Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Really, Where am I at?

I haven't written in awhile because I don't know if I have been sober enough at this time in a long time.  What can I say it helps me sleep.  That's all I want.

But anyways, enough of my debacles of debachery.  A lot has happened since I last recorded events of my life....it's interesting to me for the most part.

I started a ballin job that I love.  I work with basically a bunch of people I went to high school with and now it's like an adventure every day.  I can do what I love and have an adventure..let's go!

I was seeing someone and it was going really great, so naturally it failed miserably, which I should have seen coming, but what can I say.... I try to obtain the unobtainable ::shrugs shoulders::

You guys...I actually made girlfriends..that like me... it's so weird. I mean I love it, but it's the first time where I would actually consider peeing in the same stall as someone.
I mean I am not going to do that because it's still weird but I would consider it.. which is a huge feat.

My family is growing. My older sister had a munchkin.  A real life small person. Leon.  He is so cool.  I thought I was going to be selfishly sad when she had him but I really haven't.. Not for one second did I feel sadness.

I think that's the biggest feat I have defeated thus far through this transition.
I realized that maybe it's really not for me.. at least any time soon. And I am so overjoyed that I am finally okay with that.

Kids might not ever be in the cards for me and I am liberated by the idea of me being completely okay with that.

My brother is getting married to the best girl ever. I couldn't be more excited, I just have to promise to not drink too much at this one.

The only big issue I have had has been health insurance.  I have been off and I need to go to the doctor. I haven't had my trigger point injections in a few month so the pain has gotten unreal.  There has been days of utter agony and discontent, but I must continue to push forward.
There are woman out there who have been through worse and I can get passed this.

I just have to remain strong.  It helps that my support has been unreal.  My best friend Krystina has been my guardian angel and saving grace.  Being able to have someone who understands and has been through that pain and can have your back in a moment of need is unrivaled.

 I could never imagine my life being where it is now.  Which is why I will never say I know who I am.  I have a slow-played process of configuring how my mind works, but it's a never-ending process.  I am a total different person than I am last year and can only assume I will be different next year from who I am now.

If I am the same person, then I am living my life wrong.  I cannot have that.
There is a plan.  I just must figure it out.  But I have plenty of time.
I hope.




Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Something None of Us Want to Talk About

I never write when I am feeling 100% myself.  I have been listening to Lord Huron- The Night We Met on repeat.  So if you would like to get the full experience, go ahead and turn it on.
It's a good song.  I mean I wouldn't turn it on right now, but it is on currently, so I guess that's a lie.

Why would I be 100% when I write.  It's like a journal.  It's a way to organize my thoughts and fill my desolation.

A sense of normalcy that I crave.

I know that I am tired.  I decided my usual cocktail of 5 benadryl and sleeping pills was not meant for last night.  I decided to watch 13 Reasons Why.
The reason for myself is why.

I knew it was going to be something.  I just didn't realize what.
And in my addictive mind I knew I shouldn't, but I, also, knew sleep wasn't going to find me; the jetting pain in my side found me instead.

So with heating pad and a glass of water, I plunged into a series that I really wasn't ready for.

I know it's so silly that I am even bringing this up.  But it shook me to my core.

Now before we get started, I am not suicidal..  I was once.
But not in a plan it out way.  It was more of a "would-this-be-better".  Would it make everything go away.
It was 7 years ago.
I obviously wasn't serious.  I didn't even have a plan.

So you probably don't know what I am talking about when I talk about this series.

But basically very rough synopsis is, it's about a girl name Hannah Baker, who committed suicide and she left a series of tapes for each person who had "something to do with it", a series of stories and secrets that left her so empty and proved to her that her life wasn't important.

Reminder...me..... not suicidal.

We have all felt low.  We all have a story that no one knows about.  We all have skeletons.  We have all done things we aren't proud of. We have all lost someone.
We have.
It's apart of life.

My first real loss was in the 6th grade.  Vivian Staggs.  We were stationed in Germany at the time.  It was 2002.  And being on one of the biggest overseas bases meant most all the moms and dads were deployed, and that was no exception for Vivian or I.

We were 12.  Vivian and I met in counseling.  Ms. Hinson.
We went every single day for lunch.  I wore my father's Creighton sweatshirt every single day and Vivian would be there. We opened up to each other.  Her dad had been gone a lot longer than mine.  He was enlisted.  I remember Vivian's grades were slipping, and we would work on it together.  She wasn't the most popular.  She was kind of a nobody.  I don't actually remember her hanging out with anyone other than me.
The last time I remember seeing her was the end of the year ceremony at school.  She had received one of RAMS Best.  She was the most improved.  I remember her large lenses and her smile when she went up on stage to receive that award.  Her father was coming home in the next 2 weeks.  School was ending and my family was PCSing back to the states.
I knew, I was probably never going to see her again. I just didn't realize that never, really meant never.

We got the help we needed through the school, but Vivian's stepmom didn't.

Vivian's sister was suffocated.
She was 3.
Vivian...
Vivian was stabbed to death.
In the woods.
That's where they found them.
10 miles outside of the base.
She was 12.  
Her stepmom killed herself.
They had been missing for 3 days.

https://www.stripes.com/news/autopsy-reveals-airman-s-wife-suffocated-one-daughter-stabbed-other-1.10033#.WOQjSjvyu00


How does it get that bad.

It can.

I don't think I have ever stopped thinking about the person she was going to be or could have been.
It was 14 years ago. And I can still see her face.

Have you turned off Lord Huron's, The Night We Met...  
I haven't. Not yet. 

Like I said before.
The series was really good, and paints a picture that people don't want to talk about, or want to cover up, or not cover up.
And maybe you will get justice, or maybe you won't.  Maybe you feel guilt. Maybe you will try to forget.  Maybe if you don't worry about it or pretend it didn't happen, then it didn't.
Maybe people will make jokes and not realize.  And you laugh it off because you don't want them to know. Because you were only 19, and you shouldn't have been there anyways. And you fight with yourself and you drink too much and you start failing school because you trusted your professor and you had to move away but couldn't tell anyone why because you shouldn't have been at that party. You don't really remember.  It's all hypothetical, right.

Everyone has been through something.  You have to chose to make it through.

I have been hiding lately because things are bad.  I was let go from my job, dumped, lost my insurance, been to many many interviews with no leads, I can't sleep, I can barely eat.  I have felt like nothing. Like a burden.  But if I made it through 2003,  2010, 2013, and 2016; I can make it through 2017.


Just another bump in the road.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?
I'm not dead.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Comparing thee to a rose? I sure hope not.

Well...

Let's start of where this came about and, then I'll kind of run you through my thoughts here.

So the other night I was out with some friends.  I gave a group of future babes a ride home.  I say future babes because I am older than them which wasn't a huge deal other than I wish I could be them because they were hammered, and I was being responsible and feeling generous

 and anyways..

On the way to there destination, this girl says...

"Oh my God David (I really don't remember what his name was because it's not relevant so we will just say David) texted me and he totally thinks I have gotten way more attractive from the last time we dated. He was the best sex of my life, but he is totally a terrible person  Like what should I say."

Before anyone else could answer I immediately said..." say nothing."

She said, "what do you mean?"

I told her,
"You say absolutely nothing.  And here is why.  Do you value yourself as a person? What made him a terrible person? His response clearly makes him realize he has you, always has, and will continue to treat you that way.  Do you want that?"

She replies, "well no...."

I, then, say, "We accept the love we think we deserve.  If you let people treat you that way they will always treat you that way because you allow it.  Don't put up with it.  Someone in this world will value you as the person you are.  We all make sacrifices to chose love, but it depends on the sacrifice.  Sacrificing leaving your tooth brush in the tooth brush holder over the sink... that's a sacrifice you should make,  not sacrificing your quirkiness or your ability to care."

She began to tell me how when she grows up she wants to be me, which is absurd, but she was drunk texting her ex boyfriend, so that's where we were at.

I dropped them off left, thinking maybe I should be an Uber driver, and then thinking...

In majority of my past ...I was that drunk girl in my car.  Letting people decide what my value was.

I wasn't better than her...I was preaching to the whole gospel choir.

She was comparing this bro to a rose.

The premise of a rose is beautiful, gentle, fragile, slowly unfolding... blah blah blah.  When I should have seen that beauty is the petals.. a rose sucks.
It's pretty and that's about it.
It has atrocious thorns, and it takes over a whole garden, if not pruned.
A rose can be beautiful but if that's all you want; be a rose.

There will always be someone prettier.
There will always be someone funnier.
There will always be someone better at other things than you are.
There will always be someone nicer than you.
There will always be something.

The trick here is that when you are with someone and they realize there will never be another person that is you.
That is the goal of a relationship.  All things a side they pick you.

I'd rather be someones Gerbera Daisy than a rose anyways.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance: noun
the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

Today is a day that I cannot forget.
I am writing it so late because I wanted to make sure I knew what my thoughts meant and how I feel about today.

One year ago was the surgery that changed my life.

Today-
I was walking through the park with my love Lane, my beautiful dog, that has been their for me as an emotional support throughout my transformation.

As I spoke previously in regards to her, I picked out my Lane during the pinnacle of my break up with my ex that I was living with.
She was suppose to selfishly fill my void of love that I was no longer getting.
Which is crazy now that I think about it because I wasn't actually getting the love I desired/deserved any ways.

But anyways, we were walking through the park on this exquisite afternoon.
79 degrees, sunny, a light breeze; utter transcendence, especially for February.
I began to think about the trees and their existence. It was weird, so I stopped.

I thought about where I was this day last year. I was in a hospital bed.
I remember that this exact moment last year, I was in a hospital bed was so high on morphine that I knew the only thing I needed to do was press the bright green button to make things disappear.
Or at least help forget that I had a catheter in.

As I passed through the trees deep in my thoughts, I looked out on people there at the park. They were running, playing on the play ground, people were laying in hammocks, people were walking their dogs, and people were walking as a family with their babies in strollers.

I thought about them as individuals. Living souls. Students taking a break from class to enjoy a day that could have been stressful due to a test, a young girl going on a run desiring to be skinnier, a man reading on a table trying to find peace.

We all have something in common. We have all different frames of reference. We have all been through something. No one can look at me and see the road I have traveled.

People don't look at me and know my story. And I cannot look at these people and know their stories.
It's impossible.
I could nerd out and look at statistics and say the CDC says nearly 1 in 5 women have been raped so there was at least 5 of us there.
I could say according to the Cancer Research page 50% people will be diagnosed with cancer so that's, at least, 15 people there or someone they know.

Everyone has something. I remember when my biggest problem was, "does this shirt make me look fat"..

I fixate on other things to avoid this.

My favorite book in the whole world was my favorite book long before this. All of this.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower. (Not the movie. I don't even want to talk about that movie)
This book made me feel things that I can never put in my own words. I don't feel like I am clever enough to say the things I feel in a way that is poetic enough to draw justice to the actual feeling.

Through all my feelings today this is how I feel about where I am mentally,
"I think if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it won't change the fact that they are upset. And even if some one else has it much worse, that doesn't change the fact that you have what you have."

I no longer feel sorry for myself. I did for too long. I have for too long. I do wish things were simple again. Simple, back when walking through the park was a way to get to the swing set and I would just pump my legs up and down and no longer care if I didn't get the job, if he didn't call me back, if I didn't have bills to pay, if I didn't care that she didn't want to be my friend.
I wish that. But you can't go back.

They don't tell you what could happen because, people pray everywhere that it doesn't. But it does.
The best thing you can do is figure out how to swim against the rushing current and pray that you don't drown.

This day has changed me forever. I lost a part of myself, but in return I gained my life. I gained a perspective about others that I never knew existed and when you become less selfish you gain that.
I will never forget today. I will never forget how I felt. I will never forget how I feel. I will never forget what I learned. I will never forget who I lost. I won't ever forget not because I don't want to. It's because I can't forget.


Maybe it is sad that these are now memories. And maybe it's not sad. 

Sunday, February 12, 2017

I could eat an M&M out of that.

They never tell you that physical pain takes a toll on the body after a while.

That's the reason they drug you up.  To make you feel that the constant, annoying torture isn't just physical, but it's mental too.

A way to make you feel that the aches, night terrors, and consistent self-doubt is this plaguing misery is all a fabrication in your mind.

When it's an everyday event you feel crazy.  You feel that there is absolutely no way it can be every single day.

Do I look as bad as I feel?  Can people tell?

Can they see that scar I have has lost coloration.  The dent from the steroid shots....  Can they see it?

 I could can fit a M&M in it.  A red one, of course.  I only like red colored candy.  I will eat the other ones, but I don't particularly love it the same.  It's a mental thing, right?

Lately the mirror has been my nemesis.

I will stand there and stare.
Because I am looking for the good.

I have cute toenails. I have always though the shape and size was something of a fetish foot-model status.  I could be wrong,  but I do feel like I have that going for me.

I am in a struggle to get right with Jesus.  Not that I haven't turned my life around for the better. Far less drinking than my previous life, and I have only worn one scandalous shirt in the last 6 months.
But my life has turned into a bad sitcom.

There is a lot of fake laughter, and a farcical screenplay.

I think I just need a change of scenery.  I have lived her for 11 years now.  It's far too long for my liking.  I know it sounds like I am running away.  But I am really not.  I am just playing with the idea of something different.

Like a coast.  I told my mom I should start to do drugs so they can send me to a fabulous coastal rehab facility.
 Don't worry I am not going to actually do that.  I would be a terrible drug addict. 

I just have run into this issue where I put everything and every one else ahead of myself.

Am I cursed because I have been taught to be caring and selfless?

So when others aren't I don't understand and I try to make up for the fact that they aren't.

I can't stop. It leaves me in shambles, but I can't stop.

I am a lover.  I want to be the best person I can be.  I want to be honest, caring, selfless, adventurous, kind, and above all hopeful.  I hope that if I am kind enough it will help anyone treat others better.  With a kindness that is out of character.

I know I can be temperamental. I have no excuse.  Everyone goes through something and I no better nor worse.  I just need to find the strength to face the mental block I have endured.

I have been secretly debating doing a photo shoot that embodies the feeling of this "disease".  You can physically see the scars it has left.  Well not the internal ones but my super sweet dent has been prevalent enough to haunt myself image and why not share it.

I am talking crazy.
At least I can eat an M&M out of that.