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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Leviathan

I have not blogged for quite a while. Settling into marriage, starting law school, and searching for some direction in my burgeoning legal career have left me a bit too muddled to write anything. Searching for a summer job was particularly stressful, because your first internship (or lack thereof) in law school can determine what opportunities are available to you down the road. Having found a very pleasing and hopefully rewarding summer internship (that actually pays!), I feel as if the fog which has surrounded me for the past year is beginning to lift somewhat. I am starting to feel more confident in my future work, and my ability to practice law. However, not everything about clear vision is comforting. Having been burdened by the stresses of pursuing a career in law, I am still left wondering what kind of future I have committed myself to.

The work, I believe, will delight a certain part of my brain. The part of me that preferred to keep "Mensa Brain Bafflers!" handy for bathroom reading instead of something a bit more narrative. However, I fear the oppressive obstacles facing legal, business, and government entities in the near future. I quake before the unstable obesity of our nation's fiscal future. I have no doubt that we must cut spending AND raise taxes in order to pull ourselves out of this quagmire. The financial foot of this nation is sunk deep into the quicksand of debt and deficits. If we struggle aimlessly to correct it, we will only hasten our crushing suffocation. Only through a well reasoned tax policy focused on reducing our debts and hence our annual interest payments can we wade ourselves out of this mess.

I think what bothers me about our two party system the most is the insane dichotomies we create. We have Republicans who sensibly advocate cutting programs, but also advocate cutting taxes. We cannot reduce our debt with that model, and will likely not cut enough to stop increasing the debt. On the other hand, we have democrats who are willing to impose new taxes, but who in the same breath propose new spending measures. Even with increased taxes, we will continue to see the debt rise under this model, and surely will not see any reductions in the deficit. However, as voters, we are still too greedy to really get behind a platform that says "Cut spending and raise taxes!" We, not only Congress, simply wish to consume more and more. Soon our nation will be like the 800 pound man on the daytime talk show who cannot fit through his own door anymore.

I suppose what bothers me most is that this situation was set up by irresponsible generations before us. In order to address this problem, our generation will suffer disproportionately high taxation with lower services for most of our income producing years in order to pick up the tab (with interest) that our parent's generation has left behind.

Let us be angry, but let us do better. Let us not wait until our nation is so rotund that we must be evacuated from our house by means of a crane, like some perfectly spherical man-fruit fallen from the tree.

And even with brave words like these, I dream of dark whales swallowing me whole.

Bergman's Virgin Spring

Every time I think about the final scene in Bergman's Virgin Spring, I say to myself "I am small, and without knowledge, but my my soul yearns, and calls out to God."

Marriage

In little more than two weeks, K and I will be married.  I'd love to be able to say that means that I know who I am now, or how I am supposed to be right before God, and be encouraging always, and how to keep faith, ever constant.  But, rather, I think that my looming marriage makes it even more important to remember how little I know about myself, how much I will change, and how that is true for K as well.  We will have to grow together.  Sometimes with plenty of space to stretch our limbs.  Never apart, yet never static.

God, give me humility.

I am working as a temp until I start law school at Michigan in May.  Temp work, now, that has been a humbling experience.  Not because I look down on the work.  Rather, because I'm not very good at my job, and I feel I should be better.  I can't get any temporary clerical work right now that would make use of my work experience and skill set.  All of those positions are long term, much more than three months, and I feelt guilty applying for a job I know I don't want to keep when the term of employment ought to be at least a year.

And so, I am calling businesses, trying to recruit managers and owners to participate in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual, local lock-up fundraiser.  It's a great cause, and I love my work in some ways, but as I said, I'm not as good at it as I would like.  I'm not a very pushy person when I know I'm incoveniencing somebody, especially when they have every right to say "fuck off, I have work to do."  But, that is my job.  And, although it may annoy some people when I call them, it does real good in people's lives.  And, in this interim period, when I'm starting my own household, it helps the ends meet.  But, I am underperforming, and I am not sure how long they are going to keep me on if I don't bring my numbers up.

I have helped schedule events for sitting US Senators, I have filed reports with the Federal Election Commission which could have put my relatives in jail if I screwed them up, but I have never been quite so scared of failing in my entire life.  Because, if I fail, my fiancee, soon to be my wife, could suffer for it.  Protecting her and providing for her (at least, providing what I am responsible to provide) is the most important thing in my life.  And, no matter how hard I try, I might get fired, I might have a hard time finding a temporary job in our local economy.

And, maybe I won't.  I just can't say for sure.

And, I guess this brings me back to marriage, again.  It's a big deal.  Aside from kids, it's the biggest thing I will do in my whole life.  And, just as I had no control over my fate as an individual, I have no control over the fate of K and me.  As a single man, my pride could survive.  Even without control over my destiny, over the unfathomable complexity of this living society I am a part of, this breathing and heaving earth I reside on, I always told myself "I can roll with the punches.  I am tough."

But now, I don't just want to be tough.  I want to make sure that K's life is wonderful.  That our life together is perfect.

And I cannot.

God, scrub me clean of the pride I have clung to my entire life.  Let my pride fall away in favor of faith in you.  Let me always remember that, as much as I would like to control my destiny, I can only try to do what's right, and remember that no matter the outcome, no matter what I feel is important, only one thing triumphs.  Your glory.

So, let me be the best husband I can.  Let me be the best provider I can.  Have mercy this sinner, O Lord.   And I will remember that, as caught up as I am in the turning of this world, your faithfulness and your judgement are all that is eternal in my existence.

Lord, make me humble.  But, Lord, please also make me better than I am.  In order to balance my vocation and my family and my own survival in the years to come, I will need to be.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,

RRK