it's allright

when i was very young, i was entwined with inappropriate sexual activity. quite a lot of it. i can't tell you what was first or even who it was, but i do know that i had become sexually active by the time i was in the 1st grade. i grew up in a single parent household.and learned early on that if i wanted to get affection from a male, it was expedited through sexual activity fairly seamlessly. sadly, i think that this also telegraphed the information that intercourse was affection and that lust was love.

as one can imagine, being a very young, a very closeted, and very naive sexual partner affords the partners the opportunity to take advantage and perhaps be a bit utilitarian or abusive as it were. i found myself on many occasions growing engaging in sexual activity with young men only to have them make fun of me and the process later. needless to say it was often obsessive, traumatic, and taboo. and it was how my world was sculpted.

it was no wonder i started to medicate at a young age also. all those intensely passionate feelings were difficult to manage for a 12 year old.. and i soon found that i didn't have to manage them, i could just blot them out. and i did. repeatedly.

when i started my journey down sobriety road, i was not really even aware that this novella i have just described was how i had lived my life. i had done such a good job of sailing denial that i hadn't even begun to put the dominoes back together. but as i did spend time being clean, working with a sponsor, working a program, and enlarging my spiritual life. i encountered a situation and a man that very much mirrored that of much of my childhood.

he had been in a position of helper to me on my early journey to recovery. i remember the decisions to be honest with him and the disappointment in realizing he wasn't able to quite do the same. but he was smart and he was funny and he had won my confidence so i continued to have faith in him and the person he represented to me.

in the midst of his desire to make a name for himself and to carve a niche in the local scene, he enlisted me in a project a year or so after we had parted. as i accepted his invitation, he prepared to move on without me. i had changed my path and had almost immediately felt discarded, but kept moving forward as i had learned to do at such a young age. this was my total experience with the hearts and affections of men. so it didn't seem extraordinary at all.

another year passed and once again he contacted me out of the blue with the promise of another project and another adventure. i had somehow found comfort and some success with the last segment and felt confident this would follow a like path. my proverbial universe had once again opened a door and as i walked through with little fear because that is my nature.

more success followed for me in the short term. i travelled some, created an outreach entity, captained a floundering social network, resurrected a periodical, and learned much about an enclave that had been a mystery only a year or two prior. and i gained some confidence as i walked many tweakers through their follies toward some truth. but this time the adventure created some frustration and envy in my mentor. he had slowly become the wizard whose curtain had been pulled back and i had seen this and had refused to pretend i hadn't.

he lashed out at me, through my reputation and my vulnerability. i believe his intention was to make himself the great wizard of oz again, turning to him for solace and comfort. alas, that was not my path. instead i realized that something stinky was afoot and decoded a clue within this effort that pointed directly to him.

ptsd ensued. i had certainly been in this position before. many times. i had trusted this guy. and i had opened up to him and had looked to him for mentorship. and he had obliged always with the knowledge that his particular excalibur was more important that any of the knights and fools he encountered along the way. i became an incinerator with heat and horror roasting me from the inside out. i simmered and stewed for months until he cut me loose. but the day he created his little drama for me, i vollied with my perception of his play, and he didn't speak to me again even to cut me loose. he sent a messenger and a big gift. and he didn't speak to me until over a year later.

my anger was so stifling and toxic, i had no choice but to seek therapy. i needed to talk about the victim i was used to being and process how to move through this anger ( without getting high). i had never done this before. i was 46 years old and i had the emotional maturity of 16 year old. therapy changed my life. not only was i able to realize that my perceptions through all this peuky drama were pretty spot-on. i could trust my feelings and my intuitions. i learned that my anger was about much more than just the travelling salesman posing as a wizard that had occupied my life these last few years. i was angry about all those manipulating bastards who played with me like Giuseppe played with pinocchio. i had been angry for most of my life. but i had never felt entitled to honor it. because, all those years, i had felt like a freak, inadequate and not-at-all normal. this realization, that i had carried around this bullshit through all my years, just like a scarlet letter, was a pivotal action that has changed the course of my heart.

i have been actively working on letting go and moving past all these feelings i describe here. they were embedded in my core and i consistently return to those feelings when life shifts. but the difference, (and it's a huge difference) is that i don't linger in those feelings any more. i have learned that i can feel other things about myself. i can be happy even if i have made an ass of myself, or said something incredibly inept. i hope you get the picture.

this is probably long and rambling, but i had to get this out. i have recently encountered, through the degrees of separation, an invitation to go off to see the wizard once more. i have been gobsmacked 'cuz i don't have the anger i once had around this. i am impartial to say the least. and i have gratitude, real gratitude, that i can the platform to release even more of the toxic waste of my own self-judgement. and had i not travelled the road to meet the wizard, i would never have discovered the ancient internal fire, never have extinguished that fire, and found my way back to the allright.

i wish for peace....

wicked

hope is something that ebbs and flows with me. sometimes i hope for things that are not at all likely to happen. sometimes i hope that i will be recognized as the hero that i think i should aspire to. (but will never actualize because i see myself as a wicked witch.) these last few months i have been reconciling the ordinary qualities that i embody and the not-so-special-ness and the indulgent aspects that make me me. all this has been very much like ice cold water splashed in my face while simultaneously a waft of a cool breeze needed to change up the stale air of my current existence.
i was chatting with a friend about all this and we concur that our experiences both involve an emotionally dark and sinister place that we retreat to whenever life on life terms wobbles in and out of our desired direction. this dark space is familiar, comfortable, painful, and definitely juvenile. it's absurd at best, however, it is comfortable because that is where we spent much of our years.
no matter though, because the promises have begun to unfold and rolled into these miracles is the ability we now have to discern that what i describe above is how i use to be. it doesn't represent the person i am now. and though self degradation is my first stop, it is not the final resting place for my mind. forgiveness, understanding, letting go, choosing peace- these are the tools that i now carry. and i am learning (definitely through trial and error) to choose a different way of life.

so as i shift speed and direction in my life, i find myself seesawing between trust and fear. i make decisions every day, some good and some thoughtless. i do right and do wrong and have to not get torn about either. and the idea of fun is shifting for me. feeling more comfortable with myself in tandem with being less distracted by others has channelled a peace into my life. along with bigger questions and more gray areas.
if your journey is at all like mine,( and i can only wish that is is), then no doubt the road ahead will be chock full of twists and turns. the only insight i can offer is that trusting the journey is where my joy is found. the destination seems to always be shifting and the only constant i have found is my recurring need to change. something wicked this way comes. but something wicked does not have to stay long. simple, bittersweet, and delicious.

both sides now

Ive looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
Its loves illusions I recall
I really dont know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say I love you right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
Ive looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say Ive changed
Well somethings lost, but somethings gained
In living every day

Ive looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
Its lifes illusions I recall
I really dont know life at all
Ive looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
Its lifes illusions I recall
I really dont know life at all

it is so hard to believe, but i have managed to hit the 1000th post mark with this entry. what a fantastic and sometimes emotional journey this has been for me. i don't know if i have sharpened any writing skills at all, but i do know that i have learned (with all my commenters' assistance) better tools to live life on life's terms through blogging. i have made some fantastic friends-even gone to a couple of 12step conventions with one, and i have been able to read as a few other bloggers have transitioned from feeling crazy to grounded within the safety of this online community.

i had been thinking that once in awhile i could revisit some places this blog has taken me, and this 1000th mark seemed a good place to start. this particular post was titled "both sides now" and appeared on september 10, 2007. the only change is the youtube clip. the movie segment is not available any longer, so i chose a live version of joni mitchell from december 2007. today's post (vintage) has an eerie similarity to yesterday's post which was completely unknown to me until now. i am thankful for the peace my life has found and i thank all my readers who have helped get me there.

sometimes i am so confused about this life. i know enough to know i don't know everything. that i might know very little is much more likely. some days i falter so much it's hard to believe i am stable. i say thoughtless things sometimes. i don't slow down enough. i try to pack too many things into a day. i find it hard to say no to a cause or a service commitment. i race through way too much and give too little my full attention. i don't always know how to ask for what i need, but then i'll expect others in my life to know and start to form resentments because they don't. my feelings were very hurt this weekend because of expectations i had and part of me so wants to be the drama queen. but i know that this leads me nowhere. so i am going to try the new approach i've learned. the "other" side.

the good news is that i'm maturing. that change happens. that i don't have to stay "stuck" in a mindset or a drama or a situation. i can try to change my perspective around a situation if i can't change the situation. this is a huge shift in my survival. a very huge shift.

the objects of my attention don't seem to suffer too much outwardly. but in my head they are all either cheating me or being cheated by me(it's all still very much about me). i still have the emotional maturity of a twenty-something because that's when i started using drugs and alcohol on a first-defense basis.

the course in miracles has taught me to always ask this question: "would you rather be happy or would you rather be right". of course, my first instinct always is to answer "i'd rather be both", but upon reflection, most times i'd rather be right. truthfully however, where does that get me in the end? being right usually gets me being left behind, alone and filled with tension. i can't really reflect on the happy part. that i am hoping to learn and become acquainted with in time.

so, i chose this clip and this song because it absolutely touched my heart the first time i saw it. it was while i was ill and stuck at home watching "love actually" over and over on cable- like i can do when i'm sick. the emma thompson character found an xmas gift in her husband's things (jewelry actually) and it is xmas morning and she is expecting to open a gift with that very jewelry inside. but when she opens it, it's a cd- the joni mitchell cd that contains this song. she excuses herself and goes to the closet to cry intensely but quietly so as not to alarm the children and spoil the day. she is introduced to this lesson in life that the course talks about. "would you rather be happy, or would you rather be right". the choices we make rarely come without pain. in the course of our lives we will be hurt. we will feel ignored. we will feel unnoticed. we will grieve. we will lose sometimes.

we can however still be happy even when our hearts break. feeling hurt is not the worst of our dilemmas in life. if we can look at our relationships as a whole and not as individual happen-stances, we can survive pain and be stronger and be happy. and we can understand our fellows and our loved ones more deeply because of it.

catch a ride

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Martin Luther King, jr.

so many little things have been holding my heart ransom. i haven't been able to communicate clearly, to think without agenda, and to get beyond cycling through memories in my head. today, i am going to make a real effort to change that tape. it's not going to be easy, but something needs to change.

traditionally, today is a day of resurrection and a day to remember that forgiveness is possible and necessary to move on. and i hope i can catch that ride. i need to run because i don't want to miss its departure. goodness knows i can use the distraction.

have a fantasic easter!!! and wear an outrageous bonnet...

today's sound choice is dj alpha with "life goes on"

atonement

james mcavoy

it wss my mother's birthday yesterday and she wanted to go to lunch and a film. we went to a deli for sandwiches- she had egg salad and i had a reuben, and then we filed in to see "atonement". wow, that film really blew me away. truly, i loved it. the performances were solid. some of the scenes looked a bit staged to me, but the screenplay, especially the framework, left me breathless.

so much of what transpired to lead up the pivotal point in the film is actually quite beautiful to look at. and besides the dreamlike quality that some of the shots outside the mansion had, the pace was fairly natural. of course, the reasons for the dreamlike qualities get explained at the closing of the film.

i guess the unsettling aspect for me, and the most compelling and memorable, was how a spur of the moment selfish act by someone, more reactionary than calculated, can alter so many lives. and i was so taken with evoloution of sacrifice and secret sadness, as well as the perceived hardships of moving on.

the hero (james mcavoy) is beautiful, and portrays innocence, hard work, and the limitations of class with the ease of a principal dancer. and vanessa redgrave at the closing of the film seals the deal.

the story may not be relevant, it may not be important, but this drama honestly felt human to me. with the juxtaposition of secluded life on a private estate set against the boundary-free military hospitals and war torn countryside, the images and scenes were splashed with remarkable light and shadow. i had a memorable afternoon.

one added feature was the soundtrack for me. the addition of the sound of typewriter keys populated, punctuated, and permeated the score. below is a piece of music called "elegy for dunkirk" (sans the typewriter) that i also find moving. i really like the use of the chorus here.

and please believe me when i wish for you to "have a beautiful sunday"

say it today

i sing to myself in the shower every morning. it's one of my daily spiritual practices. and that's all i can do is practice. it is not about being perfect. i am not a great singer. i sing to remind myself that i am alive. i sing to remind myself to love myself. because i need to be loved. and i sing because i don't have to feel that dreadful, desperate, self-loathing that i felt for years when i was lost in my hopeless, always using, always pick-me-up and drop kick me days. i have found a freedom. and i didn't get here on my own volition. i am not self propelled (although i find this perspective needs to be re-established on an almost daily basis). i operate better when i am higher powered.


i run the perimeter of city park some mornings as the sun is coming up. on those days i witness a multitude of stars and constellations and then watch as they fade into a new blanket of light. this is something i am not involved with except on a spectator level. this takes place with or without me. i love the idea that i can connect to a power greater than myself. much of my innate loneliness is addressed. i also know it requires me to really admit and be secure in the fact that i don't have any real answers. i do understand, however, that i trust my intuition. i don't always trust my reactions, but i do trust its existence and its intention. sometimes i see people express themselves in ways that i find undeniably spiritual, authentic, and higher powered. i get chills sometimes when i hear patti sing. and i empathize when i hear her share her experience about loss and around sharing with others you love who may be ill that you love them. say it today, don't wait. and that's what i'll do today. i'll let the people i love know that i do love them.

You are my friend,
I never knew it ‘til then
My friend, my friend

You hold my hand,
You might not say a word
But I see your tears when I show my face

You're--- my, my friend
I never knew it ‘til then
My friend
I feel your love,
When you're not near
It helps me make it knowing you care

The thought of you helps me carry on
When I feel all hope is gone
I see the world wit brand new eyes
Your love has made me realize
My future looks bright to me,
Oh because you are my friend
Da, da, da, da (ad lib)

I've been looking around and you were here all the time.
Da, da, da (ad lib)
I've been around and around and around and around
Da, da, da
I've been looking around and you were here all the time

have a wonderful sunday. i'm having coffee with some new friends (a group of poz gay men) earlier in the day. then i'm off to the pumpkin ranch in greeley with some other friends and their kids to let them have fun. there's a board meeting for the roundup (our halloween fundraiser is on the 27th) and a 40th birthday party for a friend. full schedule for a sunday. it is a real departure from tweaker town where all i did was engage in the same activities over and over or become too paranoid to even participate in those. here's hoping for good weather, albeit perfect for sweaters.