Mom's Day '09

Okay, so nothing maudlin today. It was too beautiful out there today to go all goth. I got to work bright and early (for me) and saw lots of people in the day job who my boss wanted me to see. Then I got back into NYC while the sun was bright in the sky. I trolled around Riverside Drive on the Upper Westside and Broadway instead of going right home and ate sushi overlooking the Jersey Palisades.

(By the way, I took this picture. That's not MY crazy ass sitting there on the edge of the world, ready for a psycho to push me off into oblivion. It's actually about a 12 foot drop onto some thin trees. Bones might break, but the fool would live.)

I think about The Past Girl probably every day, and probably every day I think about Match Girl and The Last Girlfriend. Every day I probably think about them all. Given a 16-hour awake period, I'm sure that I do.

But still, it was quite a surprise to get a text message from The Past Girl today, wishing me and my mother a Happy Mother's Day. I knew her mother was deceased and I thought of how beautiful that was to send me out a text when her own heart must have been a little achy. Instead of, or maybe as a reaction to her own sadness, she reached out. and she reached out to ME.

For you see, I had stopped texting her about a month ago, figuring that if she wanted to date me, she'd be more responsive to me, but she hadn't and then I hadn't.

But out of the blue, she texted me. She didn't know my mother was dead, but that's not the point. The point is, she initiated text after I had stopped. She sent me the text which, I don't know--was it a general text "to everyone"? I know those are possible because I get holiday texts from a former client, and I KNOW they aren't specifically sending them to just me.

Hmmm. That changes the direction of this post. I was going to say that maybe The Past Girl is reaching out to me again. Maybe she wants me to be more forward and get this relationship jumped. But now I think it's possible that she sent me spam. Because, of course, my Mom's deceased.

Hmm. Ol' Charlie Brown missed the football again.

But here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to meet with her and ask her if the phone message was a general send or specifically to me. Whatever she answers, I'm going to tell her that I hoped it was just for me because I missed texting with her and I had the impression that she didn't really want me to after a while and blah blah blah ...

In other words, I'm going to use today's texting as an opportunity to do some honest communication. Because really, I've got nothing to lose. If she doesn't want to date, well hey. We haven't been dating anyway, and I haven't been texting. Nothing changes and no love is lost.

See, when I think about all these Girls each day, my main thought is this;
"I wish I would've said ___________. I wish I could go back in time with what I know about myself now. I wish I had another opportunity to have some real honest conversation with the ladies I've lost."

So now here's an opportunity to Put Up Or Shut Up. And as I'm sure you guys noticed, I've Shut Up for the past few months. I Twitter pretty regularly so I'm not gone. And the Twitter feed is right up there in the blue horizontal bar. Any time you come here, there will be a new tweet to read and if you click on it, you'll get sent to a page with my get stream of consciousness stuff and my half of conversations with other Tweeters.

But I felt like all my back-and-forthing and whining about my faulty sexuality decision-making process had to come to an end. When I finally said what I was going to do, I felt like it was time to Just Do It. "It" = be alone unless I could find the right woman for me. Nothing more needs said because I meant it when I said it. It's really the only thing I can do. Everything else, when honestly considered, counseled, and even approached by taking walks on that side of town and attempting to identify myself with the population--it all ends up as a big fat No Can Do. I don't care what trips Lil' Alan's trigger, Big Alan Can Not Do.

So right now, The Past Girl is the only available girl that I feel safe with. And with anyone else, my clients included, I would be urging them to open up with honest communication if they want to be heard.

Well, time to practice what I preach.

So. That's what's going on.

I'll keep you updated.

On Annoying Friends...

As an aside, I noticed that this title is a psych test. How many read it as "On The Friends That Annoy You..." and how many read it as "On Becoming Annoying To Your Friends..."

Unfortunately, I'm guilty of the latter. I've stated somewhere in the millions of words of my blog(s) that I would do almost anything, anything at all, to prevent folks from getting mad at me. I've mentioned how crumbly in the guts I go when I've garnered someone's disapproval. And how, when it comes to a relationship that I may one day be blessed to become one half of, if my partner were to blast me with something harsh, or a particularly biting critique, it would unseat me for a while. Unseat me as a partner, as an equal, and as a man. That's just how disgustingly fragile it seemed that I was. It made my concerns focus on the possibility that I couldn't be in a relationship at all.

Well, I thought I had made some headway in this area. I thought handling the rejection from Match Girl-I was a banner success. However, I realize now that Match Girl-I's rejection wasn't given as anything disapproving or harsh. There was no fight. So I could accept it. And in not being a fighter, I let her go, easily.

But I find that I'm still vulnerable to disapproval and rejection. I find it still feels like I've been turned over and all the worms and bugs have been uncovered, and everybody around me is reeling back in disgust and scorn.

So what happened was that I annoyed a friend. I went too far and pushed a boundary that I should not have done. So I got my hand slapped.

And that's it really. Nothing more dramatic than that (I hope), even though it feels like I've committed something much worse.

So the lesson I have to learn is that annoying someone is not the same thing as being declared as an eternal enemy, rejected forever, never to be appreciated or loved again. It's a lesson in direct contradiction with how I was raised, so it's a lesson that I have to continue to struggle with. Everyone is not my mother. People can get mad at me and still want me around.

I'll learn that.

Soon.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Circle of Life

Walking to my car tonight, I was reflecting on, y'know ... stuff. I was in the afterglow of my client's words tonight as I terminated our sessions together. He said, "Could I recommend you to some of my co-workers? I told them I was seeing a therapist and they said they needed to see one too."

When I told him I was available, he said, "Well ... would you be this good with a woman client?"

I had to laugh. I told him I was glad he thought I was good, and fortunately since I also have a female client with whom some good work was done, I could truly tell him, "Yes. I do the same work with women."

And on the mile-long trip back to where I parked my car (because I'm rushed between 5 and 6pm, racing into New York from the day job, I just park it legally closest to midtown and take the subway the rest of the way. At night when I'm done, I have the luxury of walking back to the car--which I do because it's New York City at night. It's magic.)

Anyway, I'm walking and thinking and realizing that my life is not so bad after all, even though it's Valentineless Day. I generously give smiles to those who make eye contact. I think nothing rancorous about the couples hand-in-handing past me. In fact, I wonder where they have just come from or where they're headed. Like Karnak The Magician, I could see a bed in their near future or immediate past.

Lots of oochin' and ahhin' going on tonight, I jibe with my inner voice. I look up to the lighted windows towering above Broadway and think, "Y'alls nekkid right nowww...! All sortsa kissin' and a' lickin' and a' rubbin' and a' massagin' going DOWN right now, baby, YEAH!"

And I wonder how many babies are getting started at that very moment. Whimsically I stretch out my fingers and count when these little sprogs are going to slide into our world later this year.

February. March. April. 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 8 ... o sh!t.

October.

Babies made on Valentine's Day get born on the average in October.

Mom?

Dad?!

You have got to be fookin' KIDDING me.

War Child

To the left is the logo and info of a charity that my blogger buddy Vi has started with a friend of hers. A click on the link in the promo text will tell you much more about it.

It's funny that it's called "War Child" because I feel a lot like exactly that. A child of war.

I edited this original piece and submitted it to her for publishing. I want to post the edited version here for you now because ... well because I want to.

A Pair Of Eyes (Originally August 21, 2005 from This Redeemable Life, http://thisredeem2.blogspot.com/)

Tonight, coming down 145th from the A train, I started taking the steps of Jackie Robinson Park to make the diagonal cut over to my block. Going through this darkened Harlem park is like having my right fist pumped for the way I've developed a comfort zone with my inner-city brethren. I fear no mugging within the park’s shadowy depths!

On the topmost set of steps, a woman about my age had helped a more elderly woman climb to the level I was on, as I gathered from the elder's grip on the younger's hand. The elder had a lopsided gait as she took the steps slowly, and as I witnessed this, her posture triggered a sprinkle of faint remembrance bells at the back of my mind.

When I met the gaze in the elder woman’s eyes, the memory no longer remained faint.

In the eyes of a person who relies on another for help, you can read a thousand emotions. There is a great swell of pride clutched in a death-grip. Then there is the glow of fear in those eyes--a startled realization that they are not what they once were, or thought they were--and a terror that they will never again return to their former glories. There is a steely determination in those eyes. They may need help, but they'll be damned if by taking it, they'll admit defeat. Then there is a gentle surrender in those eyes. There is a gratitude. There is a trust.

The gaze in the elderly woman's eyes were the same gaze in my mother's eyes during her last few months of life. She too walked, in her last days, with that lopsided gait. Half her body was weakened by a compromised nervous system being intruded upon by a brain tumor. That same tumor robbed her of any coherent speech. Her face and expressions were full of determination, but her voice, once virulent with insults and crisp with scorn, was silenced. She would grip my hand as she toddled back and forth to the car during the trips to chemotherapy to which I chauffeured her. She would watch kiddie shows and laugh aloud as a child. I once bought her a stuffed Fievel from An American Tail, and she was so surprised by my gesture and the image of the great stuffed mouse wearing a hat that she at first cawed an incoherent cry of joy, then bawled, alternating with laughter for five minutes solid. One time, after she died, I lay on her bed and gripped Fievel and I bawled too.

I hate that my relationship with my mother ended so raggedly. Before I ever realized it, I had already lost my chance to settle things with her. While I expected her to recover and then maybe gain a new affection and appreciation for all the times I'd been there for her through her illness, her brain had already been inalterably damaged and her personality had been forevermore eroded away to a childlike state. All I had left of her were cackles of glee or sobs of frustration. Epilepsy had wracked what was left of her autonomy, and while I gnashed my teeth at my inability to cook meals that she’d be willing to eat, she was slowly slipping away into a world beyond my reach.

Could the neighbors not see how much of this woman they had lost? Could they not have warned me what to expect? Could the doctors not have taken me to the side and given me that famous speech? I mean, what did I look like to them, at 27yrs. old? Did I seem to be a child to them? But I do err. There was one who warned me. A girl from my church who had just passed her nursing test happened to be working on the same floor that my mother had been checked onto at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, NY. When I was visiting mom, in the earlier days of her illness, this church sister of mine told me how bad the illness was and what I should expect. Now, I'd already known this girl from church as a mother of several strange children and the wife of a strange man. Never one time did she impress me as a medical professional with rank and privileges enough to give me this kind of news. I easily dismissed what she said as inexperience. Not to mention a lack of faith! Thirteen years later, I now realize what a fool I had been.

My last night with my mother was in a Sears & Roebuck at the Nanuet Mall, her favorite store. All my school clothes had come from there several years in a row. We were waiting on line for something, I have no idea what. I looked away for some reason and suddenly someone gave a sharp gasp. My mother had tumbled backwards from a standing position and fell as deadweight onto the smooth tiled concrete. Her head rebounded off the tile floor with a sound I can't ever forget. Her wig tumbled off, revealing her smooth bald head. When I heard it hit the ground, I also remember suddenly crying out like a child lost in that department store. That sound meant that I could no longer avoid the fact that something was terribly, fatally wrong with my mother. Store managers came running and customers surrounded us with a curtain of curiosity, everyone checking to see if she was still alive. I was checking to see if she was alive too, but I didn’t know exactly what I was checking for. Oddly, she still was. She had had another epileptic seizure and was coming out of it with the acute awareness that she had banged her head and that it had hurt.

“Ow,” she said.

When the ambulance came, they took her to Nyack Hospital. From that hospital, they discharged her to a nursing home. My visitations were nightly. I was seeing a girl from my church in those days, who herself was a single mom with two children, and she had practically adopted me and mom. Her caretaking ways made me think she could one day be my wife. One night the nursing home called me to tell me that mom had swallowed some milk the wrong way and was having respiratory problems, so they sent her back to Nyack Hospital. I went to go see her and found only her emaciated body, laboring to breathe. This was my mother's system finally collapsing under the cancer. I called my pastor to come to the hospital and be with me. He brought his wife and daughter. His wife and daughter seemed to talk a mile a minute as we waited for news. I believe one of the three used the term "death-rattle" when they heard her breathing. I can't recall which one it was. Not subtle people, were my pastor and his family. Not sensitive either. The doctor or doctors told me I should go home and wait for them to call me, and that they were doing all they could for her.

Now why would they do that? Why wouldn't they let me stay?

It took her a few hours to die, gasping in some strange medical bay at Nyack hospital, all alone. They called me finally--who knows what time of night it was? I happened to work overnights as a mail clerk in Mt. Vernon, NY back then. I happened not to have gone to work that night, of course--can't remember if I was already off or if I had called out sick. I eventually called the girl I was seeing to tell her my mom had died. I felt she should know after all she had done for us. On the other end of the line I heard the phone bang to the floor. Someone answered it after a little while later and hung it up for her. I don't remember if they spoke to me or not.

This is just another dimension of life that I carry around with me from day to day. It's not easy to avoid having bipolar tendencies when just a pair of eyes can trigger this kind of tidal wave of regret and loss and longing.

Call me simple-minded or a fool, but this is why I need religion. I need to know that there is something bigger than this tragic little comedy we call life. I need to know that I can survive the next time a pair of eyes trigger this roller coaster of emotions.

Heaven

More in the Meme series, and why the answers mostly freaked me out;


What do your parents think of you?
"Heaven" --John Legend

Now, this song is about a man and his lover, but most of the lyrics so easily applies to what my mother (my only parent) may have thought of me as she tried raising me, and/or what I also thought of her, that it bears exploring.

Last night was the worst night
Beginning of the end
Or maybe it began
Before and here we go again
Things got so dramatic
Things got out of hand
We said words we couldn't imagine
I don't understand

There you go with the same old thing
When things go wrong you always seem to blame me
Now I would like to find what secrets hide in your mind
Where the end will go
Will I ever know
Heaven only knows

Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows

So let's make this night the best night
It's time for second chance
Turn the beat up on repeat and we can start to dance

Sometimes when we're talking
Words get drowned on by the sound
Let's get back to touching we'll get back on solid ground

Let's hold hands
Like a young romance
Let's first kiss like the moment we first did
Can we make love
Like back way in the day, love?
We can lose control, baby don't say no

Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows

So will you come back to me
Heaven only knows
So will you come back to me

Make this night the best night
It's time for second chance
Turn the beat up on repeat and we can start to dance

Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows
Heaven only knows

There's a definite creep-out factor when you consider these lines;
Like a young romance
Let's first kiss like the moment we first did
Can we make love
Like back way in the day, love?
We can lose control, baby don't say no
But there's also a component there that I haven't blogged a lot about which is definitely not for the squeamish.

I have said in the past that my Mom used to have a lot of pornographic novels in the house that I would read before she got home, and she had one of those little projectors with 8mm reels of porn that I would watch. I must have been in my early teens, maybe a little younger. Thus my introduction to sex was all secretive, layered with an element of shame. Perhaps not too uncommon, given our country's root puritanical stance against enjoying sex.

But in addition to this, my mother was just a strange woman. In hindsight.

Once--and I hope only once--she took me into the shower with her. I can't imagine why. I had to be possibly 9 or 10 years old, or maybe older. I starkly remember it. I may never have been more uncomfortable in my life. I was aware of the body parts that I was looking at and I knew I shouldn't have been looking. I wasn't thinking that when I was back in NYC at 6 that I had already been molested by the neighbor. I wasn't thinking about anything except how much I really didn't want to be in that shower with my naked Mom. I don't know how it ended. I'm sure nothing happened, except the sheer inappropriateness of being there.

But none of that was a good way to build the sexual foundation of a young man entering puberty.

Meanwhile, other than incestuous issues, all those lyrics about how many times we'd agrue, fall out, say horrible things to one another, hate each other (yes, she told me she hated me) and all the sheer drama of growing up under a bipolar woman who took mood stabilizers (a fact I realized in hindsight when I started working with the mentally ill who took the same drugs my Mom did), it was all just as the song "Heaven" describes.

And these lines;
Now I would like to find
what secrets hide in your mind
Where the end will go
Will I ever know

haunt me, and will do forever. Because the answer was "death". That's how it ended. And I'll never really know the secrets that hid in her mind.

"Heaven" is where I hope my mother is now.

But I can't be sure.

(The song starts at 00:59)


Aside from this meme, when I hear the song I only think of a man and his woman having troubles, not of me and my mother, and I love this song. I love the fact that the singer could have this communication with his woman even after they said horrible things to each other. That's a goal I'd like to have if I can't find a perfect woman who won't ever hurt me with her words. Call me a dreamer, but no, I don't believe I'd ever use the same type of words to hurt her. I don't believe I'd ever call her things like "bitch" and its ilk. Oh, I know how, believe me. That was one of the first verbal skills I ever developed, in the absence of size or fighting ability. I knew how to cut a man down with my words. Or make that "cut a boy down" because I was good at it as early as elementary school (Childhood Bud, can I get a witness?) I just don't believe I'd turn this weapon of mine against the woman I love. I just couldn't. It would kill me. Just like I'd die if she did it to me. Which why I'm still alone. aAnd on it goes.

Where the end will go
Will I ever know
Heaven only knows...

Here Comes Your Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

Okay, not really, but what is your definition of "middle-aged"? Isn't it halfway between birth and death? If so, then no one knows when they're middle-aged because no one really knows when they're going to die. But if you take conservative estimates, 43 is middle-aged. And I'd much rather not be that, thank you very much.

Yet, in a little over a week, I very much will be that. Like it or lump it.

So.

What goals should I set before I turn 45?

Because really. I'm not dead. So what I'm not living in a penthouse overlooking midtown with my beautiful wife and children? I am living in NYC, overlooking a beautiful wall of trees. Soon as I get my car paid off, I'll be collecting money again. Which will make me more attractive for the Right One...

*skiiiiirk*

I don't feel like it. And not in any doomed, depressed, o-woe-is-me way. But in a middle-aged widow's way. I mourn the passing of the Right One, and I just don't feel interested in trying to do it all over again. Only, in this case, my Right One never existed. But I feel like I've already done all the work about relationship. I've fought, I've loved, I've learned, I've grown. The only thing I didn't get out of it are children. (Or a court-order to pay child-support and alimony).

So what's the fuss? I'll enjoy your children. Your poleclimbers who are eager to teach Daddy how to do the same. Your nervous criers who need some tough Daddy love and a lollipop on the way back to school. Keep telling me those stories. Those are lullabies for someone like me. I promise, I do smile, and I feel very warmly a part of the human race when you share those with me.

But why do I not want to become a full-time participant?

Well, let's see. I still sting from the last time I trusted someone (and this was not too long ago either. I mean within the last few months). The pain is not worth the good times. The pain SUCKS. It makes me furious. Fresh, bright sparkly motes of blazing-hot want-to-kick-somebody's-ASS furious.

Because when I was in my shell, I was f^cking HAPPY. I wasn't causing any harm to anyone and I was happy. But YOU had to come along and pressure me. You had to pry your f^cking blade into the seam of the shell and pry and pry and PRY until you exposed all the sensitive parts. And you got me to trust you, and even depend on you to take care of what you exposed.

And then what did you do?

You got me all wrong. You accused me of being someone I'm totally not, and you did it just to serve yourself. You worked to make me vulnerable, layed me out for display, then kicked it all over into the sand because you wanted your own way.

I was FINE before you.

I NEVER needed you.

And now it hurts just to think of your name.

*exhale*

Readers, I don't even know who I'm writing about. There isn't anyone who honestly fits this description. Whatever I've gone through in the last few months could not possibly have earned this kind of anger. Well, not completely.

So I must assume that what I'm feeling is from transference. This fury inside is an old one. It's older than the internet.

It is, of course, unresolved anger that I bear for my mother. Textbook case. Unresolved blappity bloop. I'm a damn stereotype.

Hate that.

Suffice it to say, my shell was the thing that protected me from ... stuff. If you wanted me out of it, then you should have

TAKEN

F^CKING

CARE

OF

ME.

If you didn't want to take that responsibility--then I invite you heartily to LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE now.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled drama ...

The Space Between

Littlewing asked me; "Don't you follow the theory that if things are meant to be, they will, or that there is a reason why things happen?"

When I was a religious fanatic, the answer to that was an unequivocal "Yes." Because things were given by God with a big gift bow on them. I believed my entire life was a series of steps ordered by God and that I qualified for this privilege because I was a righteous man.

I've lost touch with that innocence. Mainly because I'm not so righteous anymore. (The actual Christian definition of 'righteousness' is; being covered by Christ's righteousness because we all suck anyway and can never be righteous enough in our humanity. How do you get covered by His righteousness, you ask? You repent and accept His death for your sins. Then you live your life aware of that and you try to live up to Christian principles--the chiefest of these is Love One Another As You Love Yourself.)

Hmm, I thought I wasn't so righteous until I typed out that definition for myself. That is still my religion, and I still believe it. So Littlewing, thank you ... you're right. I should settle down. Worst-Case Scenario Man should have no power over me.

Yesterday in therapy, I got a huge insight for why I fall into these worst-case scenario traps. I do a lot of "all or nothing" thinking. A person is either ALL good or ALL bad. That's not possibly true, but it's how I find myself acting. It isn't as if I think they have and always will be ALL good or ALL bad. I just think that in the moment, they are being either ALL good right now, or ALL bad right now.

For example, My Hero. To me he is ALL good. His actions are purest of pure. His heart beats truest of all true. And that's obviously not possible, seeing that he's as human as I am. And I've been with him in his own element, and I've seen him as who he is rather than as My Hero. I've seen that he's not perfect--yet emotionally, I love the idolization that I have for him. Another example is the lamebrain driver in front of me who won't move when the light turns green. They are ALL bad. Idiot either talking on the phone, fixing their bra strap, digging up their nose, too scared to move, or what the hell ever. It makes me just hate them and want them off the road, license revoked. Obviously that's an overreaction for just a few seconds of my inconvenience--yet emotionally, I'm ready to fight. They are ALL bad.

Intellectually, I know it can't be true, but emotionally I react to all or nothing thinking. And these are the standards I hold myself to, as well. Everything I do, every word I say, every sentence I write, I want to do PERFECTLY.

PERFECTLY. All or nothing.

And if I fail, it simply must be because I suck, I'm worthless, I should not be alive, I should be someone else. Intellectually, I know this can't be true. I'm human. I fail at times. We all do. But emotionally, letting myself down is devastating. And letting someone else down is a double-dose of devastation.

And emotionally, I'd rather be alone and lonely than to let someone else down.

All or nothing.

How does a person come by this kind of thinking, boys and girls? Anyone want to guess? It's in the first chapter of your psychology books. Let's turn to the page, shall we? Ah, there it is;

[img]"HYPERCRITICAL, DISAPPROVING, AFFECTION-WITHHOLDING PARENT"[/img]

See the scowl on her face? Hear the words she says to her child? Should language like that be used on a child so young?

She abandoned me for employment so she could afford to collect me later. That was noble, but all my child's mind knew was that she left us. So I was stuck with an absentee father and subsequently abused systematically by a neighbor. That doesn't set up such a great emotional foundation. So once I moved in with her, if Mom proceeded to be angry, yell at me, and say things like "You're just like your father!" whom she left and clearly hated, then how secure of a person do I turn out to be as an adult? And how much do I dedicate my mental energy towards being perfect and insuring that I never, ever EVER let anyone else down again? Especially another woman? Especially one that I love?

Because after all, she left us the first time because I was bad.

Didn't she?

Then my therapist held up one hand and said, "All". Then she held up the other and said "Nothing". Then she looked at the space between and she said, "There's a lot of room in there."

And whaddaya know. There is.

So, I'm learning how to live where most people do. In the space between All and Nothing.

What Is It With Women?

I thought I made a friend. I put a lot of positivity and empowerment her way. Then I dedicate a song to her situation from an artist I knew she liked. And two or three lines out of the song, which I wasn't even focusing on, makes everything from that point backwards invalid?

Viva la the single life, man.

The comments in the last message are the exact reason why I don't keep girlfriends. And the exact reason why I posted the song "Another Again" and am attracted to similar songs like John Legend's "Heaven" and other such about couples who break up. Because it's the story of my life. I'm drawn to the passionate ones, and the passionate ones lash out the hardest at me. I can't predict what I'll do wrong, can't prevent it, and then suddenly I'm being yelled at. And I'm not made to receive lashings from people I start caring about. It hurts my feelings and makes me feel horrible. And it haunts me. It comes at me with the voice of my mother. And it makes me furious. And useless.

And I'm so old. I haven't overcome this struggle yet, and the way it feels now, it seems like I never will. I'll be alone for the rest of my life.

But at least I'll be safe from abuse when I'm alone.

This Damn American Damn Life. Damn.

I need to stop listening to this damn show. I've now cried twice today. This week, a dude tries to save his mother from the mess she's found herself in.

Resonate resonate resonate.

Parallels. He currently lives in Los Angeles. Check. He grew up in Pasadena. Check. He moved out from his father's at 16 and lived in Ontario, CA. Check. Within the last seven days I've been in all three of those places. Well, actually, I've been in Rancho Cucamonga, north of Ontario. But I know what the area looks like.

And for four months, he tried to take care of his mother, having to put her in a nursing home. Check. Except my mother died, and his is still struggling on.

But I still feel better at this moment than I have in weeks. California was so good for me. Actualizing my friendships were SO good for me. Getting my walking papers from George is SO good for me. Conversating with Paul Cornell was SO good for me.

Surviving.

SO good for me.

Dipped Low, Getting Better...

(Originally 8/24/06)

It's the middle of the day and I'm at a worksite with internet access, so I felt the need to come online and lay some feelings down.

A co-worker here has left the job for a stretch because of a medical condition. The same thing my mother had. I knew this co-worker had a medical situation, but I didn't know it was that serious. I'm kind of dumb and naive that way. I didn't want to know, and successfully stayed away from the gossip of it. But I found out today.

Apart from the responsibility of my job to help get that gap filled in here, I'm feeling all watery in the chest, as though later on today I might have a good cry. And it seems this is a condition I'll have for the rest of my life. If anyone near me experiences the illness my mother went through then my present emotions dovetail on those old emotions. The ache is tremendous and all the business between me and my mother remains unfinished, just as it will always be.

And then there's just this sadness. People losing their loved ones and their friends. ME losing them. The person-sized vaccuum left behind. The sheer weight of missing people.

It sucks.

It's a part of the world's chemistry that we lose people to death, but never ever does if get any better. I had hoped that I'd process it and it'd become a part of my life with which I could deal, but dang it's hard. I hope this co-worker gets better and recovers, but she might not. Then what? More pain, more sorrow, more misery.

bleahh. I'm going to lunch.

Now I know why people do dope.

Life: 2, Me: 0

(Originally June 1 2006)

And this is why blogs are a good thing.

Not 24 hors ago, I admitted that I suck at banking and that I was going to make bad choices. Practically asking for it.

And whammo, today, I lost nearly $300.00 to overdraft fees. The exact same thing happened over this weekend that happened when I closed out my Wachovia account. Money in the account on a Friday, spendation galore over the weekend, a check comes from left field and hits the account after the weekend, the bank pays it out first and calls the weekend's purchases 'overdrafts', regardless of Friday's balance.

And I don't feel the same way today as I did the other time it happened. Why?

Well, because I know I suck. SUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUCK. And not in a good way.

The other reason I can accept this better is because the money they took for overdraft isn't mine anyway. If I had the 300 bucks back, I was supposed to give it to My Benefactor as a car payment. Or to one of the other 4 creditors perched over my account. In fact, every dime I spend on me feels like I'm stealing it from someone else. And it's felt that way since...I guess since I went to college. No that's not true.

When I was living at home with Mom, and I was making good Post Office money, I felt that I was supposed to be giving her some. I felt that I was too old to be living at home and that it wasn't fair to be making more than she was, and not contribute to the house.

And so did she, believe me. And she screamed it at me often enough. And I dug my heels in and gave her drips and drabs, well after I indulged myself on my own wants.

And thus began a habit of foolishness and financial irresponsibility, and here I live with a crackhead as pennace for my disgusting behavior.

And that is that.

Life:2 and Me:0.

How Many Times Have I Started A New Post?

(Originally March 2 2006)

For the last two months, I've been adjusting to my new job and trying to find my place in the world again. There have been a few bumps along the way, namely provided by My Benefactor. He's a lot more unstable than I'd hoped, and there was one fine night that I was ready to leave...but had nowhere obvious to go. I have other friends who would put me up in an emergency, but I wanted to change my residence permanently.

It was a revisit with my historic struggles with interpersonal relationships. See, you just can't yell and curse at me. You can't get unglued and go for my character. Coming up with all sorts of criticisms and condemnations of me as a person integrally.

My Benefactor also has interpersonal relationship struggles, so if anyone will spill awful things out his mouth with no two thoughts about how he'll make a person feel, it's him. That's why he was eager to invite me into his home. I was an instant friend. Or so he thought.

So here we are, me trying to get a set of wheels under me as soon as possible, and him making sacrifices to help me do that. Unfortunately, I was rushing him and making suggestions that make him uncomfortable. I wanted him to risk just giving me the one car before I legalized it in my name, while he legalized the other that he had already bought, thus eliminating the need to share (which of course meant me driving him 30 miles to work, so I could have it for the day, and then me picking him up after my day was over). He evidently liked the company, but I just wanted to be done with 12 hour days.

So after I pick him up on the day in question, I have to drive him around to accomplish some tasks he needed, and out comes dashing a kid on a bike into the middle of the dark street. Well My Benefactor freaks out, screaming literally, and although I stopped and did not hit the little idiot on the bike, Benefactor's screaming went on and on into abuse. Calls me a terrible driver. Curses a bluestreak. Tells me my judgment is always bad. Tells me I had to be crazy asking him for what I was asking him. Tells me he felt safer driving while he was drunk than driving with me. And this he says after a full day of sobriety, so he has me pull over so he can get a bottle of whatever.

The content of the words I look back nw and see that they were not so bad. The screaming and cursing, however, I cannot describe. I only know that I was a teenager again at that moment, and it wasn't a dry drunk screaming at me, but my bipolar mother or my drunk father. And that's who it always becomes, whenever I'm getting cussed out. I've had at least one ex- tell me that "I'm not your mother" whenever she saw me shutting down, but nothing inside ME knew that. Emotionally, I'm just gone.

Well, days later, I found the guts enough to tell this to my benefactor. This didn't change his mind or anything, but it did stop his abuse cycle, which he had continued into the next day because he mistook my withdrawal and silence for rejection. Why I know his mind hadn't changed? Because he insisted that he hadn't been abusive. Yeah, okay. Cursing someone out isn't abusive. It's fun, actually? I didn't try to convince him. I only defended myself.

And things haven't been the same since. He invites me to hang with him in NYC to see plays. I don't want to go. He invites me to dinner. No thanks, I just ate. He didn't trust me as a driver? I no longer trust him as a friend. I would rather grind broken glass into my eyes than give him another opportunity to catch me out there like that again.

Well, eventually, I got the car legalized in my name and whatnot. He got his own car finally. He goes his way for days and days, and I play City of Heroes and go to Barnes & Nobles. I frankly don't care what happens between Benefactor and me from here on out. It's me alone again that I'm concerned about.

I'm comfortable again when I'm alone. And again, being alone is getting me nowhere.

Tuesday Nights, Applications, and Things...

(Originally Nov 2 2005)

This Tuesday at Times Square, yet another sermon sat in my lap, cooed and gigged, and called me Daddy begging for me to give it a good home. It was about placing ourselves under the authority of good leaders. It was one of those internal church sermons made to structure the church with some in-house rules. A sort of "This-Is-How-We-Do-It-Here" sermon. This sermon comes in many forms, depending on what church you're in.

Some churches deliver this sermon with a "Do-It-This-Way-Or-Your-A-Hellbound-Fake" flavor.

Others sprinkle more of a "Do-It-Our-Way-Because-The-Others-Are-SO-Mis-lead" seasoning on it.

This Tuesday night, TSC delivered it with a "We're-Really-Good-Guys-Who-Encourage-You-To-Do-What-God- Tells-You-To-Do" vibe. And while I sat and pondered how clever this approach was, and how it slipped under my radar, Pastor Conlon seemed to go off on a tangent--and it was the tangent that was tailor-made for me.

He reviewed how some folks might be sitting in the congregation having told themselves that they are there for the word of God, but as for the human leadership, "No thanks, I've had quite enough of THAT for one lifetime." The man, in other words, started addressing the abuse we may have had with other ministries and now we were not willing to submit ourselves again and take a chance of getting roasted again.

Dude. Sound familiar?

I have told you, haven't I, about my first pastor in New Jersey? About his obtuse way of handling my mother (and my own sensibilities) at her deathbed? But I didn't tell you about all the years I devoted to working close to him in hopes to be guided and trained as a man (not that I knew this then, being only a 16 yr old fatherless kid) and never once getting that education. I didn't get that education until I went to Missouri--some 11 years after I first darkened the door of that first church. You see, my first pastor was/is an unwitting megalomaniacal obsessive/complusive man. His thrust for righteousness came from a singular devotion to his (and his only) form of Christianity. He would talk the congregation into an hours-long, slack-eyed stupor trying to prove his point. He would demolish all competition, be it Satan, Catholics, or a friendly brother from his Bble School who dared to win the hearts of one too many of his congregation. If it wasn't the King James Version, or if the music wasn't Black choir gospel or Southern gospel, it was worldly--corrupt--a deceptive tool of the enemy. There were times I wrestled good-naturedly with him until he got to a place of acceptance for a bigger world, only to hear him slam back to narrow-minded intolerant fanatacism in the next hours-long sermon. My mother died around by the time I realized that I was getting nowhere with this man who I would have had as my father. So off to Missouri I went in search of new significance.

This past Tuesday night, Pastor Conlon coaxed my mind back from the "Nope, nu-uh, never again" Camp. He seemed to know, and said he had even experienced it himself, what it was like to submit to authority and find it was corrupt. What it felt like to distrust these "men of God" who wanted to be my authority. P. Conlon gave me a perfect out. He stated that himself and the whole staff of the TSC was subject to correction if any of us thought their way was wrong. He said that good leaders allow the people they are serving to challenge them on doctrine and any belief practice. He said that any religion that did not allow that, and made you feel like association with any other than themselves would lead you to Hell, was a CULT.

And there I sat saying to myself--"Well, I thought that was the case, but I never wanted to really admit it."

What kind of growing up have I done??

Sexually abused by a neighbor, emotionally abused by my mother, then caught up in a religious cult--buried under a bunch of shame and self-loathing as a result of the former three, then eager to work my way back to God's (and myself's) good graces by becoming a preacher--without realizing that the most important message in the very Book I wanted to preach out of was that NOTHING I COULD EVER DO, WHETHER IN MY BODY OR WITH MY LIFE, WOULD EARN OR LOSE GOD'S LOVE FOR ME.

And so here I type, a 41 year old man-child, getting his priorities straightened out by a divine hand because he got too bunched up by three or four worldfuls of CRAP to do it for himself.

And on this note, I found myself giving the TSC my resume and asking to be interviewed for a position in their counseling department. Yes, this was BEFORE I heard P. Conlon's sermon. I did it because the circumstance arose earlier this week. A "random" phone call alerted me to the fact that the counseling department in the Times Square Church has some gaps that could stand to be filled. (What are the odds that a Times Square parishoner would call MY number to find a Christian counselor, even though I'm listed?) Well I took it as an opportunity--I was given information and I acted on it. We'll see where it goes. But that sermon sure did ease my mind on the possibility of working with these people. Before I only saw a paycheck and the help I could give the parishoners, not to mention the freedom to do counseling within the worldview of Christianity. Now I see it as an opportunity to mend fences in my head. To learn how to trust ministers again, and even work with them in confidence.

I might even wind up going to see the first pastor again, seeing as that he's about nine miles up the road from me these days, and not have the grand showdown I'd been envisioning and dreading. In fact, I'm sure that I can forgive him, even though he doesn't know why I should. I think I can let go of the disappointment and move on.

And then today, I put in an application to the hospital that is within walking distance of this New Jersey house. According to all the releases I had to sign, it'll prolly be Christmas before I hear from them, but they had some relevant positions open (as I knew they would) and I'm feeling more energy these days to pursue them. (The slow drain of that car auction money has done wonders for my energy level, let me tell you).

And now back to Paragon City!

A Pair Of Eyes

(Originally August 21 2005)

Tonight, coming home from my train station, I started down the steps of Jackie Robinson Park to make the diagonal cut over to my block. Going through this darkened Harlem park is like having my right fist pumped for how I've developed comfort living with my inner-city brethren. I fear no mugging within its shadowy depths!

On the topmost set of steps, a woman about my age was helping a more elderly woman climb, as indicated by the elder's grip on the younger's hand. The elder had a lopsided gait as she took the steps slowly, and as I witnessed this, her posture triggered faint remembrance bells at the back of my mind.

When I met the gaze in her eyes though, the memory remained no longer faint.

In the eyes of one who relies on another for help, you can read a thousand emotions. There is a veneer of pride, clutched in a death-grip vise. That person will die first before they give their pride up. Then there is the glow of fear in those eyes. A startled realization that they are not what they once were, or thought they were, and a terror that they may never again return to their former glories. There is a steely determination in those eyes. They may need help, but they'll be damned if by taking it, they'll admit defeat. Then there is a gentle surrender in those eyes. There is a gratitude. There is a trust.

The gaze in the elderly woman's eyes were the same gaze in my mother's eyes during her last few months of life. She too walked, in her last days, with that lopsided gait. Half her body was weakened by a compromised nervous system being intruded on from a brain tumor. That same tumor robbed her of any coherent speech. Her face and expressions were full of determination, but her voice, once virulent with insults and crisp with scorn, was silenced. She would grip my hand as she toddled back and forth to the car during my chauffeured trips to chemotherapy appointments. She would watch kiddie shows and laugh aloud as a child. I once bought her a stuffed Fievel, and she was so suprised by it that she wordlessly bawled, alternating with laughter, for five minutes solid. Once, after she died, I lay on her bed gripping the Fievel and bawled for twelve times that long.

I hate that my relationship with my mother ended so raggedly. Before I ever realized it, I had already lost my chance to settle things with her. While I expected her to recover and maybe gain a new affection and appreciation for all the times I'd been there for her through the illnesses, her brain had already been inalterably damaged and her personality had been forevermore eroded away to a childlike state. All that were left was cackles of glee or sobs of frustration. Epilepsy wracked what was left of her autonomy, and while I gnashed my teeth at my inability to cook meals she would eat, she was slowly slipping away into a world beyond my access.

Could the neighbors not see how much of this woman they had lost? Could they not have warned me what to expect? Could the doctors not have taken me to the side and given me that famous speech? What did I look like to them, at 27yrs. old? A child? But I make a mistake. There was one. A girl from my church who had just passed her nursing test happened to be working on the same floor that my mother had been checked onto at Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, NY. When I was visiting mom, in the earlier days of her illness, this church sister of mine told me how bad it was and what I should be expecting. Now, I'd already known this girl from church. She never one time impressed me as a medical professional with rank and privileges enough to give me this kind of news. I easily dismissed what she said as inexperience. Not to mention a lack of faith! Thirteen years later, I now realize.

My last night with my mother was in a Sears & Roebuck at the Nanuet Mall, her favorite store. All my school clothes had come from there several years in a row. We were waiting on line for something, I have no idea what. I looked away for some reason and suddenly someone gave a sharp gasp. My mother had tumbled backwards from a standing position and fell as deadweight onto the smooth tiled concrete. Her head rebounded off the formica with a sound a can't ever forget. Her wig tumbled off, revealed her smooth bald head. When I heard it hit the ground, I also remember suddenly crying out like a child lost in that department store. That sound meant that something was terribly, finally wrong with my mother. Store managers came, customers surrounded us, people checked to see if she was alive, I was checking to see if she was alive, and oddly, she still was. She had had another epileptic seizure and was coming out of it with the acute awareness that she had banged her head and that it had hurt.

When the ambulance came, they took her to Nyack Hospital. From that hospital, they discharged her to a nursing home. My visitations were nightly. I was seeing a girl in those days, a single mom with two children from my church who had practically adopted me and mom. Her caretaking ways made me think she could be my wife. One night the nursing home called me to tell me that mom had swallowed some milk the wrong way and was having respiratory problems, so they sent her back to Nyack Hospital. I went to go see her and found only her emaciated body, laboring to breathe. This was my mother's system finally collapsing under the cancer. I called my pastor to come to the hospital and be with me. He brought his wife and daughter. His wife and daughter seemed to talk a mile a minute. I believe one of the three used the term "death-rattle" when they heard her breathing. I can't recall which one it was. Not subtle people, were my pastor and his family. Not sensitive either. The doctor or doctors told me I should go home and wait for them to call me, and that they were doing all they could for her.

Now why would they do that? Why wouldn't they let me stay?

It took her a few hours to die, gasping in some strange medical bay at Nyack hospital, all alone. They called me finally--who knows what time of night it was? I happened to work overnights as a mail clerk in Mt. Vernon, NY back then, where I first met the man who will let me stay with him in NJ if I follow through with the present-day eviction. I happened to not have gone to work that night, of course--can't remember if I was already off or if I'd called out sick. I eventually called the girl I was seeing to tell her my mom had died. I felt she should know. I heard the phone bang to the floor on the other end. Someone answered it after a little while later and hung it up for her. I don't remember if they spoke to me or not.

This is just another dimension of life that I carry around with me from day to day. It's not easy to avoid having bipolar tendencies when just a pair of eyes can trigger this kind of tidal wave of regret and loss and longing.

But this is why there is religion. I'm exhausted now, but tomorrow, I'm going to the early service at Times Square Church, and I'm going to pour out all this loss as I worship a God who will never leave me, nor forsake me. Call me simple-minded or a fool, but I need this. I need to know that there is something bigger than this tragic little comedy we call life.