Don't you do it.

Just don't.

Ladies, if I impregnated you the last time I had a drink, you'd be popping that handsome bastard out in one month (if that actually happened to you, I have no memory of it and I'd prefer to keep it that way).

There's going to be some graphic disclosure so if you're not in the mood now is the time to bail.


It hasn't been the eight months I planned, it certainly wasn't the eight months I wanted, but somehow they were exactly the eight months I needed.  Life asked me politely to change at almost every possible intersection.  When I refused, life said, "Well, I was kind of just asking as a courtesy, now if you would please, bend and spread."  I fought it hard, I dotted every "i," I ran my mouth, I crossed every "t," I wept in desperation, I shoved people out of my life and then begged them to come back in.  I told people that I was their worst nightmare, didn't love them and I couldn't stand to hurt them anymore.  Then I drug myself, like a lifeless doll, through emotional hell to try and keep them around.  It's like I believed that abusing myself would somehow help, I really believed that if I soaked myself in personal enmity there would be extra-credit.  I was full of false pride and out of self-esteem, I thought I had so much love to give other people but I had none for myself.  My heart, which has always played beautiful music and never failed me was suddenly out of tune.  None of my songs sounded right and without that harmony, I was lost, I was a walking corpse.  I was breathing and I was awake but I was not there, Tyler was gone.  The pain was incredible.  It felt like gravity was more powerful than before, it was paralyzing, I was afraid to move.  It is hard to face adversity, mourning, change and fear without a thriving spirit.  My spirit was dead and so I figured the rest of me may as well be too, every path I was maintaining was suddenly covered by an insurmountable rock slide.  All of my options were gone I was out of time and out of will... I just sat and stared (both in this meandering, tangential metaphor and in reality.)  I was catatonic, I went to work and stared, I came home and stared, I barely ate, I never slept, it was like I cared about everything so much that I experienced an emotional supernova, my fuel was burnt and I couldn't shine and I didn't care.  I resigned... I've quit stuff before, I don't really have an issue with that, but I've never completely given up on myself and I've never been a coward.  All at once, I had done both and I didn't care.  I didn't talk about it I just wrote the agonizingly long, obligatory, apologetic note and popped the 40mg of coumadin.  I was one well placed puncture during an "accidental" fall in the shower from rolling the credits on this compelling tragedy (someday I will take the time to recount what that was like in vivid detail, this isn't the time). Ultimately it was the thoughts of the faces of my family finding me or hearing the news that stopped me, I had done enough damage.  I felt like I owed it to them, possibly to you, to keep walking through this nipple deep swamp of horror and bullshit.  I decided it was worth it to see what the next day looked like and went to the hospital where I stayed for one week, lockdown, robe, slippers the whole 9.

Do you notice the tone of that paragraph?  What's missing?  Re-read it and look for self-respect.  It's not there, literally everything I was basing my evaluations on existed outside of me.  I didn't matter to myself at all, my time was only worth a fuck if someone else thought it was.  It doesn't matter who you are, how much you love your family, how much money you make, how desperate and needy you are if your sense of self worth lives on the outside, you're not in control of your own life.  You're at the mercy of whatever you assign your worth to and if you lose it, you've lost yourself.

All of these things that I've wrapped myself in for security had become more of a cage.  Now that I'm naked, while admittedly a little chilly, I feel free.  Free in the corniest and most sickening possible sense, the kind that makes you want to swing your arms, the kind that makes you want to look at the sky and spin in a wheat field, the kind of feeling you had the first time you used wireless Internet (just me?).  Something about the genuine feeling of having nothing to lose gives you an opportunity to see your own human beauty without any of the bullshit.  We spend so much time putting on masks for the world that eventually we don't know what we actually look like.  Tearing all that shit down is painful, but when you're done, at least you know what you're working with.  I mean if your crazy ass is spinning naked in a wheat field and you still have the audacity to say, "I like myself," you have as much self esteem as anyone ever has or will ever need.



The magic that's happening to me isn't really magic at all.  People say time heals all wounds, well, if you believe that you're a fucking idiot and you shouldn't be here, go hand out bullshit pamphlets at some after school bake sale.  Time is neutral, if you don't believe me why don't you sit down on the couch, chop of your foot and wait.  Time is essential to your healing but it's also the easy part, it's what you do with your time that makes the magic.  If you do the right things then you will develop the right attitudes.  If you do the wrong things you'll develop the wrong ones.  I was at the lowest point of my life in November, I had no control over the shattered emotions, the racing thoughts or the giant cavern where my spirit used to be, but I did have control over my actions.  Sometimes you can use your brain to solve these problems, sometimes it requires your body.  I was very deliberate about where I placed each next step and 8 months later, I have no shit on my shoes.  What seems easy to me now was incredibly hard then, it was just a matter of practice.

The whole purpose of this post is just to let you know, hey, I know life blows.  I believe you have felt similar things to what I expressed, my pain is no more or less intense than yours.  People feel pain they never talk about and maybe aren't even willing to talk to themselves about.  I promise you, if you give yourself a chance, if you do the next right thing today things will be easier tomorrow, even if you're life is awesome it helps.  It really isn't complicated, it's a very simple formula I've used,  (Don't be an idiot + Do the right thing/ Time = Success) just because it's simple doesn't make it easy.  When you're in despair, it will be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.  Don't give up, the next breath you take might be the one you don't want to miss.  It could be the one that changes everything.

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