People and Lessons

Today I turned 31.  What was I doing when I turned 31?  Staying on at work a little longer so that a new friend could have a drink.  I was taking care of someone else.  Someone I just met.  10 years ago I was so lost.  I knew who I was but I was trying so hard to be someone else.  Someone I thought I was supposed to be, someone I had to be.  What I hadn't realized yet is how amazing the person I AM is.  I am a person who takes others wants and needs and makes them paramount.  A person who knows and is secure in who I am.  A person with morals and values.  A person that people WANT in their life.  A person with so much love in his life that at times it is almost to much for his heart to bear.  How I spent so long not knowing the value of those things truly baffles me.  I guess it is because I hadn't met the people who reflected who I am back at me yet.  I hadn't met my teachers and learned my lessons yet.  This life is full of teachers and we meet them as we need to.  Every situation, every relationship, good or bad, is nothing more than a lesson.  As I sit here thumbing through the textbook of my life I know there are many more chapters to be written, many more lessons to be learned, and many more teachers yet to come.  There will be exams, pop quizzes, homework assignments, and finals.  There will be shining moments where I am the star pupil.  There will be moments when I want to slam the book shut and retreat into a dark corner.  The hardest part is over though.  I know who I am.  I know what I am capable of.  I know what I deserve.  As long as we all have that within ourselves.....one day...we'll get it.  One day...we'll find our home base...and we'll be safe at last.

When The House Wins

Sometimes in life you just have to take a gamble.  You have to walk away from everything you know and plunge your face into the cool, bright sting of the unknown.  It takes your breath away at first and squeezes your lungs in such a way that you think they might never know a gentle sigh again.  Then your eyes adjust and tell your brain to relay tepid safety to the rest of your body.  You take on the characteristics of a fawn in the thin brush.  You try to get the lay of the land.  Associate familiarities while taking in the new beauty around you. Gently picking through with an outward appearance of cracked calm, the swirling torrent of fear and over-awareness occasionally escaping in a gentle whistle.  And then it happens....you spot the mountain lion you knew most likely lay in wait.  Unfortunately once you have spotted him it is to late.  You have entered the thin brush, you are exposed and vulnerable.  You bolt trying to avoid what you know is coming.  That icy clutch as your warmth drains from you and is replaced by empty cold.  Your eyes fluttering shut on an experience that ended as was necessary.  That gentle sigh you yearned for at the beginning escapes for the last time but you feel no regret or shame because you know.  Spring will come again.  The House doesn't always win.  The Mountain Lion doesn't always get her meal.  Regardless, a life lived in the same dense forest wouldn't be worth living if you didn't occasionally make a break for the field of flowers.

Changing Labels

I have previously discussed the need for labels in life.  Quantifies things, gives them boundaries, clearly spells out what something is and what it contains.  However there is a dark side to labels.  Labels can leave us stuck.  I labeled Rodney as my soul mate, Adam as the perfect man, My relationship with both of them as the end of my single days, Accidentally In Love as Mine and Rodney's Song, The sound of him breathing next to me as my lullaby...it goes on and on.  Labels make life easier to navigate but they also give those things power.  So much power.  Luckily some of those labels don't stick and we pick them up and save them for when they can find their proper place.  As for the label's that adhere tightly to the other objects, with a little work and conscious effort we can remove them.  My soul mate is out there...and I will hold his label against my heart.  Each person I entrust with my heart will get the label and have the opportunity to see if it sticks.  The perfect man doesn't exist...we are perfect in our imperfections.  Labeling someone as such is dangerous and unfair so I have destroyed that label.  I wasn't done with my single days yet...I still have more to learn so that label I reserve as well.  Accidentally In Love will always be mine and rodney's song so I added an additional label reminding me of how much in love we were.  So in love that it happened without either of us meaning for it to.  It may have ended...but we had it and that is something to be rejoiced and not mourned.  And as far as my lullaby...I can't depend on anyone else to lull me to sleep at night.  At the end of the day I can look back at how I lived that day and be content in my actions and in the future those actions will bring forth and sleep will come.  And one day soon...I'll have the rhythmic metronome of my soul mate's imperfectly perfect lullaby next to me to guide me into the night. 

Heartbranded

Having just gone through/still going through it, I find the term heartbreak to be absolutely inaccurate.  When something is broken it no longer works.  It is thrown across the area in various pieces, only vaguely resembling it's whole self.  But my heart still works.  In fact, it is as if it is working too well.  It is so full of conflicting emotion I feel it could burst at any minute.  It's steady drumbeat now more often like hooves of a charging nightmare than the rhythmic metronome that my mind is accustomed.  And yes I feel, at times, that my heart has been divided and that he took a few carefully selected pieces with him.  But it wasn't shattered or smashed...it was sliced with surgical precision and the edges cauterized. This is much more like a burn.  Searing pain at first, unlike anything you think you have ever felt.  Hot metal on flesh, placing his mark in you forever.  A constant sting after that and a tightness that only time will heal.  Then one day you feel you are healed, that the sting has finally subsided, until an unexpected gentle prod brings the pain back anew.  A song on the radio, a joke you shared, waking up and reaching out for what your heart tells you is there but your mind reminds you is not, your phantom companion, plans for the future that now have a void, a chance meeting in a pet supply store.  Yes eventually the pain does go away.  The wound scars over.  Your brand a reminder of the careless person you gave possession of your heart.  Just an observation as I sit here and marvel at the scabs.  This is not a break.  This is a burn.  R.F. forever branded me.  But there is a light other than the harsh glow of red metal.  The brand works as a reminder of good and bad.  Light and dark.  Horrible burns and scabs giving way to new flesh and new life.  My heart may be branded but it is not broken and I will give it away again.  Perfect in it's imperfection.

Intentionally Losing Hope

As of late, I have prided myself with my never-ending wellspring of hope.  I go about my day with my financial troubles, my job that could LITERALLY disappear tomorrow, my potential health crises, my crazy parents....and what do I do...I hope.  I hope that I'll have enough money, I hope that this job will stick around and if it doesn't that another will fall into it's place, I hope that my health stays good, I hope that my parent's stay...less...crazy.  I hope so hard that it transcends that and becomes the fiber of my reality.  When things are bad...I hold onto that tightly woven parachute and land softly.  But I have to learn that sometimes...hope isn't enough.  That the gravity of situations will pull you down faster than the air can cushion.  Sometimes...you have to let go of hope and land where you will.  I keep hoping that you will come around...but I have to stop.  I have to push it past the dark recesses of my mind and out through the cobwebs and into the light.  The situation is clear as it stands now.  Hope won't change that.  So here I am...standing on the ledge...ready to jump...do I bring my chute..or hope for a water landing?

At a loss

This is the first time I have ever sat down to my blog and not been able to put my thoughts and feelings down quickly and accurately.  So much has happened in the last few days.  I ran into the man I loved with the man he broke me with.  I cried at the vets office.  I gave up my baby girl so that I can have a clean break from the sickness.  That is what I have taken to thinking of him and my remaining anger and feelings towards him as....the sickness.  That is the easiest way for me to package the feelings...as a foreign body that at some point in the near future my immune system will take care of.  I don't want to hate him...I don't want to feel anything for him.  I walked with that rock in my shoe for so long that without it there...my shoe feels empty.  I feel empty.  I am quickly falling down the stairs...hitting every one on the way down.  It just seems like...at this moment...the universe is taking away everything I thought I had after the break-up.  I was happy...or at least able to fake happy enough to even fool myself.  I had met a great guy...who really liked me...  I had my new home that I loved... I had my dog that I love...  I still had Julian sometimes...  I was feeling great... and optimistic... and ignored the emptiness.  The guy can't feel the way he wants to for me...for unknown reasons.  My home is wonderful...but empty.  Blot isn't well according to the vet.  I had to let Julian go for the sake of everyone involved.  I WAS feeling great...Now all I feel is the emptiness...and I try to fill it with things.  Wine...beer...food.  But it always comes up feeling empty.  I have wonderful friends.  I have wonderful family.  But I miss having someone to hold.  I miss knowing someone is either waiting for me at home...or they will be happy to know I am waiting for them.  I miss feeling...whole.  So I am at a loss...for what?  I don't know.  Please don't worry about me...just doing what I do...this is how I express my feelings...I let them pour out of me through my keyboard..cascade across the screen...and then I can read them and only then know how I feel.  I am just...lost and so tired...so...very tired...and lost.

Still turning pages

So I have been rereading this blog over the past few days and what a journey it has been.  A lot of it is missing...gaps left by disinterest on my part or being to excited or devestated to write.  I went from a confused young man who was desperate to conform to what everyone else thought he should be to man who, though sometimes still confused, knows exactly who he is and takes pride in it.  I came out to my parents.  I loved and lost several times, all significant but one life changing.  I am now out on my own.  My own apartment and my own life.  I'm still filling pages...so keep turning them.  :-)

A Letter To Him

Dear Him,

You know that I have fallen.  It is obvious to everyone around us.  You are everything that I want and need.  You tell me I am perfect.  You buy me gifts and make excuses for us to spend time together.  Just fall with me.  There are no more of me in the world.  There are no more of you in the world.  We are it.  I have been gone since the moment you kissed me in the game...and then you found yourself 24 hours later because you are scared.  I am waiting.  I am hoping and wishing and praying and screaming inside hoping that you will just let yourself fall.  Just give up and let yourself want what you wanted 3 months ago.  I know I shouldn't be waiting.  I know that I should move on.  But I also know that you are one in a hundred million billion and if I walk away...that could be it.  I see our future.  I see what it could be if we let it.  It could be laughing and late night video games and food and desserts and friends and love...so much love.  I hold back constantly now.  I don't say any of this for fear of frightening you away but I see it.  You are truly the kindest, sweetest, most beautiful person I have met up to this point in my life.  You were wrong when you told me I was perfect.  I am only one yes away from that.  If you aren't "the one" then the universe has quite the surprise in mind for me.  But I found you by accident, I fell by accident, and I am hoping you find this by accident and let yourself fall again.

Sincerely falling,
The Yes That Needs To Be Said

P.S.-This letter has been sponsored by Tequila, a cold night, and impatience.

Born Husband

Everyone has those things that they are just naturally gifted in. Some people can sing with perfect pitch. Some people can play a piece of music after only hearing it once. Some people can dance beautifully from their soul with very little effort. I was born to be someone's Husband. Now don't get me wrong when I say this. I am not saying that I don't do stupid things. That I don't have petty arguments and make passive aggressive comments from time to time. But what I DO do is always...without fail...put my partner first and believe that they are doing the same for me. For me a relationship is just that...putting someone's needs ahead of your own. If both people in the relationship are doing that for the other person then everyone's needs are met and the relationship thrives. I feel like where we have gone astray with feelings as a whole is that we have tried to rationalize them. Feelings follow no rational. That is why they are called feelings. Think about it...LOVE as I, and many others, have described it...is to willingly turn off the MOST root instinct we have. The instinct to preserve and protect ourselves no matter what. That instinct is diverted. We take care of someone other than ourselves. That is CRAZY....but it is what we do. Love isn't rational. It is dirty. It is messy. It is insane. It is unpredictable. It is the most wonderful feeling anyone has ever felt anywhere. Yet we constantly try to understand it...rather than just let it be. Why be scared of being hurt if the potential prize is to have someone to watch out for you forever? I am not saying that THE ONE will never hurt you...they will...many, many times...but it is about how they handle their mistakes...how you communicate as a unit...how you LOVE one another.

I love without shame. I love without fear or walls or time limits. I take off my breastplate and expose the meaty, beating bits beneath and let them do what they will. Because in my soul I have to believe that that is the only way. I will not let them break me...I will let them teach me. I will continue to charge open-hearted into battle and fight for the love I know is there. Some say I fall too fast. I say that the leap is a lot easier if you aren't afraid of where you will land and know that if no one catches you, you are perfectly capable of getting up and leaping again with the lessons you learned on the way down.