Whether you are a person who is addicted to something or you're someone who has checked out of living and leads a dependable, predictable life, the question of what motivates you is something to consider. We get caught in our patterns and are attracted to certain things in our lives, all in the name of...what the hell are we feeding? What are we running away from? I think about this stuff as my niece sits in rehab, deconstructing her life and her addictions, while at the same time I know people who seem to slip through life without a care (or interest). I've written many times about moving through a life that feels like a mosh pit, and I get lost...and I stop to look back sometimes and wonder where and how time just slipped by. I can totally understand how people want to numb themselves, either temporarily or permanently. I get it.
I can feel myself getting away from patterns again, from choosing to be around just about anybody to not feel lonely or forgotten. I found myself mired in dysfunctional situations, caught in moments of clarity where I wonder "what are these people doing and why isn't anyone saying anything about it?" "Why does it feel...unjust and completely false?" Why don't I just step away for a moment and see if anyone notices? Circle one hardly blinked, with my contributions quickly being replaced by another person. Whatever I did in that circle was for a long time copied and repeated with more money. Circle two filed me in the "whatever happened to" files. Circle three is highly suspicious of my distance, thinking it's purposeful and damaging.
I watch shows about addicts and I understand that pain that they're trying to mask. I can taste the sharpness of directly touching it, and know that it's seeded, rooted towards how I react to everything. From being teased and harassed mercilessly through five of my eight grade school years through the traumatizing experience of falling in love for the first time and then falling from that height, I know I have to work hard on understanding some things about myself and the world I'm in. I haven't turned towards drugs or alcohol, nor do I take medication for depression, but this doesn't mean that I don't understand the rationale behind Andrew Koenig selling everything he owned, flying up to Canada, and hanging himself from a tree in a park he loved. I totally get the peaceful, morbid poetry behind it. In a world of endless possibilities, he was exhausted of the options that just didn't make sense any more. He stepped away and saw with a quiet clarity what he had to do. I struggled with understanding it when I heard the news. I wanted to reach out to someone who might need it. And then I realized that nobody I know has a void to fill. I attempted to come back to creativity, but because it's tainted at the moment with obligation and a difficulty that keeps ratcheting up, I'm not inspired to take any risks or feel my way through it.
None of this means that I have nowhere to turn. I still have family, with whom I can find moments of forgetting everything else in the world. I have a couple of people I can completely surrender to, if need be. I think I have a pretty good reputation at work, which can be overwhelming and unpredictable. I also keep myself busy - at the moment, too busy - which keeps me moving from one point to the next. I just have to manage these quiet moments.
What would help get rid of that grade school experience that makes me extra sensitive to people picking sides, talking about me, trying to sabotage every step I take? The only way it started to subside in grade school was when it became physical, but I was still talking about it in college. What would open my heart back up after being traumatized by the aftermath of my first real love, and being told that I "have a lot to offer a lot of people, but not enough for one person"? I can finally admit it changed me and left me with heavy, heavy baggage. It's a tremendous burden to believe that you can't be loved, that you can't trust, that somehow you don't deserve it...that this experience...somehow compounded and confirmed the first. It's all too easy to attach new experiences to that meaning, to make everything fit and to feel like the only reason people need me is to provide a service. It's a culinary disaster of the heart, a combination of emotional flavors that don't go together. The fact that months go by between journal entries makes me wonder if I keep replanting the seeds that feed on and destroy hope.
Just over a year ago, my family and I were at a backyard get-together, and Alfonso, who was in his 90s, locked into me and demanded my attention. "El Maestro", as I called him, began with one question: "How old are you?" Normally, he was a little difficult to understand and spoke only about South American politics, but this time it was about me. "How old are you?" At the time, I was 41. He asked if I was in a relationship or had a family of my own, maybe some kids. I told him no, that there wasn't even one girl I was serious about. He said that I reminded him of his brother. His brother was a workaholic, perpetually young until he got older, and then suddenly he got to his 70s and 80s and began to have health problems. He had nobody to take care of him, no woman by his side, no children to help their dad or talk to the doctors like my sisters do for my parents. He had only Alfonso, but Maestro was the older brother, and had health issues of his own. His brother died alone, without a legacy.
He lived a long life, and died alone.
Alfonso looked at me and made me promise I would try. Of course, he didn't know what kind of life I had, he just had the mental snapshot of me with my parents, my sister, and my niece's kids. He didn't talk politics that visit. This was all he wanted to say, and I couldn't forget it. I came home in January, and wanted to try. The first few times, it didn't feel right. I had two Valentine's Day dates that, in theory, sounds like I'm a player to everyone who hears that much, but in reality was me providing a service to others and deserving nothing for myself. I tried again, spending a weekend with an old friend that turned sterile and awkward. Everywhere I turned, I ran into someone who was holding out for a better thing and constantly looked past or through me. I stepped away, listened to the castrated version of my name - "Stewie," which vaguely takes away any importance of who I am - and eventually work started pulling more and more of my attention.
Alfonso died a few weeks ago. I'm now 42.
I am a little less than a week away from finishing a major project, and then I have to consider what I want my life to be. The first thing that occurs to me is that I'm going to retire from doing this kind of creative project. The second thing that comes to mind is that I tend to consume junk food versions of real interactions between people. I need to know the difference and to trust my doubts when they nag at me over time. The most important thing is that I don't lose hope, that it's not too late. It's not my fault that a whole group of guys didn't let me get through a day of grade school without persecution or humiliation, so I never feel comfortable being associated with a group of people unless I can stand apart somehow. It's not my fault that I was loved once, abandoned, and had to watch her with other guys...and that everything since has come with a guarantee that nothing would come of it. It wasn't me. It wasn't about me, though I've lived with the shame of...somehow representing it...of making all of them right.
My niece had the seizure, and for reasons unknown to me, she asked for help and ended up in rehab. Andrew Koenig, whom I've never met, but I know people he knows, never asked for help, and died. Alfonso, in his wisdom, stopped me and knew I needed help. What would I do to wean myself from the addiction to denial? I need to really look at the people who believe in me the most...Andrea, Vivian, Ninette, to name a few...and find hope in the fact that these people are here, now...and they could tell someone a story about who I am that is in direct contrast to what has come before. What they believe, I should understand better than I understand the numbness and loneliness of my past.
I should begin to try, anyway, because the world is filled with circles and none of them are complete. Looking for them should be my new addiction.
I can feel myself getting away from patterns again, from choosing to be around just about anybody to not feel lonely or forgotten. I found myself mired in dysfunctional situations, caught in moments of clarity where I wonder "what are these people doing and why isn't anyone saying anything about it?" "Why does it feel...unjust and completely false?" Why don't I just step away for a moment and see if anyone notices? Circle one hardly blinked, with my contributions quickly being replaced by another person. Whatever I did in that circle was for a long time copied and repeated with more money. Circle two filed me in the "whatever happened to" files. Circle three is highly suspicious of my distance, thinking it's purposeful and damaging.
I watch shows about addicts and I understand that pain that they're trying to mask. I can taste the sharpness of directly touching it, and know that it's seeded, rooted towards how I react to everything. From being teased and harassed mercilessly through five of my eight grade school years through the traumatizing experience of falling in love for the first time and then falling from that height, I know I have to work hard on understanding some things about myself and the world I'm in. I haven't turned towards drugs or alcohol, nor do I take medication for depression, but this doesn't mean that I don't understand the rationale behind Andrew Koenig selling everything he owned, flying up to Canada, and hanging himself from a tree in a park he loved. I totally get the peaceful, morbid poetry behind it. In a world of endless possibilities, he was exhausted of the options that just didn't make sense any more. He stepped away and saw with a quiet clarity what he had to do. I struggled with understanding it when I heard the news. I wanted to reach out to someone who might need it. And then I realized that nobody I know has a void to fill. I attempted to come back to creativity, but because it's tainted at the moment with obligation and a difficulty that keeps ratcheting up, I'm not inspired to take any risks or feel my way through it.
None of this means that I have nowhere to turn. I still have family, with whom I can find moments of forgetting everything else in the world. I have a couple of people I can completely surrender to, if need be. I think I have a pretty good reputation at work, which can be overwhelming and unpredictable. I also keep myself busy - at the moment, too busy - which keeps me moving from one point to the next. I just have to manage these quiet moments.
What would help get rid of that grade school experience that makes me extra sensitive to people picking sides, talking about me, trying to sabotage every step I take? The only way it started to subside in grade school was when it became physical, but I was still talking about it in college. What would open my heart back up after being traumatized by the aftermath of my first real love, and being told that I "have a lot to offer a lot of people, but not enough for one person"? I can finally admit it changed me and left me with heavy, heavy baggage. It's a tremendous burden to believe that you can't be loved, that you can't trust, that somehow you don't deserve it...that this experience...somehow compounded and confirmed the first. It's all too easy to attach new experiences to that meaning, to make everything fit and to feel like the only reason people need me is to provide a service. It's a culinary disaster of the heart, a combination of emotional flavors that don't go together. The fact that months go by between journal entries makes me wonder if I keep replanting the seeds that feed on and destroy hope.
Just over a year ago, my family and I were at a backyard get-together, and Alfonso, who was in his 90s, locked into me and demanded my attention. "El Maestro", as I called him, began with one question: "How old are you?" Normally, he was a little difficult to understand and spoke only about South American politics, but this time it was about me. "How old are you?" At the time, I was 41. He asked if I was in a relationship or had a family of my own, maybe some kids. I told him no, that there wasn't even one girl I was serious about. He said that I reminded him of his brother. His brother was a workaholic, perpetually young until he got older, and then suddenly he got to his 70s and 80s and began to have health problems. He had nobody to take care of him, no woman by his side, no children to help their dad or talk to the doctors like my sisters do for my parents. He had only Alfonso, but Maestro was the older brother, and had health issues of his own. His brother died alone, without a legacy.
He lived a long life, and died alone.
Alfonso looked at me and made me promise I would try. Of course, he didn't know what kind of life I had, he just had the mental snapshot of me with my parents, my sister, and my niece's kids. He didn't talk politics that visit. This was all he wanted to say, and I couldn't forget it. I came home in January, and wanted to try. The first few times, it didn't feel right. I had two Valentine's Day dates that, in theory, sounds like I'm a player to everyone who hears that much, but in reality was me providing a service to others and deserving nothing for myself. I tried again, spending a weekend with an old friend that turned sterile and awkward. Everywhere I turned, I ran into someone who was holding out for a better thing and constantly looked past or through me. I stepped away, listened to the castrated version of my name - "Stewie," which vaguely takes away any importance of who I am - and eventually work started pulling more and more of my attention.
Alfonso died a few weeks ago. I'm now 42.
I am a little less than a week away from finishing a major project, and then I have to consider what I want my life to be. The first thing that occurs to me is that I'm going to retire from doing this kind of creative project. The second thing that comes to mind is that I tend to consume junk food versions of real interactions between people. I need to know the difference and to trust my doubts when they nag at me over time. The most important thing is that I don't lose hope, that it's not too late. It's not my fault that a whole group of guys didn't let me get through a day of grade school without persecution or humiliation, so I never feel comfortable being associated with a group of people unless I can stand apart somehow. It's not my fault that I was loved once, abandoned, and had to watch her with other guys...and that everything since has come with a guarantee that nothing would come of it. It wasn't me. It wasn't about me, though I've lived with the shame of...somehow representing it...of making all of them right.
My niece had the seizure, and for reasons unknown to me, she asked for help and ended up in rehab. Andrew Koenig, whom I've never met, but I know people he knows, never asked for help, and died. Alfonso, in his wisdom, stopped me and knew I needed help. What would I do to wean myself from the addiction to denial? I need to really look at the people who believe in me the most...Andrea, Vivian, Ninette, to name a few...and find hope in the fact that these people are here, now...and they could tell someone a story about who I am that is in direct contrast to what has come before. What they believe, I should understand better than I understand the numbness and loneliness of my past.
I should begin to try, anyway, because the world is filled with circles and none of them are complete. Looking for them should be my new addiction.
