Sometimes When I See You

Sometimes when I see your face I wonder.

The musings of a man who made too many decisions based on what he felt incapable of doing.

I do not pretend that it should have or even could have been me.

But I wonder. 

And then I stop wondering. I see your joy. 

Really see it, unfiltered by the lingering nostalgia that always threatens to break through where you are concerned.

Truthfully, when decisions were made, long ago, I thought I might be bitter.

Bitter at the circumstances. Bitter at myself for not making more of an attempt. 

I am not bitter. 

There is only warmth in the spots you occupy in my mind. The comfort of unwavering love and friendship.

For these I am grateful. For what you have been given, for what you have given, for what you have received, I am joyful. Parts of me remain in awe of you.

But sometimes when I see you, I wonder. 

If only for the briefest of moments.

Unconscious Prejudice And The Poison Of Labels

When I was a younger man, in my very early twenties, a female friend of mine asked if I would smoke and talk with her while she waited for her date to pick her up. So we stood outside of the barracks and waited for him to arrive. When he pulled up and got out of the car, I immediately thought to myself "She could do better."

Why? Maybe a little bit of jealousy.

But, really, it was because he was black. She was white.

Now up until that moment I had never thought of myself as racist, or prejudiced. But that feeling of discomfort made me question my views.

How had I internalized a racist attitude? Was it through the media? Through upbringing? Through my own ignorance?

The answer is probably a little bit of all of those things.

Somehow, over the course of my life, I had come to attach a set of feelings and beliefs about black men in particular that were poisonous. Somehow, I had come to believe that black men were in some way less worthy of my respect.

This disturbed me to no end. I resolved to change my beliefs.

In movies and books when people come to this realization, there is an overnight change. That, to me, is not realistic. I can tell you that I did not wake up the next day with twenty odd years of internalized prejudice washed away.

It took active effort. Which is a ridiculous notion. I actively had to come to believe that another human being was not less worthy of my respect simply because they were another skin color. Admitting that is embarrassing.

How many other places in our lives do we do this labeling though? How much poison have we come to attach to certain characteristics? How do you feel when I say the words fat? White? Gay? Male? Muslim? Christian? Mexican? Immigrant? Poor? Privileged? Conservative? Liberal? Obama? Trump?

The more we label and define human beings as belonging to certain groups, the more easily we think of them as other than human. We resort back to being tribal, where only members of the tribe are worthy of our attention. 

This is not a plea for moral relativism, mind you. Civility seems to be a lost art in this world, but it is perfectly acceptable to disagree with someone on major issues and still be kind to them.

Kindness is necessary, even. Because the more we attach our own poisonous feelings to other people, the more we pollute our own minds.

Short and Sweet

Sweeter than expected
And that is surprising
But I can’t tell if you’re the cake or the icing.

Autumn, and the summer rain has pooled
In muddied waters that gather
no reflection
The leaves have turned, the heavy air has cooled
I have passed beyond the storm of your rejection

Decay

I am walking through
the decaying air
the broken home
the creaking stairs
where once we lived
when love was you
the baby’s room
which once was blue
the spiders, the webs
the dying dreamers
strewn about
confetti streamers
they have kept the sounds
of all our fears
the fading days
the dust of tears
the lifeless legs
of a rocking chair
still remember
the lullabies there
hush little baby
don’t you cry
mommy knows
why daddy lies
dissension lives
it cuts the skies
it breathes the air
it bleeds us dry
it leaves us here
no place to hide
hatred burns
a child’s eyes
acid tears
fuel the flames
broken home
feels the same
take the candle
ignite the shame
memories burn
until nothing remains

Some time ago

And now it's all steeped in utter disquiet
The memories remain, but are regretfully silent
but to whose regret, and to whose recall
ah, but those were the best days of all

Every meaning in every little exchange
the softest touches, the catch in your name
were we to speak, what would we say
surely the same as we spoke that day

but life grows past hope, while hope stands still
and love is only remembered by will
though it may be yours or mine to recall
I hope you think fondly of it all

Who changed first, whether you or I
or, if we remain unchanged, the question lies
in how long we imagined perfection to last
and how long we remembered hope for the past

But I had no hope for you, I always insisted
Oh, but it lingered, just beneath existence
to be brought to the surface at a moments recall
ah, but were those the best days of all

Persistent Illness Is The Fire Swamp

"Unless I am wrong, and I am never wrong, they are headed directly for the Fire Swamp."-Prince Humperdinck

Or me, whenever my thyroid decides to stop cooperating with the rest of my body.

Warning, the Princess Bride references will continue throughout this post.

It may not seem like it at first glance, but navigating a long term persistent illness is a lot like hiking through the Fire Swamp. Even if you have been here before, and even if you know the way out, traveling the the depths is still hazardous to your health

The lightning sand is the sudden and unexpected fall into depression. One minute you are walking along, maybe noticing that the trees are a little bit uglier than normal (no matter what Westley thought) and the next minute you are trapped and cannot breathe. Sometimes you may feel that the harder you struggle to get out, the deeper you fall in.

But the choice to sit and wait for someone to dive in and rescue you is not available. So the struggle continues until you escape to the edges and find solid ground. Even then, you will be walking gingerly for a while, staying away from any spots in the soil that looks like it could swallow you whole. Still, there are times you guess wrong.

The flame spurts are the moments of extreme anxiety that flare up with little to no warning. Possibly also the accompanying spikes of high blood pressure that precede or follow those moments. Over time, you may learn to recognize the warning signs and avoid getting burned. But despite your best efforts, depending on the frequency and intensity of the flare ups, you are still left with scars.

The Rodents of Unusual Size are the sometimes well meaning people (and sometimes not well meaning people) who do not understand how you feel and insist that your illness, physical or mental, is all in your mind. They shuffle in and tell you that you simply need to be more positive or more active and all of your problems will go away. No matter their intentions, you are left bruised or bleeding by the time they leave.

Truth be told, because of your hyper vigilance and various other symptoms, medications, and side effects, you vacillate between over anxious and completely blank. The swamp has dangers, both real and imagined. It leaves you so tired and distracted that you cannot even enjoy the things you normally would. Like reading. Or writing.

So you numb yourself with mindless repetition. The games. The television shows on endless repeat.

And there is no Buttercup here. Life becomes all of the Netflix and none of the chill.

There is also the thoughts that linger in the back of your head. They tell you that even if you do escape, no matter how long it takes, the six-fingered man is waiting somewhere to punch you in the thyroid and take you back to the Pit of Despair, where all of this starts over again.

I would say that it is like Groundhog Day, but I do not want to mix my movie references.

Despite all of this, there is no surrender. You tell yourself that you will defeat and overcome any and all obstacles. Maybe it will take a miracle to be fully healthy, but you do not stop trying. You take the chocolate coated pills, you gather your wheelbarrow and cloak, you find your Brute Squad.

You take on the sixty men at the gate, and sally forth to rescue yourself, with the help of your friends.You do this because there are people that love you. You do this because you understand that you also need to love you.

You hold onto the hope that maybe one day the world as it is will come closer to being the world as you wish.