Intruders

I recently found myself in a situation I hadn't been in for close to a year and a half, feeling the urge to maybe sit down and start working on any number of my open writing projects again.

Opening the last draft of the latest story I'd worked on, it was a bit sobering to realize I went all of last year not touching any of it, even though I was about halfway done with the story by the time I stopped in late 2017.

I'd like to say it was some grand stroke of inspiration and motivation that got me back in the saddle, but instead, I started getting the itch again after watching, then rewatching, the Netflix series, Altered Carbon, in the span of about two weeks.

Editorial Note: BTW...if you ever liked cyberpunk sci-fi and/or noir detective stories, I highly recommend you check that series out. It was like watching the best Shadowrun campaign I never got a chance to play in my RPG days.

But no sooner did I dip a mental toe back into that pond then the same things that drove me out of it in the first place started rearing their ugly heads, reminding me that not only had they not gone away, but they were just as entrenched, if not more so, than they'd ever been.

As bad as living with Depression is, by far the worst part is the very real existence of intrusive thoughts, and what they can do on even the most bearable of days.

It took about five minutes or so of staring at my keyboard, trying to figure out what to put down on digital paper when I began feeling all the same things that have historically made me walk away from my keyboard and try escaping into something, anything else that would get them to just shut the hell up again.

The message never changes because it's never had to. It's a never-ending, cacophonous din of every thing I've ever been told, either by someone else or by myself, because I can never seem to be satisfied with even the process of creating something, let alone the finished product:

"What are you doing?! You DO realize this is complete and utter crap, what you're doing, yes? NO?! How can you not see that?! Everyone else does! They've been telling you that your whole life! Why do you think no one cares about you anymore?! This is why! You keep trying to ignore it and telling me I'm wrong, but look at where you are and what you are! 

This didn't happen by accident, you know, and don't think for a second this isn't COMPLETELY your fault, either! You're the reason no one gives a damn about what you're trying to do here, so just do us all a favor and quit while you're ahead, so you can spare us all the embarrassment of having to be honest in telling you that both it and you are total and absolute failures beyond any and all conceivable measure."

I'd like to tell you this is a fairly recent development, but my brain's ability to know exactly which buttons to push in order to totally sap me of any energy that I could use for something physically or emotionally positive has been around for far longer than even I probably realized.

When I was younger, as bad as these mental intruders could be, I was lucky enough to have them balanced out by being around friends, family and loved ones who offered some degree of counterpoint. As I've gotten older and had to adapt a more socially isolated life though, that ratio has swung further and further away from what helped keep it in check, in favor of declaring open season whenever I can muster the energy needed to even start a project.

Editorial Note: I know this is going to rub some of you the wrong way, but I can't continue to ignore the pachyderm in the parlor, either. Having people over the years who offered to help me with some of my projects then turn around and not only back out, but do so without any explanation, acknowledgment or apology did not help in any way, shape or form.

And here's the kicker no one seems to quite get, no matter how many times I try to explain it to them:

The harder I try to shut my intrusive thoughts up and shut them out, the harder they push back until I inevitably cave in and get tired of fighting them.

Why? Because dealing with them all the time is nothing short of exhausting.

An article I read on the subject a while back summed up dealing with it thusly:

"Intrusive Thoughts are unwanted thoughts or images that you find distressing and/or disturbing. These unwanted thoughts are known as obsessions. Intrusive thoughts can also result in compulsions, which are the things you do to help you cope with the unwanted thoughts."

One of the things I've realized over the last few years is that my intrusive thoughts don't just apply to things I once found any emotional fulfillment in. They apply very much to people as well.

The most obvious example of this, of course, is the relationship I had (for lack of a better term) with Ghost.

When I say I'd love nothing more than to be able to forget all the things that connect us, I'm not paying it any small degree of lip service. There's one small problem, though.

It doesn't matter what I am doing or where I am at any time during the day. I could be doing something that in no way whatsoever has anything to do with her and out of nowhere, my brain will start carpet-bombing me with a million intrusive memories, images, thoughts, feelings, and every single way I wronged her, whether I meant to or not...and here's far and away the worst part that I've had to explain more times than I can count. 

I can't turn it off. Ever.

Now before you start trying to tell me how that's incorrect, here's the reason why you're wrong. Intrusive thoughts are subconscious constructs, therefore I have no way of controlling when or how they decide to manifest.

It's a big part of the reason why I've struggled so much with insomnia and sleep deprivation over the years. There's nights where I can be on the verge of passing out and then have to spend the next however many hours grappling with my subconscious, because rather than giving me things to dream about, I get a seemingly endless string of intrusive thoughts instead.

Even when I was on medication and working with a therapist, they were always there, and whether I like it or not, they're always going to be. Like psychological apex predators, they'll find some dark corner of my mind, waiting for a moment when my attention is focused elsewhere so they can strike.

And to complicate matters further, is the reality that my whole reason for writing in the first place, has always been to try making sense of this ever-present maelstrom that's been floating around in my head for as long as I can remember by channeling it into fictional constructs. That means, whether I like it or not, having to tap into both the thoughts and feelings I need to deal with and work through, and the same intrusive thoughts that are doing all they can to keep me from ever getting close to them.

But how can I hope to do that when my mind pulls out every sadistic stop it has to make sure that never happens...?

Is There a Narcissist in the House...?

I'm going to posit this right out the gate.

At a time where both the concept and practice of narcissism has become so prevalent in our daily existence, thanks in no small part to the advent of social media, I feel like we've reached the point as a culture where he have to be honest with ourselves about something.

To some degree, we've ALL become narcissists.

Now, before you load your volleys of outrage for return fire over that observation, I freely concede that there are several different metrics at play here for determining a toxic narcissist from someone who dabbles with it from time to time, while still retaining the qualities which make them more socially acceptable.

That said, don't kid yourself into thinking that there's a way to inoculate or immunize yourself from it, either.

For the better part of the last week, I've been going through the not-so-pleasant process of trying to figure out how close to the mark I could find myself at this point in time and being honest about it, the self-evaluation's been more than a little disconcerting.

Look, no one ever likes to think that they've turned into a narcissist. I certainly don't. Having dealt with my fair share of them over the years, as I'm sure you have as well, the last thing any of us want is to wake up one day and realize we've become the very thing we despise.

But in some ways, it's hard for me to look at narcissism in the same way I do obsessive-compulsive disorder. I believe that we all have certain things in our particular existences that we could be considered OCD about and that's not an entirely bad thing or glaring character flaw. Just because you have a compulsion to organize your sock drawer or alphabetize your bookshelves or DVD collection, doesn't mean you fit the clinical definition, nor does it make you an inherently damaged person either.

I've had a smartphone for the majority of this decade and one of the first things I did when I took my trusty iPhone out of the box was implement a No Selfie Rule, not because I think I'm somehow 'too good' for them or anything, but why in the name of common sense would anyone want to see an overweight, middle-aged white guy taking pictures of himself everywhere he goes?

Besides, I've been a photographer for more than 30 years. It's one of the few creative endeavors I can still feel passionate about because no one's come along and destroyed it yet like they did my passions for writing, drawing, music, filmmaking and acting. The thing about photography is the camera works better when you're the one looking through it at whatever it is you want to take a picture of, not when you're standing in the shot with one hand holding the camera in the hopes it captures you at most flattering angle possible.

To me, an obsession with your own physicality and attractiveness was always the primary red flag in spotting a narcissist, and nowadays, you don't have to go far to find those people. That's what Instagram is for.

Editorial Note: For the record, I too have an Instagram account, but in the 351 pictures I've posted to date, only three have my face in them. The rest are of far more interesting subjects, I promise you.

And yet, the possibility that my behavior has shifted in the direction of incorporating narcissism over the last however-many years, either consciously or subconsciously, is something that worries me.

A lot.

According to the Mayo Clinic: A person has to be consistently showing at least five of the following thirteen behavioral traits to be considered a textbook case for narcissism:

• Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration
• Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
• Exaggerate achievements and talents
• Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
• Believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people
• Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
• Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
• Take advantage of others to get what they want
• Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
• Be envious of others and believe others envy them
• Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
• Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office

It's a long list, to be sure, and here's what's alarming me about it.

At face value, I know I am guilty of exhibiting seven of them - Nos. 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Now, the Mayo Clinic says that said behaviors must be consistent to fit the criteria, and I can't say with any certainty how often those things manifest in me. What I do know, though, is seven out of thirteen is more than 50 percent of the list...

...and that is not acceptable, I don't care how infrequently I do them.

In my defense, I've had times where I caught myself doing any number of those seven behaviors in the moment. At which point, the non-narcissist parts of my brain step in, give me an emotional kick in the ass and remind me to knock it the hell off. Does that make those moments any less toxic because that mental check occasionally kicks in? Not necessarily.

To me, it should be a case where I shouldn't need that check because I shouldn't allow myself to behave that way in the first place. The very real problem, though, is what fuels narcissism isn't always logic, but emotion and those two things seldom, if ever, are capable of cohabitating peacefully in your head.

I freely admit that the source of the behaviors that could get me labelled as a narcissist are extremely negative emotions like anger, pride and ambition, but also the desire for love and acceptance. Those things, when intertwined can become a dangerous cocktail, especially when they're wrapped around a brittle core of poor self-esteem and self-worth.

More than once this week, I've found myself asking the question, "Am I a narcissist?" 

Having been independently tested twice for my diagnoses of Clinical Depression and PTSD, the doctors who performed them, and those I worked with afterwards, never brought up narcissism as one of my more pressing problems. But to be honest, I'm in a bit of a Catch-22 with the answer.

On the one hand, if I say I feel like I am, then I could be admitting only out of my afore-mentioned lack of self esteem and worth, which would naturally lean that way because, "Hell, I'm messed up eight ways to Sunday anyway, so let's just add the 'Big N' into the mix as a big cherry on top of the utterly hopeless loser that is you, Dev!"

So I can't necessarily concede that way, because I'm going entirely by my own biases that often act contrary to the actual evidence.

On the other, though, if I say I'm not and provide justification after justification for why I fell into those patterns of behavior, I can't help but conclude that's the exact sort of defense a narcissist in denial would make, because again...no one wants to be saddled with that term over their head.

I guess my takeaway from this is similar to when I came to realize how much of a role passive-aggressive behavior has played in my life, specifically in terms of how I built and tried to maintain key relationships that mattered to me. It took almost thirty years for me to finally understand how much it had worked its way into both my conscious and subconscious mind, and now that I do know, it makes me more self-aware of what to look for going forward.

Recognizing I am capable of displaying narcissistic behavior from time to time might not automatically mean I am a chronic narcissist. If anything...it means I just need to be better at checking it and not letting it come to either define or drive me as a person.

Love Loss

It's amazing how easy it can be to find yourself completely unaware that Valentine's Day has already arrived on the calendar.

In all fairness, I've long past the point in my life where it feels like celebrating romance, love and relationships is of any real relevance anymore anyway. That's a rather nihilistic observation, I know, but it's been close to a decade since I had any reason to even consider them as part of my existence going forward.

When I got divorced in 2011, my sister offered a piece of advice to me that in retrospect, I should've taken more seriously.

"That relationship lasted 16 years," she said. "You should take a month for every one of those years and let yourself heal before looking for another relationship."

It made sense then and it makes even more sense now. Unfortunately, though, I didn't follow through with it. Instead, like the stubborn, obstinate stick-in-the-mud that I am, I charged headlong into completely obliterating what I saw as probably my last chance for a new and potentially better relationship with someone else.

And why...?

Because I was so sure that what I felt at the time, all these wild, intense, confusing, amazing, horrifying emotions that erupted like cluster bombs in my head whenever I found myself around, away from, or even thinking about someone I'd grown to care very much about...was love.

In the eight years since, though, I've grown a lot more uncertain of that conclusion than I used to.

Having been this far removed from the people and events that put me into my retirement from relationships, I'd like to believe that I have as solid an understanding of those people and events and why they brought me to that decision as I ever had.

At that time in 2011, I was severely impaired both mentally and emotionally, by the massive escalation of both my Clinical Depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Add onto that the divorce, the loss of connection with my then-infant son, the domino effect of longstanding friendships and other platonic relationships imploding one after the other, and it stands to reason that not only me but anyone in that situation would be clutching at anything that gave even a perceived sense of stability, emotional connection or just flat out hope that things weren't going to get any worse.

For a long time, I was so sure in both my heart and mind that what I felt back then, the emotions I carried and the reason why they manifested was because I'd found someone who gave me honest, valid and good reasons to feel them.

Now...that assuredness isn't nearly as solid anymore.

Part of that is my own uncertainty about what I remember and how accurate it is. From a psychological perspective, it's a concept called Memory Error, where your mind constructs what you perceive to be happening in a different way than what's actually happening in real-time.

The other side of that, sadly, comes from a hefty dose of gaslighting over the last few years by people who cannot and will not see me as anything other than the villain in that particular series of events.

Considering how many times I've broken them down, sifted through the minutiae and tried to come to a balanced conclusion about what was my fault, what wasn't and why...going through it again won't mean a damn thing, I know.

If anything, the question is what am I supposed to do now?

The honest answer, which I know not a lot of people will want to hear...is nothing.

Having been single for this long now, I've had my share of days where the loneliness has been nothing short of brutal. Where I either wake up or go to sleep in an otherwise empty bed, had a home for just myself and possibly worst of all, absolutely no interest whatsoever in meeting, dating, or having any form of relationship with another woman again.

In boxing, there's an unspoken understanding that once the ability to fight has been literally beaten out of you, it's gone forever.

The older I get and the longer I spend alone, the more I'm coming around to the possibility that that applies to love as well, because I honestly haven't felt anything even close to it for almost a decade now.

And maybe that's a good thing? Maybe it's better for all parties involved if that part of me remains shut down going forward...? I don't know.

What I do know is that as it stands right now, I have too many other things to devote my time and energy to, like finding steady work and getting myself put back as right as I'm ever going to be.

In that respect, I don't have time for something like love anymore, which means it's going to be a very long time before I have any reason to worry about celebrating Valentine's Day again.

Permission to Speak Freely

I was at the gym this afternoon, draining myself dry of all the things I've been feeling over the last few days with the help of my gloves and a 120 lb. heavy bag, when a thought popped into my head that I haven't been able to shake for the rest of the night...

What if I was actually allowed to feel and express everything that I've spent all these years trying not to project, because I've been convinced by the people in my life that doing so is a far greater inconvenience?

What is truly the worst thing that could happen?

Is it that I might be too honest about things I'm supposed to keep lying about?
Is it because the idea of my finally taking the lid off and letting it all out is too uncomfortable a prospect?

Why does the concept of me finally getting this out of my system and able to feel anything else seem so terrible?

Far too many times, I've found myself apologizing to someone for letting even the slightest bit of what I spend all day, every day trying to keep confined to the most remote parts of my mind. I did it just yesterday, in fact, even though I'm not entirely sure why I feel like that's a requirement.

The same patronizing, sanctimonious question I seem to get asked over, and over, AND OVER again by people who never gave a damn about me and all I've been through just to still be alive at this point is...

"Don't you want to feel better...?"

The more pressing question I would posit is this...

Do YOU want me to feel better and if not, what is it about that possibility that scares you so much?!

I fully recognize that everything I'm feeling is coming from a well of pure anger and pain so deep that I genuinely don't know how far it goes now or if there's even a bottom to it.

When I was a kid, I learned how to tap into it as both a coping mechanism and a shield from every potential chance to feel anything else, because what came with it was the inability to trust anyone, regardless of how much I'd come to care about them.

The whole long, insane saga with Ghost hasn't helped me at all either, I know, nor does it make much logical sense from the outside, I'm sure.

If you're looking for me to offer an excuse, I don't have one. I did what I thought was right because she mattered to me and I had to try. Yes, I probably tried far more than she deserved or I had any right to, but luckily, you don't have to live with the failure of that.

I do, and considering I was up this late last night crying for the first time in I don't know how long, that process has already started whether I want it to or not.

But if there's one other thing I know, it's that I can't continue to exist this way. In younger days, the contents of that well weren't as toxic as they are now. Unfortunately, the only way I'm going to get rid of it all is to open the taps and actually let myself start feeling it.

And as unpleasant as that prospect might seem for you, I can unequivocally promise you this...

...It scares the absolute hell out of me, because I know it's going to hurt like nothing I've ever felt before.

With all I've been through...that's saying something.

Game Over

Well...that's it.

Almost ten years after meeting Ghost, becoming friends, then almost best friends, then I'm not entirely sure what, then watching the bridge between us burn down and then trying with everything I could to rebuild it, it's undeniably and indecisively over.

The end came as it always had before. Through cold silence and the slamming of yet another door of possible communication.

I've spent the last few hours trying to lock in on how I feel about it and I honestly can't decide.

Part of me wants to curl up in the bed I'm sitting on right now and finally just let myself bawl my eyes out. The other part wishes it were earlier in the day, because then I could get out of here for a while, go some place quiet and remote and let out all the rage and pain I haven't allowed myself to feel since this all started in 2011.

Like I told my baby sister a little while ago, I could punch a hole through a mountain right about now.

I know there are reasons why this is happening. I may be crazy, but I was never an idiot.

When you meet someone and find yourself developing feelings for them, it's scary even under normal circumstances. In this case, it was terrifying, because here was an opportunity after all the years I spent in a toxic relationship with someone who considered me more property than a person, that maybe...just maybe...this time it could be different.

But then, I was reminded of the most obvious and unavoidable reason why it wasn't then and was never going to happen.

Because I'm me.

You see, I'm the one that always gets told that for all my supposedly good qualities (whatever the fuck those are...) they don't really mean anything and more importantly, they're outweighed by all the things that make me both terrible and not even worth consideration of being called a human being.

There all the things that remind me all day, every day, that love and acceptance and trust are not now and never were an option with anyone. That was the worst mistake of many I made in this whole chaotic mess, which is saying something, I promise you...

I broke my own Cardinal rule: Protect yourself at all times, and I paid for it with getting my heart totally and ruthlessly destroyed by the last person I will ever give that sort of chance to again.

And lest you think I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself or somehow trying to convince you I'm the victim in all this, let me kibosh that here and now.

I am not the victim. I'm the reason.

If there is a singular, unavoidable truth I've had to accept in the course of my life, it's this:

It does not matter what I do, how hard I try or how much I or anyone else may want it for me...No one is ever going to love me.

I will always be that 'disposable friend' someone knows for a few years, then moves on from without a second thought. My heart, my feelings, my capability to be something greater...? That doesn't matter.

They never mattered. Not to Ghost and not to anyone else I ever cared about.

After all the time and energy I spent trying to keep first a friendship and then a potential relationship I wanted so badly from totally disintegrating into one side hating the other, I'm once again reminded why I got out of the game in the first place eight years ago.

I get to spend the rest of my life trying to forget someone who I can't forget, because her existence is inexorably welded into my brain, whether I want it there or not.

And I get to live with the fact that a long time ago, for about a millisecond, I got to feel genuine happiness, hope and love again before I fucked it all up and caused the last woman I will ever care about to hate me so much that she's happier being a Ghost.

To quote the philosopher Hudson, "That's it, man. Game over, man! GAME OVER!"

Ghost

Let me get this out of the way up front.

I dearly wish I could just skip today.

Not because it happens to be a Thursday or because the weather's not particularly wintery in this part of the world, even though climate change is still just a myth or political propaganda, apparently...

No. I dread the coming of December the 27th, because emotionally, it's by far the hardest and most painful day of the year for me on the Gregorian calendar.

Editorial Note: And by comparison to some of the other 364 days I'd like to skip over...that says a lot.

If my disdain for today was for a singular reason, I suppose that would be one thing and for the majority of my life, it was. On this day, twenty-nine years ago, I got on a plane and left my home in New England for the West Coast.

It took until 2016 for me to finally get back home for what I'd hoped would be for good, and during that whole 3,006 mile journey across the continent, I'd allowed myself to finally start the process of letting that go.

It wasn't easy, I can tell you that right now. For most of that week and even after I'd finally stopped moving, I argued with myself about whether I really could or not. But after all I'd gone through in those intervening years, I figured having made it back on my own terms and with the intention of starting over, then it was necessary.

I wish that I could leave it at that...but I can't. As I said, there's more than one reason why this day has become so hard for me to get through every year.

That other is that it's the birthday of the woman pictured above.

Who is she? A long time ago, she was one of my best friends. Now...for lack of a better term, she's a Ghost. One of many I have to live with, whether I want to or not.

The last time we saw each other was over a year ago, when we were both living in Boston. It was the first time we'd been in the same space together since about 2011 and to say it was an awkward meeting is a gross understatement.

Why had it taken so long? The simplest, non-bullshit explanation is that I fucked up. Badly. I broke my own cardinal rule and let myself get too emotionally attached by falling for her at a time when I'd just closed the book on a long and what I realize now was an incredibly toxic marriage a few months earlier.

Add on to that the psychological fallout that a person is left with when their life completely implodes around them, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that that someone is not, and most likely will never be, worthy of another chance at a relationship.

Ghost made it quite clear to me that as much as I hoped she might feel the same way, that simply wasn't going to happen, and then she moved on without any further explanation as to why she'd let me even think that it might have been possible.

Now I know what you're thinking.

Question #1: If that's the case then why, in the name of common sense, did I not just accept it and do the same?
I did accept it. The process of doing so took much of the next three years, involved me totally isolating myself in the geographic middle of nowhere, and it hurt like an absolute motherfucker...but I finally accepted it.

Question #2: Then why go back and try to reestablish contact?
Crazy as this may sound, and trust me, if there's one thing I know...it's crazy...I did it because part of me wanted to see if it was humanly possible for two people who'd emotionally hurt one another for starkly different reasons to come back to a point of mutual equilibrium and coexist.

I walked away from that meeting cautiously optimistic, because Ghost had given me reason to be, because she thought it might be possible too. It wasn't going to happen right away, nor would it be an easy or painless process, but it was better than the alternative of remaining entrenched in the conflict that had split our relationship apart in the first place.

Unfortunately, the armistice fell apart not long after and she's been a Ghost ever since.

Editorial Note: For the record, I didn't choose that colloquialism for some petty, arbitrary, or passive-aggressive reason. I am no stranger when it comes to the very real practice of ghosting, and that's what happened here. She chose to become a Ghost instead of allowing the dialogue I'd asked for when we last met to continue and I'd be lying if I said that didn't hurt like a motherfucker too.

So where does that leave me regarding today and why it wrecks me so much? Well, let me posit you this:

Take one of the worst moments of your life and on the exact same day, cross it with the coming into the world of someone who's presence in your life would become first a revelation, then a nightmare.

Someone who challenged you to think outside of everything you thought you knew, to take risks again, and most importantly, to give you a reason to let your guard down and take your armor off, only for them to hit you in the one place you've tried the hardest to protect from getting hurt again...

How would you feel if you knew you had that to look forward to year after year, and no amount of distraction, letting go or moving on would let you forget it?

Honestly, the worst part is grappling with myself over which emotion I get to feel more of today - grief or rage.

The rage I can justify a million different ways because that's the lower hanging fruit, as anyone who had their heart broken will tell you. The grief, however, is a totally different animal.

It's not a grief born out of self-pity or seeing myself as a victim by any stretch. Like I said, I brought this on myself and I've got to live with that, just like I've got to live with the reality that if I wasn't me, if my life wasn't what it's been and it didn't affect me like it has, then there's a very real chance I would've never had to write this, because all this might not never have happened.

No...it's the grief that comes with all the amazing little episodes we shared together before all this happened. Those times when we could both be open, vulnerable, fragile and honest with each other without any pretenses, judgments or expectations of anything but that we were two people who could occupy the same space and share things we hid from the rest of the world.

Time doesn't erase them and no one can take them from me, no matter how many years go by. There was this tiny moment where that polarity felt so strong before a million other crazy, stupid things came in and tore it apart. And for all the bullshit about there being 'someone out there for everyone,' or 'there's seven billion other people in the world,' I know damn well that I am never going to recapture that with anyone else.

Not after going through all this.

Yes, relationships are messy and they are never guaranteed to anyone. Yes, when they fail, we have to pick ourselves back up and move on. I understood it then and I still do now, but that doesn't mean I can forget about her...because I can't.

Before she became a Ghost, she was both my friend and she was someone I loved very much. And when this day comes around, I try like hell to remember that feeling more than the void in my life I carry now that she's gone.

Happy Birthday, Katie. You are missed. You are loved. And wherever you are now, I hope you're safe and you are happy.

Grieving

I was sitting at my desk yesterday, as I am wont to do everyday, sifting through social media instead of being productive, as I am also more wont to do, when I came across a post from my foster brother commemorating the first anniversary of his father's passing and dealing with the grief that such an occasion quite justifiably brings...and it got me thinking about that word.


Grief
/ɡrēf/ noun - deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone's death.

It's one of those human conditions for which we are the most culturally hypocritical about. On the one hand, we almost universally acknowledge its existence and one of the primary processes integral in dealing with grief involves communicating what you're feeling to the people who supposedly care about you.

On the other hand, though, we also almost universally acknowledge that the absolute last thing we want to hear is someone trying to articulate said grief, regardless of its cause or effect, especially when it carries on for longer than we care to accept or understand.

There are certain points in our lives where we tend to be more willing to acknowledge that a sustained period of grief is coming and those points completely orbit around death, be it a parent, child, friend, lover, even a pet. We seem capable of recognizing the unpleasant reality that because those people (or animals) held such an important place in our lives, that loss is so profoundly impactful that there's no way we can ignore it when it inevitably happens.

But what about the people who aren't in that place of deep sorrow over the dead...but because of the living, instead?

That, oddly enough, is where I come in.

An old friend of mine passed away just before Thanksgiving. His name was Tim. I'd known him since I was a teenager, even though he was twenty years older, and he was one of the rare examples of an overall decent human being that I managed to come across in my life.

He'd been battling cancer for the better part of two years, and that fight unfortunately took its toll enough that he couldn't fight off the complications. When I got word that Tim had died, I did what I guess I was supposed to do. My heart sank. I had a good cry, and I lamented the sad fact that he's not in the world anymore.

...But I didn't grieve for him. At least, it didn't feel that way compared to the layer of emotional atmosphere I've been existing in for the majority of this decade.

If there's one thing I've learned about the way my particular strain of Chronic Depression works (and I say that because I also recognize that Depression and snowflakes share the similarity of no two are alike), it's that it sustains itself in my brain by feeding on four key emotional food groups:
Anger, Shame, Trauma...and Grief.

Yet, if the primary definition of that word can be reduced down to nothing more than deep sorrow, however, then it's impossible to ignore its everyday presence in my emotional life. And as strange as this is probably going to sound, only one of those cords tying me to that grief has anything to do with someone who's dead.

That someone is my brother Erik, who passed away almost 25 years ago. Aside from the fact that I miss him practically every day, the other aspect of my grief is connected to the shame I've carried since because it wasn't me who died instead of him, because of my intertwined shame over who I am and how I see myself because of the life I've lived.

See, for all his human flaws, failings and peccadilloes, Erik was a good person who was destined for great things. Whereas I...yeah...not so lucky. And try as I have to carry on and move forward and soldier on since he left, the two times each year when my grief for his absence returns always serve as a focal point for my brain to remind me that the world would no doubt be a better place if I wasn't in it.

The rest of my grief, though, is focused squarely on the living and breathing; people who mattered to me, who I cared about, who I loved deeply, passionately...and that didn't stop me from losing them.
Anyone who's ever gone through losing side of a divorce, especially one that involves children, will probably tell you (provided you're willing to listen) that it's one of the most brutal experiences you can have.

Growing up, I'd invested a lot of emotional capital in the idea that when I grew up and became a parent, I was going to do everything I knew how to be a better example to my children than mine were to me.

Editorial Note: It also took me the better part of forty years to come to the educated conclusion that while my parents aren't entirely terrible people in all aspects of their lives, the evidence is more than conclusive that they should've never started a family together. My being a byproduct of this ties more into my shame than grief...so I suppose that's a story for another day.

My son was born on March 9, 2011. The next day, my brain finally broke under the force of a catastrophic emotional breakdown. His mother and I finalized the divorce barely seven months later so she could go off and start her new life with the guy she'd already chosen as my replacement while she was still pregnant.

The sudden reality that what had been a sixteen-year relationship and a ten-year marriage was done and gone with three signatures on a stack of legal documents was one thing. Realizing that I'd also lost the ability to be an involved parent in my son's life was something else.

And even though I get to see and talk to him every week through Skype, there's a lot of other days during that same week where I find myself openly grieving the fact that I failed him as a father before he was even able to crawl, because I wasn't strong enough to keep holding off this chaotic maelstrom sitting inside my head.

Not long after the divorce, I also found myself in a position where I thought I had a chance to start a new relationship with my best friend from college. It's not like I planned it to happen, or wished for it, or even really wanted it. The feelings I found myself grappling with came as a result of being around each other for the better part of two years, about learning about each other, finding out what we had in common and where we differed, about very rare and very special times where we could both be open and vulnerable with each other without any pretense or expectation of romantic affection.

What I remember about that time was going home every night with the thought that I knew someone who was so different than what I'd experienced to that point and being equal parts intellectually enthralled, emotionally intoxicated and utterly terrified.

Then...I fucked it all up...and she walked out of my life. Twice.

You don't need me to tell you that being rejected by someone you genuinely love hurts. Interspersed with all the puppy videos, socio-politicial conspiracy theories and porn, there's no shortage of people willing to tell you what they consider to be the right way to move on from it.

That's not to say I didn't move on from it, though I freely admit that my way of doing so will never gain any seal of social approval, either. I've been retired from new relationships of any and all sorts for the past seven years because I can't go through a week without finding myself thinking about her, or reliving one of the good or bad moments we had, or probably the worst bit of all, finding myself having open, audible conversations with her as if she was sitting right next to me, even though I know that as I write this, she's about 2,000 miles away in Southern California and I'll probably never see her again.

Now, before you lay into me about how unhealthy that is, how much I need to just let it go, let me stop you right there.

I know.

I knew when I was still feeling the immediate aftershocks and I know it even more so now all these years later.

But here's the kicker.

Whenever I try to (and believe me, I have tried), the stark reality is that the sheer amount of raw, unfiltered and white-hot grief that I feel completely and totally destroys me. Conversely, the grief I feel when I let myself skirt along the far edges of it with the help of the coping mechanisms I've developed makes getting through each day just a little easier.

If you're reading this, I don't expect you to understand. Hell, most of the time, even I don't fully understand, because like Depression, there is no standard format for how grief works.

Grief is also a clandestine operator, always sitting in the closed off recesses of your mind waiting for that perfectly opportune moment when the right stimulus comes along to snipe you right through the heart with the emotional impact of a 50-cal. shell.

I can be going through a boring, mundane, utterly predictable day and all it takes is an audio or visual cue, a smell, a word, or even half-a-thought about my son or Katie...and the floodgates just open.
There have been times where I lied in bed at night, trying desperately to get to sleep, wondering if it would be easier for me if they ceased to exist. If, when I woke up the following morning and my brain was still booting up, I came to the realization that they were just suddenly gone.
Not dead, but just...gone!

Part of me would like to think that would be better because if they didn't exist then I wouldn't find myself thinking about them, because I wouldn't have any reason to. There would be no point in my caring about them as much as I do, even after all that's happened.

But that, of course, is not an option. They exist, here and now, and their existence weighs on my heart whether they like it or not, whether they or me wants that existence to or not...because they mattered to me. In vastly different ways, sure, but dammit, they mattered to me.

They mattered for the simple reason that I love them, and being unable to show them, or communicate that to them, or do what I can to make myself worth being someone to love back...?
That's left me with this hole right in the center of my being that every so often gets filled with the deepest sorrow I know of.


It fills with grief...and I honestly don't know if that is ever truly going to go away.