Like lightning striking
Through a new moon
The Lord's anger thundered
In the pitch black rooms
Of a house
Sinking deep.
No life boats.
No S.O.S.
Some children are raised to believe
that Family's a ship
With a Shainghaied crew
Left drift on the sea.
They'll fall to their knees
When the stormwinds blow.
With eyes rolled back,
crying out to heaven.
Hoping, maybe,
Just once
All the stars would align.
Come! New World!
Come! Armageddon!
Either way
They'd wash up on shore
Free from the icy wait
For the keening wail
Of the yardstick
Or the belt.
But raging lungs bellow
And young sailors,
Resigned,
Curl up and wait
To mix blood
In the brine.
Young Starbucks
Know nothing
Of original sin.
But deep in their bones
They know what is true
to them.
That no lash falls
On the back
Of an innocent lamb.
(And that poison seeps in
Each time the lightning strikes.)
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
The Second Coming - Reflections on Death and Resurrection
I have never been able to relate to most of Yeats' poem, The Second Coming, and its apocalyptic despair in the aftermath of processing the first World War. But at times in my life, the first three lines, and the third in particular, have rung more like an irrefutable axiom than a line of poetry. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold..."
For me, right now, things have fallen apart. The center could not hold. After losing my job at the start of May, my wife of six and a half years left me. I loved her since the moment I saw her.
At first, I loved her in that unfettered way that happens when you project an infatuated image on a beautiful girl whose style, interests, intellect, and humor strike resonance in your soul like a gong in some mountaintop Buddhist hermitage. It's the kind of love that comes in whiffs of incense, a distant rumbling chant, and the awe of being confronted by giant stonework Buddhas.
I loved her steadily, as a friend. We laughed until we cried while playing games of Password with our crew. We went to rock shows. We sat in cars during lunch breaks while one of us was in crisis, tears on our cheeks, one spilling an overflowing cup, the other baptized in sorrow and pain. And we sometimes got coffee during free periods, just to bullshit. I'd skip class to talk to her in the art room.
We loved tragically, never able to seem to get the timing right, even after we knew how we felt about each other. And one year, crying over her Bombay Sapphire and my New Belgium stout, desperately clinging to each other's hands, we somehow figured it out.
For a bit.
Waking up the next day in a haze, feeling still in some kind of dreams, things started to fall apart. I do not want to make this entry tawdry. I do not feel like confessing all the large and little things I did wrong without providing some balance. And I refuse to parade the same from somebody I still love in despair. But we all hurt each other at some point in relationships. Sometimes it's intentional. And sometimes it's accidental. And sometimes it's just because the center cannot fucking hold. Not always in the brief, and even less on the whole. But I will make one general point. We are both people with hereditary mental health issues, and both experienced at least emotional abuse in households. I think our ability to understand each other helped bring us together, and even to keep us together. But it was also probably the most significant force driving us apart. At least, when combined with a desire to live a normal life. A life with a steady job, retirement accounts, the possibility of raising children, and pursuing careers that actually challenged our potential. (Nota Bene, I fully realize this is not even a "normal" life anymore, but it's what we're programmed to think of as normal. And so it begins.)
And that brings me to where I am now. At first, when my wife left me, everything was anarchy. I couldn't sleep, or I couldn't get out of bed. I could stop crying, or I couldn't feel anything. I stopped applying for jobs briefly, not knowing where I would even be living in three weeks. I started watching TV and movie dramas. I stopped taking my anti-depressants, and started crying a lot more during the tear-jerker scenes. (Disclaimer, never do this without consulting your doctor.) I started actually experiencing some small amounts of catharsis in between my anesthetic treatments: sake or whiskey.
I decided to leave the (relatively) big city of Portland behind and return to my Eugene roots where life is slower, bike paths are actually accessible from almost anywhere without needing to ride part of the way in a regular traffic lane, and the rental market is not a blind auction. I lived with my parents for a month, which was appreciated, but humbling and maddening. I got a new apartment with my oldest childhood friend. I brought my cat to Eugene to give me emotional support. I kept applying and taking interviews for jobs in Eugene. I am even waiting to hear back about a job I would consider a dream position after working corporate law and finding it to be soul crushing. But now, I am in a brief period of no distractions.
I still have two thirds of my unemployment benefits left, so I am limiting my job search to openings that will use my degree and experience in some way, but there are not nearly as many as Portland offered. And my living situation is finally settled. So I am left with endless hours during the week when all the people I know in town are working. For the past couple days, these hours have hung over me, filling me with dread. The reality of no longer being able to talk to or see or hold the woman I love is starting to become even more real each night I spend talking to my new roommate instead of her. The deep loss I feel at the emptiness where she used to be strangles me. I find myself crying and choking out "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," just trying to get a grip.
This is supposed to be a new start for me. For both of us. We are both supposed to be able to take care of ourselves for a change, to strike out towards happier careers, less stressful living environments, and communities that fit us better as individuals. But I can't help but feel betrayed, and helpless, and ultimately at fault for everything. It is crushing. Crippling.
I sit here wondering what really went wrong. If it can even be quantified and qualified. Or if it was simply the inevitable spiral to catastrophe that our relationship was destined for. And then I wonder if we tried too hard to keep things from falling apart. If we tried to hard to keep the falcon on a tight gyre. Like trying to stop up a high pressure leak by completely plugging it rather than doing damage control. Slowing the flow. Diverting it to safe outlets. Our dam just broke one day.
This is probably more for posterity than to help me right now. I will read this one day, older and wiser, and remember this past life with bitter-sweet fondness. Right now, I do not know any better what to feel or think than when I started writing this. But my gut tells me to stop worrying about it. To turn from within and step outside into the sun. To let just let things fall apart.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold..."
For me, right now, things have fallen apart. The center could not hold. After losing my job at the start of May, my wife of six and a half years left me. I loved her since the moment I saw her.
At first, I loved her in that unfettered way that happens when you project an infatuated image on a beautiful girl whose style, interests, intellect, and humor strike resonance in your soul like a gong in some mountaintop Buddhist hermitage. It's the kind of love that comes in whiffs of incense, a distant rumbling chant, and the awe of being confronted by giant stonework Buddhas.
I loved her steadily, as a friend. We laughed until we cried while playing games of Password with our crew. We went to rock shows. We sat in cars during lunch breaks while one of us was in crisis, tears on our cheeks, one spilling an overflowing cup, the other baptized in sorrow and pain. And we sometimes got coffee during free periods, just to bullshit. I'd skip class to talk to her in the art room.
We loved tragically, never able to seem to get the timing right, even after we knew how we felt about each other. And one year, crying over her Bombay Sapphire and my New Belgium stout, desperately clinging to each other's hands, we somehow figured it out.
For a bit.
Waking up the next day in a haze, feeling still in some kind of dreams, things started to fall apart. I do not want to make this entry tawdry. I do not feel like confessing all the large and little things I did wrong without providing some balance. And I refuse to parade the same from somebody I still love in despair. But we all hurt each other at some point in relationships. Sometimes it's intentional. And sometimes it's accidental. And sometimes it's just because the center cannot fucking hold. Not always in the brief, and even less on the whole. But I will make one general point. We are both people with hereditary mental health issues, and both experienced at least emotional abuse in households. I think our ability to understand each other helped bring us together, and even to keep us together. But it was also probably the most significant force driving us apart. At least, when combined with a desire to live a normal life. A life with a steady job, retirement accounts, the possibility of raising children, and pursuing careers that actually challenged our potential. (Nota Bene, I fully realize this is not even a "normal" life anymore, but it's what we're programmed to think of as normal. And so it begins.)
And that brings me to where I am now. At first, when my wife left me, everything was anarchy. I couldn't sleep, or I couldn't get out of bed. I could stop crying, or I couldn't feel anything. I stopped applying for jobs briefly, not knowing where I would even be living in three weeks. I started watching TV and movie dramas. I stopped taking my anti-depressants, and started crying a lot more during the tear-jerker scenes. (Disclaimer, never do this without consulting your doctor.) I started actually experiencing some small amounts of catharsis in between my anesthetic treatments: sake or whiskey.
I decided to leave the (relatively) big city of Portland behind and return to my Eugene roots where life is slower, bike paths are actually accessible from almost anywhere without needing to ride part of the way in a regular traffic lane, and the rental market is not a blind auction. I lived with my parents for a month, which was appreciated, but humbling and maddening. I got a new apartment with my oldest childhood friend. I brought my cat to Eugene to give me emotional support. I kept applying and taking interviews for jobs in Eugene. I am even waiting to hear back about a job I would consider a dream position after working corporate law and finding it to be soul crushing. But now, I am in a brief period of no distractions.
I still have two thirds of my unemployment benefits left, so I am limiting my job search to openings that will use my degree and experience in some way, but there are not nearly as many as Portland offered. And my living situation is finally settled. So I am left with endless hours during the week when all the people I know in town are working. For the past couple days, these hours have hung over me, filling me with dread. The reality of no longer being able to talk to or see or hold the woman I love is starting to become even more real each night I spend talking to my new roommate instead of her. The deep loss I feel at the emptiness where she used to be strangles me. I find myself crying and choking out "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," just trying to get a grip.
This is supposed to be a new start for me. For both of us. We are both supposed to be able to take care of ourselves for a change, to strike out towards happier careers, less stressful living environments, and communities that fit us better as individuals. But I can't help but feel betrayed, and helpless, and ultimately at fault for everything. It is crushing. Crippling.
I sit here wondering what really went wrong. If it can even be quantified and qualified. Or if it was simply the inevitable spiral to catastrophe that our relationship was destined for. And then I wonder if we tried too hard to keep things from falling apart. If we tried to hard to keep the falcon on a tight gyre. Like trying to stop up a high pressure leak by completely plugging it rather than doing damage control. Slowing the flow. Diverting it to safe outlets. Our dam just broke one day.
This is probably more for posterity than to help me right now. I will read this one day, older and wiser, and remember this past life with bitter-sweet fondness. Right now, I do not know any better what to feel or think than when I started writing this. But my gut tells me to stop worrying about it. To turn from within and step outside into the sun. To let just let things fall apart.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
I better start writing a blog again.
I like writing with my fountain pens. But honestly, they can be kind of a pain. And anything that is an obstacle to me writing is something I need to avoid at the moment. Not to mention, I like writing on a computer for things like poetry, because I do a bunch of edits before I even have a first draft. With a lot of poetry, or even with prose, I have no idea what I am writing about until I have gone back to the beginning and started over a few times.
So, it's time for me to start blogging again.
During my senior year of high school, I used to joke that I would not live to be 30. Some of those jokes got pretty morbid. At the time, I had never touched a drop of alcohol, but insisted that I would drink myself to death before I hit 30 because so many of my favorite authors died of alcohol related illnesses. Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Jack Kerouac, William Faulkner, Charles Bukowski. Really, some of the greats. But generally a bunch of a assholes, too, with maybe a couple exceptions.
Well, I'm going to be 30 on Friday, and all signs point towards me making it, barring a terrible car accident or other unforeseen tragedy. I did my share of heavy drinking, but not nearly my share of heavy writing. And, as most of the best authors I listed insisted, drinking and writing do not really coexist. At the moment, I think I'll take a cue from them and try to keep a clear head while I struggle to distill all the madness of my 30 years on earth into something worth reading.
So, it's time for me to start blogging again.
During my senior year of high school, I used to joke that I would not live to be 30. Some of those jokes got pretty morbid. At the time, I had never touched a drop of alcohol, but insisted that I would drink myself to death before I hit 30 because so many of my favorite authors died of alcohol related illnesses. Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Jack Kerouac, William Faulkner, Charles Bukowski. Really, some of the greats. But generally a bunch of a assholes, too, with maybe a couple exceptions.
Well, I'm going to be 30 on Friday, and all signs point towards me making it, barring a terrible car accident or other unforeseen tragedy. I did my share of heavy drinking, but not nearly my share of heavy writing. And, as most of the best authors I listed insisted, drinking and writing do not really coexist. At the moment, I think I'll take a cue from them and try to keep a clear head while I struggle to distill all the madness of my 30 years on earth into something worth reading.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Hope and Change
The title of this post implies that this post will get political in a hurry. But, I do not want to talk about the president. I want to talk about why those two themes were such a powerful campaign message. And I think it is because they are such a powerful human message.
Without hope, without believing in the possibility that things can change for the better, many of us would have a hard time continuing to live. Personally, I am plagued by an overwhelming fear of other people. It is something my brother has said that he faces, too. Our father used to physically and verbally abuse us based on unpredictable and sometimes unavoidable offenses. Spilling milk was not anything to cry over, but his fury that we spilled the milk certainly was. Trying something new was particularly scary. Folding laundry, cleaning bathrooms, and mowing lawns had to be done the way that he subjectively believed was correct, sometimes without any instruction, or he could fly off the handle.
So, I am scared of everybody. I am scared that every new person I meet might find my idiosyncrasies so upsetting that they will physically hurt me. And I am afraid that everything I do at work will meet with revulsion, rejection, and cruel words. I worry that, even if my way of doing things makes more sense, I will be punished for not doing things the way other people prefer.
I do not think that I could survive if I thought that there was no chance that I could reprogram my psyche to lessen the daily terror that I feel. Without hope that things will get better in my head, that the mindfuck my father pulled on me during my childhood is not immutable, I think that I would just curl up into a ball and cry until I wasted away and died.
But, for better or worse, I cling to the hope that things can change. When my grip on that hope is strongest, I am usually at my best, and life is not so bad after all. When I am hanging off the edge of that hope, dangling on a cliff abutting the ocean of my despair, I tend to shut down. My grip starts to slip. And I am fortunate that I have had so many good people in my life to grab me by the wrists and haul me back onto solid ground. I know that not everybody is that lucky.
But, even living in hope can be exhausting. The fear I hold inside wears on me. It holds me back from immersing myself in the small joys and great opportunities of my life. And I think then about Epicurus, and how he allegedly said that the greatest of all pleasures is the complete absence of pain. And I think that anybody who has suffered knows the truth of that. So I will keep chipping away at this cancer inside of me, by emotional surgeries, or chemotherapy, and sometimes even by snake oil and witch doctoring. And while I may stumble and weep with exhaustion at times, I will cling to hope desperately. Even though I stumble and lie motionless, face down in the earth and loam, may I always push up slowly, my muscles aching, to trudge on until my burdens are lighter. Or until I am stronger.
Friday, November 15, 2013
No ground to run to
I feel like some small ground-dwelling creature, like a field mouse who knows that they have no ground to run to. Like I woke up in an endless concrete landscape, far away from the comforting underground refuges of my homefield. My additions provided me with cover, the knowledge that at the end of a bad day, if I could just numbly plow through it, I could take refuge in the oblivion of substance abuse. I could wrap myself in thick layers of emotional gauze and drift the nights away into sleep. Like listening to the bomb go off, somewhere distant, cradled in an impenetrable concrete womb, deep inside the earth.
And now, I know that I can never go underground again. I cannot let myself. Because I am an alcoholic. I am an addict. And the longer I stay underground, the more my eyesight will adjust to the darkness of my rathole, the more terrified I will become of the blinding light of the hot sun and the chaotic ambience of life above ground. I will see birds of prey in every passing cloud, even though they are far more rare than my terror would allow me to believe.
I am not a rodent. I am a fucking person. And I deserve to stand upright, proud, and fearless before the daylight. And part of me believes I will get there. But part of me thinks that my fear will always reign over me, that I will always crave the comfort of being buried alive under the weight of my own disease, leading to the cold comfort of my own death, the absence of my own fear.
But the more I stand in the light, the more I expose my jugular, the more I come to understand that my fears are not aligned with the dangers of living. I know this in my head, already. But I need to feel it in my body. I wish that I could just fast forward this process of acclimation, to already feel comfortable in my own skin without doing the hard work of slowly building internal reassurance that not every interaction with a person requires a fight or flight response. But I do not want to give up this time. I do not want to dig my own grave anymore. Because I am starting to believe that my addiction is a disease of the mind, body, and soul, not just another defect I need to be ashamed of. And that means that facing my alcoholism each day does not need to be a constant reminder of how fucked up and worthless I really am. It can be a condition, an ailment that I need to treat. It can be something that is not me, that does not reflect on me. The only thing that reflects on me is whether I am willing to take my disease seriously, to take my mental health seriously.
I very much hope that AA can help with that. If I try to do this on my own, I am worried that the eddies and currents of my toxic internal monologue will eventually suck me down into the deep darkness for good. I need to make sure I am reaching out to people who can throw me a rope and pull me out of myself. To me, that is what I am coming to understand AA means by a higher power. It just means we cannot do this shit all on our own. And I am starting to think that I can live with that.
And now, I know that I can never go underground again. I cannot let myself. Because I am an alcoholic. I am an addict. And the longer I stay underground, the more my eyesight will adjust to the darkness of my rathole, the more terrified I will become of the blinding light of the hot sun and the chaotic ambience of life above ground. I will see birds of prey in every passing cloud, even though they are far more rare than my terror would allow me to believe.
I am not a rodent. I am a fucking person. And I deserve to stand upright, proud, and fearless before the daylight. And part of me believes I will get there. But part of me thinks that my fear will always reign over me, that I will always crave the comfort of being buried alive under the weight of my own disease, leading to the cold comfort of my own death, the absence of my own fear.
But the more I stand in the light, the more I expose my jugular, the more I come to understand that my fears are not aligned with the dangers of living. I know this in my head, already. But I need to feel it in my body. I wish that I could just fast forward this process of acclimation, to already feel comfortable in my own skin without doing the hard work of slowly building internal reassurance that not every interaction with a person requires a fight or flight response. But I do not want to give up this time. I do not want to dig my own grave anymore. Because I am starting to believe that my addiction is a disease of the mind, body, and soul, not just another defect I need to be ashamed of. And that means that facing my alcoholism each day does not need to be a constant reminder of how fucked up and worthless I really am. It can be a condition, an ailment that I need to treat. It can be something that is not me, that does not reflect on me. The only thing that reflects on me is whether I am willing to take my disease seriously, to take my mental health seriously.
I very much hope that AA can help with that. If I try to do this on my own, I am worried that the eddies and currents of my toxic internal monologue will eventually suck me down into the deep darkness for good. I need to make sure I am reaching out to people who can throw me a rope and pull me out of myself. To me, that is what I am coming to understand AA means by a higher power. It just means we cannot do this shit all on our own. And I am starting to think that I can live with that.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Addiction
I am starting to realize that I am an addict. What started as a coping mechanism that replaced cutting myself up as a way of pushing off severe anxiety, crippling depression, and suicidal thoughts has become its own monster in my life. My drug of choice is alcohol. It is readily available and it hits quick and hard. But it leaves me worse off, emotionally and physically, and it changes how I treat the people who are important to me.
My alcoholism is like a parasite that can override my brain and put thoughts in my head that I would reject as illogical and morally reprehensible in other areas of my life. It does so to protect itself, to ensure that it thrives. I deceive myself into thinking I will just have a few beers, no big deal. A couple of high gravity forties later, I am shit faced drunk and lying to my wife about how much I have drank, or that I drank at all, trying to manipulate her so that I can protect my drinking. It is sick. It is cruel. And it is not the type of thing I would have imagined myself doing ten years ago. I have repeatedly hurt and deceived the one person who means the most to me, just so that I can continue down a path that leads only to my own self destruction.
I do not want that. It might be hard to believe. "Why haven't you quit yet if you don't want to be a drunk?" you might ask. And it's a fair question. But facing an addiction is really fucking hard. It means taking an honest look at yourself and all of the awful things you have done. It is depressing. And when I get depressed, I feel a strong compulsion to drink. So, it is a vicious cycle. And my addiction whispers a litany of excuses for why taking a drink is understandable, no big deal. And once I drink the first bottle, the war is over, because my resistance will become less and less strong the more I get drunk.
And I have subconsciously justified this way of living because I was physically and verbally abused by my father, because my job is stressful, and because I can be a pretty good guy most of the time. But if I really take a close look at myself, those are not the reasons that I drink. They may help explain why I started drinking. But I have been working hard the past few years on understanding the mental health problems that my childhood abuse causes me in my adult life. I have coping mechanisms and ways of processing those emotions now. Now, when I drink, it does not need to be because I feel sad or am struggling to process my emotional baggage. I drink because I am an alcoholic. I drink to get drunk for the sake of getting drunk, not to run away from things. I hurt the people I love just for the sake of drinking.
And I cannot stop without help. So I am going to go to an AA meeting today. And I am going to try to look at myself honestly, and stop running away. Because when I honestly face myself, my actions, and my potential actions, it is a lot harder to justify drinking. If I say "I am an alcoholic, and I can never drink again," and I say that out loud to myself, and know it as the truth, how can I then take a drink?
So, I will try to move forward, one day at a time. And I will try to starve this parasite until it shrinks so small that I can finally feel like I am myself again.
My alcoholism is like a parasite that can override my brain and put thoughts in my head that I would reject as illogical and morally reprehensible in other areas of my life. It does so to protect itself, to ensure that it thrives. I deceive myself into thinking I will just have a few beers, no big deal. A couple of high gravity forties later, I am shit faced drunk and lying to my wife about how much I have drank, or that I drank at all, trying to manipulate her so that I can protect my drinking. It is sick. It is cruel. And it is not the type of thing I would have imagined myself doing ten years ago. I have repeatedly hurt and deceived the one person who means the most to me, just so that I can continue down a path that leads only to my own self destruction.
I do not want that. It might be hard to believe. "Why haven't you quit yet if you don't want to be a drunk?" you might ask. And it's a fair question. But facing an addiction is really fucking hard. It means taking an honest look at yourself and all of the awful things you have done. It is depressing. And when I get depressed, I feel a strong compulsion to drink. So, it is a vicious cycle. And my addiction whispers a litany of excuses for why taking a drink is understandable, no big deal. And once I drink the first bottle, the war is over, because my resistance will become less and less strong the more I get drunk.
And I have subconsciously justified this way of living because I was physically and verbally abused by my father, because my job is stressful, and because I can be a pretty good guy most of the time. But if I really take a close look at myself, those are not the reasons that I drink. They may help explain why I started drinking. But I have been working hard the past few years on understanding the mental health problems that my childhood abuse causes me in my adult life. I have coping mechanisms and ways of processing those emotions now. Now, when I drink, it does not need to be because I feel sad or am struggling to process my emotional baggage. I drink because I am an alcoholic. I drink to get drunk for the sake of getting drunk, not to run away from things. I hurt the people I love just for the sake of drinking.
And I cannot stop without help. So I am going to go to an AA meeting today. And I am going to try to look at myself honestly, and stop running away. Because when I honestly face myself, my actions, and my potential actions, it is a lot harder to justify drinking. If I say "I am an alcoholic, and I can never drink again," and I say that out loud to myself, and know it as the truth, how can I then take a drink?
So, I will try to move forward, one day at a time. And I will try to starve this parasite until it shrinks so small that I can finally feel like I am myself again.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Commuting
I am feeling a lot better these days. It's nice to be out of school, past finals, and actually making a little money. Working makes the time fly, too. It's way better having a job that stimulates your mind, too, than working as a telemarketer. Even if it's telemarketing for charity.
I intend to enjoy the company of many friends this weekend, and belatedly celebrate my birthday with my family.
Commuting is a strange experience, though. I spend about 3 hours getting from work to home every day. It gives me more time to sleep, and think, and watch people, which is nice, but I don't feel as well rested during the week. Even so, I enjoy spending time alone every day, and there's no better place to be alone than on crowded public transit.
I intend to enjoy the company of many friends this weekend, and belatedly celebrate my birthday with my family.
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