Okay Time

I've been sitting here for the last few days wondering how I was going to write my last post of 2013. When I started back in September, I said I would write every day.
Unfortunately, I didn't reach that sort of prolificness in my productivity, but averaging more than 20 posts a month is certainly nothing to scoff at.

I've also been trying to determine whether or not it's in my best interest to keep going with this into 2014. Not because I don't think it would be helpful, but toward the end of the year, I found myself running out of things to say.

So rather than continuing in the same vein, with a new year bringing new prospects and new perspectives.

I'm 36 years-old, divorced and have been through a hellacious few years...

...and that's okay.

I have a son who I love, but right now, being a part of his life is difficult in part because he's so young and his family is so obstinate. It's not always going to be that way though...

...and that's okay.

I've made mistakes I regret very much. Things I want more than anything to change, but I can't because what's past is past. It's an incontrovertible fact and the only realistic thing I can do is learn from them, live with them and forgive myself for them.

...and that's okay.

The people I love in my life are more valuable to me than I value myself sometimes and I don't see that as a weakness. I'd do anything for them and I'd like to think they know that. Yes, my loyalty and devotion has come with consequences and I've gotten hurt. If I have to learn to forgive myself then I need to be willing to do the same to them.

...that's okay.

I have things I'm good at. Really good at. I can write, create, cook, drive and more. I'm learning to play the guitar and want to learn how to make webpages and relearn Russian. It's frustrating that I haven't mastered those things yet, but the fact that I haven't and won't overnight is not a bad thing. I'll get there in time if I give myself a fair chance.

...that's okay.

I've spent the last three years hiding from the world, sitting in my cloister because I thought I needed to. Being a part of it isn't a detriment and it's not a worse place because I still occupy it. I miss my friends and being a part of bigger things this year.

...it's okay.

After 25 years living in the same part of the world, I'm wanting to go somewhere else, start clean. I don't think that's a terrible thing. I do like Portland a lot. It's a major part of my life and always will, just like the people I got to know here. Moving on isn't bad, though. I don't where I might go next or when it might happen, but if it does, I have no reason to be afraid of it.

...it'll be okay.

The feelings I carry are more intense than they are for the average person, be it love or hate. It's not a recent thing. It's who I am and has been for a very long time. There are elements to it that I can work on, such as trying not to take things so seriously and relax when I need to. But at the end of the day, my feelings are what they are and no one, not you, not even me can change them.

...and it's okay.

Being me is okay. It's not always a walk in the park, but I'm also not what I was. I've spent the last two-thirds of my life trying to reinforce that point and for now, that's going to have to do. It gives me a baseline to start from in moving forward instead of looking back. It's time for me to stop convincing myself of that and just going with it. Hopefully those around me will too.

It'll be okay if you do.

My Definite Chief Aim

The New Year always brings the onslaught of the oft-dreaded resolutions, the things we hope to achieve over the next 12 months, even though the likelihood that we make many happen is not exceedingly high.

More often than not, the resolutions involve goals like losing weight, saving money or making travel plans. They can be fairly straightforward or somewhat complex in construction and all they take is a certain amount of willpower and effort to make them happen.

Personally, I hate the idea of New Year's Resolutions because we often design them with built-in failures. We start exercising in January and by March, it's back to the Haggen-Daas and Oreos. We say we're going to save money, and yet still find excuses to let it burn a hole in our pockets.

In January, 1969, with his career stagnate and a family in need of care, the late Bruce Lee wrote a document called My Definite Chief Aim, which outlined his plan for how he would attain the life he wanted. Sadly, he never reached his ultimate goal by the time he died in July, 1973, but he got close than he had if he'd envisioned nothing.

Therefore, with 2014 starting in about four days from now, I make this my Definite Chief Aim for the year ahead.

I, Devin Higgins, will complete the first draft of my novel and begin the process to see it through to publication, either via an established publisher or on my own.

I will do what is necessary to achieve full and lasting mental health. I hereby acknowledge that the events of the last year and all the years before it are fixed and cannot be changed. I can only accept what they are and will find my own peace with that reality.

My locus of self-worth will no longer be external and shall instead become internal.

I recognize that my life, for all its hardships, has made me more than strong enough to handle anything the future can throw at me. I will allow myself to be open to the love of those around me and show them the love I am capable of giving them. For they deserve it as much as I do.

By the end of 2014, I will look back on these aims and know that I'll have accomplished them. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.

Chapter's End

Well, it's the end of the 2013 and what a year it's been.

I've talked to a lot of people in the last week and they've all told me the same thing. That this has been one of the more difficult years in recent memory. People still struggling with work, finding work, keeping work, money, friends, relationships, kids. We'd like to think the world has gotten better, and I suppose in some small ways it has, but it's still rough out there.

When I started in January, I'd just left my job of five years at "The FAN," and was not the least bit happy to go. It had been my plan to work my way up to the job I'd wanted for most of my life, only to discover how political and petty the radio business can be. Fortunately, I had my present job to fall back on, but it was hard to consider that the window of opportunity was now potentially closed.

The other fortunate thing that came of it was because I'd established some other connections, I was able to move over to another station in the area and actually get more work done. I called basketball games through the winter, then came back to do football this fall and am starting basketball again next week. The pay is better. I'm left to my own devices, for the most part, and the people I work for seem to appreciate what I do.

Not a bad feeling to have, really.

Spring was pretty non-eventful as I focused on my routine of work and more work. My son turned two in March and I got to spend the day with him, which was nice. Because of the level of unwanted tension and scorn I seemed to get at his first birthday party with his mother, her family and all their friends, I skipped this year's in favor of just some quiet time with him and me. I'll probably do so again next year because it's a lot of stress I don't need and I have to be mindful of that nowadays.

Danny's grown a lot this year. He's managed to get through the vaunted "Terrible Twos" without causing or bearing any major scars that I've seen. Granted, I don't have the luxury of seeing him every day, but from what I have seen he's developing into the same smart, sweet boy I appeared to be at that age. I hope he stays that way, even though I know there will be times he won't. My son doesn't deserve to follow in my footsteps. He deserves better than that.

By the time my birthday came around in May, I'd long decided I was going to treat myself with a vacation, my first in four years. I also knew exactly what I was going to do and that was get lost somewhere I'd never been before.

So after saving up money for the better part of six months, I packed up my car and took off for a road trip which would ultimately cover 1,600 miles and three states. I left straight from work in southern Washington and after braving rush hour traffic in and around Portland, made it halfway down the Oregon coast to Newport. Staying the night in a small hotel, I left early the next morning and continued into truly parts unknown for me, the south coast and into California, where I'd never set foot before.

I'd planned to stay in Crescent City, but through some serendipity, a friend's parents let me stay at their house three hours further south in the mountain town of Wilits. It meant I ended up not getting to gawk at the Redwoods as much as I'd liked, but having a better place to crash for free was more than worth it. I ended up making my way to San Francisco, a city I'd wanted to see for most of my life and beheld the majesty of the Golden Gate, Alcatraz and everything it had to offer.

For the next six days, I walked around the city with my camera, my pack and a guidebook, going where I wanted to, seeing what I wanted to see.

Halfway through my trip, the friends who were quite nice enough to offer me a couch in their townhouse in San Jose took off on their own vacation, leaving me to manage their place while in the care of their two cats and two parakeets. We got along well enough.

I spent my birthday eating lunch in Chinatown, perusing Fisherman's Wharf and getting a celebratory drink called a Savoy Truffle in a quiet speakeasy in San Jose. The ambience was cool. The booze went straight to my head, but as is my usual stance, I soldiered on.

The 11-hour drive back was bittersweet as I didn't expect to like the city as much as I did. But I do. I loved San Francisco and hopefully, the opportunity to see it again will come up down the line sometime.

The onset of summer found me in more unfamiliar territory, that of the aspiring author looking for a benefactor who'd be interested in helping me finish the book on my grandparents' WWII letter. After the hullaballoo generated by the article about me that appeared in The Oregonian, last year, I wanted to strike while the proverbial iron was at least warm.

I contacted about a dozen agents around the country, and while some of them were interested, nothing came of it. Being a writer with a story half-done doesn't make it an attractive target, but the experience was worth it. Eventually, I'll get back to it and complete the research I need to finish the book. In the meantime, I've been working on other projects that will hopefully pan out sooner.

The summer culminated with the one of the best experiences I've ever had in July, when my brother Matt and I saw our favorite band, Rush, in person and in concert.

Matt got the tickets for our birthdays and while we were anticipating a great show, I don't think either of us were prepared for what we got.

It was fantastic.

I'd been to a few concert in the last couple years, but there was something so awesome in the energy of the band onstage and the crowd that came to see them. I told Matt on the way home, even as my head was still buzzing from the music, that if I see a hundred more concerts in the future, that will still be the best I ever went to.

Rolling into fall, we were treated to an "Indian Summer" of warm nights and sunshine, and I decided to take my camera out to see what I could do with it.

Turned out that I got pretty lucky. In four hours I took more than 100 photos and some were truly amazing. For someone who's always loved photography, being able to challenge myself like that was both fun and reassuring.

I bought my camera for that very reason, and the little bit of money I invested felt quite worthwhile when I got home and saw just what it had captured for me.

A month later, I went back to a spot I hadn't been to in nearly a decade, the Japanese Gardens and got a chance to take some more photos while recharging my Zen batteries. Since it was Veteran's Day and the Gardens were open for free, it was packed, but I was still able to find some quiet spots to sit and just be for a while.

It was an interesting exercise, trying to meditate when you know people are looking at you wondering what you're doing. I didn't care. Sometimes the only thing you can do is let them stare and make their own conclusions, while you make your own about yourself.

It's a part of the city I don't get to nearly as much as I should, and if I'm lucky, I'll be able to go back again next year, if I need to.

Thanksgiving presented me with a potentially Herculean task in my first ever attempt to make a turkey. I'll admit that I was nervous about the prospect, having seen a myriad of examples where it had all gone horribly wrong. Still, I remained undaunted in my quest to prove that it could indeed be done.

For a first attempt it was quite good, and in my rare moment of wisdom, I got one small enough not to overwhelm me with leftovers, but big enough to make them last a while. Will I do it again next year? Maybe. I'd like to, but I'd also like to have some company as well.

Cooking is more fun when you have guests to share it with.

The year is ending with hectic days at work, getting short deadlines met and wrapping up loose ends for stories we hadn't had time to get to. We got a little bit of snow in this part of the world, and by little I mean still enough to make everyone but me completely loose their minds in nerve-wracking apocalyptic panic. It was all long gone by the time Christmas came around and we may or may not see some later on in the winter.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Despite the number of bad days I had this year, and I did have quite a lot of them as I try so sort things out in this ten-cent head of mine, there were quite a few good days as well. More than I can fit here, actually and that's an encouraging sign, I'd like to think.

Is 2014 going to be a better year? Honestly, I have no idea. 365 days is a lot of time and truly anything can happen. I hope it will be, though, for me and a lot of other people I care about.

All I know is that this chapter is ending, but the story continues to roll on.

Tally Ho.

Wish Fulfillment

So this is where I ran away to for Christmas this year.

It was a quiet place (on the outside at least) in a picturesque ravine just outside of Tillamook on the Oregon Coast. In the now 24 years I've lived out here, I've probably been past this stretch of road at least a dozen times, but never thought I'd know anyone who lived there.

Turned out a friend of mine from college did, and she invited me an another friend of ours out to join in their annual yuletide revelry. I hadn't anticipated it being quite as chaotic as it turned out to be on Christmas Eve, but such is the nature of Silly Season.

I took this picture on Christmas Day, though, when things were a little more mellow and I had a chance to clear my head of some of the usual stuff which plagues me during this time of year. There is something to getting away to somewhere new and uncharted and seeing what you may find. What I found was a very tight-knit and loving family who loves their daughter and welcomed her friends like we were their own.

Given the relationships I have with my closest friends, it's not something I'm unaccustomed to, but even so, I found myself having to get used to it from the perspective of a total stranger. The friend who invited me and I weren't exactly close in college, so to even get the invitation was a little odd to process at first only because it came with the obligatory, "Why me?" attached to it, when there were probably another half-dozen people she could've invited out.

Once I got there, though, it didn't seem to matter. I was a guest and a welcome one, which was nice. And going out on Christmas Day and soaking up the tranquility in that ravine, of hearing nothing but the rolling of the creek behind the house and the slight breeze coming over the mountains was both soothing and recharging.

When I left a few hours later to come back home, my friend's parents asked me if I would be back next year as well. I told them I didn't know since I wasn't sure how my plans would look in a year's time, but if I could manage it, I'd like to.

I left there feeling like I'd had a chance to take a short, but very deep and cleansing breath of fresh air, which I needed. And as I got back on the coastal highway and back into civilization again, my cell phone pinged back to life, telling me I had a message on my voice mail.

Since I didn't have cell service where I was, it made sense that someone tried to get a hold of me. I figured it was one of my brothers or my friends making sure I hadn't entirely fallen off the face of the world in little over a day. I put my bluetooth in my ear, punched the button, and waited for the message.

What I got, I wasn't prepared for, because it was a voice I hadn't heard in a while.

When I said two weeks ago that I'd made a sincere wish for what I wanted for Christmas, I honestly didn't expect to get it. After all, to wish for something brings the real possibility that it will not happen.

I listened to the message once. Then did so again to make sure I'd heard it right. It was the phone call I'd wanted, from the person I'd wanted to talk to. Because I was on the road going back through the mountains and they were busy with their holiday, I had to wait until I got home about 90 minutes later to answer back and say I was available.

We ended up talking for about a half-hour and it was a nice conversation. The best part is that the door is open to have another one again sometime, should either of us wish to. It felt kind of surreal when I put my phone down, and I'd by lying if I anticipated the sudden breakdown and release of spontaneous emotions that followed.

I think I must have cried for close to 20 minutes, and it wasn't crocodile tears either. What came out of me was about two years of guilt, regret, confusion, anger, tension and a lot of other negative things I'd swallowed and clung to, because I thought I needed to. I didn't just cry. I bawled, and for once, it actually it felt pretty good to let all that out and let it go.

I got my wish and I got two solid days of peace in my head to go along with it. All in all, that makes for a damn good Christmas.

Diagnostics

So for about the last month or so, I've been battling it out with my beloved car, trying to figure out why it is the "Check Engine" light decided to kick on and why, after repeated visits to the mechanic, why it still insists on remaining lit on my dashboard, even though I've spent hundreds of dollars to correct the very problem it has.

It's frustrating, because until this point, my little Honda has run like an absolute champ. She's dependable, efficient and being the first car I've ever bought and owned myself, I've kept her well-maintained at the appointed intervals.

And yet, she's still got a problem and I guess what frustrates me the most is that not only do I not know what it is, but I can't seem to accurately fix it either.

It's a similar situation to what has been going on in my head for the last few years.

When I had my psych evaluation done two years ago, the diagnosis that came back was that I have severe to extreme manic depression, PTSD, and issues with attachment and trust in other people. That's what I was told by doctors who I'd like to think know what they were talking about, even if I didn't like what they had to say.

But when I explained that to the people around me, as is in keeping with the all-too-real stigma surrounding mental health issues, the majority of the feedback I got was either to ignore that diagnosis altogether or to be shunned on some level because I chose to believe the information I'd been given.

I hoped my support system would grow once I came clean and told my family and those I cared about that yes, I am dealing with some pretty heavy duty stuff. Instead, it actually shrank, and as a result, I have little to no interest in talking to anyone about what I'm still trying to do out of fear that it might end up taking the last few friends I have left.

"Why can't you just be happy?" my mother exclaimed in our last conversation. "I don't want to be dragged down anymore," said a former friend.

I was watching a documentary on the writer Ian Fleming the other day and his stepdaughter explained how for all he was able to do in his life, he actually created James Bond as a way to overcome his own inner turmoil and insecurities.

"Real melancholia comes from within," she said. "Ian could be deeply melancholic on a lovely day."

My issues, whatever they actually are, did not just come about out of the blue. It's the summation of all the disappointment, regret, guilt, fear, and yes, even pain, spread out over decades. They are tied to memories that I can't seem to forget and people whom I've loved with ever fiber of my being and then lost.

It's not as simple a case of just "being happy" and that fixes the problem. The amount of good things I have is grossly disproportionate to the bad. That's not the fault of one person either, including myself. But when those things are so deeply rooted in who you are as a person, trying to pry them out of you is neither easy or painless.

As people, we like to oversimplify the solutions to complex problems, even when we know such methods don't work. We swallow tons of antidepressants and try our best to just ignore the required heavy lifting.

I was given a diagnosis, and even now there are days when I don't want to believe it either. I've been lucky enough in this life to not be told I have cancer, but I've talked to enough people who have to know they didn't want to believe it either. Getting told what's wrong isn't an incredibly bad thing. When I went in, I wanted to know because I'd never had an answer for why I am who I am.

Now I know. I may not like it. But I know and I can do something about it.

I just can't fix it alone.

Risky Proposition

I don't think anyone, be it guy or girl, ever sets out intending to be saddled with the dubious tag of "High Maintenance."

In the current social lexicon, "High Maintenance" means someone who is needy, emotionally fragile and usually serves as a warning to the unwanted addition of drama into the potential equation, which nobody wants.

I was talking with a friend the other day and we got on the topic of relationships. Now, we're both single, and being as such during the holidays can be a real pain in the ass because this is the time of the year where other friends, good intentions or not, try to set you up with someone to get you through to the New Year.

I think this is part of the reason why spiking egg nog at parties remains so popular.

In the middle of our chat, I made an observation that "High-maintenance train wrecks aren't exactly in demand." I meant it to be snarky more than self-deprecating, but found it actually rung with a distinct and somewhat unpleasant air of truth.

I am at this point in time, high maintenance, and no, I don't like it. Not at all.

I don't like it because the implication exists that I formed myself into that rather uncomfortable mold by choice. To be fair, some of it was my choice as I ended up in the relationships and proto-relationships that at the time, I wanted to be in. That said, the negative impact they had on me is not entirely my fault either.

The residual burnoff of those encounters have left me feeling emotionally very unsteady and lacking serious confidence in myself as a potential partner. The primary issue for anyone willing to give me a shot is going to have to accept that they are walking into a substantial restoration job.

I need a lot of work to get any sort of solid footing under me again where I will feel comfortable being open and emotional and tied to another person. I'd like to get most of that work done on my own so that other person's job can be minimized as much as possible.

Yes, high-maintenance people exist and to be in their proximity isn't always fun. Just keep in mind, they weren't always that way and it doesn't mean they'll always be that way either.

Accents

Once upon a time, that was a question I was asked a lot more frequently than I seem to get now.

Growing up in New England, the idea of having an accent wasn't something I understood, in no small part because everyone I knew had the same one.

Yes, I didn't pronounce R's in every word, everything was "wicked" and "fuck" is actually used as a transition between two completely independent lines of thought.

By the time I was a teenager, my accent was so thick that there was no distinction of where I came from. But being on the other side of the continent, how I talked was a target of ridicule like a lot of other things about me.

So when I was about 14, I made the conscious decision to hide it because I was ashamed of both it and where I came from.

It took years, working bit by bit every day to round out my speech patterns and learn to put the inflections in the right places. Essentially, it was going back to square one and starting to talk all over again. Being in theatre made it easier since I learned to also work with other accents and tones of voice, but in the end, it finally went away.

Nowadays, it only comes out when I talk abut home or the Red Sox and even then, it somehow feels fake. Like the voice I had when I was a kid is no longer genuine and the one I have now is supposed to be who I am.

But as the adage says, you can take the boy out of Boston, but you can't take Boston out of the boy.

In trying to find my literary voice again, I'm finding myself wanting to find my actual one as well. To be fair, it would be much easier if I was back home. As it is, that's still not an option yet, so in the meantime, I'll just have to remember how it was to say things the way I need and want to.

If I'm not supposed to be ashamed of where I came from, then I shouldn't be ashamed to say things my way.

Knockdown

If you've never been in a fight before, there's something about getting knocked down most people don't know about.

It doesn't hurt as much as you think, depending on where you get hit.

The chin is a fragile enough point that if you take a punch there, it shakes up the entire head and sends the brain spinning. It's not pleasant because it disconnects everything and shuts the lights off.

But it is nothing like getting hit in the body.

When my brother and I used to spar as kids, one of the things he liked to do is challenge me to see who could take the harder shots to the torso. I always lost, because it always felt like it hurt worse. Unlike a head shot, which switches your senses off, taking one downstairs shuts your body down while keeping your head lucent.

You can't breathe, think, or move. You are completely and utterly paralyzed, while your brain is screaming at you to get back up off the ground, even when your ribs, liver, kidneys or even your heart is telling you that you can't.

In the last year, I've been trying to convince myself to get back up and not quit on the things I still want to do with however many years I have left in this life. I want to stand up and and keep going. There's only one small problem.

I seem to have lost any and all measure of faith in my ability to take another punch of any kind and that's a very frightening prospect to consider.

I don't want to get hurt again and if I get back up and return to the fray, the chances of that happening go up too. Take enough of those shots and no matter what the primal, bestial part of ourselves which is and always will be tailored for combat tries to tell us, the body can decide on its own.

"Stay down," it says. "They can't get to you if you just stay down."

Solo Debate

I'd like to remember when it first started, but if I had to guess, it was about when I was 14-15 years-old.

That was when I started arguing with the versions of people I hear in my head, because I was never able to talk to them and say what needed to be said.

I couldn't tell you precisely why I developed such a coping mechanism. It just kind of happened as the result of staying quiet when I should've been more vocal and never being sure enough in myself to say the right thing.

Most of the time, though, it's another chapter in the seemingly endless debate I have with my own conscience and emotions, over a wide range of issues and nothing is off-topic and the gloves are off.

I don't always know when it's going to happen, but if something is nagging at my mind long enough, it usually won't go away until I actually start physically talking to it. If I can't convince it to shut up that way, then it's probably going to be a long night.

I suppose now is the best time to say that it's not easy for me to admit to anything along the lines of "hearing voices in my head," or that I have for more than half my life. Holding to my position of being neither a doctor or an expert on how the mind works, I won't say I'm schizophrenic or anything like that.

Considering I'm cognizant enough to know the Earth is round, Carson City is the capitol of Nevada, and I am not entirely certain that whatever "higher power" that could exist in this world might be an omnipotent old man as much as it could be a flying spaghetti monster, my grip on reality is still far from completely untethered.

Even so, it's a coping mechanism I don't need any more, or at best, I need to replace it with something better. The problem with arguing with yourself instead of the people you should resolve things with is that it doesn't get you any closer to the actual truth of the matter.

It's still one side still disguised as two sides, because you're only filling in the pieces based on what you think you know. And nobody wins in those kind of debates.

Jealous Streak

When you feel like you've lost the things that matter to you and you see everyone around you seeming to take the things they have for granted and marginalizing them out of some weird sense of humility, it can be really easy to find yourself feeling intensely, insanely jealous.

My brother Matt said something to me once which I know I will never forget.

"Dev," he said. "When you're lucky, you are the luckiest son of a bitch I know..."

"When you're unlucky," he continued. "I know it usually means I should be expecting a call telling me you've been hit by a car again."

Now for contextual reasons, the reason why he slapped the word again at the end of that sentence is because when I was in high school, I would walk there and back every day since I didn't own a car. The route I would take always took me across a major freeway that connected Portland to the Pacific coast, and because people were always trying to beat the lights, they seemed to do so at times when I was crossing the on and off-ramps. The result was me getting well acquainted with hood ornaments and windshields of various makes and models of cars.

*Editorial Note - While I am fortunate enough to not suffer anything worse than a broken ankle as a result of my attempts to play real-world Frogger, I did have one point where I came within six inches of being hit by a Hummer driven by the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight. I will concede, if ever I was going to take one for the proverbial team, that would've been it.

As I find this year coming to a close, I feel like I've been slammed by an 18-wheeler traveling at warp speed and honestly, I don't think I've found myself feeling so jealous of so many people who seem to be oblivious to just how good they have it at any other point of my life.

It's not something I'm unaccustomed to. Growing up in a family who didn't have much money, it became all too easy for me to envy my neighbors who had toys and games I wanted. When I became a teenager, I envied the kids who got cars for their sixteenth or eighteenth birthdays while I continued my daily hike every day.

The worst aspect of my jealous streak, though, developed when I started seeing people around me getting into relationships with each other and I always seemed to be the odd man out. Being the token third wheel gets really old after a while, and I sometimes feel sorry for the guys who dated the girls I liked. I'd do my best to put on a good front and not let it bother me, while simultaneously seething with such a potent mixture of jealousy and anger that I'd almost be waiting for any excuse to just unleash it all on them.

One of the many perks I had of being married and in a monogamous relationship for so long was I didn't have reason to be jealous of anyone anymore. I had my wife, and as all outward appearances indicated to me, we were happy. I didn't envy my friends who had kids or had a house, because I always figured we'd get there eventually. We'd have kids and get a house and for all intents and purposes, everything else I'd coveted from those around me would come in their own time.

Now that I've been on my own for a while, I've struggled a lot with not being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of unabashed jealousy I've accrued. I freely admit it's hard seeing friends continue to broadcast their triumphs, whether it's a new house, new car, new relationship, new vacation or whatever it may be, without getting those familiar pangs and the ever-burning question in my head.

Why the hell am I not good enough to get the same things?

I don't like being jealous of people. I really don't. I'd like to think that it's still possible for me to get to where I want to be and reach a more even plane with the people around me. The problem is that from my perspective, while everyone I know is coasting down the other side of the massive steep hill to get to where they are...

I'm still trying to figure out how to get up the damn thing, especially since somebody took the rope which made the climb that much easier with them on their way over the top.

Silly Ol' Bear

This little bear has been a part of my life since I was about nine-years-old.

His name is Gund, because he was made by Gund, and it just sounded like as good a name as any at the time.

I got him for Christmas that year and I'm ashamed to say this, but I actually gave him back to my mother when I opened the wrapping paper and found him.

"I'm too old for teddy bears," I told her.

I ended up getting him back a few nights later though when I woke up after having a nightmare and she thought he might help me get back to sleep. We'd been more or less inseparable since.

When I came west 25 years ago, he was in my backpack and one of the only things from my old life I'd brought with me. As I got older, I pondered getting rid of him but found myself unable to do so. I didn't sleep with him any more but Gund was always nice to have around. A little reminder of when things had just felt easier.

Rather than passing him off, I made the decision when I was about 16 that I would instead pass him on, and when I got older and had a child of my own, hopefully he or she would find Gund as helpful a companion as I did when I needed one.

So when my son was born nearly three years ago, the first thing I did when we brought him home was take Gund down from the shelf he'd lived on for years and put him in Danny's crib. When my marriage fell apart a few weeks later and I came home to a half-empty apartment, I was at least comforted to know that she hadn't left him behind. So at least something of mine was still with our son, even if I wasn't going to be around anymore.

Today, when I walked into my ex-in-laws to see my son for our weekly visit, I found Gund sitting in a box containing other spare toys and all the books I'd given him for Christmas last year.  Essentially, my one lasting connection from my childhood to my son had been relegated to the pile where either he or his cousin could do whatever they wanted with him.

That bear was never meant to be a spare. He'd been with me through just about everything and I loved him so much that I hoped that would rub of on my son as he grew up, and he'd be appreciated in the same way. And by doing so, the message I got from it is that whatever my son has in his new home are things given to him by his mother, her family, and the man she replaced me with. As far as I know, Daniel has nothing in his room that connects him to me in any way, and the realization of that hurts a lot.

So I did the only thing I could think of. I brought Gund back home with me.

I know it's fairly ridiculous for a grown man to still have such an attachment to a stuffed animal like this, but I guess my memories of what it did for me outweigh the idea that his fate should be to languish in a box of things to be discarded in a garage sale down the line. So I'll put him back up on my shelf in the hope that someday, if Danny needs him, I can give him back.

And if not, then at least that little happy part of my childhood won't be forgotten.

Shoes

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it."

-Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I remember back in middle school when I first read that book, as I'm sure a lot of other kids did at that age, and having my teacher drill that notion into my head.

As I've gotten older, I confess I've made the mistake of doing the opposite more than once. Making assumptions of who somebody might be or why they're the way they are based on only a partiality of who they are, and not the whole. That said, I've also tried with greater fervor to understand and reach a level of empathy with those around me, be they friend or enemy.

Over the years, I've had people tell me in what I believe are honest attempts to relate to me on some level, that they know how I feel and understand both what I've gone through and how hard my life now is. And the thing I've wanted to say most in return is the one thing I've never said.

"That's great, but honestly, you can't possibly begin to imagine what it feels like to be me, and I doubt you could handle it if you ever tried."

I'll say this now that I know where this accusation is coming from. It's coming straight out of the Yang that thinks I'm special, and not in a good way, either. It's that angry, resentful part of me that wonders how anyone can possess the empathy necessary to reach the emotional strata that I feel like I reside in all day, every day?

One of the things I've learned over the years is there comes a point where you can't reach that equilibrium with another person. You just can't. Case in point, I have a friend who went through what has to be the heartbreaking reality that she can never have children. As a man who happens to have a child now, there is no possible way that I can put myself in that same scenario and do more than scratch the surface of what that must truly feel like. And to me it would be insulting to look at her and say what we all do in those moments.

"I know how you feel."

There are limits to how far empathy can take a person in understanding someone else, and I wouldn't ask anyone to dare try and immerse themselves in what I live with. I wouldn't because I wish I didn't have to either. They're my decisions, my feelings, my mistakes, my fears, my memories and my regrets, and some days I wonder how even I have managed to do it this long.

Does that mean I think such things are impossible? No. If anything, I would advise anyone willing to try just to be very cautious.

You may not like what you find.

Course Correction

There's a good chance that I might end up making a colossal hypocrite of myself before this is over. That's not my intent, but I'm just getting that out of the way up front.

I guess I'll start by saying I've never tried to think of myself as a victim when it comes the things I have to live with. One of the first things I had to come to terms with starting out was I don't get to blame other people for how it's gone. It wasn't my parents, or my ex-wife, or my education, or the country I live in, or the system I am anchored to.

If I am a victim of anything, it's my own lack of self-control, understanding and judgment which has put me where I'm at. I knew that when I was a teenager and still do now. Does that mean they are without responsibility for their own actions and choices? No. But I can't place the entirety of the "blame" squarely on them any more than I can put it squarely on my own shoulders.

In this instance, there truly is enough to go around.

That also doesn't mean there's not been times where I've been frustrated and applied that blame irresponsibly and portrayed myself as indeed a victim. I would like to think that with the human propensity of not owning up to our faults or errors in assessing personal responsibility, it's not a problem exclusive to me either. Like it or not, we've all played the victim card at one point or another, and it's part of our growing up, I guess, to learn how not to do so.

Be that as it may, I thought for the last few months I was doing okay and not letting myself get bogged down in those familiar patterns. Then I went back and did some research on the concept of victim stance. It's not something new to me as when I first started going through therapy as a teenager, the doctors I worked with drilled it into my head in the first few months. How it was explained to me, in basic terms, was not assessing blame unnecessarily to those around me and owning up to the mistakes I've made in totality.

I suppose because I was so determined to not play myself off as a victim going forward, at some point I took it to the extreme and blamed myself for literally everything that I've gone through. It was no one else's fault but mine and that is because, try as I might, I'm not as good a person as I want to be. That was my mindset for the better part of a decade. And while I thought I was being responsible and not avoiding my culpability, there's also a kicker I wasn't aware of.

You're still acting like a victim if you keep beating yourself up over it.

In doing my research, I came across this list, and I just about stopped cold. I've been telling myself for over a year now that I'm doing what a survivor does. That I'm still not a victim and that I'm moving in the right direction.

And yet, I've been doing just about everything in the left column, and not nearly enough of what's in the right. I've become more reclusive, been overwhelmed, scared and confused by my feelings and thoughts, embarrassed and timid in talking with people (which I seldom do anymore). My temper is still an issue, my self-esteem and self-confidence are still at major subterranean levels and I have a fresh scar on my arm which isn't even a year-old.

I may tell myself that I'm surviving, but I'm not actually doing it. And how do I know? That's why this blog is a good thing, because I can go right down the list of examples which fit each of those dubious criteria. It's not conjecture if there's evidence to support it.

Now does that mean I've done nothing on the other side of the equation? No. I do talk to people and listen to what they have to say. I ask questions and have been making an effort to take care of myself. I just haven't done those things in quantities high enough to cancel out the other side yet.

The thing about long journeys is that there inevitably comes a point where you have to make sure you're still going in the right direction. In this age of GPS-assisted travel, it's admittedly easier, but even when I'm on a drive to somewhere new, I check it to make sure I don't end up getting lost.

Time to do so again and get back to where I need to be.

Delicate Steps

Ever had the feeling where you think you need to tread so carefully with someone that you don't really know what to do or say from one moment to the next?

It's how I've been feeling for about the last six weeks, and I think I know why. Question is, do I want to admit it or not?

I can't imagine that I'm unique in saying I don't enjoy making people annoyed or angry when I talk to them. I also would like to talk about happy and light-hearted things, have some laughs and maybe even be philosophical in conversations as I find them more enjoyable than all the down and dirty stuff I deal with all other hours of the week.

That said, I was sitting at home the other night, taking a break from my novel writing, and opened up a chatbox with a friend on Facebook, wanting to say hello and maybe talk for a bit. Nothing wrong with that at all, I'd like to think. Millions upon millions of people do the exact same thing every day and the world has not gone completely off it's tilt yet.

But when the time came to actually write something in that little box and hit "Enter," I froze up.

Now there's a lot of reasons why I did that. One, is I know she is hellaciously busy this week wrapping up her first semester of grad school, which means long nights, high stress and not much free time to do a whole lot of anything.

Second, time-wise I'm three hours behind her so considering how late it was, the chances of a long conversation weren't going to happen anyway.

Those two things I can accept without any issue because it's a fact of life in the 21st Century. People are busy and we have things to do, and if I can't accept that and give those around me the space necessary to do them, then that's on me. I don't have enough hours in the day to get even half of what I want to do accomplished, so understanding that is definitely not the issue.

The issue was I genuinely felt like I was doing something wrong by simply saying the word, Hello.

To my knowledge, there's nothing wrong with saying hello to someone. It's the gold standard of greetings, for Pete's sake, and I've used it more times than I can count in this life. I cannot think of a single reason why my doing so now would be some egregious error in both conduct and judgment.

But as I sat there on my couch, looking at my laptop screen and those five letters waiting to be dispatched into the wide world of the internets, I found myself arguing with the Yang about whether or not it was a good idea. Back and forth we went for several minutes before I finally forced it to shut up and punched the Enter key.

The good news is that I got a hello in return. The bad news is I was totally unsure of what to say next, so I didn't say anything at all for the rest of the night.

I wish it was relegated to conversations, but I've been feeling the same way when it comes to going out, buying Christmas presents for people, and just being a part of things.

I don't think I've ever been so uncertain of where I can or should walk in my life.

That really worries me.

Total Recall

My memory is freaky.

I say that because during the course of a given day it will kick out things that I thought I'd have had the common sense to forget or discard even decades ago, and they come back with such accuracy that they feel like they happened yesterday.

How freaky is it? How about this...

I remember being born.

That's not a joke. The first memory I have is of going from total darkness, to such blinding light that I can't see anything and after a few seconds, the sound I hear is my own crying. The truly weird thing is that I don't have another cognizant memory that stuck in my head until I was about two years-old. But that minute moment in time has remained locked in my memory banks ever since.

The even crazier thing is what can trigger one of those memories to come right back to the forefront of my mind. It could be a song lyric, a picture, or even something totally unrelated to what it brings back to me.

Case in point. I was sitting here at my desk yesterday doing my work and out of nowhere, I got blasted by a memory of my trip to outdoor school in fifth grade at J.R. Briggs Elementary School in Ashburnham, Mass. We went to a camp in Connecticut for a week and did the whole outdoor school experience, but this one day we were doing a nature hike and came across another group in a clearing, oblivious to our being there in the brush. The counselor decides to we need to do a "sneak attack" on them, and being amped about the idea, I of course went along.

We get set, he says go, and we all come flying out full-speed and for whatever reason, I shout out "AIR RAID!!" which totally spooks the other group and blew the element of surprise we'd had. Nobody talked to me again for the rest of the day because of that.

Now where that came from, I don't know. Why it decided to replay in my head at that particular moment, I also do not know. I wish I did, but it seems so rooted in my subconscious that it's almost like playing a game with me.

"Let me throw this out there for you and see what you can do with it," it says.

Now to be fair, not every flashback I get is a bad one. I've had just as many with friends and loved ones that I'm glad I haven't forgotten as they provide a good counterweight.

It shocks the people around me sometimes with the things I remember and to be honest, it does for me too because of the quasi-randomness of it. Some make me happy and some are embarrassing or highly regrettable. The problem is that in a given day, I don't know what I'm going to get hit with, but they always come whether I want them to or not.

Second case in point. In the time it took me to write this out, I went back through a memory of being in first grade and my brother and I walking to school, nearly two miles away from our apartment in Gardner, Mass., in a driving snowstorm. Because we weren't sure if we had to go or not, but we didn't want to be late, out into the cold we went. We got to the front doors of Holy Rosary only to be told by one of the nuns that they'd closed, so we ended up having to walk all the way back.

*Editorial Note - Yes I walked uphill, both ways, and there was already about a foot of snow on the ground because it had already snowed that week. But I had shoes on and no, I didn't have to fight off a grizzly bear with my spiral notebook.

I also had a recall of being on stage for the first time, as a fourth-grader, dressed as a clown in bright orange pants, black suspenders and a white dress shirt, and I was singing no less. It was a song about being in the circus, because otherwise, why would I have been dressed up as a clown?

How many more of them I'll get before the day's over? I have no idea. I don't know if I'll entirely get used to it either.

They're just the things I find myself thinking about all the time.

Introversion

I had a friend throw out a question earlier today which gave me some pause.

"Dear introverts," he asked. "How do we tell if you are fine, enjoying your solitude and don't want to be bothered or are you mad, isolated, struggling and want us to notice and ask how you're doing?
Is there some kind of sign you can give because it looks the same from here."

Now, a little background on my friend. He's a professional counselor and therapist, so to have him ponder this kind of question, when I expected he would already know the answer to the rhetoric because of his training, I found a bit funny.

I'm used to dealing with doctors and therapists who presumed they knew everything about people and therefore didn't need to ask. It's refreshing to see one not nearly so conceited.

I pondered it for a little while, trying to figure out how I as a now ironclad introvert, could define what he was asking. Here's how I see it, in terms of myself, at least.

It's an existence based on a dichotomy, because I've had many days where I find contentment in being secluded and left to my own devices while simultaneously wishing I could be around people and not just sit in my apartment. I've also had countless times where I wanted to talk to someone and tell them what I'm feeling or thinking, only to not because I'm either afraid to or are unsure of how to say those things.

It's also not a question of whether or not I want people to notice what I've got going on or if I need someone to talk to or hang out with. I've always wanted to be noticed and be given attention and affection as much as anyone else does, introverted or not. But I've also learned over the years to choose my words and what I convey very carefully when I'm talking with people for a basic reason.

I think most of them ask me how I'm doing out of a sense of politeness and general etiquette, not because they actually care or really want to know.

Not saying I'm right. It's just how I see it and have done so for a long time. Why waste someone's time when all they seem to want is the shortest answer possible?

So as a result, I developed the coping mechanism of just responding to the question, "How are you doing?" with the most vague two-word response I know of.

"I'm me."

In all honesty, it's because of that mindset that this little blog exists. It's one of the few places that I feel the most comfortable to open up and empty out whatever is simmering or boiling under my skin on a given day. If I didn't have this, I don't think it would be outside the realm of possibility to suggest that I wouldn't say much of anything to anybody.

It's because there seems to be another dichotomy at work where we're all expected to be social and friends with one another, while also being expected to handle problems entirely on our own and not bog down those around us in the process.

Holidays: Stage III

So I got to interview Santa Claus last Friday.

Told you I have a cool job.

I spoke to the jolly ol' elf who by day poses as a guy from upstate, but is such a dead ringer through just sheer luck that it makes Edmund Gwenn's portrayal in Miracle on 34th Street seem almost pedestrian.

I told him that because it's not every day I get to interview such a famous figure anymore, I appreciated that he was kind enough to play along with me and we had a good 15-minute chat that will hopefully make for a fun article for my paper's readers.

When I got off the phone with him, I got another call about five minutes later. It was Santa again.

"I forgot to ask if you've been naughty or nice this year and what you wanted for Christmas," he said.

Now I'm what Cedric the Entertainer refers to as a "grown-ass man." I haven't stopped to tell Santa Claus, or anyone else for that matter, what I want for Christmas in a LONG time. I sure as heck wasn't going to tell this guy whether I thought I was naughty or nice, either. Such things tend to get you listed on federal websites nowadays as a less-than-savory character.

But, I figured since he was nice enough to play ball with me, I'll humor him.

"I'd like to think I've done enough to be considered nice this year," I said.
"And what is it you want for Christmas?" he asked.

My first thought was to say something snarky like either my two front teeth or an Official Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle, just to see what he said. Only I didn't. Despite my co-workers sitting not five feet from me and getting hit by a sudden onset of rather turbulent emotions, I told him what I actually, honestly, wanted this year.

"I'd like a phone call," I said. "From someone I haven't actually talked to in a long time."

I didn't tell him who, nor will I say here, as that was none of his business or yours either, really. Christmas wishes, like all others which are heartfelt, are lent a certain amount of privacy I'd like to think.

He asked me if there was anything else and while there was, I couldn't bring myself to tell him without probably breaking down in the middle of work, which would raise a lot more questions I didn't want to answer.

I don't want any thing this year. I have enough things to last me for a while. No. What I'd like this year, what I'm wishing for...is to know that I still matter and I'm as cared about as I'm told that I am.

If that sounds silly or somehow passive-aggressive, it's not. It's genuine, because some days I'm genuinely not sure if I am and I'd like to know if for no other reason than to shut up the recurring voice in my head that reminds me every day.

I would like to think that's not too much to ask.

Thin Skinned

I've been a practicing journalist for five years now and I'd like to think I'm good at what I do. Being a part of the vaunted "Fourth Estate," I knew coming into it that my work would be held to as much scrutiny as those whose work I sometimes have to scrutinize.

One of the first things I had to understand is that I can't make such things personal and take it as a sign that I'm not competent as either a journalist or as a writer.

So when I opened up my inbox this morning and saw a rather scathing indictment by a local politician over an article I wrote where he claims to be misquoted and then proceeded to take some personal shots at me, I'd like to tell you I just rolled with it and didn't let it bother me. After all, I have three solid pages of notes from the meeting I invested three hours of my last Monday in. I sat in the gallery, acutely paying attention to what was said and transcribing it as fast as I could onto my laptop, just like I do every time I walk in there.

I'd like to, but I'd be lying, because I've been sitting here for the last three hours debating with myself about just what the hell do I think I'm doing and who am I trying to kid when I say I'm good at this or anything else?

I don't take criticism well. I try to, but I don't. And whether you think it "constructive" or not, to me it all comes back as the same thing.

I suck at what I do. I have no skill at all, and there is no point for me continuing with this ridiculous farce I call my career.

It's why, even though I've wrote a complete novel six years ago, I never even dared to get it published. I asked friends and people I knew to be writers to read it. They said they would, and then they never did. To me, that comes back to the person who wrote it and the message, implied or otherwise, was it wasn't worth the time or effort.

Because if the book was good even by an elementary standard, then I'd have gotten feedback, corrections and ideas on how to make it better. Instead, I got nothing other than one person who said they stopped after five chapters and another who said they'd edit it, but then to my knowledge threw the manuscript away at the end of the year.

Not exactly rousing displays of support, wouldn't you say?

It's why I don't have many relationships and why I'm really not interested in one anytime soon. Everything I've been told, I take personally, even though I know I shouldn't. Having people I care about hone in on my deficiencies or the mistakes I make and emphasize them is nothing new to me, and I don't want them to lie and try to inflate my ego or just be "Yes" men telling me my shit doesn't stink.

But when you've been told for so long that you are nothing, that you will be nothing and that you always were nothing, I don't need people around me pointing out something I already have locked away in my head as a fundamental truth of my existence. My Yang takes care of that all by itself and does so with a level of efficiency that is unmatched.

My sophomore year, I had a college professor tell me to my face that I should probably consider doing something else with my life, other than being a writer.

"You haven't lived enough," he said.

Whether he meant it to motivate me or not, I really don't know. All I know is I walked out of that meeting about a half-breath away from doing precisely that. Quitting and walking away from something I've done my whole life and cannot really imagine not doing for the rest of it.

Had he told me something like, "Devin, I see something here, but you've hit a plateau you need to overcome and the only way you're going to do it is to get out there and experience a little more of the world," THAT would be constructive criticism to me.

The thing about criticism is we all think we're saying what a person needs to hear, and I am just as guilty of that as any of you. I guess what bothers me is that I'm tired of being told things that make me feel so damn small and insignificant that they make me seriously question just what the hell I am even still doing here.

I'm happy that my skin is able to stand up to the things it can. I just wish it had been made a whole lot thicker.

Madiba

I probably don't know a tenth of the life that Nelson Mandela had. Growing up in the United States in the 80s and 90s, the only time he was really talked about, to my recollection, was when I watched the nightly news and Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings did so.

I knew he was in South Africa and he was in jail, but I couldn't tell you about apartheid or his political affiliations or even what happened to land him prison in the first place.

I was old enough to recognize the importance of his release from Robben Island in 1994, and his subsequent election as South Africa's first Black president. He's one of those seminal figures in history who as both a journalist and a person, I'd have loved to meet. But when Mandela passed away on Thursday, I did something I honestly couldn't have anticipated.

I cried.

Right in the middle of my office, I found myself breaking down and crying, all because of this quote.

I spent over a year behind bars and by comparison to what Mandela went through for his 27-year incarceration, that is where the similarities abruptly and definitely end. The three prisons I had to live in gave me books to read, television to watch at night and on the weekends and a place to exercise. People could come to visit if they wanted to.

And yes...I had to work hard labor. Instead of splitting rocks though, I split trees. Ten-hours a day, five days a week, with an axe, and made about all of 10-15 cents an hour once you took out restitution and all the fines I had to pay as part of my sentence.

By comparison, my time was infinitely easier than a man locked up by a country and people who both feared and hated what he represented. And yet once a free man again, Mandela somehow had the strength of character to leave everything he brought into his cell there when he walked out.

It's been 15 years and I find myself just as bitter and angry at the world as I was then, if not a little more, in some ways. I get so frustrated every time I get denied a job I know I can do, or a place to live, or a relationship because I still have this perpetual Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, and as far as I know, it's always going to be there.

That knowledge is enough to make any man angry and jaded and bitter, not just with the world they have to occupy but also with themselves for putting it there in the first place. Especially the longer they live and realize that it's still there, even when common sense would dictate that it shouldn't be.

Mandela, because of his influence, understood the necessity both for himself and for those his own people saw as the enemy, to reach complete and total reconciliation with one another. It's not hyperbole to suggest that in doing so, he saved both sides countless lives in avoiding what would've been a brutal and bloody civil war.

Was he perfect? No. Mandela had his faults as much as anyone else, but there's no denying he was a great man, and the world is better off for his having been so.

I didn't learn much about him in school, but I'd like to learn more about him now. I'd like to learn how he did it and the reasons why. Hopefully in doing so, I can learn what I need to and leave those things behind in my own cell, where they belong.

Tilted

I never was as big a fan of pinball as a kid as I've become as I got older. Having been part of the first real generation of kids to run headlong into the world of video games, the idea of popping in a quarter to play it when Donkey Kong, Zaxxon or Punch-out! was much more appealing, it seemed like a waste of cash.

Contrary to common sense, I do go back and reread whatever I post here. I do it because still being the part-time perfectionist, I worry about sounding like a complete and utter idiot and also because I don't want to repeat myself if I can help it.

So I sat down and went back over the last few and came to the following conclusion:

My mind has been flying around like the prototypical pinball, hitting every emotional blinker, ramp, thumper and cushion along the way. I ricochet between happiness, misery, joviality, rage, self-pity, guilt, and confusion.

And it's left me both exhausted and completely punch-drunk.

I know that part of it is because of the time of the year and other circumstances which I have absolutely no control over. Doesn't make it a whole lot easier, but they're tolerable, even if they leave a lingering sting.

The other part is because of conflicts I've created for myself which I haven't been able to totally solve yet. Combine the two and it becomes a rapid-fire cacophony of thoughts and feelings that becomes a blur after too long. It's kept me awake many a night this week, trying to sort it all out and figure out what, if anything, I can really do.

I don't like feeling quite so helpless in my own head like this. It's scary, not being entirely sure what it might be during the day which will make it kick in from one mode to another. Some days it's a song on my iPod, or something on my newsfeed on Facebook, or a half-second flashback that sprang from either the forefront or the deep recesses of my memory.

The trick to mastering pinball is having quick reflexes and to anticipate the trajectory of the ball once it's in motion. You have to be able to control it. Not let it control you.

And then if all else fails, it's not out of bounds to give it a good whack and show it who's boss.

Sheltered Life

My whole life, there's been two things I've really wanted to do.

Learn how to fly a plane...and how to jump out of one with the goal of landing safely on both counts.

I was at the local swimming pool a few years back and while I've never had any issues diving off the low board and while watching kids half my age jumping like daredevils off the 3-meter board and higher, I somehow got it in my head that I could do the same thing, no problem.

Then I got to the top of the board, thinking how hard could it be to step off the end like I'd done dozens of times, launch into the air, turn, and hit the water.

Seemed simple enough. But I couldn't do it. I stepped to the end, saw how high I was above the pool...and totally chickened out. Instead of diving like Greg Louganis, I stepped off and did something likely akin to the Funky Chicken all the way down.

What I took away from it was something I feel has plagued me my whole life. I always wanted to be sure enough of myself to do the things I truly wanted to. But somewhere along the way, I guess I lost my nerve.

I got scared. I got close-minded and conservative and full of the sort of self-doubt that allows me to create grand ideas but shuts me down as soon as I started trying to make them work.

Acknowledging that makes me incredibly angry with myself for not being willing to take more of those risks, because I never thought they'd pan out and I got too full of bullshit to even really try.

For the last month, I've been working on a novel. It's not my first, but it's easily the most personal story I've ever told. The first couple of chapters came pretty easy, but the last few have gotten more difficult. Even though I spend all my time during the day churning out newspaper copy and my weekends talking sports, I've been cutting in a few hours every week to get more done. Whether I'm doing laundry or sitting in bed waiting for sleep to finally hit me, I feel like I'm not happy unless I get a few hundred words down at least.

I know I'm taking a big risk by investing so much of myself in writing a story and making it become a book that other people can read. If it fails, then I know it will hit me hard because I went to the lengths I have. It'll bother me, a lot.

But I'd rather step out there on the edge of this life, just once, and know how that feels to have done something that could be great too.

Tally ho.

Jurisprudence

Higgins' Law:

Sooner or later, one way or another, everybody leaves.

I spent eleven years working as a legal assistant and the last three as a journalist covering local, state and sometimes federal levels of jurisprudence, and if there's one thing I've learned in that time, it's this.

With few exceptions, laws are badly written. That includes my own.

Under scientific method, a law cannot be established unless it first goes through the evolutionary process starting as a hypothesis and advancing to becoming a theory.

No one could disprove that gravity existed even after Newton established his theory that, "What goes up, must come down." Hence, we recognize Newton's Law for what it is today, a fact.

Judicial law, however, is not always created in the realm of fact. It's more the product of speculation, estimation, assumptions and politics, and they often overextend the bounds by which they were created to maintain.

I wasn't all that old when I put my theory together. Having bounced around from place to place so much as a kid, I got used to the understanding that any friendships I made were temporary at best. When I came out to Portland 25 years ago, I planned on this being just another momentary stop before I went back home or wherever else I would end up next.

I didn't plan on staying here or making any friends. When I went back to college five years ago, I had the same mindset. I would just go to class, keep my head down and just follow my own rules, which were all linked in some roundabout way to my law.

The reason it exists is because knowing relationships can be so fleeting, especially when they seem to be with people I grow to love so much that it makes it all the worse when faced with the unpleasant fact that they can and do leave. I use it to remind myself to be ready when it inevitably happens, whether it be through death or some other reason.

The problem with laws, however, is that they often become so rigid and black and white, that they offer no room for flexibility or a change of perspective. Either something is in line with the law or it's outside of it. They are also usually overreactions to specific situations. Not everyone in my life whom I care about left. Many are still there. A few who did leave have actually come back, and a few who I walked away from, I brought back into my life.

I had to learn that on my own the hard way, more than once. In my travels, I've seen how brutal and indiscriminate laws can be.

Maybe it's time I retire this one. I'd like to. I want so much to have some level of permanency in my life that it no longer applies.

Holidays: Stage II

When I was a kid, I always looked forward to Christmas.

Growing up in New England, it's hard to imagine another time, with the exception of the start of Autumn that I got more excited about ever year. After all, how could I not? December brought with it the snow, which meant no school, getting outside and sledding or playing football for hours on end, then coming back inside for hot chocolate and curling up in big warm blankets afterwards.

It also meant looking forward to presents and seeing grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It meant going to Midnight Mass with my Nana and usually falling asleep by the time the homily started, but I figured that was part of what the whole season was about.

I can tell you the exact moment when my affections for this time of the year vanished. It was Dec. 20, 1989. I'm 12 years-old, living in Ayer, Massachusetts, and have been coming off a really rough year. My mother and I had relocated there a few months earlier as we began living with the man who's now been my stepfather for 20 years. For the fifth time in seven years, I'd had to start over in a new town with a new school and meeting new people. We were still about a year removed from getting away from my first stepdad and I'd watched my mother and older brother butt heads over just about everything during that time.

It got so bad, in fact, that my mother decided it was time to do something fairly drastic. Despite his almost being through his senior year of high school, my brother was sent off to live with our dad, 3,094 miles away in Oregon. He and I had never really been apart in our lives and being the youngest, I took it pretty hard, because even though we annoyed the hell out of each other half the time, he was also the only consistent friend I had through that whole period of moving around like we did.

I know my mother thought she was doing the right thing in sending him off, but what it also did in the long run was make me even more uncontrollable, because for all the havoc we both admittedly created, we also were the others safety valves in some ways. At least, he was for me at that time.

He was gone in June and by the time December rolled around, whatever measure of peace my mother was hoping to gain by splitting us up hadn't come. If anything, it'd had gotten worse because I'd gotten worse. I was angry because my brother was gone. I was angry because I hadn't figured out how to cope with what had happened with my stepdad. I was angry because I'd had to say goodbye to more friends, pack up and start all over again when all I wanted was to just stop and have as normal a life as a 12-year-old kid can have.

Fairly or unfairly, I took it out on my mother and her boyfriend and they responded in kind sometimes. In their defense, I deserved it, because I said and did things that warranted their reaction. But I felt so lost inside my head, and at that age, when you're just stepping into puberty and both your mind and body are changing in nanosecond increments, I doubt I'm the only one who feels that way.

I remember one night, my mother and I got into it again and in a flash of anger I told her that if I was so terrible that she should get rid of me too. So she did.

December 20, 1989 was when I was told by my mother that I was leaving and joining my brother and dad in Oregon. "I can't teach you what you need to be a man," she would say in justifying her decision to either me or herself. "You have to go somewhere else to do that."

Two days later, I had to say goodbye again to the small group of friends I'd made, and the girl I'd begun to get attracted to in the way first crushes usually go. My english class gave me a signed card with little notes from each of them. I ended up keeping that for a long time and might even still have it somewhere.

I spent my last Christmas with my family a few days later, doing the rounds through the small towns they lived in and saying my goodbyes while opening presents. To me, it felt more like going to a series of funerals than ringing in the holidays. Some of those people I wouldn't see for nearly 20 years and our relationships were never really what they could've been had I been able to stay.

Dec. 27, 1989, my mother took me to Logan Airport, put me on a plane heading for Atlanta, then Seattle and finally to Portland and that was it. To give you an idea of how different a time it was, I did the whole thing myself. Twelve years-old, three airports, three cities, at Christmas time, solo. Because of issues with the planes, I actually didn't arrive in Portland until nearly dawn the next morning. I wouldn't see home again for five years, and even when I went back, it just wasn't the same place anymore.

So why am I explaining all this? Because this is what I'm reminded of every year when December comes around and it's the reason why I have such a hard time enjoying Christmas.

Now, over the years I've had more than my share of good times during the holidays and that's not to say it's been all one horrible experience. I've also been given the usual, "Just get over it already!" schpiel from a lot of people over the years, including my mother.

Our relationship has never been the same. It's part of why we don't speak to each other anymore, and in all honesty, it may be why I might never see her again. From her perspective, she thinks what she did was right because she had to make a choice between having the life that she wanted or losing it because she had an out-of-control kid to take care of. I don't envy her the decision she had to make and part of me would like to think it wasn't an easy one.

But to me, she gave up. Had she been more understanding of what was happening with me, I'm sure things could've ended up differently for the both of us. Even though I was too young to understand how divorce worked when my parents split, I never had any reason to believe that I would grow up with anyone other than my mother. I remember sitting in my bed as a six-year-old, consoling her because her father was in the hospital after having yet another heart attack. As a 10-year-old, I swore I wouldn't let anyone hurt her after both seeing and hearing how my first stepdad degraded, insulted and abused her. I know how hard she worked and how frustrated she got and I didn't exactly make it any easier.

But I wasn't a bad kid. I was just in a really, really bad place and that was a time when I needed her to step up, understand and help me. Instead, I got a plane ticket...and I got it at Christmas.

I've never gotten over that. I don't know if I ever will, and about this time every year is when I start to really feel it. I do try to make myself happy and not let it bother me, but I don't do much of anything for the holidays anymore. I don't decorate my apartment or buy a tree. Being by myself, I don't see the point, really.

If anything, I get a few presents for friends and people I care about, but even this year, I don't know if that's something I should really do. I'm not expecting to get anything from anyone this year either and I stopped making wish lists a long time ago.

If there's one thing I want this year, though, it's this.

I wish, more than anything, that I could learn to forget.

End of Line

I so wish this was a real status you could post on Facebook. Alas, Mr. Zuckerberg hasn't finished swimming laps in the vault he bought from Scrooge McDuck to update the code yet. So through the magic of a little Photoshop, I can do so here.

I am, effective immediately, officially retired from the dating and relationship game.

This isn't a new development or something that came to me willy-nilly out of the blue. I've actually been thinking about this for over a year and despite my effort to convince myself to the contrary, it just feels like the right decision.

When I got divorced, I suddenly found myself in a position I hadn't been in since I was 18 years-old. Being single. But unlike when I was that age, now I had everything I'd brought with me through those 16 years of the only relationship I'd ever had. Even before that, it wasn't like I had this incredible string of girlfriends to begin with.

Before I met my wife, my longest stint in anything resembling a relationship had been 12 days when I was about 16. Sad to say, that was with a girl who turned out to be rather crazy. Hence why we didn't make it to 13.

*Editorial Note - In the young lady's defense, I was equally, if not more crazy at that age, as the people I went to high school with will likely testify to under oath.

Now in that span, were there girls I was interested in and wanted to pursue relationships with? Yep. Did it ever happen? Not even close. And at the time, I still possessed enough small fragments of self-confidence and self-worth to convince myself I'd be okay. That I'd head off to college, get my career going, meet the sort of woman I wanted to be with and then everything would be what I wanted from there.

That didn't happen either.

So now, here I am, considerably older and with my heart having gone through the proverbial meat-grinder one too many times, I think I've had enough for a while. Honestly, I don't see the point of putting myself back out there. Not right now. I'm not interested and I feel like it would be a waste of both my time and that of whoever would be willing to take a chance on me.

And to be brutally honest, the one I want is impossible, so to suddenly go off and try and find a stop-gap, band-aid to fill that hole just seems stupid, pointless and unfair to whomever I'd try that with. I'm not going to do that. I'm better than that.

If I'd had a good run of relationships that were seemingly like everyone else's then maybe I'd be more confident about trying again. But I didn't, and for right now it just feels better shutting that side of myself off and focusing on what I need to do to get me to where I want to go, than thinking about whether I'm good enough for someone, which I don't feel remotely like I am.

Whatever it is most men possess that makes him keen for a woman to consider dating, I don't have it. I simply don't...and I really don't know if I ever did. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be writing this.

So that's it. I'm done, and I'm not all that upset about it either. If anything, I feel like I'm doing the world a favor by having the self-respect of taking myself off the board. Does it mean I'll never go back on it? I don't know and I'm not going to think about it for a while.

Maybe someday, when my heart feels strong enough again, I'll see. Professional athletes retire at my age and try to come back all the time. Why should I be any different?