i'm not as brave as i'm letting on to be

...no one told you it wouldn't be enough

.

we were the monsters and fire-breathers

we were the quiet sunrise-leavers

you were a good girl, what could I do?

I was a lost boy when I met you

hold me 'til I'm not lonely anymore

it's only the crashin' of the ocean to the shore

'cause in the dark there are no strangers

there are no strangers at all

'cause in the dark there are no strangers

there are no strangers at all

I was a lost boy when I met you

 I last wrote a word in this blog over 10 years ago. I frequently forget it exists, but then I hear a song or think of a thought that triggers the memory and I google it. Damn... I was good. (I am good?) Reading my own work has always been calming for me, mostly because once it's on paper it isn't me anymore, it's the character on the page. When I go back and read things I often find myself wondering who it was that wrote it. What version of me, what inner personality. I've read that some people have internal systems and alters that they swap in and out on purpose to cope with situations. (Note: I spent all of 12.5 minutes reading on this, take the information with a grain of salt) From what I understand it's like multiple personality disorder, or whatever it's called now, I last consulted my DSM-VI(?) a while ago. Anywho, it's like that but on purpose. The participant is more away, maybe like lucid dreaming? I don't know, must read more. I like the concept though. We discussed something similar during therapy going to therapy is cool. For instance, when going someplace or doing something that makes me anxious "put on another hat" and play pretend like someone else. This thought entices me and it may be something I try in the future. Lately, I've been categorizing things in my brain for different parts of me to handle, and I've built my mind palace into some place I like to visit. I imagine it is similar to a video game like Animal Crossing or Star Dew Valley. It's my peaceful cottage in the woods, next to a river. I grow things and make medicine and music and whisky and I'm barefoot in the sun and I can do all the things I wish I had the knowledge, strength, or courage to do in the real world. Is this healthy? I'm not sure. There's a fine line between avoidance and escape and compartmentalizing in a way where coping is possible. I almost said easy, but coping is never easy. Less painful or difficult, sure. Easy? Nah. 

I'm not sure what I'm trying to accomplish by brushing the dust off this bad boy and putting myself out there again. This blog was a record of my self-discovery at the end of my 20s and was where I kept a record of an important chapter in my life. Then... Life happened and I stopped writing. I fought a whole new pack of battles without my best armor; my pen. Or keyboard. (Wow how nerdy do I sound?) But for serious. Writing was always my escape and how I got all those big feelings out that I didn't know what else to do with. I think know that I was ashamed. Am ashamed. I went out of the frying pan into the fire with that whole deal. Or I could frame it as I had more battles to fight and lessons to learn before I could move on to the next chapter in my life. I don't know how it keeps happening, but I keep surviving all this fucked up shit and I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea why. Or how. Thinking about it sends me into an existential crisis when I think about the nature of reality and how this intertwines with spirituality and that there is undeniably a force out there beyond ourselves and I don't know how to explain it other than I know. I just know. I can feel it inside my bones. Carl Sagan said, 

the cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. 
We are a way for the universe to know itself.

and that star stuff, that universe component is the magic. The ghost in the machine. The love. The energy. The...essence...of life...? That one sounds cheesy. It's a conglomeration of all those things and more. Because within that essence of life, there must be a balancing force of darkness and anger and frustration and confusion. Otherwise, we can't appreciate the positive. Without negative there can't be a positive. Without dark there can be no light. Without love there can be no hate. Without sweet, there can be no sour. (Or wait, can there? That one isn't as dichotic there are other flavor options. Okay, scratch that one.) This is why change is inevitable and necessary; if everything stayed the same we'd never learn or really live. (Note: Read The Giver).  

As someone who has been through two verifiable, several probable, and a few maybe near-death experiences in addition to a lifetime of questionable choices has led me to carry a hefty satchel of emotional damage and overall wackiness. Recently I've started having visceral flashbacks of my car wreck and the first few nights in the hospital. It has been suggested to me that when these sorts of thoughts pop up I should imagine writing them on a slip of paper and putting them into a jar to be dealt with when I have the bandwidth. I didn't expect it to work, because I am a hypocrite and typically think that the therapeutic techniques I teach my clients won't work on me, but it has been. I might even be ready to write about it. Soon. Maybe not today, or at least not right now. I don't know that I want to go to that place at the moment. I've been listening to some old-school sad-ish music, but I like it. It doesn't make it worse, it's almost cathartic. Thinking back about how I would drink a fifth of whisky in a night and listen to all these songs and cry and chain smoke. Now when I listen to them I can taste the despair I felt in those moments. I can bring to mind the feeling of having my heart ripped out of my chest and being punched in the guts and sobbing and sobbing and sinking deeper into the bottle. 

I love that that's not me anymore. I love that I can say, with confidence that I haven't been trashed since July. That the last drink I had was sips out of my husband's beer can while we made Thanksgiving dinner together. I'm trying to think of when I started using alcohol as a coping skill. It wasn't in the beginning. In the beginning, I was a stoner who got drunk sometimes. Was it when she got pregnant and he left? The more I think about it and travel back through my trauma (aka Geoff) I think that's it. I cried about that the other day for the first time in over 20 years. I don't know if it's because I've experienced another life-altering trauma like the one we went through together and it's bringing up all those old feelings. It was an intense experience that I was not altogether prepared for. And it wasn't just a crying jag at a few romantic memories. No, it was like a re-living of the entire relationship from start to finish and the rollercoaster of emotions that went along with it. So naturally, after going through the entire relationship again when it came time for us to break up it was like it had just happened. Isn't it crazy how the mind works like that? And all the memories are so fucking vivid. Driving down his street, pulling into the driveway. The front porch and the tree in front. His brother and sister playing in the front yard and following me outside to wave me off as I headed home. Slow dancing in my headlights in the snow in the driveway one cold December night. My whole life has changed, since you came in, I knew back then...

In therapy, they talk about how when you start to unlock trauma it's like all the emotions and memories have been trapped in a chest and shoved in the bottom back corner of your brain and you've suddenly opened that chest and they all come flooding out. My life has changed irrevocably. I mean...

I almost fucking died.

That's hard for me to talk about. I downplay things like this because it's easier for other people to interact with me if I don't take it seriously. They don't know how to deal with someone hurting in a way internally that is difficult to communicate with someone who hasn't experienced it. And then there's the comparison game. Anything you can do, I can do better. 

"Well Joan broke both legs and went back to work in 6 weeks." 

"Tina is always so happy and together, she never sits in the dark and cries for hours." 

"Josh was walking after a month."

"People will think I'm being vain if I tell them|the scars on my arm and leg make me cry.
 It's only cosmetic after all, I could've died. I shouldn't care."

and I will raise my hand up into the nighttime sky
and count the stars that's shining in your eye
and just to dig it all and not to wonder, that's just right
and I'll be satisfied not to read in between the lines

/end.

courtesy; stand.atlantic/lucero/ginuwine/the.midnight/van.morrison