One Little Victory

There was a time where I wasn't as ashamed to say this as I've been for the last few years, but it's still a fact nonetheless.

I'm a born and bred New Englander, which means I'm a guy who likes sports, especially when the hometown teams are winning.

The reason why it feels a little shaming to me is because a lot of the people I know aren't sports fans. They're young, sophisticated, educated people who spend their time immersed in pop culture, literature, music and other stuff.

Admitting I'm such a rabid follower of the Red Sox, or Patriots, or Celtics...or Bruins...gives me the impression of being an uneducated cro-magnon who just likes being part of the mob.

But my beloved Sox won another World Series last night. Their third in the last ten years. When I was a kid, I was like every other loyal fan who dared hope beyond hope that somehow, some way, THIS would be the year Boston did it. And every year, they came up short.

When they finally did it in 2004, I cried, like a lot of other people I know back home did. That may sound really silly to those not attuned to the world of sports, but for us Boston faithful it was the culmination of a lifetime of shared and passionate hope capped by unbelievably frustrating disappointment and heartbreak. But ultimately, our collective faith in a group of men we hardly know and will likely never meet, who represented us in the game we'd all played as kids on sandlots and Little League fields all over New England and across  the country was finally and gratifyingly rewarded.

And in that moment, we all knew what the sweet taste of victory finally felt like.

The crazy thing is that it's not just the Red Sox who've been to the top of the mountain either. Every major team with it's roots in my hometown has won at least once in the last 15 years. In the matter of proper context, that is truly unheard of for one city to be on such a hot streak. If it's not the Sox, it's the Patriots. Not the Pats then it's the Celtics or the Bruins. I have often said and will forever cling to the proposition that if the Boston College Eagles, whom I've followed since a little guy named Doug Flutie threw the mother of all Hail Mary's 30 years ago, should ever win a National College Football Championship, then I'm done.

I will issue my retirement papers and gladly walk away from ever being a sports fan again, because I will have achieved the equivalent of total nirvana.

But what I couldn't help but think about last night, while I listened to the celebration on the radio and pined for being back home in the thick of it (with the jovial, civilized people and not the idiot rioters), was wondering how it felt for the Sox themselves. The 25 guys who six months ago started this journey which culminated in being rewarded as the best. Knowing that all the hours of work put in, both on and off the field, the sacrifices which were made was worth it at the end, because no one can ever take away from you the fact that you were the last ones standing while everyone else tried like hell to take you down.

I can be a fan and live vicariously through my teams and feel like I somehow contributed to and earned the right to celebrate along with them, but I've never really known what that euphoria must feel like. To know, beyond any hesitation, that you've achieved and earned everything you've ever set out to do in this life.

I hoped that feeling would finally come three years ago when I finally earned my two college degrees, ten years later than I should've had to get it. I wanted it. My whole life I'd known I wanted it and I'd eventually figure out a way to get it. And for as great as it felt to finally have it in my hands and be able to proudly display them on my wall, the victory was both short-lived and painfully hollow because of what followed in its wake.

And as I sit  here and write this out tonight, I can't help but think about how I would feel if I could ever reach the point where I actually got everything I ever wanted. The thing is, I never wanted to be rich or famous. I just want to be happy with my life and I wanted someone special to be happy with. I still do...very much.

Just once, I would like to know what a victory like that would feel like. To have all the hopes and dreams I have for myself finally come together. I'd like to think that after the frustrating setbacks and painful heartbreaks I've gone through in this life, that's not a whole lot to ask.

Brainstorm

The end of October is here, and as I had no Halloween plans again, once my work for the night was done, my focus shifted to what has been one of my favorite times of the year.

November. Not because of Thanksgiving, but because it's National Novel Writing Month. That's NaNoWriMo for short.

I made my first run at this in 2005, and despite the protestations of my ex-wife of my investing 30 days into the act of writing a book, I was at the point in my life where I figured if I didn't try something to get the ideas I had out of my head and down on the page, then how could I call myself an honest writer.

After all, the ideas are useless if you don't put them into effect to create plot, dialogue, emotion, action and characters.

In the ever-expanding stacks of notebooks I have in the box by my couch rest every idea for every book I've ever thought of writing. Under normal NaNoWriMo circumstances, I would just crack another one open and get started on it. Only problem is I have a story I started writing last year and got about halfway through before ended up in the typical corner with a need to find a way out.

The great cliche for novelists, or any writer for that matter, is to write what you know. The story I'm working on now is one I know all too well as I'm using it to try and make sense of a great many things about my life I've never really dealt with.

It also dives headlong into this world which I don't know as much about as I'd like, and more than I should, depending on your point of view. I think it can make a good backbone of the story, but it all depends on how I can pull it off.

The one thing about writing which can be liberating is through the avatars we create, we can vicariously confront and get past our own daemons. What's been holding me back in mine is still the issue of both not knowing how and not being willing to confront them as fully as I need to.

As it stands, I have the next 30 days to figure it out and get the first draft done. I have no idea how I'm going to feel when it's finished, but I hope I feel better about a lot of things than I do right now.

I'll never know until I sit down with the manuscript and start punching the keys.

Tally Ho.

Gunshy

A couple of years ago, my surrogate sister-in-law made an observation of me that I was genuinely surprised about at the time.

"You come off as a pretty shy guy, Dev, at least until you feel you can click with someone and then you open up a lot more easily," she said.

It was surprising because until that moment, I hadn't really thought about how I interact with other people I'm not familiar with. I also never really thought it was a bad approach to just sit back and get a feel for someone before I start interjecting whatever quasi-intellectual gobbeldy-gook comes out of my head.

I didn't mind being shy, but there's a downside to it which must be addressed.

I haven't met anyone new or made any new friends in three years.

Why? Because the thought of going back out into the world and trying again honestly scares the shit out of me.

When I went back to school in 2007, one of the major reasons why I wanted to aside from getting my education finished, was I wanted to meet new people and make new friends. It's not that I didn't appreciate the close friends I had to that point. To the contrary, they're the most important people in my life and they know (hopefully) that I would do anything for them if they asked me to. But life is about having new experiences and meeting new people who can enrich those experiences. There's nothing wrong with forging new friendships.

At least, that's what I told myself at the time.

I graduated in 2010 with some of those new friendships in place. After my divorce the following year, though, virtually all of those people were gone and after going through that demoralizing process, the idea of just going back out there and trying to find replacements for all the really cool people I got to know in those three years and then lost truly seems like a waste of my time.

When I was in high school, my favorite place to be at the few parties I was invited to was in the darkest corner of the room, where I could just sit and be invisible while everyone else enjoyed their collective revelry.

Nowadays, my favorite place to be is not even to be out in public at all unless I can slip quietly in and out of wherever I am. My shyness has become so severe that while I love photography, I don't dare take pictures of myself anymore. I also have retreated from being a part of the online world in many ways with the main exception of this blog, really.

It's devolved from simply being shy and awkward to a feeling of total misanthropy and that's not good.

We are a tribal species and cling to the sense of belonging to a community we can call our own. The truth is I haven't felt like I've belonged anywhere in a long time.

I wan't to. I really do. In my head, though, it feels like I really just don't know how.

Patience

I'll be the first to admit that I am not a big believer in astrology or the Zodiac. I'd like to think we as human beings cannot be categorized with such broad, overarching strokes as it belies our own complexities and intricacies which makes us all different.

However, were you look at where I sit at the astrological round table, I seriously doubt many people would debate that I am, beyond shadow of a doubt, a Bull.

I'm not entirely sure how good of a thing that is, to be honest, but as I said, I don't take too much personal stock in it for a simple reason.

Tauruses are supposedly known for their ability to exercise patience, and I am FAR from a patient man.

At some point, I'm sure I had to be able to not be so demanding that things happen right away. When I was a kid, I understood that if there was something I wanted, be it a toy, book, whatever, if I was patient and waited then in time I would be able to get it. Even now there are times when I realize I need or want something but I can't get it immediately so I have to wait a week, a month, or maybe even longer. I may not like it in the moment, but I can accept that level of patience because I know I have some level of control over the situation and it's just a matter of practicing self-discipline until the goal can be met.

Where my patience dissolves into complete nothingness, however, is when it comes to myself or other people. Why? Because it leaves things in the hands of someone else and I can't always trust them to make the choices I'm hoping they will make. More often than not, that decision also comes at the end of a drawn-out process of thought and consideration, when I would rather be just told straight out, Yes, this will happen or No, it won't.

Having to wait for those answers is excruciating and while I understand and respect the need for potentially deeper introspection and having the patience to let that process play out, when the final decision comes back and it's not in my favor, what I feel is that I wasted the time completely, no matter if it's a day, week or even a year.

So I push the situation and the person on the other side because I want the answer, and like all of us, I want the answer that which benefits me, makes me feel better. I'm not saying it's right that I do it, only that I recognize that I do it.

In the last three days alone, I've been told probably ten times from ten different people, "Dev, just be patient. Things will happen if you just let them happen on their own and don't try so hard."

Obviously, I need to learn how to be more patient and just slow down in crucial situations, rather than forcing the issue, because I can't control people and what they are going to do. Not everyone is going to see things my way and are within their right to disagree with my point of view. I wouldn't have it any other way, to be honest, because I don't want to be known as someone who's manipulative of others.

I need to learn and practice patience. If I possess the other qualities (and some of the flaws) of a bull, then this is something I can do.

Having Purpose

When it comes to books and movies, I guess I'm a considerable non-conformist in that I don't go for the hot title everyone's reading or watching at the moment.

I've never read The Da Vinci Code or any other Dan Brown novel. It took me nearly ten years to read a Harry Dresden novel and to be honest, I didn't find Storm Front all that great.

And don't get me started on the Twilight series. The only way you'll ever get me to watch or read those is to institute methods a la A Clockwork Orange.

*Editorial Note: I still need to read that one, btw. Duly noted.

But I also have a somewhat uncanny knack for discovering stories at moments in my life where they hit with the most poignancy and resonance, and such is what I found last night with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Lisabeth Salander is a broken person. She has no family, has had her sanity questioned, trusts no one, is extremely introverted, horrifically abused and disregarded as pretty much a freak. But she's good at her job as a hacker and researcher and that brings her to the disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist's attention.

Mikael has a problem which he cannot solve on his own and in pairing up with Lisabeth, he also, without perhaps realizing it, gives her something much more important.

Purpose.

By the time the story is over, there's no certainty as to what their relationship is. It's been both professional and deeply personal, and while Mikael is able to get on with his life, Lisabeth can't because there really is no next part of her life to move on to. What she wanted, and in many ways needed, was someone like him.

While I was watching the movie last night, I was multi-tasking on both the book I'm getting back to work on, and having a rather heated conversation with a friend on FB. Like most of my friends, she tried explaining to me that what I want most in my life is probably not going to happen, at least not any time soon, and I need to finally come to some level of acceptance with that rather unpleasant fact and find something, or someone, to fill that void.

And my answers were always the same. I can't.

I thought I was past this by now. Given that it's been a few years, I was supposed to be and I know how much it's bugging those around me that I'm not, even if they don't come right out and say it. I finally fell asleep last night far later than I should've, trying to find some rationale for just what it is that I'm feeling and why. When I finally woke up again this morning, my rather sleep-deprived brain picked it back up without missing a beat and has been churning away on it since.

The simple and honest answer is I don't know other than for the very briefest of moments, I had a purpose. Now I don't and I want it back. I want it back more than I've wanted anything in my whole life, but I can't have it, because it was never really mine and I didn't deserve it in the first place.

And I'd be lying if I said making myself understand that didn't hurt like hell.

In my life, I've had bones broken, skin cut wide open, and bruises that felt like they took weeks to heal. I'd gladly take how all that felt over this any day. Any. Day.

Off Day

As Bugs Bunny was fond of saying, "My mudda told me dere'd be days like dis."

I don't really know how to describe what I'm feeling other than...off. And I couldn't tell you why either.

I had a great week last week. One of the better ones I've had in a long time. The sun is still shining here for a few more days and even a little rain yesterday morning wasn't a terrible sign. Work was tough, but I muscled through it and got everything that needed to be done done.

Saturday I got to relax at home, work out, watch some movies and put some work into the book I need to get moving on writing again starting next month, and Sunday was a day spent with friends.

So what the hell do I have this feeling that something is really wrong and I don't know what it is?

It feels like I'm clutching at smoke, trying to understand what is going through my head today, and the main thing behind it is fear.

Seeing where I'm at now, I don't want to backslide to where I started from. I don't want to jeopardize the relationships I've only now started rebuilding or the ones I've had that are set in stone. I'm worried about saying or doing the wrong things when I know instinctively I shouldn't have to and it's better to just be myself, warts and all.

I don't want to write this book, get everything I've had roiling inside my head for years now down on the page, only to be told it's crap not worth publishing.

I feel like I'm standing on a cliff. I can't see the bottom of the abyss below me, and I have a perfectly good set of wings strapped to my back, but I don't trust them enough to know I won't fall.

I hate this feeling because I've felt it too many times in my life, being afraid to just let things go and release the white-knuckled grip on the safety of the ground.

All that is going through my head today is the endless streams of "What If?" scenarios that can lead to a myriad of outcomes and futures for me, and the ones where I get things right, where I get everything I could possibly want at this stage of my life, feel so alien to me that I almost can't bear to think about them. While all the scenarios that end with me having the life I'm used to and in some ways expecting to have, feel far too familiar for me to want to even accept them. I've been down those roads too many times and I don't want to follow those paths anymore.

It's never a fun thing, being so afraid to succeed that you cling to the certainty of failure instead.

Life is feeling really good for me right now. I just don't want to fuck it up.

I knew there'd be days like this. Doesn't mean I have to like them.

Little Boy

I certainly don't mean this in a negative way, but this has been one hell of a week. One I haven't had in a long time as I can recall, and I have a rather freakish memory sometimes.

I've had people tell me over the years I'm a hard man to be friends with. That I keep people at arm's reach as much as I can and hold myself to different standards than I'd want anyone else to try and aspire to.

Thursday night I had a long talk with a friend after setting her new computer up. It wasn't a talk we'd planned to have and it went on for literally hours, but I think it was one we both needed to have.

One of the many things she said which stuck out was this:

"I know you try to hide the fact that there is a scared and angry little boy inside you who got hurt a long time ago, and he's walked a road that very few of us will ever really understand. You need to know that there are people who care about and love him, because he deserves it."

I would like to think I'm capable of doing that, but it's not easy. It never really has been.

Compliments, platitudes and affections are things I enjoy giving other people, but I don't take them very well. More often than not, I just pass them off as things said to me by others because they want to, but I somehow justify it as they actually mean someone else entirely.

They can't possibly mean me. After all. I know me. I know who I am. I know I don't really deserve them. I don't know if I ever did.

But every time...EVERY. TIME. I want to open that door and let him out of the box I put him in, I can't bring myself to do it.

Right now, it just hurts too much.

Maybe that's why as I sit here trying to write this, I can't get myself to stop crying. Because that little boy just needs to and he's been fighting it for way too long. He's tried to be the strong one, not showing weakness and letting those who love him now see the pain he's carried this far.

I don't know if I'm ready to accept being loved on that sort of level yet. I know that may seem odd, but it's honest. Not because I don't think those around me should, but because I'm still grappling with allowing myself to.

Such is what happens when you keep the best part of you locked away.

Test of Strength

"Having strength is one thing. Knowing how to use it, is another."

-Raoh, Hokuto no Ken
"Fist of the North Star"

When I was younger and my interest in anime was at its peak, I was a big fan of the story of Raoh, Toki, Jagi and Kenshiro.

They were four brothers who after the world had been destroyed by the nuclear holocaust of World War III were vying for the title of the 64th Successor of an ancient Chinese martial art, Hokuto Shinken, "God Fist of the North Star".

Jagi, the second brother, was a schemer who believed anything was allowed so long as the enemy was beaten, and to him, everyone was an enemy. Toki, the third brother, was a healer who used his skills to help those ravaged by what the world had become. He had no ambitions for any greater purpose.

Then there was the youngest brother, Kenshiro, and the oldest brother, Raoh.

Raoh is a giant who possessed incredible skill of the art. He could kill a man without lifting a finger and truly believed his purpose had been dictated by the universe itself to rule the world with an iron fist, thereby bringing order to chaos. Kenshiro was his opposite. Left for dead after being betrayed by his friend and losing the woman he loved, he harnessed both his strength and his compassion and emerged as the true successor, ultimately defeating both Jagi and Raoh.

In all honesty, the series itself wasn't all that great considering it was a mid-80's amalgam of Mad Max and Riki-Oh, but what interested me was that dynamic. For all the power he commanded, Raoh couldn't beat his youngest brother, because for Kenshiro, it wasn't just about being the most powerful.

There are times when strength is necessary to resolve a situation or a conflict. There are times when the only option is to summon as much of it as you can and either confront the danger or run from it. But there are also times when compassion is needed, where a punch or a kick is antithetical and a gentler hand can solve the issue.

I may not be the biggest or fastest or even strongest. But I know what level of strength I possess, and I know all too well what I can do with it should I choose to. In the last 24 hours, I've been asked more than once why I'm not angrier about things which I've gone through in the recent past. Why I don't respond with an equal measure for those wrongs?

Simply put...it would accomplish nothing, and because I don't want to.

A weaker person employs strength indiscriminately and doesn't care about the consequences. A strong person understands that sometimes the best thing they can do is not use it at all.

Walk Away

This is something I was never really good at.

Growing up, I'd be playing a game or building a model or doing something which requires some form of effort and for whatever reason, I couldn't accomplish the task.

The pieces didn't fit together. The particular level was too hard or I couldn't beat my brother that day. I'd get frustrated and instead of stepping back from whatever it was and just going and doing something else, whatever level of OCD I possess would kick in and say, "Nope. Stay where you are, Chuckles. We ain't going anywhere until you've done it and done it right."

I'd usually stay right where I was and every so often accomplish the goal, but the usual outcome was my frustration would overshadow my ability and more prone to failure than if I just came back with a clearer head.

That led to the inevitable meltdown, temper tantrum, and destruction of property. I'm not proud of that admission, but were I to keep some form of tally, my wall would be covered in all the NES and Playstation controllers I've smashed over the years.

When I got older and the focus inevitably shifted from childhood hobbies to relationships with actual people, I carried that same OCD-laced ideology with me.

*Editorial Note - For the record, I have never been formally diagnosed with OCD, but I have a theory that we all on some level have it in at least one aspect of our lives which is not always an unhealthy thing. Since said theory has yet to be debunked, I digress.

For me, what it evolved into was the idea that I could change people. That my presence in their lives would somehow give me the ability to shield them from a lot of the crap I'd gone through. The alienation, dejection, abandonment, abuse, and so on, which has played a considerable role in my existence. If I could somehow help steer the friends and loved ones I have away from those things, my world would be drastically improved.

But there is one glaring, monumental flaw with that thought process, which I don't like admitting to myself even as I get ready to write it.

I can't change anyone. I can't save them either.

Looking at those two statements, I immediately see that as a failure on my part, as if I somehow lack the faculties and experience necessary to do precisely those things. I should be able to change people and if necessary, save them from whatever it is that threatens their existence.

Except no one can change something or someone who does not wish to change. It's a sad reality of this world, but I'm as prime an example of that as anyone else. People have tried to change me my whole life, telling me who I should be, how I should act, talk, walk, think, work, everything. And I've resisted it because I believe it's partly in our human nature and also because when I want to be, I am one incredibly stubborn and obstinate man.

And as a result, some of those people have walked away from me. Looking back, I don't blame them. There's only so much you can do to influence change in other people that when they resist, it's in the interest of your own self-preservation to back away and withdraw.

I don't like walking away from people. I'd like to think that I can hang in there until the bitter end in the sometimes overly optimistic hope that if I do, I'll see that eventual evolution occur. But like in the game of Baseball, the chances of failure are sadly higher than success and hitting .250 in the people department just isn't good enough. My reluctance to do so, however, has left its mark on me as well, because I make those failures personal and wonder to myself what else I could've done, when in reality there was nothing to be done.

I can't change people. I can influence them, help point them in a direction, hope they stay on course and pick them up if and when they stumble or fall off it. But I can't change them.

And sometimes, as much as I don't want to, I have to be willing and able to walk away from them. It's not a selfish act in doing so. It's because change, as I am slowly discovering along my own course, only originates within the self. It does not exist in an external form. No one else can change me. I have to change me and I have to make the effort to do so.

Tongue Tied

Talking is a large part of what I do for a living. Either through the actual vocal expression of speech or in written conversation, being able to get the words which are bouncing around my head like socks in a tumble dryer out in a clear, concise manner is rather important.

Last Friday, I was sitting in another local high school press box where I've spent the majority of Friday nights over the last two months, and when we got on the air and I started doing the play-by-play, I realized that I was having a hard time getting out what I wanted to say. I was tripping over myself verbally and stumbling to find the right words to use so I would sound both intelligent and respectable on the air.

This isn't a new phenomenon for me and it's also quite frustrating, to be frank.

For reasons I've not been able to lock down as of yet, being able to say the right thing at the right time has always been an issue. The even bigger problem in my view is more often than not, I end up not only saying the wrong thing, but I also say WAY too much of the wrong things.

To be fair, some of it may be a simple case of my brain working faster than my mouth. For example, one of the things I do to work on my craft as a sports play-by-play broadcaster is when I'm playing one of my sports video games, I will call the game as I go for practice. Sounds silly, I know, but even we have to get our reps in somehow. When I'm playing baseball, I often will say the ball is hit to one side of the field, when in actuality, it went completely the other way.

My eyes clearly see that the ball went to right field, but in the time that information goes from there to my mouth, it somehow gets recoded and expelled that it went to LEFT field. That is more than a little frustrating because my job is to be as detail-oriented and on the ball with what I say into a microphone as possible, and knowing that can happen at pretty much any moment adds a degree of difficulty which can be hard to overcome sometimes.

The other problem I find is talking too much, spewing out 25 words or more at a time when maybe three or four will do.

To me, this is even more frustrating than being scatterbrained with my speech, because making vocal blunders is not something exclusive to me. But for some reason, when my mind gets going and I tap into the stream of consciousness which surges through my head at all times, that stream sometimes feels like it becomes a white-water churning river of everything I want to say, and I have to get it out in one breath or else it feels like a wasted opportunity.

This also rears its somewhat ugly head at times when I'm writing too, as often evidenced by this blog. I've noticed as I go back through my posts I have redundant ideas and elements, words are skipped, and rather than be concise with prose, I tend to ramble onto different tangents and thoughts.

It's the most frustrating when I try to engage in more emotional and personal conversations, as opposed to intellectual ones. You want to say the right things and give the proper input, and when you can't seem to do that, it does make you wonder why you bothered opening your mouth in the first place.

I don't know if this is purely a mental or psychosomatic issue or if there is some physical component at play. When I was a kid I had to fight through a slight stutter I'd developed and after I moved to the West Coast 25 years ago, getting rid of my very thick Boston accent took considerably more work. As I've gotten older, I've also noticed my spelling acumen has fallen off considerably and I often reverse words and phrases in sentences, which could imply a level of dyslexia, but then I don't really know for sure.

Speech and writing are the bedrock of our communicative system and one of the first milestones in our development from the time we're born is the first word we say. Being able to convey the thoughts and feelings I have to other people is very important to me, as I think it is to anyone else.

I just wish I was better at and felt more confident about how I do it, that's all.

Pay It Forward

I hadn't planned it when I woke up yesterday morning, but I ended up doing something nice for two people before the day was out.

It hadn't been a great morning as I'd had a hard time sleeping the night before thanks to a combination of indigestion and a nightmare involving a yellow scorpion the size of a shoebox which I thought was fossilized and turned out to be anything but.

I blame the Harry Dresden novel I read a few weeks back for that image lingering in my head.

Needless to say, it was the sort of Monday where a pick-me-up was needed and part one came when a friend of mine who's been struggling to find work for the last couple years asked me for a favor, which I was happy to oblige.

I took a little further and as we'd worked together in radio when I first broke in, I figured it might help things if she had a proper recommendation from someone still working in the business.

She was quite happy when she saw it, and if it helps get her back on her feet then I'll consider my job done.

The second part came about an hour later or so when a friend I've been hanging out with a lot lost her laptop when it slipped off her bed and cracked on the floor. The LCD shattered and the laptop, which was a dying animal anyway, was lost. Because she's a single mother without much money, buying a brand-new replacement was out of the question, but she's also a fellow writer and is working on a multi-volume book series. It's been her life for the last two years, and she's already put a great deal of time and work into it.

She also has a very precocious and adorable two-year-old daughter she's trying to provide a better life for. Without the laptop, no book. No book, not much chance to get that life. Now sadly, I don't have a couple hundred dollars sitting around to help either, otherwise I would've just done that and the problem is solved.

Since that wasn't an option, I ended up doing the next thing I know how to do. I put the word out to people I know seeing if they had a decent substitute they could donate, and I got lucky. Twice. My best friend and a co-worker both have a laptop and a desktop computer they don't need anymore and could donate them to her.

I didn't set out to do these things when I got up yesterday, nor are they things I do all the time. But I'd like to think I do them more often than most people for a simple reason. I like to help people. If there are problems I can do something about and rectify, I try to do it.

It's not about ego or gaining favors or being considered a hero to anyone. I just like being able to do something that makes a difference for someone else. People I care about and mean a lot to me have done the same when I needed it, so I'm fine with doing the same for someone else.

I don't see the harm in that.

Bridges

So here I was, sitting at work on another gorgeous weekday morning which I'd rather spend anywhere else, when I got an email which was both welcome and wholly unexpected.

It was from my best friend from college, whom I have not seen and barely talked to in the last two years. The reason for that was because when my life imploded following my divorce, she got hit the hardest by the fallout. Things were said by me that I wanted to take back as soon as they came out of my mouth, but by then it was too late.

She was gone and while I had questions still lingering in my head ever since, I resigned myself to the realization that I would likely never get the answers.

I'd be lying if I say that didn't bother me, because I knew I needed them and in my view there was no harm in asking the simple question of "Why?" Why did this happen? Why did things get to this point and why can we not rectify them, rebuild and carry on?

Every so often, I'd think about reaching out to her and maybe trying to rebuild the bridge I felt I'd annihilated with my insanity, my anger and my high-octane emotions, but I didn't want to make things worse. So for the first of those two years, even though she was still in our college town, I stayed away. I hid. I ran. And I did everything I could think of to not make the situation any worse than it was, because I felt in my mind that any attempts to do would result in a catastrophic outcome.

Last night, however, I took a bit of a leap and sent her an email because part of my recovery involves addressing the things I'm most afraid of. Crazy at it may sound, confronting her and shedding my guilt about the loss of our friendship was one of those things. The thought terrifies me, because I know it would be a fine line I'd be walking between owning up to my mistakes and totally screwing things up again.

I didn't want to do that, but I know I'm also not ready to try yet, either. So I sent it with the understanding that when I was, I would do so and see what happened from there. The purpose was to establish a goal for me to reach in the near future, then hit it when the time was right.

There was no timetable for a response, saying only when she'd had time to consider it, to let me know. I expected with her busy schedule in grad school in my hometown of Boston, it would be a while and I was okay with that. The message was in the bottle and floating out to sea. Eventually, I would hope an answer would come.

I was pleasantly surprised that it came back this morning, but in no way was I prepared for what accompanied it.

In a nutshell, I was told that what happened wasn't entirely my fault like I'd convinced myself it was. That mistakes were made by both of us, misconceptions and assumptions were made, and she felt as terrible about the outcome as I did. Nine times did she say the words, "I'm sorry," and the reasons for each were both valid and poignant.

It threw me for a loop, I'll tell you that. It's not very often where I find myself completely off-kilter, not knowing what do to. But after reading for at least the sixth time in five minutes, I took inventory of myself and how I felt with that knowledge now firmly documented. I wasn't angry or resentful or bitter. Bitterness is a paralytic and anger and resentment are explosives. None of that was needed here.

I was happy, so much so that I nearly cried in the middle of my office. And I realized the only healthy thing I could do was tell her I understood where she was coming from, which I do. That I accepted her her apology and the reasons behind it, and that I forgave her in the hopes that we can put all of that behind us and start over from where we are at now.

Bridges are amazing things. They can span canyons, rivers, seas, and even nations. They can also stand up to a relentless amount of punishment and remain standing. And when they fall, we as humans can rebuild them even stronger and last longer, if we have the commitment and willingness to do so.

Will this bridge hold? I hope so. I've missed my friend and I love her very much. I just have to make it strong enough.

Glaring Imperfections

This may sound more than a little odd, and to tell you the truth, it sounds odd to me as I type it out, but if there is one paradigm shift which has begun to slowly start happening inside my head it is this.

Despite all my efforts to the prove otherwise in the last 25 years, I am probably one of the least perfect, most obviously flawed people on this planet.

...and that's not a bad thing. However if you'd told me that this time last year, or maybe even last month, you wouldn't have liked my response very much.

I have spent the majority of my lifetime totally convinced that if I hide my faults and do everything within my power to avoid making even the most simple of mistakes that we as human beings make every day, that I would somehow prove to those around me and to myself that I was deserving of friendship, respect, and ultimately, love.

Only the harder I tried, the more mistakes I made and the more mistakes I made, the angrier and more despondent I got, until I reached the point where I felt like I couldn't go out and socialize with friends or people I wanted to get to know, because I could feel them noticing every blemish, every flaw, every stupid thing I ever did or said that I can't take back, no matter how badly I want to even to this day.

I had to be perfect because I thought it was the key to being accepted. Instead, it drove nearly everyone I ever cared about and loved away. That is not said to make you feel sorry for me. It's a fact, not a complaint. In the striving to reach perfection, you begin keeping people at arm's reach because you cannot bear the idea of seeing that chip on your shoulder which is spurring you on, even when you know they don't care that you're so obviously imperfect and they accept that.

And as I explained to a dear friend once in trying to defend my position, I wear my heart on my sleeve, six inches below that chip, and have done so since I was maybe 10 years-old.

It's hard for me to admit, let alone accept that my fallibility is actually a virtue and not a deterrent when it comes to the rest of the world. And some of you may ask the justifiable question of why did I bother in the first place?

I bothered because for about 10 years, from the time I was 13 until I was 23, I had it drilled in my head by people who were charged with ensuring I stayed out of trouble that under no circumstances was I allowed to make a mistake. I step out of line once, for any reason, and everything I had would be taken from me in a nanosecond. No joke. A decade of having to make sure from the time I woke up, to the time I fell asleep, I HAD to be perfect.

For a teenager, when life seems like one endless series of mistakes, that's an amazingly tall order to meet. But I tried, and when I didn't I took it out on myself so hard that I was left with virtually no self-worth or self-esteem to speak of. Even the most casual, trivial mistakes were somehow magnified in my mind to be so egregious that I assumed I would be hated by everyone around me if they knew the truth that I was incapable of being perfect.

The hardest part was when those ten years were over, those same people forgot to add one crucial instruction that I desperately needed. They never told me I could stop trying. I don't know if they thought I would just figure it out on my own or what, but I really never did. I just kept on going with that mindset of anything less is akin to complete and total failure.

That's a hard way for anyone to live, to be honest. You don't get a chance to breathe when you screw up because you immediately jump into Fixer mode and often overcompensate, thereby making things even worse because you're trying so hard to repair a mistake which to other people may be wholly inconsequential.

The worst part is looking at someone you care about so much, and knowing in your heart that if they knew half of what you know about yourself, they would turn and run away so fast that you'd never see them again. So you shield yourself and do absolutely everything you can to not let those parts of you show through, because they can't hate you if you're perfect.

I look back on that know and find myself wondering why I spent so much energy trying to be an impossibility. I'm not perfect. I can never be perfect, and for all the times I embraced those special people in my life who let me see their flaws, worts and all, I never respected or trusted them enough to let them do the same for me. It's a hard fact to accept and that loss is mine and I feel it every day.

There's a 80's song by a British band, Level 42, that I loved as a kid and once I figured out the lyrics, it became one of my favorites. The lyric is this:

But making mistakes, is a part,
of life's imperfections.
Born on the years. Is it so wrong,
to be human after all?

As I'm slowly beginning to finally understand, no....it's actually not wrong at all.

Recharging Batteries

When I started this blog two months ago, I said at the time I was going to be writing everyday, rain or shine, because this process is going to take a long time and committing to it is an important part getting from where I started to where I ultimately want to be.

But there's also a time where you need to rest and take a breather. Nothing wrong with it, as far as I can tell.

Considering I spend all my working time sitting at a desk churning out newspaper stories, finding time during the rest of the day to sit down at my laptop and do more writing can be somewhat taxing.

Even though I have notebook upon notebook and page upon page of stories and books I want to write and hopefully get published at some point, at the end of the day or week, I've been lately finding myself wanting to do anything else but write.

Not that I've been sitting idly twiddling my thumbs watching the world go by, either. Most times I'm here watching movies, reading books or because the weather has been so unexpectedly spectacular in this usually rain-drenched part of the world, I've been getting outside in it a bit more often, taking photos and just letting myself do other things.

As I've been finding out through my studying and getting to know myself a little better, I have to be willing to not confine myself to what I'm used to doing in the past. Although I still enjoy a lot of hobbies and passions of my old life, I'd like to think it's more a matter of exploring new avenues in more detail.

For the first time in I don't know how long, I've also been getting pretty regular sleep. Usually I would find myself being awake at the early hours of the morning driving myself up the nearest wall. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as it used to be, which is nice because I like sleep. I like it quite a bit and I've been feeling a whole hell of a lot better as of late when I do.

Sometimes it just helps to be able to let your brain get some rest, especially when it hasn't had it for a good long time.

Guilt vs. Regret

These aren't just dreams. These are memories and you said never to use your memories.

I know I did.

You're trying to keep her alive. You can't let her go.

You don't understand. These are moments I regret, the memories I have to change.

Your guilt defines her. It's what powers her. But you are not responsible for the idea that destroyed her, and if we are going to succeed in this, you have to forgive yourself...and you're going to have to confront her.

It's not very often that I find a story I'm going to like from the snapshot you get in a movie trailer. I did, however, the moment I got my first glimpse of Inception. 

To be fair, you can't glean the entire story in a two-minute blurb (though most movie trailers nowadays love to try, to my chagrin) and Inception is such a dense movie to unpack as it is that in watching it multiple times I've finally begun to pick up on the relationship which appeals to me the most.

The one between Ariadne and Cobb.

In the last week of studying Cognitive Behavior techniques, one of the major components of it is differentiating positive and negative emotions which we use as part of coping with stressors. One of the most profound and dangerous ones is guilt.

I have guilt over a great many things, and like Cobb, the heaviest burdens come with the knowledge that actions of mine hurt the people in this life I care about the most. That guilt has been a part of who I am for close to 25 years in some cases, while others are much fresher. Either way, I've carried it as best I could with the understanding that I couldn't be free of it until I made amends, and if that meant waiting for weeks, months, even years to do so, then so be it. Such is the price you pay for a clear conscience.

Why Ariadne matters to Cobb is not because of her skill as an architect, but because she brings a new element to Cobb's life, learning to let go of the guilt he carries for Mal.

Whereas guilt is a harsh and unyielding emotion, regret is actually healthier. Even though regretting something means you still feel bad about the mistakes you make, it doesn't make you spend your time beating yourself up over them. It doesn't make you any less determined to right a wrong, if the opportunity presents itself, but it doesn't keep you awake at night reliving the wrong in your mind either.

For a long time I was sure guilt and regret were the same thing, but in reality they aren't. Regret allows for a broader level of perspective that can include forgiveness of both yourself and others. Guilt doesn't. It provides only the narrow focus on the self and your own perceived culpability, however accurate it may seem to you based on what you know.

As much as Cobb needed someone like Ariadne to perform inception on Fisher, he also needed her in a way to perform it on himself. To understand that he could let go of everything he felt for Mal, even though he'd still love her for the rest of his life.

To be honest, I'm still not very good at being regretful over being guilty, and that's going to take more time and more work.

The difference between the two may be subtle, but if it means being able to live with the things that have haunted you this far, then it's a worthwhile one as well.

Expectations

I have a slight confession to make.

Whenever I sit down at my trusty laptop with an idea for something to write about here, the first thing I do is look for a picture on Google which I hope will help further illustrate the point. And because I have still retained a percentage of my inner perfectionist, I can sometimes spend longer looking for the right picture than I do on the accompanying piece of prose to come out of my head.

This isn't one of those times and I'm glad about that, because I think this comic sums up beautifully one of the things I'm most concerned about as I continue through this process.

Expectations. Both yours and mine. For the sake of argument and nothing more, let's start with yours.

I have no idea what the expectations of those around me are, but were I to venture a hypothesis, I think it would break down something like this:

• 20-25% are hoping I succeed in getting myself put back together right and will be totally supportive.
• 10-15% are expecting me to fail completely because hey, we've heard this before, Dev. Why should this time end any differently than the others, hm?
• and the remaining 60-70% are casually interested but emotionally indifferent about it.

Now bear in mind this is a hypothesis, which for those who may have forgotten from middle school science class is an educated guess, with the em-PHA-sis on guess. I'm only going by what I know, based on what I've experienced until now, so I'm fully aware of the traditional caveat of advertising pitchmen in this exercise, "Your results may vary."

I also know I live in a world where it's a seemingly foregone conclusion that people are incapable of either minor change or profound evolution. It adds to the overall feeling of misanthropy which seems to permeate our present lives because if we cannot get people to bend to our expectations of who we hope they will be, whether as a lover, friend, relative, acquaintance or even co-worker, it becomes another case of not being able to get them to do what we want. As a result, trust is often strained or broken, explanations for why those expectations were not or could not be met are ignored or brushed aside as cheap excuses and those relationships become irreparable.

Here is the bitch about trying to meet other people's expectations, though. Whether you realize it or not, 99% of the people you meet in this life cannot meet them, no matter how hard they try. Sorry, but we can't and it sure as hell isn't for lack of trying.

The reason why most people fail to meet expectations is because as we get older, the bar keeps getting raised as result of all the times we've been burned by all those people whom we let into our lives because we thought they met or even exceeded them. Then over time, we find that they really haven't or else they're not able to keep up with our changing expectations and inevitably they are discharged in the hope someone better will come along.

I became such an unabashed and insufferable perfectionist because the only way I ever thought I would be accepted and ultimately loved by anyone was to do whatever was necessary to meet those expectations. And often my own expectations were so far ahead of what the people in whose company I wanted to remain in had for me, that it usually led to me alienating them by trying way too hard when I didn't have to.

Before his death in 1973, Bruce Lee often spoke with disdain about his first major foray into Hollywood when he played Kato on the TV show, The Green Hornet in the mid-1960's. While the role brought him money and popularity, he always said he felt like "an artificial being" because he spent all his time trying to live up to other people's expectations of him, the producers, directors, sponsors, executives, etc., rather than just focusing on what he as an individual would and should do through his own expectations for himself based on his own self-knowledge.

It's in our human nature to have certain expectations for who we will ultimately spend our lives with and I am no different in that aspect than you who is reading this now. I'm not. Because I've had such ridiculously high expectations of myself for so long, I've also expected the people I associate with to meet them in one way or another, and that also is unfair.

Rather than worrying about setting a bar for someone or for ourselves, how about we just let the people in our lives be people? I, for one, have had enough of expectation, either self-imposed or mandated by others. For right now, I think I'm better off just figuring out how to be me and all that comes with it, rather than trying to fit myself into another mold that I'm not really tailored for.

Eternal Hope

I would like to think that had my life been comparable to what we like to call "normal," that I would still adore The Shawshank Redemption as much as I do.

As it is, it might be the most essential film I have in my catalog, because it's the one I probably need the most.

While one of the most alluring qualities of the film is its ability to transcend its setting and become allegoric to virtually anything the viewer brings into it, I have the unique and unenviable gift of not being able to look at it through a different prism.

To truly understand what prison can do to the human soul, it's the same as understanding the nature of war or madness or even death. You have to be there. You have to find yourself in that world, live in it, live through it, and ultimately survive it.

My father once told me that my even though my grandfather was not a combat soldier, and to my knowledge, never saw the true horrors of World War II, he was never the same person when he came home from the Pacific when it was over. It was a transformative experience which came to be an intrinsic part of who he would be for the rest of his life.

I walked into the world of prison in September, 1998, and over the next 14 months and three days, that was my existence. The first two weeks were spent in a sensory-deprivation tank while the decision was made on where I would ultimately end up. Over that fortnight, I learned just how chaotic a life can become and what the loss of true freedom can do to a person. By the time they found a place for me to go, my life already had been threatened once by a fellow inmate and I'd been told by several others that it was very likely that I would never come out of wherever I'd end up.

For a 19-year-old young man who never imagined he could ever wind up in such a place, that was the moment where I know the most optimistic parts of me ceased to exist. It's a feeling that I truly believe is worth than death because unlike dying, which is the total cessation of all feelings and thoughts, feeling a side of yourself vanish from inside you is something I can barely describe, but has lasted with me to this day.

While I was there, the knowledge of what Shawshank represented to us was obvious and there were men I spent every day with who symbolized both Andy and Red simultaneously. People who clung desperately to their fragile hope in one breath that they could get out someday and regain the freedom they'd lost, and in the next, they dared not try to cling to it because every force around you wages a relentless attack on it every minute of every day.

You learn to sleep during the day and stay awake at night after a fellow inmate gets jumped and beaten with a padlock in a sock. You learn to not say anything to anyone with a badge because either the other inmates will look for underlying messages in it, or the guards will and either way, your life becomes exponentially more difficult. And you learn very quickly that you're no longer a human being.

You're just a number, a walking mechanism that is no longer allowed to retain any spark of humanity or individuality. You learn the only way to endure that sort of world is to take those pieces of you which you cannot stand to be without, hold them as far inside your heart as possible, and don't let anyone know they exist.

Emotions, hopes and dreams become contraband and if they're discovered, you'll never get them back.

We were never allowed to watch Shawshank because the one thing they didn't want us to have is a reason to think things can be better. But when I finally got home, it was the first thing I watched and I continue to every year, even though doing it brings back the visceral memories of what that existence was like. It all comes back to me in an instant, whether I want it to or not, but by the time the movie is over and I find myself breaking down and crying, it's not because I'm traumatized by the memories I have.

It's because in a lot of ways, I found my Zihuatanejo.

It's been 15 years, and in that time, despite all the obstacles I had to overcome, I'm still here and I managed to do what I'd been told repeatedly couldn't be done, because I managed to somehow hang onto a little fragment of hope.

Instead of dying, I got busy living. Now I just need to be okay with that.

Lack of Institutional Control

I have no idea who came up with this, but it is one of the most resounding truths I've learned in the last three years.

It is the times when we try everything to exert the most control, that we are in truth, the most out of control.

In the last three days of immersive study in cognitive behavior techniques, one constant has emerged in that for the better part of my life, I've tried to maintain a stranglehold on it by trying to control as much as I can, be it people, opportunities, or even time itself, that I've been in a state of perpetual emotional instability that has just gotten worse as the years ticked away.

It's like pushing against a mountain in the hopes that if I did it long enough, I could stop the world from turning.

This is especially true when it comes to the people in my life. Growing up in a home where I moved seven times in eight years, I was constantly in a situation where I was having to start over in terms of making friends, building relationships and getting used to new surroundings and for a kid, that can be a tall order. I didn't have time to build any sort of long-term friendships because by the end of the year I was in a new town, starting a new school and repeating the process from square one.

It also didn't help having so much instability at home, going through two divorces before being sent cross-country. Even though I wasn't even a teenager yet, I was desperate for any form of stability and thereby knowing I had some measure of control over my life. As you get older, though, the problem arises in when it's time to start creating potential long-term relationships, especially with those people you develop loving affections for, and the process of asserting control over it so you can feel secure in those relationships is not healthy.

As I said before, I have been in situations where I can say I was truly, passionately in love with a woman three times. And each time I not only sabotaged any potential for a relationship at the outset, but I also altered their perceptions of me so much that I went from being a friend to a potential enemy, even though it was never my intention to make any of them see me as such.

But I wanted control. I wanted to be able to know in my mind that I had created the world I wanted for myself in which I was appreciated, loved, and valued and that obsessive need to maintain control permeated not only throughout what I hoped for romantically, but also the rest of my social life as well as how I handled work and the things around me which I have absolutely no control over.

One of the reasons why my marriage ultimately was doomed to fail from the very start was I conceded that control to someone who was as obsessive about maintaining control as I was, and in that aspect, I was hamstrung from being able to develop into the person I wanted to be because I became a square peg that was now being forced into an octagonal hole.

And when I exerted a measure of healthy control over myself by making decisions to better my life for our mutual benefit, I took it out of my ex-wife's hands and combined with her inherent insecurities and fear that she could lose me at any moment, the outcome became sadly inevitable. The impact of which sent me more out of control than I think I've ever been in my life, and in trying to stop myself from the freefall I was now in, I overcompensated so much that it cost me a great deal more in the process.

Feeling so mentally and emotionally out of control like that is horrifying. You spend all day hoping that no one will see the blemishes and faults you carry with you and through sheer force of will, you can make them only focus on the few good things you see in yourself, even though to you, those things have almost no intrinsic value to speak of.

But I can't control people, nor do I want to. The only way I can have any measure of control over what you think and feel about me as a fellow human being is letting you see all aspects of who I am, which ultimately means I have to yield a great measure of that control to you. It's a nerve-wracking process, but ultimately, that is what builds trust, understanding and ultimately, mutual healthy love.

I genuinely wonder how much different my life would be if I'd had the strength to do that a lot sooner.

Overhaul

So it begins.

Last night, I sat down and cracked open my first book regarding Cognitive Behavioral studies. In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it only right to admit that the book is actually titled, Cognitive Behavior for Dummies.

Don't knock it. We've all got to start somewhere.

I chose this book for two simple reasons. First, I wanted a book which didn't overwhelm me with psychological jargon and theories which I probably wouldn't understand, which would lead to frustration and a likely opportunity of throwing said book out a window or off my porch before I got fifty pages into it.

And second is because I wanted something that didn't feel like I was hitting myself over the head with a cinderblock everyday saying, "Change, dammit!" over and over again.

*Editorial Note: At more than one time in my life, I have actually considered that as a therapeutic alternative, but then backed out when I realized I wasn't in favor of the headaches it would bring.

What I also like about the book is it provides a basic foundation to understanding what it is I am trying to do, which is recognize and change my behavioral patterns without assuming I have to change myself entirely, if that makes any sense.

In my experience, my resistance to change has been as much due to my misunderstanding of my own issues as my presumptions that in order to be a better person, I needed to completely rebuild myself from the ground up. Only I don't need to. Not really.

Despite all my foibles, of which there are many, I do possess some beneficial traits as well. I know they're there because I feel them all the time. Part of this process will inevitably be understanding that my negative aspects don't define me any more than my positive ones do. It's a question of discarding as much of those negatives as possible and coming to terms with what's left, while allowing myself to embrace the positives.

That may sound marginalized in some way, but that is not my intent. I know this is going to involve some substantial work on my part, going into areas of entrenched logic and emotions that I have clung to as parts of my overall definition.

To be honest, I'm more than a little terrified about the prospect because there will inevitably come a time where my mind will actively seek to reject the new programming which I am trying to install and because I don't know if it will bring about the changes that I would like to see happen both in myself and how you all see me.

But I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for me, and while that may seem selfish, taking care of the self can be a selfish act. Sometimes we have to put ourselves first and I haven't ever really done that in my whole life.

It's high time I do, because I need quite a bit of work, and the only person who can make those repairs is me. I can do it. I know I can do it. But ask any mechanic or repairman and they'll tell you that it's impossible unless you have both the proper tools and the knowledge to identify, isolate and eliminate the problems.

That's what I'm doing. Tally ho.

Bears of Very Little Brain

I had always seen other people reading The Tao of Pooh dating back to I think my sophomore year of high school. Having never read a single one of A.A. Milne's novels or delved at all into Taoism, I failed to see how the two could be interconnected.

I just finished the book tonight and realized I'd been missing the abject lessons of the Bear of Very Little Brain for a long time. Usually because I was overthinking about most of it and brushing off the rest as mere kids' stuff.

But its author, Benjamin Hoff, has a very valid point in that as we get older, we lean too much towards what we think we know and away from what we feel. Like somehow our mere intuition and ability to interact with each other and the world around us is substandard to what knowledge we've accumulated in that span of time.

Yet for all his assumed clumsiness and child-like views on life, there is a kernel of wisdom in Pooh that is worth remembering.

Sometimes, it's okay to just be who you are at your most simple state. And compassion is not a hinderance in this day and age, but an asset. It just depends on how you look at both the world, yourself and your place in it.

I'm glad I read this book. I just wish I'd done it sooner.

Overthinking the Room

"Do you have a soul mate? Somebody who challenges you? You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step, because all you see is every negative thing 10 miles down the road."

-Sean Maguire, Good Will Hunting

Do you ever have those moments when you're absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the simplest answer to a problem cannot be the right one and you will spend however long it takes to figure out what the more complex solution is, even if it's totally wrong?

That's what's been going on in my head for years.

Occam's Razor supposes that in deducing the truth, with all factors being equal, the simplest answer is the correct one. And yet, it's often the last thing we can accept as being the truth because life never seems that simple.

I have no idea when I started overthinking situations.  Were I to guess, I would likely start overthinking that too. Let's just say at some point along the way, the basic premise of A + B = C just didn't add up for me. Nothing could be that straightforward anymore. Not in a world of ever increasing complexity and not when it came to people who put every ounce of energy into matching that complexity.

What replaced the basic arithmetic of cause/effect, problem/solution was something akin to an algebraic equation that more closely resembles something like this:

X = ±∛(∞)

Why? Because nothing can possibly be resolved in a simple answer. There has to be some underlying angle I'm missing. Some key element of the puzzle that I'm too blind or too dumb to recognize, but unless I figure it out, then I obviously am incapable of finding the actual solution.

It also becomes easy to overthink things when you're sure you know how the world works in the first place. When you assume you have it all figured out and something or someone comes along who doesn't fit into the confines of your existence. And you can't work under the simple premise that it can be that easy or that those moments or people can make your life exponentially different, because there's got to be a catch. There always has to be a catch and if it's not with them, it's with you, which means you have to devote however much time as possible to figuring it out before it jumps out and bites you in the ass, thereby ruining everything that might be possible.

I overthink because it keeps me from letting my guard down long enough to risk getting hurt. By trying to predetermine what the outcome will be before it actually arises, considering all the variables and what I think I understand of how the world works, the outcome must invariably be what I determine it is, rather than what is actually possible if I just let things be what they are without pretenses, assumptions or forgone conclusions.

But we are far too multifaceted to be confined to mere equations which determine a singular, defining answer, and math never really was my strong suit.

Pugilistic Rehabilitation

Say hello to my live-in therapist.

Some of you already know him as I've posted elsewhere about him before. He doesn't charge by the hour, he's willing to converse for as long as I am, and not only is he not condescending in his rebuttal, he often knows exactly what to say.

He also is willing to take absolutely everything I have to throw at him, no matter how terrible I feel on a given day, and he's the first to welcome me back the next day if I need to do it all over again.

I remember once listening to the writer Gerald Early, who like me is an unabashed baseball fan, talk about Jackie Robinson and what he had to go through both before and after he broke the color barrier in 1947. As part of his being brought to the Brooklyn Dodgers by the greatest progressive thinker in baseball history, Branch Rickey, Robinson had to make a deal with him first.

For the first three years, no matter what Robinson was subjected to at home, on the road, on the field or off it, he could not under ANY circumstances, fight back.

"You cannot return a curse with a curse, a blow with a blow," Rickey said.

Robinson agreed and made good on his word, despite everything he went through in his first three years in Major League Baseball, he swallowed his anger and his pain and never let it out where the people who wanted him to fail would see it.

However, in 1949, the ban was lifted by Rickey and until the end of his career, Robinson played with a ferocity matched perhaps only motivated by his polar opposite in personality, Ty Cobb. And in talking about this transformation in Robinson, Early put it rather eloquently.

"There was so much that he had stored up inside of him, that everything he unleashed on the ballfield still wasn't enough for all that he'd gone through," Early said.

I know the feeling.

The only reason why I'm still sitting here as a living, breathing human being was rather than roll over and die at the various points in my life where that seemed the better option, I instead got mad. And I took that massive reservoir of anger I stored up and used it to try and better myself so I would get out of those situations and not have to be left feeling so despondent and alone. But you don't go through things like that without it leaving a lasting mark on you. That seemingly bottomless pool of raw fury which sits right in the core of my being is mine.

When I explained this to a friend over the weekend, quite understandingly, she asked if it was hard to not take it out on other people. And I said it was. There's been times where someone's tried to bully me into a fight or taken something of mine, or been so degrading that it's left me feeling like I could tear them apart with my bare hands. But here's the very honest reason why I try so hard not to, no matter what is done to me.

I don't want to hurt anybody, either physically, mentally or otherwise. I never have and I really don't find a lot of reason to want to start now.

Hence my physical and mental therapist. When I need some time alone to tap into and drain that pool, I go talk to him. I always feel better when I do and I know whenever we're done that everything is that much easier to deal with.

I look at it as a two-stage process, really. I give myself a half-hour in my garage with the heavy bag every day or so to help my body and mind, then at night, I do more in-depth therapy work with the books I'm reading to readjust my mind and body.

I think that's a fair trade.

Writer's Block

"What the hell do I think I'm doing?"

This is a question I often ask myself when I'm sitting at my computer at night, trying to figure out how to get the stories I have in my head down on the page. I ask it a lot, usually when I find myself frustrated because the words aren't coming out as much as I would like them to. It also comes during those frequent moments where I am so totally convinced that I cannot write a lick that I am just wasting my time.

I've always liked to write and craft stories. As a kid, because I had a fairly inane life, I would create ones with me doing all the things I wanted to do like be a superhero, fly to the moon or cavort with dinosaurs. By the time I reached elementary school, I was actually getting noticed and recognized by my teachers for having some writing acumen and couldn't believe it when I realized that my stories could win prizes.

*Editorial Note - It was at this same time that I somehow thought getting "Honorable Mention" was the same as being named the best writer in my second-grade class. These were indeed simpler times.

I continued my fascination with both writing and reading stories of various shapes and sizes through the rest of my academic career and by the time I finished high school, I had a pretty good idea that while I needed to work a day job to pay my bills, I knew what I could do the rest of the day. I was going to be a writer. And then I started trying to get books done and found myself in the middle of a severe crisis of self-confidence.

Not having a whole lot of faith in my abilities to do much of anything, I've always been on shaky ground when I get into endeavors like this. I'd like to think that base fear is prominent in all fledgling writers have, realizing they're entering a realm occupied by the likes of Homer, Shakespeare, Twain, Poe, Austen, Hawthorne, Dickens, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, King, Gibson, Rowling and so on. There's also the fear that you're writing a story that's already been told better by someone else, so really what's the point of getting what's in your head down on the page?

There's a Chinese proverb I remember hearing somewhere that just six basic stories constitute the root from which every new one branches out from. I don't know how true that is, but since we are often influenced by what books we read and media we consume that often predate our own lifespans, I suppose there is some validity to it.

I'd like to think I'm equal to the task of belonging to that sort of grand fraternity, but for every time I do, I can't help but wonder if I have what it takes by comparison to other writers who possess better vocabularies, more refined creative engines and more elaborate plot threads to weave together.

Then I think about one of the most painful memories I have. I was 18 and riding back from Seattle to Portland with my older brother, and explained to him what I wanted to do and that before the year is over, I would write a book that could be published.

His response was to laugh and say I was wasting my time.

He dropped me off at home. I went inside, hugged and kissed my wife-to-be, then went into our bedroom and bawled my eyes out. I felt completely crushed, and even though I finished my first manuscript eight years ago, I've just tucked it and every other story I've written away in the recesses of my computer. In all honesty, our relationship has never really been the same since and I doubt it ever will be.

I've never tried to get them published. I've never even sent them to an editor or proofreader, because I don't want to be told the same thing by them too. I don't want to be told I'm wasting my time and that I'm not good enough.

It's what leaves me sitting on my couch most nights, looking at the dozens of paragraphs I'd spent the last few hours building, with the same thought resounding in my head over and over and over...

"This is shit, Devin. You can't do this. You're not a good writer. Hell, you're not even a decent writer. Stop wasting your time."

Writers need to have a thick skin because each page they churn out involves taking a piece of themselves and documenting it in their prose. It's a very personal thing and takes a committed investment of time and energy to construct a story that might be worth being read by other people. Writers also need a strong foundation of self-confidence to withstand the stings and arrows of those who would tell them they're just hacks.

I don't have that foundation. I've never really had it. But I want it. I have stories I want to tell. There's a stack of notebooks in a box in my living room with every idea I've ever had for the books I want to make, and I would hope that at some point, someone would not only want to read them, but enjoy them as well.

But it can be very hard to get there when I sit there most nights, doing what I've wanted to do my whole life, and feel terrified that I'm just wasting my time.