Rainbows and Darkness

When your memories hold you hostage, how do you begin to take your life back?

When you’re held prisoner to a constant movie reel of past pain and heartbreak, how do you break free? 

How do you emancipate yourself from your own mind? 

In my life, I’ve experienced joy and misery.  Happiness and depression.  Rainbows and darkness. 

It’s the dark, the bad memories that are the ones that repeat.  The ones where I can remember each detail in Technicolor, the sights, the smells.  All of it.  The good memories are more faded like an old photograph, the edges dog-eared and the images not as clear as they once were. 

I’m the one that bestows that power upon them.  I’m the one that went willingly, head hung low in defeat, into my cell of sadness inside my own mind.  I condemned myself to this life, to putting my focus on the negative.

I’ve spent a lifetime drowning in the awful. 

It’s high time I started to kick to the surface. 

But how?  How do we begin to wrest ourselves from the self latched chains of our memories, our pasts?  What defining event will open the door?

What beautiful things have happened to me that I’ve shoved to the recesses of my mind and forgotten and replaced with something shameful, embarrassing, hurtful or sad?  What have I missed out on because of my frightening ability to see only the terrible?  How many smiles, hugs, encouraging words, beautiful scenes?  How many compliments?  How many breathtaking sunsets?  How many moments of just love, be it friend, family, significant other? 

How many lost memories are running adrift in my mind because I’ve refused to see them?

Is setting yourself free as simple as telling yourself that’s what you’re going to do?  Resolving to no longer give it the power it held before?  Can it be that easy? 

I suppose that it can’t hurt to try.  It can’t hurt any more than I’ve already hurt myself. 

So then today, now, right this minute, with fear and hope in my heart, I vow to stop it.  I’m taking away the power.  I’m taking away the power I’ve given to the bad memories, to the darkness, to the fear, to the hopelessness, to the anger, to the people who’ve hurt me, to the people who enjoyed my suffering. 

I’m done letting memories, emotions, and people control my life, my mind.  It’s done. 

I’m taking back my life.

Too long I’ve spent wishing to be happy, to be free. 

Today, I’m moving in a different direction.  I’m shedding those chains; I’m losing my prisoner number. 

I want to know joy.  Know it fully.  Know it like we have a secret handshake. 

Fear and hate and anger can go right back to the hell that spawned them all.  I’m done with you. 

I want my goddamn life back.

And it starts today.

Tired

You’re going to need to take a long and potentially painful look at yourself in the mirror and demand that you recognize the good in yourself. It’s not going to be easy. I tell myself this exact thing every single day. And every day I find some reason, big or small, to ignore even the slightest bit of good in myself. It’s silly and I know it. I’m human, just like everybody else. And part of being human is making mistakes, learning from them and then not repeating them. But rather than looking at the mistakes I’ve made and putting them behind me, I carry them around like some form of penance. The wrongs that have been done to me? Well, I make sure to plant those deep so they never go away. So, I can’t tell you what my best qualities are, where my strengths lay. But I can tell you every single ill word that has ever been said to me. It’s an awful way to live and after doing it for a very long time, I can say that I’ve grown really tired of it. Tired of being the person who shoulders burden that isn’t mine. Tired of holding on to everything.

It’ll kill you in the end. Maybe not literally, I would hope not literally. But it’ll carve you out inside and make you nothing more than a giant empty shell. Let it go, all of it. Even if it has to be a tiny piece at a time.

So I’m making a list in my head of everything good about me. I’m much more accustomed to listing my flaws but that hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I’m kind of tired of being stuck in one place. It’s boring and the view is old now. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my life dwelling on things that don’t matter anymore. Or let the opinions of fools tell me who I am and who I’m going to be.

Perfect

I was perfect.  Good grades, good schools, good friends, extracurricular activities. By the time I was 27 I’d gone to graduate school, had a house built, had a lavish wedding – even gave out communion at Saturday night Mass. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Until I wasn’t. It’s been years now, but I’m not even sure how I snapped. I remember making muffins for a Bake Sale and completely losing it. I said I was too young to be making muffins. I should be abroad, or in a city, looking at art, trying new foods.  I didn’t know how to change my life.   I had an affair. I snuck around.  I let someone else be the reason I left.  Until he left me.

Even though I felt sadness and resentment in my marriage, I’d felt powerless to change my situation.  I took those feelings and buried them in a secret – in an act of defiance.  Did that help me?  Of course not.  Was it selfish?  Absolutely.  But it made me take a really cold, hard look at myself and ask myself that when these relationships were over, what did I want?

Fast forward several years, through that toxic divorce, that new toxic relationship, moving four times, and I finally got it. 

I moved out of state. I took myself abroad on vacation. I visited friends I hadn’t seen in years. I relished my freedom.

If I could go back and give myself advice – if I could go out and give every young adult advice – I’d say, Don’t try to be perfect.  It really doesn’t matter.  Change your surroundings even if you don’t have the time or money.  Don’t ever let a relationship define you. 

 

The Site Trailer

I Am Enough

     From as early as I can remember I never felt I was good enough. Not for anybody, and not at anything I achieved or attempted. I went through life a perfectionist (later to be diagnosed as OCD)- always obtaining high grades and high honor roll status, performing well at multiple sports, and maintaining a decent group of friends. From the outside my life was exactly what I wanted everybody to think it was, perfect. But I was miserable. My grades were good, but they could have been better. I was captain of the soccer team, but I could have dedicated more of time to practicing... etc. I never felt I was giving my best effort. I was anxious and high strung and depressed. I felt I had more than I deserved, yet I always wanted more than I had. I developed an eating disorder when I was 16, shortly after being raped by a boyfriend. I began drinking heavily on the weekends. I began using sex just like I used alcohol.  My world was crashing down around me and I needed find balance and control. For a long time, all the way through college, I continued on this way, pretending everything was perfect while using my eating disorder, alcohol, and sex to numb out the reality that was my life.

 

     The summer after college I relapsed with my eating disorder pretty badly. I was lower than I had been in years. I was depressed, scared, my life was at a turning point, and yet it was a stand still. I managed to come back from the depths of the disorder only to find alcohol waiting for me at the other end. That is where my life took a turn for the worst. I went from a functioning human being to a useless wreck over the course a few months. I didn't want to live. I was living to drink, hurting myself and the people I love the most. I hated myself more than ever and I honestly could not see a way out. In my mind my only choices were to keep going on that way making things worse and worse until I had nothing left, or to just end everything. So that is what I decided to do, after one last day of drinking. On June 4, 2013 I called out of work without telling any of my family or my significant other. I spent the morning at the beach and the afternoon and evening at the bar. When it came time to go through my plan to "accidentally" crash my car into a tree on my way home, around 7 pm, I was already blackout drunk. So I don't remember the conversation I had with my parents when I got to my car and saw them standing there about how they found me, and I'm not sure that matters. What matters is that they found me. I am here. That was the last drink I took. I went inpatient for twelve days and detoxed. While I was in the hospital I learned a lot about myself. Since I have been out of the hospital a lot of amazing people have entered my life that have made me feel like these past sixty days have not all been for nothing. 

 

     Every day is a struggle to stay sober, to eat right, to think positively, to get out of bed... But I look at where I was sixty days ago and where I am today and it makes me want to keep fighting. I have grown so much in the past two months, more than I ever thought was possible. For the first time I am actually looking forward to the future.

I don't look at myself and think I am the smartest or the prettiest or the best at anything, I am not there yet and I may never be.. But I can finally look at myself and truly know, I am enough. 

Love, Lasting

I marvel at any couple who manages to stay together past the 50 year mark.   If you ask them the secret to a lasting marriage, they all pretty much say the same thing: The secret is love, laughter and facing problems together.  Truth is: the secret isn’t shared.  It’s witnessed. I’ve spent the last 5 days playing witness to what it takes to make a lasting love. 

My parents retired to North Carolina when my eldest son was just 2 years old.  They returned home last week to attend 2 weddings, one of which is my eldest son’s.  They had their 12 day stay all mapped out. They would spend time with family members and hit local favorite dining and shopping spots in between weddings and rehearsal dinners. Then, adversity reared its ugly head and their plans changed, putting love to the test….one more time. 

Mom was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital and admitted with an acute gallbladder attack.  The surgeon was reluctant to operate because she was considered high risk, due to chronic health issues.  Her surgery was cancelled 3 times due to complications. On day 4, she finally had her diseased, infected gallbladder removed.  What I witnessed, in those 4 days, is the reason only some marriages stand the test of time.

My father never left her side, during visiting hours.  He was reluctant to leave her and worried endlessly until he was able to return to the hospital.  He held her hand in one of his hands and a basin in the other, as she dry-heaved and vomited for days.  He sat by her side while she slept and fed her ice chips when her mouth was dry.  He helped her to bathroom, when the nurses weren’t able to answer the call bell quickly enough.  He kissed her forehead every time he left the room.

Mom had always done the same for him. Over the years, Dad was the one with the major health issues. Mom was his diligent caretaker.  She always put his needs ahead of her own.  She did so, lovingly and without hesitation.  When the tables were turned, he returned the favor.  He did so…..without hesitation. 

Just before she was wheeled into the operating room she revealed the secret to me.  She squeezed my hand and whispered to me “take care of your father, for me.”  She wasn’t worried about herself. She was worried about her love.

I had struggled in my own marriages.  My first ended in divorce and my second – my fairytale marriage – came dangerously close to suffering the same fate. I still struggle with trust issues. Every relationship I’ve been in pales in comparison to my parents’ marriage.  Now I understand the secret.  Now, on the eve of my son’s wedding, I am prepared to share it with the bride and the groom at their rehearsal dinner.

Yes, love is patient and kind. It is a give and take. But there is so much more to love. Love cares more about others, than it does about itself. Love places other’s needs over their own; willingly and lovingly. However, love is not always lovely. The reason: but people are flawed. People say and do regrettable things especially under stress; things that cannot be undone, unsaid, unheard or forgotten. This is when love is tested the most. When adversity strikes in the home, only a lasting love can survive.

 Lasting love understands, because it longs to be understood.  Lasting love is forgiving, because it hopes to be forgiven.   Lasting love says I’m sorry, as often as it says I forgive you.  Love may hold your hand when you’re at your best, but lasting love; lasting love holds your hand when you’re at your worst.

Yes, love can be far from ideal. For better and for worse…..adversity lurks around every corner, waiting to rear its ugly head. It tests love’s courage beyond measure. Love will be infected by diseases of the body and the mind. Lasting love is the cure; a cure more powerful than any medication on the market.  Lasting love is hope set on fire. It gives us courage to not just hold on, but to fight; fight for what makes this life worth living. What makes this life worth living is love. 

That is why we take vows.  We promise to love for better and for worse.  There will be joy and there will be pain, of this I am sure.   

We all learn a hard lesson, when we love.  When we fight against each other, love does suffer. 

In the end, we learn an even greater lesson. We learn that when we fight together, love not only lasts, it is an unstoppable force.

The secret to a love, lasting comes down to this:

It takes two – courageous, caring souls who are not only willing to love, but are willing to suffer and fight for each other….for better and for worse…..until death they do part.

Unbroken

A broken soul.  That's all I can remember being.  Surrounded by addicts my entire life.  I lost the only person who ever made me feel loved at the age of ten.  He was my father.  Although, he was broken himself because of wars he had fought for a country he loved, he understood me. 

I was alone.  Surrounded by people, but never feeling a part of anything.  I had a family, a great family, but felt like an outsider.  I used to cut myself just to feel. 

At the age of 14, I was raped.  He was 32 years old.  I never told a soul.  I hated men.  Then I met a boy who I thought hung the moon.  He was 20 and I was 17.  My mother and stepfather hated him, so I moved out and into his house.  Over the next few months I learned more about this man.  He was evil.  There were broken ribs, black eyes and cigarette burns from this man.  His apologies kept me there.  The night he picked me up by my neck and threw me across the hood of my car was the last straw.  I know he could have killed me.  I could see it in his eyes.

My college years were filled with dozens of men.  All whom I used to get what I wanted.  They paid my rent, bought me things and took care of me.  I was a user.  I never loved these men nor did I give them anything in return.  I was starting to believe I would never love anyone and this was my lot in life; loveless relationships.  I had been broken by the last man who I thought I loved.  Then I met a man who I thought would change everything.  It wasn't until our honeymoon I realized he wasn't the man I thought he was.  Over the years he became an addict.  I guess the addictive personality was there, but I didn't see it.  I was blinded by my love for him.  After 9 years of emotional and psychological abuse that sometimes manifested into physical due to his cocaine and alcohol addiction, I left this man.  For a moment, I returned to cutting myself.  I was 31 years old, what was I thinking!!!!

One night, I was out alone.  I met a man with the kindest eyes I have ever seen.  That very night he stole my heart.  He took every piece of my broken heart and healed it one piece at a time.  Finally, I found someone with whom I could allow myself to be me around, someone who never judged me, someone who never allowed me to feel alone and who I felt a part of.  Finally a family!  One that I could call my own.  But sadly, I once again found myself in a relationship that was another destructive one.  He couldn't stay faithful.  I forgave him, but in the end, trust had been broken and sometimes that just can't be repaired.

For months, I cried and wallowed in my own self pity until one day it hit me: I'm not broken!  I never was.  I carefully laid out everything that happened from my childhood to my life then.  These men, they were the broken ones.  I thought they needed me to save them....my father, my step-father and on down the line.  All the addicts and abusers in my life.  All these betrayals by men who I had given everything to.  My love was not to be used and tossed aside like that.  I allowed them to make me feel undeserving, unwanted and broken.  I allowed them to make me build these walls up and allowed them to change me from the little girl who only knew good and saw beauty in everything, to a bitter woman who thought she was unworthy of being loved.

All I can do now is thank these men.  These men all taught me a valuable lesson....I'm not broken.  I can never be broken.  I am in control of my life.  I deserve the best.  I will get the best.  I am worthy.

To all these men, thank you!  Thank you for reminding me that love isn't something with conditions.  It's something beautiful, amazing and unconditional.  I will never again allow anyone that makes me feel as though I have to fight for their love in my life again.  

I remain unbroken.

Surviving vs. Living

I was the average child, average grades, with good friends.  My mother and father were separated, and we lived with my grandparents. When I was 13 in 1991, my life changed.  My father, whom I didn't get to see as often as I wanted, was killed in a car accident.  To cope, I was turned on to music in a different way.  I was given a Bass.  I learned and practiced constantly.  Then, I got a guitar.  And I taught myself how to play.  Was in a few bands, played a few shows,  and really enjoyed every minute.

Then I turned 18.  Went to community college for a few classes, but realized it wasn't for me.  So I entered the working world, and had a few jobs that I worked in to survive.  I got a job working as a sales rep. for a large organization and I was making great money.  It is difficult to find a job in my area where you can make $60,000 a year.  I got married, had my first child at 30, and survived.
Skip ahead to my 32 birthday.  The day started like all others.  I went to work, made good money, and was enjoying my day.  Everything was going right.  Making my stops at the best possible times, red lights were green for me.  And the Sunday prior, my wife and I found we were expecting our second child.  On my way home for some birthday festivities, I decided to make an out of the way stop at a supermarket. There was a car in the left lane waiting for traffic to clear.  I was 5 feet from her when a tractor trailer hit her car, and pushed her in front of me at 55 mph.  All of the damage and force was transferred to my car. 

It took them 10 min to get me out of the car.  After cutting away the car to get me out, they informed me that I was going to be going to the hospital.  The first hospital I was taken to was not capable of treating, so I sat in the ER waiting to go to Westchester Medical Centers Trauma ICU.  My wife was called, and came in crying, where I told her I was going to be just fine, because I didn't cause the accident.  This would become my litany as time went on, because at least I have that.  The next day, I spent 17 hrs in surgery to have 4 pounds of metal inserted into my lower body to try and correct the 18 breaks I had.  The next day, another 4 as the placed 6 pins in my wrist.  Two days later, I would go back in for another 3 hours to close up the wounds because the swelling was preventing the Doctors from stapling the wounds closed.  All this time, and heavily medicated, I kept repeating, it is alright.  It was not my fault.  When I went back 4 months later, it took 2 people 20 minutes to take the 350 staples out.

As they were stepping down my meds over the next 2 weeks in the hospital, I got to really think about what I was going to do.  My jobs have always been very physical, and that was no longer an option.  So I started thinking, I was always saying I was surviving.....but was that living.  I realized that I lost the dream chasing the dollar.  No more.  Not going to happen.  I am going back to my dream.  I am going back to making, and working with, music.  It is really that simple.  Do what makes you happy, and be with the ones who love you. 

I went to my in-laws while I was recovering so I can be with my wife and kid.  4 months of therapy, and I walk pretty damn good.  Just a small limp, depending on the weather.  I finished my online college courses, and have started to plan my life.  We welcomed our 2nd child on St. Patrick's day.  I live every day in some kind of pain.  Not horrible pain, but dull throbbing pains that will always tell me what I have been through.  The only medication I use is Ibuprofen.  I don't need harder drugs to further change me or my life. And yet, I still wait here for some kind of word....from the Doctors, from the lawyers, from the disability companies, that I can start my life again....

At least now, I have a plan, and with the help of some good friends, I think I am going to be just fine.  I don't need to have a rich bank account to be rich in life.  But I also don't want to miss out on the things I love, or miss time with my loved ones because the dollar commands it.

Feeling Proud

I've been thinking so much lately, about everything. From being bullied for 6+ years, personal reasons and to losing all my friends in high school. I can't believe how far I've come in just a few years. I was the senior in high school who wasn't excited to graduate, who didn't care about anything anymore, who just pretty much gave up with life. I stuck it through, and look at me now. Less then a year away from having my Associates and moving on to my Bachelors. Met an amazing friend who reminds me every day that I have a reason to be alive and proves it to me every day, and I couldn't thank her enough. I guess I just can't believe how far i've actually come in my short life so far. I feel proud of myself in a way.

The Guy Who Met His Girlfriend on Twitter

Some may find it absurd to say that a social networking site could change your life, especially one that limits your interactions to 140 characters or less. Well, I am here to tell you that it isn’t absurd at all. It happened to me and for the first time in years I have joy and the ability to actually look forward to me future.

It all started April 27^th 2009. That is the date, after months of ridiculing the basis of the site, that I joined Twitter. Once I joined my account remained pretty much dormant for nearly a year. Jump ahead to February of 2010. At this point I decide to begin finding people based on one specific, and not widely shared, common interest. What was this interest? It was Mystery Science Theater 3000.

If you are not familiar Mystery Science Theater 3000, or MST3K for short, was a television series based on the premise of a man and his robots stuck in space, watching and making fun of horrible movies. It is simply the greatest thing ever to grace cable television…but I digress.

One of the first people I came across who shared a common love for MST3K was witty, kind, thought provoking, and very funny. You know, just my kind of person. Through her posts I met and followed several more people who loved MST3K, and had other things in common with me. Some of these were through something on Twitter known as Follow Friday or better known by the “hashtag” #FF. 

It was sometime in late March or early April of 2009 that I was surprised and honored to see that I had been added to one of her  #FF Tweets. I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, other than it was cool that she thought enough of me to include me. It would be sometime before I would find out just how import that mention was. It would be nearly two years before I, and others would realize that Tweet had set in motion events that would forever change my life for the better.

Sometime later that Friday I was followed by another fellow “MSTie”. I looked at the profile and instantly noticed how beautiful she was. (I am a guy after all!) I also was quick to notice that other than MST3K we also shared a lot of other common interests. I was quick to follow back and add her to the small but ever growing list of people I was following on Twitter.

Right from the onset she became one of the people I most looked forward to reading tweets from each day. Her quick wit and great sense of humor always had me looking forward to what she may post next. We would reply here and there to each other’s Tweets and generally have some random laughs together. When one was sick, the other would send a wish of “get well soon”. It was a very relaxed friendship. That being said, the more I got to know about her online, the more intrigued I became. Something told me there was something special about this person. There was something about her that made me want to know her more.

Over the months we spoke more and more. Through each other’s ups and downs a friendship was formed, a relationship was growing. Outside of all the pop culture and media interests we shared, there were more personal similarities in our lives. Things we hadn’t been able to speak of with other people. Sharing these similar threads in our personal lives just helped to bring us ever closer. We knew that neither of us was happy in our current lives. We also both felt like that wasn’t going to change at any point soon.  There was much being hidden from the online community that we were only sharing with each other.

Then came March 23, 2011. She and I were talking about any number of things through DM, when I happened to mention that I had been “crushing on her for some time now.” To my surprise she said that she had been feeling the same and had wanted to talk to me on the phone to hear my voice. That one phone call was all it took to send things spiraling out of control…in the best possible way!

Within 3 months I had moved from Idaho to Iowa, for a woman I had to that point never met in person. We knew we were crazy, but we also knew we had never been so certain of anything in our entire lives. Nearly seven months have passed, and you have never seen two people so in love. Every day is better for having her in my life. I now have a love that I had never even dreamed was possible. A life forever changed for the better, all thanks to a 140 character or less social network known as Twitter.