Not Smee

No one escapes-

Even with wars on all fronts…

The Croc’s ticking clock.

Heavy in His arms

Surrounded by the ever present Spectre of death…

Mortality itself has haunted since the 11th year-

Family & friends dying like the Hemingways and Fondas having a competition…

Addictions and violence permeate a life… a society… a culture.

Supporting those you love,

Facing my own fears;

Tasked with aiding those in grief…

A lifetime of training?

They don’t tell you the right things to say…

Or even the wrong things to say.

“It will always come in waves… they just get further between…”

Weak tea for the knock kneed.

God

Life

Energy

Grief

Stages

Birth to death and all between;

Beautiful acceptance to righteous anger-

Fuck this mortal coil.

Ache

I’ve subdued my urges-

As often as I can…

Quieting the undesired parts of self.

But still… it’s not enough-

Now, inactions aren’t enough…

Words now forbidden-chastised-shamed-

Acutely.

What next?

Thoughts?

Always ok.

It’s not crazy-

To question all of your decisions-

While holding your knees and rocking…

At the bottom…

of a dark closet-

Simultaneously:

lamenting;

and experiencing déjà vu…

realizing the trauma root to your aesthetic preferences…

synthesizing information, emotions, perceptions, programming…

Understanding leads to despair and experience leads to scripted good guesses…

“Fear is the path to the dark side.”

Leaps of faith…

Crisis of confidence?

Hope being what’s left and hoping because there’s nothing left-

Love or fear, only two choices…

At the heart of it…

Still rocking…

Still rocking…

Still rocking…

Bottom of a dark closet.

Soundlessly chanting-

beneath the typhoon in my bedroom…

I’m ok.

I’m ok.

I’m ok.

I’m always ok.

it’s not crazy- it’s human, right?

Shrinking dilation

I feel myself, disappearing…

into this.

I’m not sure…

Not sure how it happened…

It was just an idea:

A dream,

A thought,

Based on a memory…

A reverie really;

Of a boy-

A boy with sad eyes,

a piano, and a weight bench…

Now he’s become a man,

with those same hauntingly sad eyes.

But the weight,

Is now upon his shoulders.

And the piano?

The piano is gone,

And the music…

Well, music is a burden,

on his soul…

But!

But he’s full of love,

And faith,

And love…

And fear.

The fear creates a vacuum…

Nature abhors a vacuum, right?

Faith

I’d like to say I’m like Stevie;

“I have no fear and only love…”

But I’d be a liar.

I fear I’m not good enough for you.

I’m afraid I don’t deserve you

Or your grace

Or your love.

And then I hear your voice.

It all melts away.

Everything is clear

And everything makes sense.

All of my decisions made from ignorance,

All of my choices made from desperation…

I pray to sustain the connection

and lose all of my doubt.

FUNdaMENTALs

Venn diagrams of romantic love;

For what?

Do we teach?

Do we learn?

Attachment styles:

Reaction,

Distraction,

Attraction,

Addiction…

Disconnect.

 

Love or fear?

There are only two paths…

Neurologically speaking in fact, through the Limbic.

All choices guided by one or the other:

Fuck,

Fight,

Freeze,

Flee…

Love? Trust? Be?

As the verb or the noun?

 

Pair bonds… cultural or chemical?

They are not the same…

Labels do not cement:

Attention,

Affection,

Intention,

Effluxion.

What is the choice?

Decision? Commitment?

Ah, but sweet limerence…

 

Fear of missing out,

Swipe left,

Swipe right,

Hedge your bets,

Invest no time, OR

Abstain,

Agree,

Move,

Stay…

Just connect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitrep

Self imposed and static inertia

My late onsetted grief 

Such Purgatory bliss

Risk mitigation, of course.

 

Overthinking; the norm

Underwhelming; the courage 

Delayed ejaculation 

Fervor of imagination

 

Just waiting; 

Waiting;

Waiting;

What?

 

Boundaries blurred 

Panic heightened 

Lining up to begin and yet 

Wishing to know the end 

 

Mine, yours, ours, we.

Fucked it all; royally

Friends, family, strangers, lovers.

Crossed the lines, dot those tees

 

Stars fall, moons rise 

Watch the secrets 

In all their eyes 

Breathe in, blow out 

 

Fear first, then doubt;

Doubt;

Doubt;

Next!

Gambling

Anyone who has ever been out gambling with me at a casino knows that if I do anything but play penny/nickel slots, I become quite nauseated. Regardless of how much money I have to blow, I always spend my time thinking of what I SHOULD be spending that measly 10 dollars on.

In my personal life, I find that it appears that I gamble a lot. I try to always be willing to put my money where my mouth is and am willing to lose big for the potential payout. It bites me in the ass at times (ok more often than not), but it has always worked out eventually… Even if that payout is only that I have the ability to keep playing.

Right now in my world, I am slightly gun-shy and have the potential to win big and I am fu*king scared as shit. And it is a safe bet! Comparatively speaking. I’m looking down the barrel of a more sure thing than I can remember ever experiencing…

So what is the fear from?

Is it the fear of potential loss?

Is it the fear of trusting in myself?

Is it the fear of trusting someone else?

Is it the fear of a blow to my ego if I am wrong again?

Or is it the fear of being successful?

I am not sure.

My eyes are open but I am jumping off this cliff.

Boom, bitches.

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” ~ John Lennon

Being a slave to my fear

Recently a friend and I were talking about fear and things that people regret; how someone had said that people don’t lie in their death beds and regret the things that they did, but the things that they didn’t. While I know that I am not necessarily unique in this regard, I (and those that know me for any length of time in real life) realize that more often than not, it is not what I “do not DO” per se, it is what I do not say that I regret. Doing things is easy. I am prone to bouts of monomania and once I decide to do something, I pretty much do not stop until I do it. This has both hindered and helped me in my life. It has gotten me out of shitty relationships, shitty situations, kept me from being an addict, kept me from having a criminal record, etc.

On the other side, it probably contributed to me being in those relationships/situations and it also provided me with a less than stellar job history in my early 20’s. Now that I appear to be a responsible adult on paper, it leads to some really interesting conversations about why my unique name and social security number come up in at least ten states connected to lots of different things. It’s also why I could never change my name again (not that I would want to, Jesus.) My wanderlust may be considered maladaptive, but I think it is the ultimate adaptive strategy; I either become what I need to be to fit into the situation or I leave the situation. It has definitely been a key piece to my resilience. It’s how I cope. What else can I say?

The things that I look back on my life and wish I had done differently are always things that I wish I had said; opportunities I passed up to say something and just see where the chips lie. When I was younger and didn’t really give a fuck about what people thought because my temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex had not finished developing, it was no big thing. I could say something and mean it for a half hour and then change my mind immediately.

As I got older, and more experience with how people received the things that I said, I became afraid of seeming needy or sounding weird or maybe I was afraid people would think that I wanted something from them, even if I didn’t want anything except the shared experience.

It really has become a “white men can’t jump” situation and I am Rosie Perez. Don’t get me a glass of water, motherfucker. Tell me you know how it feels to be thirsty. Or better yet, tell me you are thirsty, too.

I very rarely tell people how I really feel about people or situations these days. And I regret that. I regret not allowing myself to not have control of a situation or not being able to control what people think of me when I say something so I don’t say it.

And I know, oh I know, control is an illusion.

But I still feel like I must be my best PR agent.

If I tell you what I really think and feel, you are going to think I am a fucking loon.

Or, in the alternative, you will reciprocate. We will have a laugh. We will share a moment that no one else has experienced with either of us and feel freedom in the genuine exchange of energy and sincere emotion, regardless of the influence of chemicals either internally created or externally consumed.

But fear does not let me see that reality when I am calculating the potential outcomes.

Living in a choose your own adventure book has it’s negatives as well. The end is always evolving based on every choice, every word.

So today, I am letting go of that need for control.

I have put into motion certain things that will free me from this illusion of control over actions and feelings.

No more will I reflect upon a situation and wish I had been totally fucking honest in my words as well as my actions.

Actions are easy.

Ironically for me, words are hard.

If they like what I have to say, awesome.

If not, fuck em.

heebie jeebies.

There are lots of things that kind of freak me out. I remember once I was using a wire beater in front of my kitchen window and the spines broke and well,  exploded really; hitting the window and making a horrible sound.

I about lost my shit, thinking my partner’s ex shot me. Now, granted, after the fact it was hilarious and the people who witnessed me hit the ground and check for blood probably still get a laugh from it.  Only now do I reflect upon the fact that I must have thought I had it coming to assume they would actually shoot me; I digress.

Other frightening things are the shadow next to a bed (which is a number one reason my bed doesn’t have a space between it and the floor), wearing choker necklaces, FEMA Camp, global thermonuclear war, old Victorian houses, zombie virus/apocalypse, spider webs (not spiders), blah blah. Like I am going to just give you them all! Pshhh. I am sure the NSA has them all on file somewhere from those stupid “quizzes” I filled out on MySpace a million years ago.

Anyhoo….back to the original point….I was just in my room, folding laundry, putting it away, listening to music really loud, dancing and enjoying myself when all of a sudden I had the clearest mind picture of someone unknown coming up behind me and harming me. WTF is that. It was one of the oddest feelings I have ever had. Truly, a someone just walked on my grave type of sensation. I have experienced déjà vu, but this was so different. Eeek.

Me no likey.

I hope in some alternative universe/dimension I am ok.

Here we go!

Today is the first day of my last year of formal education and the beginning my final magical graduate school internship, at a place I would have never thought I would intern. Frankly, I chose it because the thought of what it entails makes me nauseous, not because it’s a terrible job, but because it involves a lot of leadership and public speaking. THAT terrifies me.

But I embrace the fear.

After all, FEAR puts you outside your comfort zone into a twilight area in which true growth and evolution can begin.

No sleepwalking allowed.

GULP.