Still Nothing

In a year from now I will turn forty. I never thought I would live this long and I'm not even sure it's quite true. My body says it is so. It seems like if I am really this old then I should be in a different position from where I am. For example, I would think that I would be in my own home with my own family and friends with a nice retirement fund to ease me into old age. Instead, I am anti-social and single -- living in a rental property with two cats and allot of financial debt.

To make matters worse, I'm still up to my nose in the middle of a therapy I thought I would be growing out of by now. I still play allot of video games and frequently live off cereal. The only thing I've done responsibly is manage to wean myself from Lucky Charms to Cheerios. It was just a year ago that I was just getting out of the hospital for having tried to stop my heart by taking too many beta-blockers. Up until last month I have remained in the outpatient program to "rehabilitate myself back to society and sustain meaningful employment." That cost me $1200 in co-payments ... but I did, however, receive the non-redeemable coin as pictured above. Maybe next year will be better.

Escape From Darkness

"The escape from darkness involves two stages: First, the recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually entails fear. Second, the recognition that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. This step brings escape from fear. When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion but will also understand peace and joy."*

Sometimes I think that this is a lesson. Recent divorce, newly-discovered infidelity, loss of job, loss of home and pets, more loss of health -- these things must be a lesson, or perhaps, a goal -- that no matter what happens to me or where I go -- that I will always be there. The chief principle in A Course In Miracles is this:

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace."

This is what I must strive for. I am convinced that there is only one freedom in the universe and this might be it. Perhaps it is only by reaching this state of being that nothing and no one can touch me. I could be chained in the bottom of a basement but be unreachable.

*A Course in Miracles, Chapter 1:4

Real Pedals

...so, after my failure yesterday to attend the support group I decided to take a risk and go out on a ledge by dragging out my old bicycle (the type with real pedals that you push with your legs) from college. It took two months for me to put new tires on so I was afraid it would not be ready until winter. Worried about a fall or a tire falling off, I went out in the dark. I had promised myself that if something went wrong with the bike then I would pitch it to the side of the road and run back home. ...ok, walk back home.

Anyway, I successfully made it completely around the block. Surely I must be on the road to cardiovascular health since even my legs were burning, right? To push myself even further, I had some trail mix and water and THEN while taking a shower I used my big toe to rub out a small rust mark on the bathtub near the drain. I had been staring at it for a month but did not know what to do with it. Have to take the accomplishments where I can get them.

Let the Pillar of Damage Control Burn

"Whup whup-whup-whup ... Whup whup-whup-whup ... Whup whup-whup-whup ... Whup whup-whup-whup ..."

... this is the sound the toilet has been making for the past few days when I shower ... or maybe the whole week ... i lose track ...

I know that i should phone the land-lady about it, especially since i've been having to manually drain the washer to keep it from flooding over the drain in the floor ... and especially now that a pool of water began to rise in the bathtub as i showered.

It seems that i just can't bear to speak to people lately. Struggle all day to be something that I am not only to come home and hide in bottles of Negra Dos Equis, Heineken, and the latest Green Day album. Sometimes all i can do is watch it burn and wait to see which way the wind takes it ... or not.

Myopia

Near the end of my second week at the new job, I might finally be winding down from the stress of the change. By noon on the first day alone, my neck was as stiff as steel and everything went downhill from there as I crashed into a black depression. I was not expecting such an intense reaction. There are multiple factors at play but the most important one was the loss of laughter. Despite all the turmoil at my last job, I genuinely laughed for the first time in three years and had not laughed so much since college - seventeen years ago. People make a difference. I hope I don't have to wait another seventeen years.

This Silence Is Our Enemy

Countless people have told me to move on and leave the trauma behind. I tell myself that they just don't know any better -- just some here, some there. I feel ashamed as if I have failed somehow ... as if I am being difficult and masochistic. Most days I get up, go to a job, come home, pay my bills, and do those normal things when there was a time when I could do none of those things. No one knows though that.

Soldiers come home from war and can no longer relate to those around them so they turn to each other for support. I've met other survivors but no one that I could ever relate to and certainly no place to go home to. No one knows.

Move on? I'm so terrified to go to sleep at night that I either have to drink pills or stay up all night shooting XBOX pixels. Otherwise, like last night, I lose my breath and choke on the bile that rises from somewhere at the bottom of my throat. Sometimes, a wailing sound comes from a place buried away outside my realm of consciousness. How can I move on? This is just part of my night life alone.

I am your peer. I look average. I am average height and average build. I might wear khakis and a polo shirt or Levis with a nice blouse or t-shirt. I share the coffee machine with you. I complain about the morning commute with you. I picked up the cereal that fell from your shopping cart or helped you with your computer problem. You might know I have issues but, really, you DO NOT know.

I DO know and I don't think you would believe me if I told you anyway. There are no support groups for me. Most people with my history are shooting up, on the streets, institutionalized, are memory-less, or dead. So do not judge people so easily, whether they seem odd or do not seem odd, because you just don't know.

I'll save the rest for later.

running

I can't slow down. If I would just plan ahead for simple things -- like taking a sleeping pill early enough or what am I going to eat for dinner -- then my life would be easier and I would feel better but I just can't slow down. No, I am not manic. That is one diagnosis I have not accrued ... but who knows, I haven't checked the latest DSM either.

The problem is that I'm running -- always running. I run so much that I get nothing done. If I am walking through the house to put something in the laundry room then I get distracted and pick up something else then get distracted and start another task and soon enough the laundry room is forgotten until I go to try and find whatever it is I was trying to relocate.

Work is the worst. I cannot focus. Today I had to escape to an empty office because the noise and walls were strangling me. I do not understand why it is so difficult to manage software development. I know that there are too many variables for anything to be exact but, crap, we have such huge bottlenecks that I'm often left with nothing to do but wait for the seemingly inevitable pink slip and if I do not learn how to control my stress over it then I'm going to end up in worse shape than ever. I like this company and don't want a new job either. Gawd, the world is being run by idiots.

I do not know how to stop running. I want to -- truly I do. This must be a bad one to keep me moving so much. I hope I can get through it instead of running past it all the time.

Too Many Dots

Today was like free-fall through hell. I do not know what comes over me. It is not the first time -- this I have gathered from my words. We scrunch the jagged edges of the puzzle relentlessly to see where each part fits. Suddenly it is like I do not know who I am or where I've been. Again, nothing new, but I thought this had passed. I find I have been doing things all along that I have not known about.

I feel like a broken movie fragmenting back and forth out of order from one minute to the next. Static fuzz crackle and how to get something done for my crazy job with no work to do.

My guidance is slipping and I fell more thinking about it but dragged out the box and began to write without even having to look inside. I don't even stop to eat or drink. At some point though, I WILL have to look. There are too many dots. These dots are all over the place : ... ... ...

whether or not to worry about the chairs

She says to give up the shame and self-blame -- that I am worrying about the deck chairs when the whole Titanic is going down.

I do not know why some things stick and some do not. Last week she drew a longitudinal diagram of my events. I have to see the whole sum and not just one part.

Pixelated bitmaps swirl within my head and soul in such a tidal wave that there is nothing more I can do for this day but to come home, take my pills, hope for sleep, and hope that if I am awake tomorrow that I can get up and fulfill duties at my job while it lasts.