Hopeless Romantic

I've always liked to think I'm capable of many things.

After all I can, to name a few, write, draw, design, paint, photograph, speak in accents, show the occasional fast-wit, punch through a wall, fence, read handwriting upside down, cite lines from movies with near perfect accuracy, operate a manual transmission, and as recently history will show...cook a pretty darn good turkey, among other things.

And despite my opinions to the contrary, I suppose it can be said that I am a hopeless romantic...

...with hopeless being the operative word in play.

If there was one thing I can concede from the failure of my marriage it is that when it came to trying to be romantic, for lack of a better term, I sucked at it. It's not anyone's fault but mine, really, and I do feel bad because my ex-wife wanted a husband who could provide that for her. But I was never really a guy who saw the point, to be honest.

It's not that I didn't want to try to be. I just wasn't good at it because my perspective on things for a very long time has been cynical, somber and realistic, and you can't really be a romantic if your outlook is so stiff and jaded. A romantic is an idealist at heart. They don't worry about what might happen because the mystery of the journey is the fun. It's a very Taoist outlook, actually, wherein the goal is understood, but if it is not attained then the process itself has still been worthwhile because it's allowed room for discovery, new understanding, and hopefully growth.

The first time I ever went on what could truly be classified as a "date" was my sophomore year of high school when I took my friend Stacy to Prom. Now being high school, awkward doesn't begin to describe what asking a girl you like can be first time out, and at first I didn't plan on it. But my brother Patrick and friend of ours, Nicole Morgan, decided they were going to give me a hand.

So we go to the library, where Stacy is busy studying. The plan is hatched and Nicole goes in, gets her, and comes back out, where Patrick and I are waiting. They then do this little back and forth routine and the time comes for me to ask. Now I was nervous as hell already, and being in actor at that time, I did good job adding a touch of histrionics to it in the delivery.

But ask I did, and accept she did. And while we never were anything other than good friends for the rest of the time we knew each other, it was the first time I just let myself go in anything resembling a romantic direction and it worked.

Fast-forward 20 years, and I'm sitting in the office of my college newspaper, hanging out with my friend Katie and when she gets up to go grab something from down the hall, I get an idea. Where it came from, to this day, I honestly Do. Not. Know. But I grab my iPod out of my coat, plug it into one of the computers, load up a song and when she comes back in, I summon up whatever chutzpah I have and ask if she wouldn't mind having a dance.

And I don't dance. Not one bit. I make Elaine from Seinfeld look like Fred Astaire.

But she accepted, I hit play, and for the next three minutes and change, that's precisely what we do in the middle of the office. It was silly, we laughed a bit and I'd like to think we both had a measure of fun, and when it was done, we went right back to what we'd been doing before.

I know there is a bit of a romantic in me somewhere, crammed into a corner of the house in my head dominated by more practical and taciturn emotions. It's there, nonetheless, and if anything it's just incredibly out-of-shape. Like "chop off the side of the house and airlift it out" out-of-shape.

I have to believe it exists for the same reason I cling to the idea that there enough love out there in the world for everyone. Even someone who's been so incredibly and seemingly.irreparably backwards as I have been for so long.

Because if it doesn't exist, then really, what is the point of wanting to be a better person in the first place?

Hearts and Chips

So I found myself in the midst of a social network bru-ha-ha today over what was written as a "joke" but taken by me as something else entirely.

I won't go into too much detail about it, but the crux was that I took the observation as another general indictment that men, as a species, are jerks because of how the domestic and professional distinctions between us and women exist and will likely continue to exist on some level long after I am dead and gone.

*Editorial Note - I'm not happy about that, mind you, which leads into the meat of this entry.

So I took exception with it and pointed out that, no, the observation is incorrect and a generalization which does not smack of any sort of humor that I am aware of. This led to the argument getting more heated, at which time, the following was recommended to me.

"Well, maybe it's time to knock that chip off your shoulder," my opponent said.

And that pissed me right off.

The funny thing about that term is I never really had a lock about the meaning of it. I thought it had more to do with internal self-image than having an external object to focus on. Turned out I was wrong, because as I understand it now, the term implies, "Holding a grudge or grievance which readily provokes disputation."

Same applies to the term, "Wearing your heart on your sleeve." This time, I was bit more on the mark in my belief that someone who fits the description readily shows their emotions and that can lead to volatility when provoked.

And if you look at my life and what it's been, it's not incredibly hard to see how both terms could apply to me. You don't go through episodes like mine and not develop some points where if someone says something that jabs at you, passive-aggressively or otherwise, it's going to get a rise out of you in some fashion.

In this case, a statement was made that called into question something I've heard my whole life and whether that person feels entirely justified in saying so or not, which they perfectly in their right to do, It didn't sit well with me because it was antithetical to everything I've tried to do as a man who despises the blanket definitions we put on each other every day.

I didn't see it as a joke. I saw it as an insult, and that is my problem, because it means I need to be willing to change my perspective once in a while and not be so narrow-minded. That said, I am also not wrong for being willing and able to express my disagreement with something a person says, should I find it to be both incorrect and insulting. Most of the time, I can roll with a punch if I know the person well enough and have a pretty good gauge on their temperament and demeanor.

But as someone who has been legitimately persecuted and degraded most of his life, (and not in a "War on Christmas" sort of way), as well as being extremely passive as a kid in terms of offering resistance to those who bullied or abused me, I learned over the years to turn the anger and aggressive need to defend myself into a reflex that I call on whenever I felt it was necessary.

So do I wear I heart on my sleeve?

You're damn right I do.

It's six inches below the whacking great chip on my shoulder.

Holidays: Stage I

Well, I made it through the first obstacle of the holidays.

I officially survived my first one-man Thanksgiving.

I decided a couple weeks ago that I would try it for two reasons. First, seeing as how I'd never attempted to cook an actual Thanksgiving meal for anyone before, it would be an interesting exercise to see if I could indeed pull it off.

And Second, after being invited to a couple of friends houses over the last two years, I wanted to get through the day with just me and see how it would feel.

Considering I haven't fallen ill to the effects of salmonella or dysentery yet, I believe that the cooking went quite well and I now have leftovers for the better part of the next month.

I got started on the prep work about midday and as I'm sure the custom of most cooks, things took less time than it seemed when I got started. Still, for a first crack, I think I did better than okay.

The cleanup actually took less time than I thought too, which was a pleasant surprise, compared to the odysseys of post-Turkey feast cleanups I underwent with my in-laws. Overall, my apartment looks cleaner than it has in some time, which is nice because it means less work and more time to relax with a cup of hot tea and a movie before the rather unwelcome return to work tomorrow morning.

Throughout the day, while I had I my music on to keep me company, I was watching other people I knew celebrating their Thanksgivings either with family or friends, and a few like me were on their own.

I won't lie and say that if I could've teleported them all here and been a host, I wouldn't have minded it at all.

Over the years, the longer I've been alone, I'd tell people that you get used to it after a while. That you reach a point where you just accept that it's how things are and how they're going to be.

In some ways, you do get used to it...and others you don't. No matter how many years go by.

So now that I've done it, I guess I can look forward to the next year...

...and the hope that I never spend a Thanksgiving by myself again.

Fairness

"You thought we could be decent men, in an indecent time! But you were wrong. The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased...Unprejudiced...

...Fair."

-Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

Whether I want to admit it or not, life just is not fair, and that bothers me.

A lot.

It bothers me because it flies in the face of the conventional wisdom I learned growing up.

"All good things come to those who wait."
"Hard work pays off."
"The truth will set you free."

I could keep going, but the point is made. We hear these adages and axioms from our parents, grandparents, teachers and mentors our whole lives, and yet they are commonly disproved time and time again by one basic fundamental truth.

Sometimes, life just is. not. fair.

I have had more than my share of times where the reality of that truth has hit me broadside like a truck, and like anyone else, my first instinct is to get mad, then quickly try to figure out why the world seems so hell-bent on not just giving me what I want and screwing over some other poor schlep instead.

"Why do you have to keep reminding me of what I already know and for once, just this once, can I have the great cosmic coin flip come down my way?!" I ask. "I've earned it. I put in the work, made the effort, took responsibility, owned up to my faults, said my apologies and taken my lumps, so what the hell more do you want?"

Only I haven't earned it, which is why I feel so slighted and abused by the world. We all have our own distinct views of what is fair or unfair, and yet when we feel like we were cheated out of something we should rightly have, it is an actual physiological process in the middle of our brain that kicks in, and we get mad as a result.

I got reminded once again this week that no, life is not always fair. And it hit close to home because the perceived injustice caught me right in the heart. And yes, for a little while, I got downright good and mad about it.

But unlike how I'd deal with it in the past, which is to continue to be pissed off and grow more jaded about it, I had a moment today where something finally clicked.

I have no control in this scenario and trying to overexert a level of control will not give me what it is I ultimately want.

One of the things I've learned in Buddhism is that there are two ways to deal with the unfairness of the world. You can either A.) resist and not grow from it, or B.) use it as a means by which to set a direction so when and if the same opportunity comes up again, because you've evolved and not become so rigid in thought and behavior, the chances that maybe that great cosmic coin flip will come down in your favor actually changes.

The same is true in Taoism, which sees the struggle for control pitted against the ability to accept what is. The struggle between the two is what makes life interesting, and even though you don't win that particular game, on that particular day against that particular "opponent", you don't stop playing either.

So does this mean I'm going to give up? No. It means I need to keep going and see what comes at the end of the path ahead, for I don't know what's waiting over the next hill or what the next obstacle will be.

I just know what it is I want, and when and if I've reached the point where I've truly earned it, then I'll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will have rightly and fairly won the flip.

"Real" Man

So a friend posted an article he found at some point during his day on Facebook, and like most curious people, I was inclined to check it out.

*Editorial Note - Given the amount of muckraking gobbledy-gook I overindulgently sling at my own wall in the hopes people will peruse it, I guess it's only fair that I respond in kind.

The article is called, "Why Men Aren't Really Men Anymore," and was written by someone named Paul, which establishes with reasonable assumption that he is, at least, a male.

His thesis was that the days of men being "real" men are long gone, a product of a bygone era in which men wore three-piece suits, drove nice cars, did not seek instant gratification and were bound to a somewhat higher moral code of ethics and respect which is now seemingly extinct in the modern Information Age.

He goes onto imply that men have become both soft and weak as the century has progressed and that with rare exception, we view the opposite sex as a disposable pleasure rather than a meaningful pursuit.

"If you don't have the twiddle-diddles to approach a woman at a bar and have a proper, intellectual conversation, making the woman feel comfortable, then move over for the 'real' men," says Paul.

Now, I don't know Paul. According to his bio, he lives in Manhattan and touts himself as a "young writer, philosopher, music producer and DJ."

He's also a complete fucking idiot who couldn't pick a "real" man out of a lineup.

I am the first to admit that I likely don't fit the model of a "real" man any more than Paul probably does. After all, I am a hyperempathic, socially awkward, introverted, stubborn, impatient cro-magnon of a man who hasn't been on a date in three years. Lothario or Casanova, I certainly am not.

But what I also possess is an exceedingly strong moral compass that allows me to treat women, especially women I care about, with both dignity and respect. I can be trusted because my goal is not to conquer them or hang them on a wall as some sort of trophy and I learned that by watching supposed "real" men treat the women they professed to love like complete crap right in front of me.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to be was Superman. Why? Because Superman not only can do everything, but because for all his strength and speed, at his heart, he was more decent, moral and honorable than any man I ever knew tried to be. It was his character that made Clark Kent be Superman, not his power.

Clinging to bygone ideas of what "real" men were defined as is stupid, because you cannot cram an entire gender of complex beings into one box and slap a label on it saying "real" or "fake". We all come from different backgrounds, disciplines, geographies and experiences and those things, as well as our own morality and treatment of others, ultimately decides what kind of man we'll be.

We are defined by who we allow ourselves to be and who we ultimately try to be, man or woman. I don't dress in three-piece suits, drive a fancy car, and I sure don't live in a mansion. I am also not Superman, no matter how much I still wish I could be. Hell, I might not even qualify as a "real" man by most social opinions.

But I am a man and I know who I want to be and both how I want to treat the people who matter to me, and the people who's paths I have yet to cross in this life.

With respect, dignity, and honor. That is plenty "real" enough.

Trust

"I've lived long enough to have learned,
the closer you get to the fire the more you can burn.
But that won't happen to us.
Because it's always been a matter of trust."
-Billy Joel, "A Matter of Trust"

There was a time when I was willing to put my full level of trust both in myself and the people in my life.

Those days feel long gone, because if there is one thing I've come to accept in the last few years, it's this.

With very, VERY few exceptions, trust is something I have little of anymore.

That includes trust in myself as well.

The reason why is fairly simple. I invested that trust in too many people who were neither willing nor able to reciprocate on the same level I was, and in the end, I got hurt each and every time.

This is far from a recent development either. Growing up, I had to get used to keeping people at a distance because it was just easier for me to navigate through everything I was dealing with. Eventually I hoped there would come a point where I wouldn't have to keep doing that, and for a little while I didn't.

For about 15 years, I put my trust in people who I cared about more than anything, who I was able to make promises to and keep them. I took those promises seriously, as I also did the promises that were made to me. I expected them to live up to them because I had every intention of living up to mine.

Only they didn't do it. They'll never admit it, but it doesn't change the fact that they didn't. My trust turned out to be completely misplaced and the realization of that hurt like few things I know of, because if I couldn't trust my own family or those I allowed to be part of my family, then who the hell could I dare try to place that trust in?

I don't know. It's been three years and I still have no idea. And it could take another 15 years before I feel safe enough to try, but for right now, all I know is that I can't.

There's an exchange at the end of Casino Royale which cuts to the very core of how I feel about it and what I've taken away from how things have gone.

"You don't trust anyone do you, James?" M asks.
"No." Bond replies.
"...Then you've learned your lesson."

Futureshock

I was in the midst of tidying up my apartment a little tonight. Not as much as I should've, but it looked better than it had by the time I finished up, and I spied the old pack of photographs on my bookshelf.

I couldn't tell you the last time I looked through them, or even why they were sitting in that particular spot in the first place. But when I opened them up, I'd be lying if the emotions that rung out in my head like a bell were ones of joy.

The book contained the pictures my mother took for me before my senior year of high school. It was the late summer of 1994. I was 17 years-old, and how different I do look.

I could only flip through it for a few minutes before having to put them down or else I'd find myself getting more upset. As I went around and ran my errands for the night, though, I kept thinking about this version of me. How young and naive to the world I was. How much I was looking forward to "growing up", seeing the places I wanted to see and doing all the things I wanted to do, without any concept of what was waiting even a year down the road.

• Within six months of this photo being taken, one of my brothers will be dead, and it'll tear me apart.
• Two months later, I'll become functionally homeless and a perpetual vagabond for over a year.
• At the end of that, with my life seemingly put right, I'll choose to shoulder a burden of guilt and regret which has dictated the course of my life ever since, but not before serving the punishment that came with it, living under the very real fear I could die at any time.
• I'll try again to set my life on the right course, only to stumble and become angry and bitter and vengeful to the world and the people in it, who seemed to have no comprehension what I was either going through or trying to achieve.
• I'll marry, and try as best I knew how to be a good husband for a decade, only to see my efforts fail.
• I'll try again, meeting someone who I want to give my heart to, and have it broken again, and both not know how and not want to let it heal.
• I'll choose to pursue the dreams I wanted for myself, even before this photo existed, pushing myself harder than I thought I was capable of. And once I get them, find out that the price I'll pay for my ambitions far exceeded any amount of money.
• I'll have to make a choice out of absolute fear which results in the loss of one child, then lose my second when that fear was ultimately proven to be correct.
• I'll meet amazing people. Smart, talented, insane, funny, beautiful people, and I will lose so many of them that I'll find it better to retreat to a quiet corner and vanish than try again.
• I'll let my anger and envy get so out of control that I'll hurt people I love the most, and spend years hating myself for not being a "better" man.
• This world will do all it can to knock me into the ground and make me stay there, but I keep getting up, even though I don't want to anymore, because I'll learn I simply don't know any other way to keep going.

What I won't learn in that span, though, is how to forgive myself for who I'll become, because if you'd have told me at 17, that this is what was waiting for me, I'd have thought, if you'll pardon the bluntness, you were quite fucked in the head.

And I guess that's what is bothering me so much at this moment, because I remember what my outlook on the world was back then. How much different I was. I smiled and laughed more. I wasn't nearly as afraid as I am now and I sure as hell didn't doubt myself as much as I do now.

If time travel were actually possible, I'd show how dangerous it could be because the first thing I'd do is step out on the lawn of my mother's Maine farmhouse on the August afternoon, sit down with that kid and plead with him to change things while he could and get it right.

"Be who you were always supposed to be," I'd tell him. "Don't become me."

Out of My League

When I was 18 and trying to figure out what I was going to do with my future, like most young American men, the idea of joining the military wasn't out of the question.

My personal preference had been to go into the Air Force because I'd always wanted to be a pilot, and in going to the local recruiting office, their slogan was literally plastered everywhere when you walked in.

"Aim High"

As kids, we're often told that the sky's the limit, to strive for excellence and not settle for mediocrity in anything. But as I grew up, I learned that there exists different strata to which we all fall into based in no small part on things we often can't control, like where we're from, who our parents are, our financial and social standing, etc., just as much as things we can like intelligence, charisma or appearance.

I've never been happy with my place down in the lower strata of the social hierarchy for a myriad of reasons but primarily centered around the notion that I could surpass the limitations of where I came from and where I seemed to be confined to. I've never been all that popular a guy and seeing the stratas become more codified around me, I kept trying to move up by associating with people who might have led me to the levels I wanted to reside in.

When it came time for me to consider dating and pursuing relationships, I also learned that no matter how optimistic I try to be, there is a simple reality that is difficult but necessary to accept.

I've always been attracted to women who are WAY out of my league.

It started in middle school, to be honest, and I don't really know why it became my particular trend in life. In hindsight, I know it also cost me a chance to have relationships with women in my own strata who probably possessed the same qualities of the woman I was interested in at the time. It certainly wasn't their fault that I wasn't paying attention, either, and along the way, they would often try to remind me that I was essentially chasing a pipe dream because the odds of actually achieving the desired goal were slim to none.

I didn't care then and I especially don't care now.

I don't think I'm wrong for daring to be in a relationship with a woman who challenges me to move beyond what I've been. If anything, it doesn't make me stale or complacent and provides me an opportunity to continue to evolve. I'd also like to think that it could give her a chance to be with someone who is not willing to rest on whatever laurels I have and willing to be respectful of where they're coming from, while also bringing whatever attributes living in my strata gave me.

We all aim higher for things we want but might not otherwise have if we didn't dare try to reach for in the first place.

Besides, I may be out of their league, but that doesn't mean their out of mine.

Arms and Armor

I was getting ready to head out somewhere the other day and as is my custom, I went to the coat rack by my bedroom door and took one of my many longcoats down and slipped it on. Then, I grabbed my backpack from its usual spot by my dining room table and headed out into the typical Northwest fall weather of wind and rain.

And I was about halfway down the stairs when an odd realization popped into my head. I've been wearing coats like this and slinging around a backpack everywhere I go since I was a sophomore in high school...

...and I found that realization more than a little weird.

Now granted, I'm more than a bit of an odd duck. Growing up I never had all that keen an interest in any sort of fashion sense because 1.) I never had the money to blow on clothes that were way overpriced to begin with and 2.) I'm just fine being a T-shirt and jeans kind of guy. If you have to make me choose between looking sharp and looking comfortable, I'll take comfortable any day of the week.

Doesn't mean I don't like to dress up. I just never thought I had to all the time.

It was at this same time that I procured my first trenchcoat and considering the statute of limitations has long passed and I outgrew it a long time ago...I stole it out of the costume racks up in the side stage of the Sunset High School theatre. Like I said, I didn't have the money, but as soon as I put it on, I knew it belonged more with me than collecting dust on a rack until it was finally needed for a show.

Over the years, I've heard every crack you can utter about me and my coats.

• I'm a flasher
• I'm a terrorist
• I'm a mass-murderer
• I'm a mass-murdering terrorist with a tendency for lewd acts of public display

Why do I like long coats so much? Because I've lived in a part of the world where it rains for up to 250 days a year and they keep me both dry and warm and also because I can both hide and feel safe in them. As soon as I put one on, it's like I'm wearing armor, because it's big and has weight to it. And the best part was once I started wearing them, the people who gave no end of grief about everything suddenly started leaving me alone.

If clothes really do make the man, then that suddenly made me, usually the smallest guy in the room, intimidating. Not a bad feeling to have, to be honest.

My backpack is another story altogether. When the show Animaniacs was still on TV, some of my friends started calling me "Wakko", not because I wasn't walking around without pants and sporting a big red baseball cap, but because in my ability to mimic voices, I could pull his Liverpudlian lilt off pretty well. That and Wakko was known for carrying his "bag of tricks" around with him everywhere he went, and I guess by necessity alone, I always carried around mine. 

Now I'd love to say I had really cool stuff in my bag wherever I went with it, but in truth, I usually just had my essentials. A book to read, notebook to write in, pencils and pens, and if I was lucky, the occasional snack. That was it. No trampoline. No giant mallet. No portable hole. I guess I just got so used to carrying it around because a pack is so utilitarian. I've taken one through every city I've traveled to and it stores everything I need. 

Then we come to the thing in the middle. Yes. That is a real sword. Yes. It's mine. And yes. I do know how to use it and the other five I own. My fascination with them came by no surprise at all, really. I was five years-old, saw Star Wars for the first time and it was fixed firmly in my mind. 

I want a lightsaber. 

Being so young and not understanding that such things sadly didn't exist, it didn't stop me from taking more than one old broom handle or Wiffle Bat and making that into a perfectly sensible substitute. As I got older and began studying ancient and medieval culture, I discovered that every great civilization had their own distinct version of what a sword looked like, and they were all beautiful pieces of both art and weaponry. 

So I started collecting them and then started learning how to use them. Now are they practical? In this day and age? Not even close, but I don't care. I appreciate them both for what they are and what they can do. They're history and I am a sucker for history. 

So why do I mention all this? I guess because I've never understood why it mattered so much why I like the things I like or what kind of clothes I wear. By comparison, what other people like or wear doesn't matter to me at all. If that's what you go for? Okay, to each their own. 

Life is too short to quip over such trivialities, really. 

Errors of the Father

This...is my son.

His name is Daniel Erik. He'll be three years-old in March, and I barely know him.

I don't know his favorite color or his favorite toy. I don't even know what his bedroom looks like or if anyone reads to him at night before he goes to sleep.

And he is not sure whether to call me Devin, or "Daddy".

Had you told me that this is what our lives would be like when I got the news that my wife was pregnant, I would've said no way. Not a chance.

That was the relationship I had with my father. It's not what's going to happen with me. I won't let it. I'm better than that.

Turns out I was wrong, because I lost my chance to be that type of dad the day after Daniel was born. It's an unpleasant fact, but it's a fact nonetheless.

I grew up without a father figure. My dad walked out of my life when I was just a few years older than my son is now and his first replacement couldn't have been any worse if he'd tried. As a kid, I remember telling myself that when I got to be their age and I had a child of my own, I'd do everything in my power to make sure that they didn't have to deal with any of what I went through. That I would be there all the time, be supportive, encouraging, disciplined and give them the things they needed from me.

I thought that would be enough. I really did. I figured if I tried hard enough to not repeat the same mistakes my dad made, that I'd get it right. It's a big reason why I've never smoked or taken any drugs and it's the major reason why I am as careful as I am when it comes to alcohol. My father and stepfather both had their own issues when it came to drinking and it just became a simple matter of common sense for me to realize that addictive behavior carries over from parents to kids.

What nobody may have realized, myself included, was the amount of pressure I put on myself to outdo my own parents and show them I could get it right where they didn't. My mother gave up and shipped me off to my dad when I was 12, at a time when I was an absolute mess. My dad and I were more roommates than a father/son dynamic and when I graduated high school at 18, he was gone again.

"You're a man now," he said. "Time to take care of yourself."

Some people can rise to that challenge. I ended up falling more than a bit short. At least, for a good while.

When we were going through all the parenting classes and the great circus that planning for a child is these days, I came to a rather frightening realization.

Everything about the process is designed to reinforce the mother and her relationship with the baby, while the assumption is that the fathers just instinctively know what to do.

Now, I get why that is. I really do. My wife was carrying Daniel. She was dealing with the physical and emotional stress which comes with it, and as a man, I have no possible way of understanding how hard that process can be. I. Get. It.

BUT, that doesn't mean expecting fathers know everything out the gate either. Just because I knew what I didn't want to be as a dad to my son meant I knew the best way to handle everything or that my fears would just dissipate when we got the lil' tyke home and started a family.

I was terrified. I was so sure that if I didn't get everything EXACTLY right, according my need to be an absolute perfectionist, that I would be a complete and utter failure as a parent. That all the years I told myself that I had to surpass my mother and father had been a waste of time. But nobody knew that, because at the time, nobody asked me how I was doing. Not my wife, her family, our doctors, counselors, no one. There seemed to be this unspoken understanding that I'd just be able to handle it all because there was no possible way I would mess up like that.

...Then I did. Badly. After helping deliver Daniel at the hospital and they put him in my hand, the breakdown process started. The next night, it exploded out of me for four hours, and it kept going even after I came home and found my apartment half-empty and the divorce papers arrived.

I broke. The pressure became too much and I let it get to me. It is disingenuous for me to say otherwise and not take responsibility for that.

Even admitting it makes me so angry because in the back of my mind I continue to try and justify why this shouldn't have happened in the first place. There were so many things I should've done differently. I should've been strong enough to handle it. I shouldn't have cracked like I did because my son needed me then and whether his mother and her family want to acknowledge it or not, he's always going to.

Since then, a lot of my friends have gone on to have their own children and as happy as I am for them, I only impart one piece of advice.

"The next few months are going to be all about you, and rightly so. You're doing the heavy lifting and everyone is going to do what they can to help make it as easy as possible. What you need to do is take at least five good minutes of every day and ask your significant other how he is doing, and listen to what he tells you. Really listen to it, because he might be having more trouble than you think."

I have no idea, at this point, if Daniel and I will ever have the sort of relationship I'd always wanted us to have. Since my only time I can see him is at his grandparents' house under their watch, I'm extremely limited in what we can do together to begin with.

All I wanted to be was a good parent. I wanted to get it right. I truly had no idea I could get it so wrong, and I hope someday, when he's old enough to understand, my son can forgive me for that.

My Doctor

One of my favorite shows of all time reaches a very impressive milestone this week.

Doctor Who is fifty. 5-0.

I was six years-old when I discovered this odd little kid's show on WGBH in Boston back in 1983. I stumbled onto it the way many of us do with TV now, by flipping channels.

*Editorial Note: Except in 1983, I actually was flipping channels on an old 14" black-and-white TV with rotary dials. That's where the term came from, kids. That's how we rolled back in the 20th Century.

I caught the last two minutes of the third episode of a story called The Sunmakers, which saw The Doctor's companion, Leela, facing execution via being cooked in a massive oven.

In all honesty, writing that sentence makes me laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. But to a small, impressionable and emotionally sensitive kid, I am not joking in that it both scared the heck out of me and also guaranteed I'd be back at 7:30 the next night to see if she got out.

Such is the magic of this saga about a Time Lord and his beloved blue Police Box.

Ask any Doctor Who fan and they will be able to tell you which of the eleven (soon to be twelve) incarnations of The Doctor they feel they relate to the most. For myself, I think I was too young to have that connection with the past versions of him when the series ran from 1963-1989. So when they brought it back in 2005, I was kind of surprised to become so attached to this one.

The Tenth Doctor.

I admit now it's an odd thing to say because at first I didn't like him all that much. Given how much I really liked Christopher Eccelston's Ninth Doctor, seeing this new guy David Tennant just come in after a year and be a whole new version was off-putting for me. He seemed too geeky, too hipster and I thought Well...was fun while it lasted.

But what I quickly discovered was that both Tennant and the writers had made this Doctor very layered. Whereas his predecessor was still incredibly shell-shocked by the events leading back into the new series, this one was a little more detached from them. He was also better at hiding the turmoil and anger he felt underneath the smiling, laid-back exterior, but when he had to let it out, it could be quite chilling to witness.

This Doctor had a rule. No second chances. I loved that about him because I could relate so much to it, given where I was in my own views of things at the time. That doesn't mean he didn't care, though. In many ways, he cared too much, especially when it came to the companions who traveled with him. At first, the Tenth Doctor loved having someone along with him for the ride, but as time went on and he saw the impact of what his life had on other people, he became more withdrawn, putting everyone at arm's length because he honestly felt he had to.

The writers deserve a lot of credit for shaping him into the Doctor who connects most with me and they gave him a great, and for me, emotionally stirring moment at the end of one story when he's asked why he feels so alone despite having had so many amazing people with him in his life.

"They leave," The Doctor says. "Because they should or they find someone better. And some...forget me. In the end, I suppose...they break my heart."

I watched that episode at a time where I felt so alone and trying to figure out why. I'm not the kind of person who gets all that choked up watching a movie or even a TV show, but in that moment, I was like FINALLY! Somebody gets it and they said it a hell of better than I ever probably could.

Which brings me to what is easily my favorite story I've ever seen in Doctor Who. The Waters of Mars.

I love this story so much for one simple reason. The Doctor finally casts aside his moral code and does what he wants because he is so tired of watching good people get hurt. He gets righteously angry and by doing so, thinks he's won far more than he actually has, because damn the rules. All they've ever gotten him is things he couldn't change and losing everyone he ever cared about. So he makes his own, and the consequences are far more disastrous than he could've ever imagined.

There have been so many times I've wanted to do the same damn thing, because you eventually realize that the world around you doesn't always play by the supposed "rules". That morality and ethics only go so far and that to really achieve what you want, they can be disregarded and you just take what you want by any means necessary. Except if you do, you run the risk of losing who you are. It's a hard lesson to learn and I think this story tells it better than any I could've written.

This is going to sound so incredibly silly, but it's true. The reason why this will always be my Doctor is because I understood him. I related to him. I saw the things he struggled with and instinctively and emotionally empathized with him on a level I never really have with any other fictional character because so much of what he went through mirrored my own struggles (albeit on a much more fantastical scale).

Having relationships with people you care so much about and then losing them, feeling isolated because of that, overcoming mistakes and trying so hard to right them, self-doubt, the values and perils of a moral code, and you keep going, clinging to life with a white-knuckled grip, hoping the world is left in a better place because you were in it.

All these things defined the Tenth Doctor. It's why he'll always be my favorite.

Theological Coffee Talk

Okay, so to be more than a little pedantic, this is more about a talk over two cups of chai tea and hot chocolate, but it was in an actual coffee shop, so the title is still appropriate.

There, ya happy? I am, so let's carry on.

I am not one who is now, or hopefully ever be, prone to having a Messiah Complex. Given as how I seem to have more complexes in my head than Nike does on their 40-something acres of world headquarters only a few miles away, having another seems an ill-advised idea.

Also, my relationship with any sort of "Almighty" has been well-documented as much more adversarial than affectionate, and like the oft-irrational and wounded child I am capable of being, I still contend "He" started it, and I suppose if I ever get an answer from the Great Beyond akin to "Nuh-uh!" then I'll know my views on the matter need some serious adjusting.

That said, I met a college friend I hadn't seen in a few years on Saturday and in the course of our two-hour conversation, which admittedly went all over the board and saw me as I always am saying way more things than I probably should, there was a moment where I was told something I don't think I've ever been less prepared to hear.

"I know you're an atheist, but I see so much of God in you," my friend said.

Now, a statement on its own means nothing without putting it in context. My friend and her husband are both of a Christian background and are still active in studying it. I grew up Roman Catholic and walked away from it a long time ago in favor of the Eastern philosophies and "religions" I currently am learning about. I don't believe in a "God". She does, and I'm perfectly fine with that. Like I've always said, everybody needs something, and I'm not one to judge your particular spiritual something if it works for you.

As my conversations are prone to these days, the observation was made after I explained to her what my life is now and where I started from, because she didn't know. When we were in school together, I actually knew her husband better than I knew her, because we shared some writing classes together. So this was the first chance we really had to sit down and have the "getting to know" chat we all have.

When I heard that, my mental recorder rewound the tape for a second then played it back to make sure I'd heard it right. Not because I was taken aback, but because I was kind of confused by how she could see that.

Bear in mind, I was all of 16 when someone with a profoundly opinionated religious background proclaimed me to actually be the physical embodiment of Satan himself to the rest of my high school, because I was playing Magic: The Gathering at the time. At 19, I was branded a villain of the worst order by someone who had no idea what my life to that point had been like, and also didn't care to know.

Living with the notion that I am more than somewhat of an evil character became very easy for me because I heard that pretty much everywhere I went, and over time, I believed it on some basic level just through the repetition. So to have someone who didn't know me all that well suddenly turn around and say that in her view it's actually the polar opposite?

To quote Marcellus in Hamlet (Act I, Scene IV), "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

Except what she went onto tell me is that the things I've been doing in the last few years is more in line with what the New Testament teaches and in the current climate we live in, it's a rarity. I understand that it won't help me or those I want to be in my life by being close-minded, judgmental, vindictive, bitter, sanctimonious or condescending. So why be that way when you can just be something better?

I don't know if I'll ever be okay with the comparison, to be honest, only because my view of what can be considered "Holy" (for lack of a better term) is beyond our reach as human beings. We look to religion and myth, both ancient and contemporary, because they give us perfect ideals to strive towards, even though we know we can't get there.

I am not a god, nor do I ever want to be because I know myself well enough to know I would be both lousy and very corruptible with the power it would bring. At the end of the day, I maybe have a better understanding of the nature of good and evil than the average bear, and I'm okay with that.

When we finally left and parted company, she said something else I hadn't heard in a while which warmed my heart a bit.

"You're amazing," she said.

The last time I was acknowledged like that, it was by someone I care about very much, and I wasn't expecting it then either. But I liked how it felt to be seen that way.

Amazing is a good word. I can do amazing...if I try hard enough.

My Biggest Fear

I do not fear death.

I know that sounds incredibly cliched and is considered the typical macho American male response on the subject...but it's true.

When I was a kid, my paternal grandfather Clarence, who was well into his 70's at that time, had the greatest answer to the inevitability of death that I've ever heard in my life.

"Well, I figure when I get that sign that I've got about two minutes left, I'll get on the phone and call the mortician and tell 'em, 'Hey Fletcher, I think it's about time for you to come pick me up,'" he said.

My grandfather has since passed on, along with other relatives and friends whom I miss every day, but I know why he wasn't afraid of it. He'd lived his life the way he'd wanted to, serving his country, seeing the world, having a home and raising a family. He'd been married for 40 years and though he never said so, I know that in his heart he knew my grandmother was waiting for him in the next life.

With all that to look back on, I'd like to believe that most people who'd have such a life wouldn't be afraid of it coming to an end either.

Unfortunately, I don't see things through the same prism for myself.

I'm not afraid to die and at times, I welcomed the possibility of it happening because I could justify it as the end of a life that I'm too tired of trying to salvage. With all the things I've gone through, I'd be lying if there wasn't at least one time that I went to sleep and hoped that I didn't wake up, or stepped off a curb to cross a street and saw an oncoming car and thought maybe this is when it will happen.

Death is easy. It's final. Life, by comparison, is an ongoing grind full of both hope and uncertainty. That is hard, and after all these years, that is absolutely terrifying to me.

It's terrifying because I don't know what is going to come at me next and my tendency is to expect it to be just another thing that is going to try to destroy me. In no way am I saying that's a healthy perspective, because I honestly have no idea what is going to come at me next. It could be something wonderful for all I know.

Rather, it's a product of conditioning developed over decades. According to the doctors I worked with over the last few years, it's a product of dealing with depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
You start looking at the world and wonder if not being part of it is a better choice than trying to find a way to exist and be accepted in it.

It's not that I don't want to experience life, either. There are so many things I want to do before my time is up, so many things I want to see. They all just feel so far beyond my reach that keeping myself motivated and wanting to continue reaching for them all the time feels so difficult.

Not being afraid of death isn't a terrible thing. I truly believe that because whether we like it or not, and no matter what we do, it will sadly get all of us eventually. Being afraid to live, though, is a terrible thing.

And I'm not entirely sure how to overcome that.

Exiting Purgatory

I apologize for this up front if this gets away with me a little bit, but I've been feeling very conflicted about this for a while and as this is my place to consider such things, it's better than not trying to figure it out at all.

I'm 36 years-old. I'm a divorced, absentee father, and that is not by my choice. My son is going to be three years-old soon and in that time I've seen him for all of seven weeks if you add up all my visitation time.

I've been homeless, friendless, incarcerated, vilified, condemned, abandoned and abused and I have made egregious mistakes which have impacted me both physically and emotionally for a long time. I've got the scars to prove it.

I don't want to deal with those things anymore, which is why I've been trying as hard as I have over the last few months to get past them and get out of this purgatory-esque bubble I feel like I've been stuck in for a long time.

Here is what is bothering me. It's hard enough convincing myself that I've earned the chance to get out of that bubble, given everything I've done in the last 25 years. I'd like to think I have, but I can't help but shake the feeling that to the rest of you, I haven't and so I should stay right here.

*Editorial Note - I acknowledge that what I just said is a blanket statement and not indicative or reflective of everyone I know. Any objections are duly noted.

In the last two years, I've been searching all over the country for something which can facilitate that new start, and even that is a daunting thing for me because the last time I did it, I was 12 years-old and getting on a plane to cross the country because that was my mother's decision, not mine. Doing it on my own feels so much more frightening for reasons I expect are not exclusive to me.

Namely, if I do this and it doesn't work out, then what the hell am I going to do?

Naturally, I try talking to my friends about it to get their input and some form of reassurances that if I decide to relocate, further my career, try for a new relationship, or even just try to do the things that can bring a measure of joy and peace into my life, which I need and could really use, that what I'm doing is okay.

Every time I hear that from someone, though, I can't help but feel an undercurrent of an unspoken, "But...," sitting there like a land mine just waiting for me to step on it.

Now I know the first thing someone would counter with is, "Why should it matter what these people think of what you need to do with your life it it means you can be happier?"

The simple answer: IT MATTERS TO ME.

It matters because valuing other people's opinions of me over my own was drilled into my head in Pavlovian fashion from the time was a boy. I get my validation that I am who I'm supposed to be through the reinforcement of those opinions from the the people who mean the most to me. I can't be the only one in the world who does that either and I'm not saying it's healthy, but it's what I feel.

So the question I guess I have is what would you have me do? Continue sitting here and beating myself up over all these things or try and get somewhere where I don't have to anymore and be happy for once?

I know going forward I'm going to have to make some pretty hard decisions that I'm going have to live with. But I have to make them if I want to get out of this damn bubble where I've sat in for way too long. Like it or not, criminals are let out of prison everyday because they've served their time and unless the punishment is warranted, they can't stay there forever. I am one of those people and I've done my time, both inside and outside.

When I tell people I want them to be happy and try to support them in that cause, I do so because I honestly care and hope they can find that happiness. I guess I'm hoping that when my time comes to do the same, those around me will understand why, and they'll wish me well on my way to getting there.

Monastic Life

Most days, I can handle being alone in my life. Today isn't one of them.

I was talking with my literary partner-in-crime on Sunday night about a scene she was struggling with in her book. It was the "morning after" and she wasn't sure how she should go about writing it. For about the next half-hour or so, we walked through it and I offered ideas which seemed to work really well for what she had in mind.

In order for me to get there, though, I had to do the writing equivalent of "method acting" and immerse myself in that scenario for a bit so I could get the full breadth of what she was trying to accomplish. I will admit, it can be fun to do that at times because being able to slip into the skin of a character and figure out what he or she would do in a particular point of a story is crucial to what we as writers are ultimately trying to do.

But coming back out of it, I also realized just how much I miss having someone to wake up next to.

As much as going to sleep has become much easier for me in the last few months, there is always a moment just before I finally black out where I find myself curled up in my sheets and wish it was an actual person I had my arm around and not my body pillow. And when I wake up in the morning, I have the same moment where as I'm coming to, I'd find that same person still sleeping quietly next to me.

I always loved that feeling because I don't know if there's a better sense of belonging than being with the person you care most about in what may seem like trivial moments, but they are actually rather intimate.

To be clear, this isn't about sex. I've been living like a monk for the last three years and I'm not in a hurry on that front. This is about the difference between being alone and loneliness, because being a monk is not all it's cracked up to be.

Because I had yesterday off, I decided to go back to the Portland Japanese Gardens for the first time in what had to be five years. Since they offered free admission, it was also a hard offer to turn down, but this being the era of social media, I of course posted my destination on Facebook. A few people chimed in on it and the one that stuck out was that it "sounded like a perfect day."

I'll admit, I enjoyed it because I got outside, got some fresh air and had fun with my camera. It was a good day and I'm truly glad I did it. But what would've made it a perfect day was if I'd had someone to spend it with.

As I said a while back, I truly believe we all have the right to find that someone who we can love and be loved by in return, and I'd like to think that there's even someone out there for me. It doesn't mean there actually is, though.

Even with everything I've done in the last few months, there still remains the fact that I have a lot of work to still do, and the last thing I want is to saddle someone else with all that. I made the mistake of doing that once already and having that fall apart was bad enough.

One of the worst traits of a perfectionist is that we keep telling ourselves that we're "not there yet" when it comes to where we ultimately want to be. We keep kicking the can down the road and figure that we'll eventually get there without realizing that we're actually still walking in place, because we don't want to take that first step out of our comfort zone.

Right now, it feels so much safer telling myself that it is okay to be alone. That after a failed marriage and an even more failed attempt at a new relationship that maybe it's better for me right now that I focus on just being comfortable in my own world and not complicating things by trying to find someone else who can handle everything that my life is. Because I know I'm asking a lot of that person, whoever they are, and not everyone can handle that.

Knowing what my routines and lifestyle are, I often ask the question of who in their right mind would want to step into this? Considering the toll it's taken on me, I can't imagine there are a whole lot of women out there willing to try when there are a whole lot more men who don't have that same baggage.

I get it, because there's some days where even I can't handle it and this is my life. I don't have the luxury of a day off from that.

It's those days where I find myself feeling very lonely. It's those days where carrying on alone is not as easy as it seems.

Shame

Let me get this out of the way up front.

Yes, this is real. Yes, I earned it. And No, it is not something you find at the bottom of a cereal box.

It's what you get when you are a criminal and the unpleasant truth of my life is that at one point, I was indeed a criminal.

It's a fact I am far from proud of. in all honesty, it is the great shame of my life that I have never come to terms with on any level.

When I was a kid, I developed a talent for thievery. Even in elementary school, I would steal candy from the local convenient store and over time, it escalated to toys that I couldn't get through normal means.

After high school,  when my father lost our apartment and said in no uncertain terms that I was on my own, my desperation to have the means to get by led me to begin stealing money. Turned out I wasn't as good at it as I thought, because I soon got caught at work.

The feelings that went through my mind when that happened are hard to describe outside of sheer terror. I don't think there's a single person who ever makes the conscious choice to do something illegal who believes they can or will be sloppy enough to get caught. Otherwise, why convince yourself to do it in the first place?

Sitting in the security room and having to talk with a policeman who had to decide whether to take me into custody or not, the ONLY thing that saved me was that I was honest. That not only did I own up to what I'd done but that I'd done so because I didn't have a permanent home and that was my motivation. I didn't waste the money on the proverbial hookers and beer.

For whatever reason, they decided it was enough to let me remain a free man, but I was charged anyway. I barely remember what the next few hours consisted of other than I took the bus back to the house I was staying at, and I had to explain to my brother Patrick and his family what I had done.

I do remember breaking down and crying, though. I cried for what felt like hours not because I'd been caught, but because I was so angry with myself for somehow justifying such a choice instead of manning up and just asking for help. I got it in my ten-cent head that it was a better decision to be dishonest than show weakness, which being all of 18 at the time was far from a surprise, to be honest.

Through whatever serendipity I managed to retain at that time, I never spent a day in jail and it never went on my record. The money I'd taken was repaid, thanks in no small part to the people who did help once I asked, and I made the promise to myself that I'd never do anything so undeniably stupid again.

Were that the end of the story, I think I could live with that. But it's not, because no sooner than I was able to start getting clear from that point in my life that an even older and much greater wrong came back to haunt me.

I wish I could say what it was, but the truth is I can't. There are a few people close to me who know and that is only because I trust them not to betray my confidence. The bottom line, however, is this. When I was 13, I did something which has never gone away and I regret in ways that no one can possibly begin to understand.

In just over five months, I went from still being a regular 19-year-old kid who was trying to get his life back on track, to losing my humanity altogether. Instead of having just a name, I had a number as well.

I became 11580049. Most people grow up having to remember just a phone and/or Social Security number. I remember that number because for over a year, I had to say it every time I needed to identify myself to get around the three prisons I was housed in.

When I was finally able to go home, I had a very simple and direct focus. I would start running away from those moments and those terrible mistakes and never look back. The distance I would put between that span of time and the person I was would keep getting wider and wider and maybe, at the end of my life, I'd be able to make some semblance of peace with the terrible things I've done.

Over the years, I've had people say that they empathize or sympathize on some level, but the truth is unless you've gone through the same thing, there is no way for anyone to come close to understanding what it's truly like to have that level of pure, unabashed shame for who you were and what you were capable of when you made the wrong decisions.

Had those things never happened, had I been smarter or better and not done them, I would be an entirely different person. Like my brother Matthew said to me today, my life's difficulty gauge went from "Normal" to "Hard" as a result of that, making it much more difficult for me to feel safe in bringing people into it and getting involved in their lives. To me, I have to be as careful as possible to not let that difficulty bleed into those other lives.

Make no mistake, I've never blamed anyone but myself for what I've done, and I have also done my best to accept and live with the consequences of those actions. All the things I've tried to do since then have happened in the hope that I can convince the world that I am capable of so many more things and that I can't be defined as a "criminal". But I also have never stopped struggling with it, either, living every day with the stern conviction that a single mistake in any form sets me back to square one.

I keep this card to remind me of where I started running from. What I once was and what I never, ever want to be again. I never set out in my life with the intention to hurt anyone or do anything like steal money, but I did and I will feel the shame of that until I die. It's a heavy enough weight I carry for one lifetime.

Identity Check

I made it to 50...posts that is.

When I started out on this mass reclamation/restoration/revitalization project it was with a singular focus. To finally figure out what was wrong with me in totality and take the steps necessary to eliminate entirely or correct the things I kept doing wrong.

I wanted to change and committed myself to the reality that if I put the work in and allowed myself to see things from differing perspectives and attitudes, that it was indeed possible.

I'd like to think I've been making progress, but such things aren't entirely up to me to decide. That said there's still things I need to work out, especially when it comes to my ever-increasing lack of social interaction and extreme reluctance to pursue anything resembling a romantic relationship. But one of the things I've also had to accept is that not everything I'm worried about is a character flaw or sign of emotional instability.

It can be very easy to break down everything that constitutes a person into "right" and "wrong" and in the process of sorting them out, one or two things mistakenly go in the wrong bin. Things like empathy, loyalty, devotion, drive, tolerance, acceptance...depending on your own point of view, those things can be considered a much of a curse as a blessing. It all comes down to what context you put them into.

Do I still have work to do? Yes, absolutely I do. I knew going into this that there is no such thing as a short-term solution so what has been a very long-term set of issues. But going forward, I think it's time for me to narrow the focus from the overall sum of me and to start being more specific about things which still concern me.

It's been two months and the work has been worth it, and even though there's been times where I've taken more than a step back a time or two, I'm still in a better spot now than I was when I started.

We'll see how things look when I get to 100.

Pursuit of Musical Zen

I realized at an early age that I have a tremendous amount of sympathy towards the deaf insofar as I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to not be able to hear what music sounds like.

I love music in many forms, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Symphonic, hell...I've even started getting into Techno a bit, which is a frightening concept at times. I had my first guitar when I was about six years-old. It was this old hollow-bodied acoustic that I discovered in my grandparents attic. I couldn't tell you who made it, but it had a sunburst paint scheme to it, was terribly out of tune, and when I sat down to try and play for the first time, it was akin to me putting a cello across my knee now.

While I had no clue what I was doing, it didn't stop me from trying to make something which resembled a tune, and bless my Nana because she let me make what had to be a rather annoying din in the attempt to figure it out.

The annoying thing is I never really learned how to play it. I lost the guitar when I was about 10 when my second stepdad (who was a music teacher by profession) tried teaching me, but the poor thing was so out of whack that one day I went looking for it, and it was nowhere to be found.

*Editorial Note - I don't hold my stepdad responsible for this, btw. At the time we had talked about eventually getting me a newer guitar I could actually learn to play and own. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my days at home were already numbered, so it simply didn't happen.

By the time I was a teenager, I still wanted to learn how to play, because let's not kid ourselves, EVERY kid wants to play one. But once again, I didn't only because I changed to something else. I became a drummer instead. Since I still couldn't afford a guitar, having a pair of sticks to practice with was nice, but I also couldn't afford a drum kit either.

Didn't stop me from becoming the best "Air Drummer" in the lower 48, though.

Don't get me wrong. I love being able to play drums and even though my chops are still rudimentary at best, it's not the same as picking up the proverbial "axe," cranking the amp to 11, and trying to blow the roof off both your's and the neighbor's house.

You can't play Kind of Blue on a glockenspiel and you can't really rock out without a guitar.

Over the years, as my fascination with music both grew and evolved, I still looked for time and the means to properly learn an instrument. Which brings me to this guitar, because it's mine. I bought it about 18 months ago for dirt cheap off a local guy on Craigslist because I knew in order to learn how to play, I needed functional much more than I did fancy.

When I got it home, I was psyched because now I could finally learn the proper way to play and start taking these notes and melodies and tunes I've had in my head for decades and start actually shaping them into something.

Except there's one problem. In 18 months, I've barely played a lick because I got so frustrated that I put it back in the bag and have let it sit there ever since.

I'll take it out once in a while and try to duplicate what I'm listening to or relearn the two or three chords I picked up out the gate, but otherwise it's a case of my ambition exceeding my current capability.

Since I couldn't afford proper lessons, I decided I'd go to the next best thing. The internet. Unfortunately, the lessons I found jumped from beginner to expert with such speed that my being able to keep up simply added to my frustration. It's like the scene in Good Will Hunting where Will talks about his photographic memory and brings up playing the piano.

"I can't play a lick," he said. "I look at a piano and I see a bunch of keys, three pedals and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it made sense to them. They could just play."

I look at my guitar and I see and hear David Gilmour, Alex Lifeson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton, Page, Harrison, everyone who's ability to manipulate the instrument and bring things out of it are truly incredible. Only when I try, I sound like a baboon.

I want to be able to play and in some ways, I feel like I need to be able to play because there are things I can express about myself through playing. The trick will come in finding a means by which I can learn how so I won't be so frustrated to want to quit.

Maybe then, I can start making some real music.

Letting Go

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to come clean and admit that I was originally going to write this at least two weeks ago. I've tried to get it done several times during that span, in fact, only to get so frustrated and upset that I ultimately and repetitively scrapped it in favor of less emotional topics.

And that essentially sums up how difficult this concept is for me.

When it comes down to the things and people which I have the strongest emotional connections with, I can't bring myself to let go and move on in a new direction of my life.

Trust me, it's not for lack of trying, because I have. I've tried everything I can think of and when I think I'm at a place where it feels like I have started letting go, I grab on even tighter. And even though my friends keep trying to tell me that I'll be okay if I do it, that my world won't fly apart and it won't kill me, I just can't.

I can't for two reasons, the anger I feel in seeing others move on from me with such ease that it seems like they don't care at all, and because I'm afraid to think of what I will be without the emotions that tie me to those people.

I haven't said this to anyone, but for weeks now, my heart has felt like it's been in a complete knot because the rational, logical part of my brain understands that there is a certain set of emotions I have chained to someone, and I have to let them go. I simply don't have any choice anymore because they've moved on, whether I like it or not. Yet the emotional side of me, which feels things so intensely that I can barely stand it half the time, is yelling at me constantly that under no circumstances do I dare attempt it.

That if I do, they will never come back and the feelings I have will never come back to me in any other way, no matter how badly I want them to.

There is a rather pretentious verse I've often heard people tell me over the years, "If you love someone, set them free, and if they come back to you, they're yours. If they don't, then they never were."

I've always hated it because I was brought up with the understanding that if you loved someone...truly loved someone, then you fight with every ounce of your being to hang on to them because they could be gone in an instant. So you fight with absolute ferocity and show them how much they mean to you, how much you care and why they matter so much.

And what my life ultimately became reinforced that train of thought in me over and over again as I watched the people I loved most leave, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop them.

Some did of their own choosing and some I drove away, but each time made me so scared to let it happen again that now I honestly cannot imagine how much it's going to hurt this time as well.

But it doesn't change the fact that I have to.

I don't want to let go. I don't want to walk away. It is antithetical to everything I am as a person and what I've ever learned. And what has been keeping me up at night all week, putting nightmares back in my head and making me so upset has been a question I don't know how to answer.

Who am I now and am I really going to be okay?

Gratitude

I was thinking about this for a while and when I realized that the little counter tipped over the 1,000-mark, I figured then might be a good time to do it.

Since we've hit November, though, the timing just happened to work out and there's never really a bad time for what I'm about to say anyway, so here goes.

Thank you.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to stop and read this blog and the things I have to say on it. I know I don't always talk about the most light-hearted things in the world and I may come across as a slightly more self-aware Tasmanian Devil with how my thought process goes in every direction imaginable...but I appreciate that people read it nonetheless.

*Editorial Note - It's funny looking at the Stat page everyday and seeing blips coming up from Brazil, or Ukraine, or South Korea and more than once I can't help but think, "Who the hell could be possibly reading this thing in the Ukraine?!"

Despite that, there's a lot of people deserving of individual thanks as well, because if it weren't for them and the things they've done for me over the last three years, it's not hyperbolic to say that there would be nothing to read here...because I wouldn't be here.

Therefore, if you'll indulge me, I shall give credit where credit is due.

Patrick and Matthew - For 25 years, we've been the "Brothers from Other Mothers", but you've also been the best friends I could ever have. Seeing what you've both become, how you've grown into the men you are and having the honor of being able to call you "Brothers" is something I value very much. I never cease to learn from the examples you provide for me and I know if I need you guys at any time, for anything, you'll be there. I love you and your families more than you'll ever know.

Justin, Dani, Kandice and Ken - You've let me into your homes when I needed a place to stay, spent many an hour listening to the things I needed to get out and both never judged me and never patronized. I owe you guys a lot for what you've done for me and I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay it all, but I do so gladly because that is what friends do.

Jennifer - Oh, the lives we have had to live, my cousin. Why us? Hell if I know but the strength I've had to show to get through all this is nothing compared to yours. Raising three kids on your own, under the conditions you had to deal with, makes me so very proud of you. We've both had our days where we've wanted to quit because we don't think we can handle it anymore, but you help keep me going, and seeing where you are now makes me hopeful for my own future.

I love you much.

Amber - I figured you'd be one of those people who flashed through my childhood and we'd probably never see each other again. Yet, here we are. Like me, you have regrets you carry and dreams you want, and amid the uncertainty and fear that tries to drag us down with ever forward step we take, you keep going, churning out page after page and pouring everything you are into the stories you want to tell. I know you'll get there someday, and the fact that you see my own potential in me is both much needed and appreciated.

You see the light in me, and I see it in you, and that is why we work so well together as both partners in literary crime and as friends. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Alana and Kelsey - My eternal optimists. Nothing ever seems to slow you down or knock you off stride and I am both envious and amazed by that. You boldly march into areas where I dare not go and show a fearlessness which I wish I possessed but profoundly respect. You're both examples I look to for being willing and able to just throw caution to the wind, spread your wings and fly. Icarus has nothing on either of you.

Steve, Nicole, Rachel and Holly - I may have been late to the party, nor did I get to stay long, but I much appreciate being welcomed in all the same. It was nice being part of the group, and even though there were rough waters to navigate through in the last few years, I hope I can be again. You're all my kind of people. Smart, fun, geeky, undaunted and original. The world needs more people like you in it and I'm glad to know you all.

The "Paper Gang" - I walked into my job feeling like the odd-man out and very unsure if I'd be welcome at all. You squashed those feelings by being people I could talk to when I needed it, even if it had nothing to do with work at all. At a time when I needed a place to belong to, you let me do that and you haven't stopped since. I cannot thank you enough.

Katie - I saved this for last not because I thought it would provide dramatic effect, but because these words may be the hardest ones to write.

My whole life has been spent in pursuit of second chances which I was so sure I'd never get, no matter how hard I tried to earn them. But you have given me one, and I know that may not have been easy for you with everything that happened between us.

That is not lost on me, and I thank you so much for it.

I can't change the past, nor can I foresee the future. I know our friendship may never be what it was, but I've tried living both with and without you, and no matter what happens from here, I'll gladly take you in my life any day, because it hasn't been the same since the day we met in the Walter Hall basement so many years ago.

There are so many more people who have pitched in wherever and whenever they can along the way, and if I didn't mention you, please do not think I've forgotten. I couldn't have gotten here without your friendship, generosity, compassion, understanding, wisdom, tolerance or love.

I've never been one to spend Thanksgiving wondering what I might actually be thankful for, but I am so, SO thankful that you are all part of my circle of friends and loved ones.

Consider yourself hugged, for hugs are good things. I like hugs.

Reflections

It's the eternal question, I suppose...

When you stare into the mirror, what stares back at you?

It's the question I've dealt for a long time and when I look into mine every day, that is what comes back at me.

It's what I see all the time.

It's hard to look at myself and not see what sits right under the skin. The anger, fear and regret that I feel for so many things, but also the self-loathing that comes with it, along with the belief that no matter how many friends I have or who I might ever be able to get close to, I will spend the rest of my life alone not because I want to, but because I have to.

When that is what stares back from your reflection, it becomes very hard to see what positive things still exist inside yourself as well.

From the time I was 19 years-old until I was 23, I had to go through a process by which my entire life to that point was dissected. Every decision I'd ever made, every relationship I'd tried to build and everything that defined me was laid out on a doctor's table and analyzed, scrutinized and criticized for good and bad.

When the process was over, I was left with the conclusion that not every Wrong can be fixed with two or more Rights, and my focus going forward couldn't be on the better parts of me, but the worse ones. And they do exist. I know that and accepting that is neither a weakness or a concession.

But it also doesn't change the fact that there exists more good in me than all the evil which can be derided from all the mistakes I've ever made in my entire life.

I know this because people around me have seen it and they've reminded me that I can be that person more times than I can count, even when I neither wanted to listen to them or believe them.

They look and see me for who I am, as opposed to what I see. They see an intelligent, caring, empathetic, funny, respectful, honorable man who if asked, will do just about anything within reason for them. They see a lot more than that too, from what I can tell, but to go further seems egotistical from my perspective.

Make no mistake, I could've let myself become that distortion I see in the mirror everyday very easily, and it's something I still deal with all the time. I still get angry, upset, frustrated, and whether I like it or not, that side of me is always going to be there.

But that's just it. It's only one side of who I am, and a mirror only shows us one side of ourselves.

We're so much more than that, when we let ourselves see it.

Damn Good Day

I've had my mind locked on a lot of negative stuff lately, which I'm not exactly proud of, but it's also part of this whole deal, whether I like it or not.

The danger is finding myself slipping right back into the depths of the Yang rather than acknowledging what my Yin is offering me in terms of better thoughts, memories and emotions.

With that in mind, if you were to ask me to step back from all the crap I've dealt with in the last three years and define one of the best memories I have from that time, it's this photo.

Actually, it's a lot of the photos I took that September day in 2011, but I'm most comfortable showing off this one for reasons which are entirely my own.

I've been out to the Columbia River Gorge many times in my life and for good reason. In terms of pure natural beauty and splendor, you're hard pressed to find a better place in this part of the continent. If you ever come out to the Pacific Northwest, it's definitely a destination spot. Surprisingly, my friend Katie, who's been to pretty much every place outside the U.S. that I've ever wanted to go, had been my classmate at Pacific and the best friend I'd made there, somehow hadn't.

So I offered a proposition. Before she started her senior year, on the last decent weekend of weather we usually get up here before the rains come, I'd be her guide and take her on her first trip out there.

*Editorial Note: In the interest of full-disclosure, I will also cop to an act of bribery insofar that I promised at the end of the trip, we'd stop in Cascade Locks at a little drive-up shop called The Penguin, which is one of the few places I know of above the 45th Parallel to still sell soft-serve ice cream. I regret nothing.

Because I wanted to get an early start that day, and because at the time we lived about an hour away from each other, Katie and her four roommates agreed to let me camp out on their living room couch the night before. And I suppose it was out of a sense of thanks for allowing a guy to camp in the middle of a college apartment shared by five women (Get your head out of the gutter right now, please.) I made dinner for all of them that night.

I brought my wok, cooked up some homemade stir-fry which seemed to go over well despite my constant overthinking that I might have somehow screwed it up, and even did the dishes afterwards.

Now I suppose one could say I was doing this to curry favor and that's a fair observation to make. I also did it because I wanted to. One of the true passions I've discovered in myself during the last three years is I love to cook, and I love when I can share what I cook with friends. Since I hadn't tried it in a long time by that point, I figured why not give it a shot and see what happens.

I got three sincere compliments for it, so it was well worth the effort.

The next morning, Katie and I headed off to the Gorge, with a brief detour to my brother Matt's house for me to pick up some tech junk I needed since it was on the way. We spent the next six hours walking, hiking, photographing and exploring places even I hadn't gone to, along with mountains, waterfalls, ravines and landmarks. The weather, as the picture will illustrate, was gorgeous and I thank it for cooperating as it did.

And I kept my word and we did stop at The Penguin for ice cream. But as we placed our order and they rang it up, as I put my $20 on the counter, Katie slapped her card down next to it. The cashier, suddenly vexed by the situation, opted to take her card instead of my cash, which she found quite amusing.

I, however, did not and expressed my disdain in the matter befitting the best display of mock chivalry I know. It got me a raised skeptical eyebrow and a hard jab in the ribs for my complaining. I told her at the time it just meant I'd have to buy her ice cream at some other time. In actuality, I didn't care. The day was too perfect to spoil with such trivialities.

We sat on a nearby lawn, ate our rapidly melting cones and didn't say a whole lot, because there wasn't a whole lot to be said. I drove her back to the school soon after as the sun was starting to go down and that was the end of the day.

Why does that stick out to me so much? Because it was the first time since my life had imploded that I truly, genuinely felt like I was going to be okay. That I could still interact with people who could become friends and I could go do something special with someone I cared about and not think about having to consider if it was a "date" or anything like that. It was just something fun I got to do with one of my best friends because I wanted to and I dared to try.

Trust me, there are far worse ways to spend a gorgeous Saturday afternoon.

I wish we could've done more things like this, but it actually was one of the last things we did together. That is something I regret very much and I haven't been back to the Gorge since.

It doesn't change the fact that when I think of this day, though, it makes me smile and it makes me happy.

It was good day. A fucking amazing day. Nothing will ever change that.