Writing to Exorcise

No question about it... there's nothing like using the therapeutic action of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) to take a little power out of the harshest periods in life. Problems don't disappear, but they definitely become much easier to acknowledge and to face head-on.

As much as I enjoy creating fictional characters and putting them in a variety of my imagined settings, I'm finding more and more relief through the release of my journals and through the courage to post bits and pieces from some of my more trying moments here in an open format.

Maybe more later.

Dear Anonymous (and Perhaps Fortuitous?) Benefactor, Grantor of Financial Wishes...

My solemn vow to myself, to my journal, and to the rich, meditative world I try to enter at least once daily has been to leave behind the fear and loathing that dredged its wake in the path toward a positive future. I wanted to leave it in 2011 (to once again write that it was a really rocky year would only be beating a dead horse, and if any one's still reading me here, they've got to be just as tired of hearing my complaints as I am of enduring them): the general malaise and pessimistic attitude more than anything else, but in order to do so, I absolutely have to be able to move through the course of at least a single week in my life without doing so in a constant state of stress over financial discord. I don't understand how a man such as myself can be depositing the biggest hourly rate of his life into his checking account on the first and the fifteenth of every month and still find himself in such a ceaseless of fiduciary muck. I don't go out to dinner, don't spend money on clothes or unnecessary expenditures. I haven't partied in nearly seven years, haven't been living above my means by any means. Yet every single dime (and -more often than not; in fact, twice every month- several pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars and larger into the brightest and most frightening shade of red I think I've ever seen in my life) coming in has a destination long before its even a thought in my checking account.

More than anything, the situation scares me because it's really the only thing that's not going well in my life. I can honestly write that I have a career, not a job. I have something that I feel tremendously passionate about and endlessly driven to succeed at from the moment I open my eyes in the morning to the prayer-laden minutes of slipping-into-sleep at night. The people in my self-created family of friends are companions, full of truth and honesty. They are the people I can share with. No judgment. No critical assertions. I've been writing every day, filling my journals and working through the plot points of short stories and lines of inspired poetry. I'm covering canvas after canvas with the colors and shapes of ideas just as broad and distinct as the words that I turn into Oliver-esque phrase-ology. And the frosting on the cake of everything that's real and good and wholesome is the fact that there's this guy... well, a man, really... who -as undeserving of affection and promises as I feel- actually seems to like me for me, for all of my faults and in spite of my oft-times flawed spirit and inconsistent modalities. Not a drain or somebody who wants something each and every time we talk or get together. Somebody who really listens to me and allows me to express myself and be honest and actually seems keen to take things as slowly as my fragile emotional spirit require just now.

Why, with everything that's good and right where it needs to be, do I have this one aspect of my life that overwhelms all the rest and prevents me from enjoying the moments and being happy and worry-free? As determined as I am in every area of my life, I find myself incapable of seeing the forest for the trees in the here and now of bank accounts and past due payments. I am literally having to hold my breath and cross my fingers in the hopes that my car's not repossessed or that I have enough to afford gas for another week and that the utilities I pay for won't get disconnected and that my medical payments can wait just one more pay period (and these can really begin to accumulate with an unholy, upwardly momentous drive that makes one's head spin)...

I've written it before, in my discussions of karma and deserved-ness and hard work and dedication and dreams and climbing on the eternal StairMaster of working to live. I think that my thoughts on karma before were inspired by the fact that I honestly wonder whether or not all this is comeuppance and my just desserts for all those years when I wasn't working to live, but working to party. If so, how long does the punishment last? And when do things start to turn around?

I think sometimes that if I only had X amount of extra dollars thrown at me, things would be all right. At least I'd be able to make ends meet, and I wouldn't owe and be two or three weeks into nights of no more than four (sometimes five) hours of restless sleep. But then I also wonder whether or not it would change anything at all other than prevent me from worrying for a little while. What's really funny to me is that I'm actually typing this out somewhere that's not one of my ink-burdened journals, in a forum that's still entirely public and not shrouded in privacy. In doing things differently, I stopped going to meetings, the format where I once was able to share so frequently and openly and without judgment and disdain - until I met with judgment and disdain and became unable to associate myself. But my blog's a place -a non-Facebook, non-anonymous, but somehow still safe forum- where I can say what I have to say and hope to exorcise the burdens and demons of everything that's bearing down on my chest.

I can always hope that some multi-millionaire will read my post and feel generous and suddenly throw hundreds of thousands of dollars in my direction (yeah, of course much more than I need and far greater than I'm sure I deserve). So, if you're reading from your lavishly furnished, but lonely apartment in Paris or New York and you're feeling particularly in need of some casual philanthropy, I'll gladly sign an acknowledgment of your donation for end-of-2012 tax purposes. If not, oh well.

I guess I feel better for having written some of this out. Lighter maybe. The fear's still there, but pain shared is pain lessened. At least that's what we always said in the "anonymous" rooms of the A and/or N fellowships.

Maybe it's a silly and outdated ideology romanticized by Scarlet, but tomorrow is, afterall, another day. Something good's gotta happen, right?

Karma and Hope

The idea of karma is one that's been on my mind a fair amount recently. Does the universe really work that way? The concept has been at the forefront of my frontal lobe, I suppose, because of the massive amount of psychologically invasive literature I've spent the past two or three months pouring through. At some point, I lost my lust for completing Clive Barker's Weaveworld in a single sitting, and I picked up Judith Guest's Ordinary People. As much as I treasure the film (and consider it to be one of the greatest in American history), I figured I ought to read the novel to see whether or not the two compare, to find out where they diverge. I felt some measure of inner turmoil, mostly in reading from the perspective of the patient and his family. I spent so many years of my life sitting across the desks from men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and their children, teenagers and their case workers - taking down more than mere statistical information, medication lists, and medical history: really prying into the private lives of their homes and jobs and bedrooms in an effort to create the most detailed treatment plans that could be utilized by their doctors and nurses and therapists and nutritionists to try to get them back on track. My interactions with them, literally hundreds of them (I'd write of possibly one thousand or more, but I may be embellishing the figure... then again, maybe not), almost always began and ended within the space of about twenty to thirty minutes: from the critical moment when I'd introduce myself, my position, and explain the purpose of the nursing assessment to the point at which I'd review the contents of the treatment plan I was beginning to create and get them to sign and date and time the document before giving them the best possible orientation to their respective unit. Guest's novel tells the story about what happens to those people long after the assessment has been completed, the treatment plan incorporated into a full chart, and the patient discharged back into the conundrum that led them to an inpatient status in the first place. The book reminded me not so much of the reason that I originally took the job that eventually burned me out on a lot of things in life, but of the countless times when I wondered if I was doing enough to help people after so many previous years of living my life as one of them. I wondered whether or not I'd repaid some of that debt.

I wonder about comeuppances and just desserts and the ideas of reciprocity, redemption, and atonement. From what point can one be certain that he has repaid his debts to society, or simply to the people around him? If only the theoretical debts, the kind that really matter in life, were as easy to justify and delineate as those that you can write down in a budget and give credit and debit toward when balancing a checkbook and licking envelopes and sticking stamps.

It's late now, way past my bedtime, I suppose. I'm due for David W. Hylan, Jr.'s famed waffles at ten o'clock this morning... a mere five hours from now (and I've been wishing for an invitation to sample the waffles he's posted about on Facebook for... well, years really), but I've got all these thoughts in my head, and I've already filled several pages of my journal tonight with all sorts of ideas that somehow relate to this post. As usual, I'm re-evaluating and thinking way too much, wondering if I've developed into that type of Type A personality that spends so much time making lists and making plans and trying to adhere to doing the next right thing and the next thing right that I forget to live and concern myself with all that which really makes me happy.

My earlier journal entry was all about my pseudo-revelations/non-new-year-resolutions related to my life in 2012. I spent about six or seven pages, still avoiding the idea of resolutions, describing the idea of my ideal year. I wrote of everything that I would really like to see happen for myself, for my mom, for my dog, for all the important things in my life. At one point, I looked up and mused over the fact that I was writing of potential bliss. Bliss for myself and bliss for others...all of that which would really bring me pleasure, and here I was watching the second part of War and Remembrance, the episode that describes the planning and implementation of what went on at the camps in Europe during the second world war. Something of a paradox, really. Me writing of everything that I really hope I deserve, especially after completing this past, really difficult year that was 2011. And watching the unspeakable arrogance and horror of what the Nazis did. I was upset with myself for even thinking that I had it bad enough to think that I deserved anything.

After the segments were over, Mom and I discussed how unsettling the whole idea is, knowing what we know now of the events that occurred not so long before our lifetimes. She said something to the effect of the perpetrators of the violence having karma come back to them for their actions. I told her that I didn't think that karma could gratify and satisfy the punishment that was actually deserved. Hence the idea for this post. Hence another scattered, incoherent, very-late-night stream-of-consciousness diatribe over whether or not I'm really a guy who has put enough sweat and energy into gleaning a few good things from life.

The truth is, in spite of all those hours that add up to days and weeks - perhaps a month or more when all lined out in chronological time - of trying to help other people really doesn't feel as if it's earned me any of the things I described as hoping to happen in 2012 for me. And two things about that really bother me. One is the fact that I believe that the universe would work to such an extent with karma that it's not until one has made incredible, as-yet-undetermined sacrifice that one gets the best things he hopes for. The second is that even now, after all this time of living right and doing all that I can to be a better person, I still have the sense that I don't deserve what I want. How does one just let go of those ideas and allow himself to be happy? Especially when I consider the fact that I still spend an awful lot of time tending to the needs of others, a lot of time talking other people off of window ledges, so to speak.

When I concluded my journal entry, I wrote that it could all happen, though. All the great and wonderful things I described and wish and hope will happen for me and for those around me really could come to pass. I just might find the perfect formula for getting out of debt and not worrying so much about money. I really can accomplish all of my personal and professional goals. I might actually finish something that I start creatively and find the ways and means to pursue it even further. What's more, I just might actually find love, or, rather, love - true love - may come to find me.

No matter what, there's always hope.

I'm tired. And I have little doubt that I'll come here to read this after a few hours' sleep, and I'll wonder what the hell I was talking about. Maybe I'll revise it for more coherence later. Maybe I'll just let it rest and expand on it with more clarity. Maybe I'll wake up with a little more hope and belief in my deserved-ness than I seem to have had lately. No matter what, I just hope I get to a point where I can actually look around and think to myself that I'm happy once more. For whatever reason, I lost my link to happiness at some point, but isn't it true that tomorrow is another day?

And no matter how or where or when you've lost that happiness link, it's never too late to put on a pair of glasses and do a little searching to try to find it and bring it back... right?

War and Remembrance

My Review of War and Remembrance (written while still dazed from the last hundred pages, barely awake, and definitely ready to crash after something that really drains the reader emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally)

rating	*****
bookshelves	read edit shelves
status	Read from July 20, 2011 to January 07, 2012
format	Paperback (edit)
review	Powerful and moving, but dense and difficult at times, this is by no stretch an easily completed novel. I began it over the summer, got less than one hundred pages in, and put it down until finishing Judith Rossner's Looking for Mr. Goodbar just after Christmas. The final page reveals that Wouk began the novel in the early sixties and completed it in 1978; therefore, I don't feel disreputable by revealing that I found many of the passages slippery towards full comprehension due to the deliberate...morePowerful and moving, but dense and difficult at times, this is by no stretch an easily completed novel. I began it over the summer, got less than one hundred pages in, and put it down until finishing Judith Rossner's Looking for Mr. Goodbar just after Christmas. The final page reveals that Wouk began the novel in the early sixties and completed it in 1978; therefore, I don't feel disreputable by revealing that I found many of the passages slippery towards full comprehension due to the deliberately detailed delivery of military fact. That being admitted, the unfolding story of the Henrys and the Jastrows (aside from some of the lengthy battle descriptions) is easily engulfed, the "meat" of the book; however, an endeavor such as this would be incomplete and irrelevant if it had one without the other. Instead of focusing on any one aspect of WWII, as many other novels have, Wouk literally tackles every possible spectrum from the war in the Pacific to the post conflict suppositions that developed in the Middle East and the horrors of the Nazi regime in Europe. The saga of the Henry family mirrors many of the events as they actually transpired, and Wouk gives very clear evidence to the idea that, with war, there are really no winners. Although I was most drawn to the plight of the Jastrow branch of the family (Aaron, Natalie, Berel, and Louis) as they fought hard ship, bad timing, and incredibly bad luck throughout Europe, I found both Pamela Tudsbury and Leslie Slote to be two other characters I kept willing the story to return to. I cared much more for Warren and Janice (and really wish that Janice was more than just a mentioned name in the second half) than I did for Madeline or Byron (mostly because Madeline's role was somewhat slim [although the scene in which Byron shows his protective, brotherly side to his little sister is one of the books better, albeit few and funnier, moments] and Byron's unfolded in many of the battle scenes I had more difficulty following). Of the many members of the family, the one I cared for least was not due to a lack of her development as a character but because of her embodiment of everything that I dislike in a person. Unquestionably accurate in her descriptions, dialogue, motivations, and decisions, I liked Rhoda Henry almost as much as I did some of the camp guards and members of the SS. Although Victor is the clear hero of the novel (as is Aaron, but from a totally different point-of-view), I often found him to be so emotionally flat that I literally grunted out loud and rolled my eyes at some of his ideologies and (lack of forward) movements although I have no doubt that Pug is an exceedingly accurate characterization of any military man at the time. The lengthy epitaph in which Wouk clearly differentiates between which characters and events were real and which were merely inspired by fact really gave a final and justifiable credence and respect to the work. Had he not pointed out some of the side characters as being based on others, I would never have been able to distinguish...I believe that this makes the novel stand out as an engaging history lesson, a factual account imbued with the sweet breath of life. On an interesting side note, many of the ideas that the characters debate as possible outcomes for the Allied forces, if triumphant, are actually occurring in the twenty-first century (and to think, this book was completed more than thirty years ago and describes characters living forty years before that). Many assertions made in conversations that involved Aaron Jastrow and Werner Beck almost made my hair stand on end when I considered how accurate their fictional prescience was to modern fact. My only complaint is of the many lengthy passages of tactical military maneuvers and statistical information, which I could have done without; however, the figures are obviously meticulously researched, and I appreciated the fact that Admiral Von Roon's account reveals the German perception of many of the war's major events, even those that entrenched the US and the Japanese in the Pacific. This book has inspired me to look into other novels of historical fiction (especially those that give a richer detail of Jewish history). I've secured a copy of the Leon Uris work, Exodus, as one of the next books I'd like to complete (it was assigned reading in my sophomore year in high school and I only read the first four hundred pages the night before the due date; however, I remember it offered readers a stronger account of the Jewish experience). As Wouk's magnum opus ends, one is left wondering what is to become of the Jews and the plight to secure a place in Palestine. I still have a stack (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Swarm, Weaveworld, etc.) of other works I've yet to complete from the past several months, but I believe that this particular genre is the one towards which I am most drawn at present as I am also interested in investigating more about my own faith and the dynamics of the various religious denominations of the world. Peter J. Gomes's The Good Book as well as my dusty and barely opened copy of the NIV study bible are likely to accompany the requisite leisure reading I devour (if works by such scholars as Herman Wouk, Leon Uris, and others are to be considered leisure reading, that is). Wouk asserts that his novel was published more for those who were not there to experience the events, and I am grateful for his efforts. May every generation to come remain cognizant of the history that has led each of us to today, and may we be fully aware of the less noble aspects so that we will be equipped to prevent repetition. The human race must never forget what horrors it is capable of enacting on its fellows.

Side Tracked All Night...

I've contemplated my canvas(es) and everything that I planned to do tonight, but I've managed to only get by on the minimum. I'm looking forward to a weekend of leisure. A lot of plans for nothing other than what I want to do: working out, reading, writing, blogging, painting... spendind some time with Mom. Hopefully getting together with Special People Club, seeing Rhonda and Stephen and Danny and Stacy.

I've had a poem in my head for days now and it's slowly making its way through my neck and shoulders and down my forearms to my fingertips to wiggle itself out onto the plain white pages, but poetry is something so sporadic with me. I'm not sure I'll ever finish it.

About to crack open the windown and climb into bed with a little StillStream and War and Remembrance. Hopefully I'll make more time for the really important things over the weekend, like I'm promising myself now. We'll see what turns up.

Because Tim Is Encouraging Me to Write More (and Post More), I Jotted This on the Night of 28 December (Continued...and Expounded Upon Today)

Finally. 2011 has gone by the wayside, now a part of a very convoluted and complicated history that has recently become a bit more turbulent and difficult than some of the years before. I can't write that 2011 was a bad year. I prefer to look at it as having been strange, dissatisfying, challenging(; however, a tremendous learning experience). I fought and failed at various points. I exerted suspicious energy in incorrect directions, and I learned from the mistake(s).

The results were poor financial management and dubious bank account records at various points from January to the termination of the year, copious amounts of ill-advised health practices that could have been and should have gone a different route, inconsistency in the realms of family, personal relationships, creativity, and goal-orientation. For far too long, I've blogged about the generalized concept of having lost some sense of purpose in my life. I've written of having sorry feelings for myself, made myself into something of a self-imposed martyr (for what ends, I do not know). I'd lost sight of everything that was important and necessary and purposeful in my existence. Those notions are no more.

For weeks, I've been on the definitive cusp of a great and wonderful new direction. Last night, as horrendous a New Year's Eve fest as it was, I discovered that I haven't lost any of those things that were so very important to me. I had them on my person the whole time. I just put them in my pocket and forgot about them, or rather, I chose to forget about them. It's like I knew they were there, and I knew that all I needed was to reach down, scoop them out, and put them back to work, but I somehow blocked out that very idea and basked in a mire of discontent. I rang in 2012 in my car. Driving from Junior Trosclair's comfortable house in the Haven to the bacchanalian debauchery of liberal Shreveport-Bossier's favorite watering hole. This is the first time that I can remember being totally on my own when the year went up one.

The saying related to the ringing in of the new year is that whatever you're doing at midnight is an indication of the direction the next 365 to 366 days will go. I found solace in the idea of absolute independence and fulfillment in the idea of doing things completely and totally differently from the way that I've ever done them before. I'm not necessarily making any resolutions. Instead, revelations, which, incidentally, is quite appropriate should all this end-of-year/end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it Mayan calendar brouhaha actually come to fruition - be it that we're totally wiped out or actually move forward into a new age of enlightenment. I have more to discuss on this topic, but it'll come as it always does here.

For now, I need to finish typing out what I'd started revamping and posting in my previous post. When last I left, I think I'd brought my autobiographical memorial rant back to having viewed Paranormal Activity 2 with Junior Trosclair last week...

I am by no means sorry that I watched it. Like I've mentioned, I cannot conceive of anything I'd truly wish to undo, for it all combines to make me into who I am; however, in spite of my strong yen to now see the third installment (which Jacob informed me would explain what happened to the girls when they were children), I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to re-watch either of the first two films again. They affected me. Not adversely, but with certainty.

I'm grateful for experiences like that because they remind me of two things: one, that I am human, and two, that I must not be anything like either Kristi or Katie. The sisters believed that if they discussed anything related to what was resurfacing in their lives, they would give the negative energy power to grow. Instead of hesitance to talk about the reality of my past for fear of giving it power, I must examine those very aspects to empower myself and get to the crux of all that combines to make me tick.

I've begun to realize that, in order to tell my story, I have to reveal certain aspects of the personal lives of others. I fought this idea for quite some time, but two dear friends of mine, Stacy Stubblefield and Timothy Robertson (who, as I type these words - to the best of my knowledge - have neither ever met nor even heard of ether's name) have helped me to realize that until I get all of myself down on paper, until I tell the story that I really want and need to tell, I'll never exorcise the many personal demons that negatively censor my creative energy on a regular basis. Without repudiation and redemption, I'll never truly be a writer. Therefore, I must apologize in advance. Of course, I'll most likely change names whenever possible but I know that there's always the chance that some who read these words may recognize themselves in the anecdotes and asides and announcements of a tale that really only belongs to one person: myself.

Yesterday, Mom and I were talking. Nostalgia abounded as we discussed closing the book on 2011 - an historically difficult year for us both - and we surveyed the results of our endeavors as we prepared to embark on what we're both hoping we can work toward making the first great year of our separate, but closely in tune lives. At one point, Mom was tearful as she lamented on the idea that she'd made mistakes as a mother. "I always tried to do the best that I could, but I know that you were all let down." I vehemently disagreed (and even moreso today, disagree) with her assertion. My parents were phenomenal. Even without my father around to gently ease her in any direction, I believe that he still guides her in spirit toward doing the very best she can and succeeding admirably despite overwhelming odds against her favor at times. It was odd that she'd bring this up as I've been using my journals to take a closer look at the events of my past, especially my childhood and adolescence, that shaped me into the person I am today. I've been looking for behavioral patterns and the circumstances that rear their heads consistently, and I've been wondering why still, at the age of thirty-two, I continue to make really idiotic decisions that I know better than.

Through such personal and honest journalling, I am realizing several things. I am my own worst critic. I am my biggest adversary. In the end, the only person I have to blame for me is me. I believe that once I can truly look at this and honestly accept this, I'll be ready to move away from writing and creating that's a little less specifically personal and a little more along the lines of the true storytelling that I'm so hoping to begin.

Here's where I start telling my story. The closest I've ever come to this was first in the air conditioned rooms of Mrs. Cathy's Mellow Yellow process group at the Pines Treatment Center, then sprawled out on Mariann McDonald's big, comfy couch at her house on Lincoln, and most recently with Juli Schriner, chain smoking cigarettes at her kitchen table at the sort of cabin in the woods deep in Waskom, Texas. Active recovery is something that I've not truly been involved with for quite some time, and I definitely feel that; however, I know everything that I need to do to get back to a point of definitive direction. Rigorous honesty is one aspect. Prayer and meditation are others. Wise physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual practices all work together when the foundation of the program is in place. For me, though, the most important aspect is finding truth through my writing. And so it begins now.

Despite my overwhelming certainty that I had (have) the greatest parents on the planet, my formative years are replete with foggy memories that I often focus on in my mind for far longer than I ought to have. I wouldn't, couldn't, deem my childhood a happy one, but such an idea is based wholly on perspective.

Unfortunately, if there were only one word I would use to describe my childhood as a whole, the best word would be "afraid." Now, let me see if I can tell you why...

to be continued...