and hope that made the experience deeply personal. I never hated the company that put me out over a quota that was changed mere months after I was fired or even spoke badly about it. I will admit, to a now minor grudge, against the woman who fired me. I can't help but wonder if she even has a clue as to how inappropriate it is to text people you've fired about how you miss them. Looking back at it maybe if she did that every day I might have gotten out of bed earlier just out of pure anger at her. After a year of thought on her role in particular I'm still not in a place where it's not personal, but I no longer hate her. I learned from that experience that the people you stand up for will not stand up for you. The reality is it was my failure that was the most personal part of losing that job and it was that failure that was the easiest part of this year to overcome. There is nothing about the dynamics of that situation in its current state that I can honestly say I want to be a part of. As much as I may hate my current state of employment I breathe a little easier knowing this time it is nothing but business and the only back I care about is my own.
I've lost much more this year than that job and its those things, these people that I've struggled the most with. With the death of my Aunt I've found myself questioning the importance of friendship and family, trust and memory. I've looked back at the secrets I've kept for myself and for others and come to a few conclusions. Maybe if I'd told her a few of the things I didn't, she wouldn't have been where she was. The oh so important conclusion to that is there's not shit I can do about that now. Just the seperation of things I can do something about and the things I can't is a daily struggle for me. The maybes and what if's of our lives will eat us alive if we let them. For me its the active struggle that reminds me that I'm not trying I'm doing and if its getting easier its time to move towards the next challenge. The most recent conclusion brought about by the death of my Aunt is that the only addiction worth having is life and time is short. I may not be able to live the life I wanted right this moment but time is not a given.
In the months following my Aunts death I lost a friendship I thought I'd have forever and relearned a crucial lesson she had taught me years before. I can't say my own crazy didn't feed on the spoonfed crazy of others in this case but I can say I got lost in the grey of it all. Still I can't help but wonder if maybe I told this person a few things about the story I was getting things wouldn't be different, then I attempt to embrace the idea that some things are just better left alone. ~Sometimes the people you meet are just people you meet along the way and the love you have for them is just part of a cycle. A cycle in desperate need of breaking. The memories of a good friendship are still not something I'm sure how to categorize. How do any of us really figure that one out. Ten years from now will it still bother me that the addicts in my life were the people I loved the most even at 27? Will I still wonder why the fuck I opened up to someone I didn't trust in this situation or will I be where I want to be in life and this unfortunate experience will have faded away with all the other memories we forget in a lifetime. ~File this in the trying to struggle, not quite understood pile of minor what if's I'm still allowing to nibble at me. The lesson relearned doesn't need to be repeated, It's a secret I feel better kept inside the vault. The paranoia and disgust induced by this chapter of a year of unfortunate goodbyes is an active battle and exorcise in letting go, so far, demons be gone, but temptation still lives.
In a final twist of deaths platinum sickle my Grandmothers death brought a whole different feeling. My anger at my Aunts death, at my foolish belief in friendship, at my inability to instantly have the dreams I wished for, all came into perspective with this confusingly final and freeing end. I loved my Grandmother and in her end I saw her, the full kaleidoscope of her. She was in every way a queen, of what I still don't know but a queen nonetheless. In her life she did everything her way and everything was done her way. It is family folklore she was dying since she was sixteen and it is in this that I now, after her death find perspective. She lived a long and driven life but the reality is she and every one of us are dying from the day we are born. Time is what we make it and she burned as many bridges as she made but therein is the meaning of her life to me. The ancient Egyptians are said to have weighed hearts against a feather to determine worthiness of the afterlife. In my Grandmothers case I'd put money on her bringing her own feather and even more money on her getting in. She was crafty like that. The final image of my Grandmother was that of an extremely confused woman putting her pajamas on backwards yet still refusing to walk with a cane. The peace I find in knowing who she was has recently motivated me to fight the safety of the cycles my life once repeated so easily.
A week from today will be 5 years since I lost my first friend. His life was more lived than most peoples. The memories of the people you love live long after they pain of losing them to change, stupidity, craziness and even death. But I wonder if the pain and hurt of being left behind ever really fades. If the loss of that first loved friend ever fades to the loss of the next or the one after that. If we are unfortunate enough to outlive the people we love does the hurt ever fade like the sting of questioning your self worth or the loss of a friendship to lifes growing pains. Is death just a business we can grow to take less personally or is it an ever personal mind fuck? Though this is yet another question I cannot answer, I know I am closing the door on a mostly unimpressive year with one word as my biggest lesson ~ Live.
How do you measure a year? By time, experience, pain, love, joy? Every change that could happen in a year also happens a million times in a life. What makes one year stand out from any other? How does the mind choose which memories to hold close and which to let fade away? Every person is built by the memories they keep but what happens to the ones we don't? In a year I've watched my world change in ways I never imagined but how is that any different from anyone else's? Maybe I'm just paying attention now. In a year I've gained a sense of self I'm not certain I even knew I needed. My reality has been checked and rechecked. Still the things standing out don't seem real.
A year ago this month I lost a job I only loved when I was drinking the Koolaid. Since losing that job I've learned alot about who I am, not the least of which being toothpaste can double as deodarant in bind and pasta is the poor mans filet mignon (mothafucka)! A year later I think finally, I'm reaching a point where the standard corporate bureacracy applied to carry out my firing, by a company insisting they were different, no longer stings quite as bad. Still, I'm not able to say it was just business. Getting fired is always personal and though it may not have been personal for a single person at that company aside from me, I'd be willing to bet the majority of Americans who've been fired over the last few years would agree. It's fucking personal. It's not personal in any one singular way, yes at points you cry and your angry and you have your little pity parties and your depression but the reality of your fears and the overwhelming feeling of failure is not nearly as personally affecting as your literal reality. It's not that I was fired, but that I couldn't find my way, couldn't be sure how the bills would get paid or how long I could live off of pasta and hope that made the experience deeply personal. I never hated the company that put me out over a quota that was changed mere months after I was fired or even spoke badly about it. I will admit, to a now minor grudge, against the woman who fired me. I can't help but wonder if she even has a clue as to how inappropriate it is to text people you've fired about how you miss them. Looking back at it maybe if she did that every day I might have gotten out of bed earlier just out of pure anger at her. After a year of thought on her role in particular I'm still not in a place where it's not personal, but I no longer hate her. I learned from that experience that the people you stand up for will not stand up for you. The reality is it was my failure that was the most personal part of losing that job and it was that failure that was the easiest part of this year to overcome. There is nothing about the dynamics of that situation in its current state that I can honestly say I want to be a part of. As much as I may hate my current state of employment I breathe a little easier knowing this time it is nothing but business and the only back I care about is my own.
I've lost much more this year than that job and its those things, these people that I've struggled the most with. With the death of my Aunt I've found myself questioning the importance of friendship and family, trust and memory. I've looked back at the secrets I've kept for myself and for others and come to a few conclusions. Maybe if I'd told her a few of the things I didn't, she wouldn't have been where she was. The oh so important conclusion to that is there's not shit I can do about that now. Just the seperation of things I can do something about and the things I can't is a daily struggle for me. The maybes and what if's of our lives will eat us alive if we let them. For me its the active struggle that reminds me that I'm not trying I'm doing and if its getting easier its time to move towards the next challenge. The most recent conclusion brought about by the death of my Aunt is that the only addiction worth having is life and time is short. I may not be able to live the life I wanted right this moment but time is not a given.
In the months following my Aunts death I lost a friendship I thought I'd have forever and relearned a crucial lesson she had taught me years before. I can't say my own crazy didn't feed on the spoonfed crazy of others in this case but I can say I got lost in the grey of it all. Still I can't help but wonder if maybe I told this person a few things about the story I was getting things wouldn't be different, then I attempt to embrace the idea that some things are just better left alone. ~Sometimes the people you meet are just people you meet along the way and the love you have for them is just part of a cycle. A cycle in desperate need of breaking. The memories of a good friendship are still not something I'm sure how to categorize. How do any of us really figure that one out. Ten years from now will it still bother me that the addicts in my life were the people I loved the most even at 27? Will I still wonder why the fuck I opened up to someone I didn't trust in this situation or will I be where I want to be in life and this unfortunate experience will have faded away with all the other memories we forget in a lifetime. ~File this in the trying to struggle, not quite understood pile of minor what if's I'm still allowing to nibble at me. The lesson relearned doesn't need to be repeated, It's a secret I feel better kept inside the vault. The paranoia and disgust induced by this chapter of a year of unfortunate goodbyes is an active battle and exorcise in letting go, so far, demons be gone, but temptation still lives.
In a final twist of deaths platinum sickle my Grandmothers death brought a whole different feeling. My anger at my Aunts death, at my foolish belief in friendship, at my inability to instantly have the dreams I wished for, all came into perspective with this confusingly final and freeing end. I loved my Grandmother and in her end I saw her, the full kaleidoscope of her. She was in every way a queen, of what I still don't know but a queen nonetheless. In her life she did everything her way and everything was done her way. It is family folklore she was dying since she was sixteen and it is in this that I now, after her death find perspective. She lived a long and driven life but the reality is she and every one of us are dying from the day we are born. Time is what we make it and she burned as many bridges as she made but therein is the meaning of her life to me. The ancient Egyptians are said to have weighed hearts against a feather to determine worthiness of the afterlife. In my Grandmothers case I'd put money on her bringing her own feather and even more money on her getting in. She was crafty like that. The final image of my Grandmother was that of an extremely confused woman putting her pajamas on backwards yet still refusing to walk with a cane. The peace I find in knowing who she was has recently motivated me to fight the safety of the cycles my life once repeated so easily.
A week from today will be 5 years since I lost my first friend. His life was more lived than most peoples. The memories of the people you love live long after they pain of losing them to change, stupidity, craziness and even death. But I wonder if the pain and hurt of being left behind ever really fades. If the loss of that first loved friend ever fades to the loss of the next or the one after that. If we are unfortunate enough to outlive the people we love does the hurt ever fade like the sting of questioning your self worth or the loss of a friendship to lifes growing pains. Is death just a business we can grow to take less personally or is it an ever personal mind fuck? Though this is yet another question I cannot answer, I know I am closing the door on a mostly unimpressive year with one word as my biggest lesson ~ Live.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Stove is on, fridge is wobbly and he had love.
Some asshole once told me all the answers you could ever ask for are found in a connection between the mind and the heart. It was a long time ago and I'm probably not remembering the words exactly but it's been on my mind lately. Some other asshole once told me no one would ever love me, this has been on my mind lately too. The thing about broken people is they can't be fixed like a tangible object. You can't pick a person up rebuild them and send them on their way, healing a heart, a mind, a person, doesn't happen overnight. You can't just hand them a bandaid and say "all better, now go play!", there is no magic bandaid, no specified cure for a broken person and no two broken people are broken the same exact way. What broke me was a fear i'd never get away from the asshole who said no one would love me. That fear paralyzed me in ways only someone who's been there might truly understand. It's disappointing to me how long I've let that fear combined with those words keep me paralyzed. I've been loved my whole life and I never really believed no one would love me, but for me its something similiar to thinking you left the stove on when you know you didn't. It lingers. You know its utter bullshit but that doesn't make it hurt any less and you still find yourself wondering when that day will come where someone, anyone, will come along and reassure you of just how bullshit it is. As we get older it becomes more important that someone love us. Not in the way family or friends love us but in the way a partner, a combination friend, family and lover, loves us. No matter how broken we get along the way people need to be loved in that way, frightening as it may be to admit for some of us, no one wants to wake up alone, wondering if they left the stove on.
Some people never make the choice to move past broken. Others spend years meticulously rebuilding but choose to stay in a constant loop of prerecorded self loathing, self pity and self doubt. Some put blinders on to reality and replay the events leading up to their ultimate breaking, over and over, hoping somehow, this time things will go according to plan. Some realize these attempts or lack of attempts to heal are not working and some don't, but everyone gets where they're going based on their own fuel. For some its fast, for others its slow and for a sad handful healing never comes at all. Your heart is a muscle so full of attachments and functions that even the tiniest break can change the functionality of your entire body so why would a broken heart of the figuritive sense be any less powerful? When people have heart attacks they're told to take it easy, change their lifestyle, make healthier choices.Many times following this advice makes all the difference and sometimes it makes no difference at all. Occasionally some crazy fucker keeps boozin and druggin and lives far past his prime even after a heart attack, occasionally a perfectly healthy person drops dead in the middle of their morning run. Either way life doesn't just hand us what we want because we want it.
Our spirits, our hearts, our broken, none of it heals because we ask it nicely. We don't wake up one day, our past erased our scars all gone. Our scars make us who we are but if we never let our wounds heal we'll always be broken. For some people the urge to pick the scabs and keep the wounds open is just too much. Some of these people never heal, some of these people eventually find eachother, wrap eachothers wounds, heal together and live something like happily ever after. There are some though that just want to be loved. These people will find someone broken something like what broke them to begin with and they will let them rip open the wounds because some where along the way some asshole warped their idea of love and even if it hurts, open wounds are what they know of love.
People settle for less than what they deserve all the time in life and the less likely a person thinks it is that someone could love them, the more crazy they're willing to let in their life. No one wants to wake up alone forever and for many people there comes a decision to trade sane decisions and independence for some one to go home to and say they love you. It's part of being human. Some of us survive very similiar events and walk away with completely different needs. Some of us heal slower than slow but eventually we stop picking the scabs and actually heal. Some of us just want to be loved and some of us want to heal and be loved. I prefer my scars to scabs, but not everyone is like me.
*** Mothadear***I believe she just wanted to be loved. I believe in his own broken way he loved her. I also believe sometimes this is all anyone has to have over anyone else to keep them where they are. ~ Life is what happens while we're making other plans.- John Lennon
Some people never make the choice to move past broken. Others spend years meticulously rebuilding but choose to stay in a constant loop of prerecorded self loathing, self pity and self doubt. Some put blinders on to reality and replay the events leading up to their ultimate breaking, over and over, hoping somehow, this time things will go according to plan. Some realize these attempts or lack of attempts to heal are not working and some don't, but everyone gets where they're going based on their own fuel. For some its fast, for others its slow and for a sad handful healing never comes at all. Your heart is a muscle so full of attachments and functions that even the tiniest break can change the functionality of your entire body so why would a broken heart of the figuritive sense be any less powerful? When people have heart attacks they're told to take it easy, change their lifestyle, make healthier choices.Many times following this advice makes all the difference and sometimes it makes no difference at all. Occasionally some crazy fucker keeps boozin and druggin and lives far past his prime even after a heart attack, occasionally a perfectly healthy person drops dead in the middle of their morning run. Either way life doesn't just hand us what we want because we want it.
Our spirits, our hearts, our broken, none of it heals because we ask it nicely. We don't wake up one day, our past erased our scars all gone. Our scars make us who we are but if we never let our wounds heal we'll always be broken. For some people the urge to pick the scabs and keep the wounds open is just too much. Some of these people never heal, some of these people eventually find eachother, wrap eachothers wounds, heal together and live something like happily ever after. There are some though that just want to be loved. These people will find someone broken something like what broke them to begin with and they will let them rip open the wounds because some where along the way some asshole warped their idea of love and even if it hurts, open wounds are what they know of love.
People settle for less than what they deserve all the time in life and the less likely a person thinks it is that someone could love them, the more crazy they're willing to let in their life. No one wants to wake up alone forever and for many people there comes a decision to trade sane decisions and independence for some one to go home to and say they love you. It's part of being human. Some of us survive very similiar events and walk away with completely different needs. Some of us heal slower than slow but eventually we stop picking the scabs and actually heal. Some of us just want to be loved and some of us want to heal and be loved. I prefer my scars to scabs, but not everyone is like me.
*** Mothadear***I believe she just wanted to be loved. I believe in his own broken way he loved her. I also believe sometimes this is all anyone has to have over anyone else to keep them where they are. ~ Life is what happens while we're making other plans.- John Lennon
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Barbies and ducklings...
Pen and paper what an original thought, I started writing this on good old paper with a shiny black pen. The problem with pen and paper is like so many things in this world today, no one REALLY uses them anymore. Earlier this evening as I sat in my grey cubicle in my grey work environment, I wondered if other people feel like I do when they sit down to their cubicles full of germs and proceed to be someone else for 8 hours a day. Do they look at the people around them and think : How many of these people actually are who they wanted to be? Do they conclude each time, as I do, that in a room of 100 maybe 10 are actually happy and that those ten are only happy because they became part of the machine too long ago to remember who they wanted to be. Does anyone else wonder what the other 89 people are doing there?
On day one of this particular journey one of the 10 made the statement "You can always change who you are! So why not change?". With energy and true belief in what they were saying this person made this statement and had it not been in reference to using fake empathy and keeping a smile in your voice when answering a phone it might have been inspiring, refreshing even. In the context it was used it only made me sad to think that anyone could feel pretending to be glad someone called to pay a bill or sorry they we're having trouble with anything, was a good way to keep people happy. Realistically its just another way to keep people in their place. Not so much the smile in your voice crap, but the false empathy is a tactic that makes me vommit a little in my mouth each time I hear it, pretty much anywhere in life. In the context it was made this statement of change made me want to get up and run fast and far for something, anything a little more real and a little less bullshit, if only the bills paid themselves.
Apply this "Why not change" thought process to other things in our lives and suddenly we are the 8 hours a day we spend in someone elses crockpot. Suddenly we're all exactly the same, on the outside atleast and what good does it do any one of us if we all appear the same? This in itself spawns an entirely new dilema for me. If we all changed into the people we wanted to be, would we really be any happier? If the supermodel and the entrepreuner, the writer/worldtraveler and the dad and family man, ever became these people they so desperately wanted or claimed or wanted and claimed to be , what then? Would they be any fucking happier?
We've become a "why not change" society and this is not a bad thing. Unless you never do it for yourself, unless each change you make is to please the picture other people give you of yourself. Life has no easy fixes, no amount of money can buy you the life you wanted, nothing worth having comes just because you want it to and no one sticks around to watch the toilet flush a good life away. People pop pills to change their brains, their bodies their lives. People make drastic and permanent changes to their outsides. Quickly and quietly they "perfect" their imperfections and move further from who they were born and closer to who they are told by some voice in their head or some dozen voices in some magazine to become. Be thin, be feminine, be blonde, be brunette, have hair, have none, be masculine, be built, be tough! What the hell ever happened to just being yourself? Whatever happened to mind body and soul all working together and keeping us in our place as we were born to be? Not everyone was meant to be the people we're becoming as a society and where did our feet get off to because the ground seems so far from where these quick fixes and vane changes are taking us. While we're all so busy looking at the pretty pictures of who we could be, I wonder if anyone remembers who they ever wanted to be. I also wonder if we don't need to become who we wanted to be more than who they want us to be. If only to keep nature from crumbling from sheer lack of use.
I'm wondering how healthy it could be to change who you are, just because you can. After years of running fast and far from who I am just because it reminded me of who I was, I can't help but think who I want to be is exactly who I need to be. No amount of money or debt, pain or pleasure, love or loss can take away the picture of me I've found. Wherever I'm going, I'll get there eventually and it will be fucking beautiful, I will be fucking beautiful. I wonder will anyone else be there.
On day one of this particular journey one of the 10 made the statement "You can always change who you are! So why not change?". With energy and true belief in what they were saying this person made this statement and had it not been in reference to using fake empathy and keeping a smile in your voice when answering a phone it might have been inspiring, refreshing even. In the context it was used it only made me sad to think that anyone could feel pretending to be glad someone called to pay a bill or sorry they we're having trouble with anything, was a good way to keep people happy. Realistically its just another way to keep people in their place. Not so much the smile in your voice crap, but the false empathy is a tactic that makes me vommit a little in my mouth each time I hear it, pretty much anywhere in life. In the context it was made this statement of change made me want to get up and run fast and far for something, anything a little more real and a little less bullshit, if only the bills paid themselves.
Apply this "Why not change" thought process to other things in our lives and suddenly we are the 8 hours a day we spend in someone elses crockpot. Suddenly we're all exactly the same, on the outside atleast and what good does it do any one of us if we all appear the same? This in itself spawns an entirely new dilema for me. If we all changed into the people we wanted to be, would we really be any happier? If the supermodel and the entrepreuner, the writer/worldtraveler and the dad and family man, ever became these people they so desperately wanted or claimed or wanted and claimed to be , what then? Would they be any fucking happier?
We've become a "why not change" society and this is not a bad thing. Unless you never do it for yourself, unless each change you make is to please the picture other people give you of yourself. Life has no easy fixes, no amount of money can buy you the life you wanted, nothing worth having comes just because you want it to and no one sticks around to watch the toilet flush a good life away. People pop pills to change their brains, their bodies their lives. People make drastic and permanent changes to their outsides. Quickly and quietly they "perfect" their imperfections and move further from who they were born and closer to who they are told by some voice in their head or some dozen voices in some magazine to become. Be thin, be feminine, be blonde, be brunette, have hair, have none, be masculine, be built, be tough! What the hell ever happened to just being yourself? Whatever happened to mind body and soul all working together and keeping us in our place as we were born to be? Not everyone was meant to be the people we're becoming as a society and where did our feet get off to because the ground seems so far from where these quick fixes and vane changes are taking us. While we're all so busy looking at the pretty pictures of who we could be, I wonder if anyone remembers who they ever wanted to be. I also wonder if we don't need to become who we wanted to be more than who they want us to be. If only to keep nature from crumbling from sheer lack of use.
I'm wondering how healthy it could be to change who you are, just because you can. After years of running fast and far from who I am just because it reminded me of who I was, I can't help but think who I want to be is exactly who I need to be. No amount of money or debt, pain or pleasure, love or loss can take away the picture of me I've found. Wherever I'm going, I'll get there eventually and it will be fucking beautiful, I will be fucking beautiful. I wonder will anyone else be there.
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