Life and Death…..

I have this file saved on my computer.  It’s a draft of my final wishes, what I want my family to do with me once I die.  Not a pleasant subject, but one that has been weighing on my mind as of late.  Since I’m going into a field in which the veil of death is forever present and tangible, I thought it prudent.

The file remains unfinished.  I didn’t know why until today.

I am fearful of considering my death not because I fear death itself, but instead that I fear life.

A little history.  I am an artist.  Some that know me would argue, and until recently I would have too.  But I see it now, shining through all the lies I told myself as a young man.  It’s there, present as God’s hand on my life, pushing me faster and faster toward an end that I could have never imagined.  I never thought of myself as an artist, and so put a perspective on my life that was inherently false.  It’s a fully disturbing emotion that covers you when you realize that the expectations you set for yourself so long ago are wrong, that they cannot ever make you happy.

And so I never, as long as I can remember until recently, learned to live.  To breathe in the smell of a real life, one in which I am not only an active participant, but a happy one to boot.

I am an artist, and so an artistic life is something I long for.  It is something I dream of, something I fear I may never actually achieve.  That I’m too late to the starting gate.  Not on time for the party.  And until today, this moment, that was enough to keep me from the party at all.

No more.

From now, this moment, 4:18 pm on September 2nd, 2009, I am declaring at the top of my lungs and for all the world to see if they wish, that I am not going to stand by and watch the parade of my life pass me by any longer.  I am not going to be another of the lost, one of the countless many that never chase the dreams they have for so long suppressed, only to one day look back at the ruin that they have left behind them, and grieve as no man or woman should have to.

I am an artist.  I am not afraid to die.  I choose to live!

God help me.

Holes…..

I hate fighting with my wife.  I know that may not be the best way to open this, but it’s the absolute truth.  And the worst thing is that I don’t hate the fact that I’m fighting with her.  What I hate, what sometimes makes it hard for me to sleep, is that I don’t actually fight with my wife.  Anyone who knows her could see why in about a heartbeat.

No.  I’m fighting with someone else.  Someone, in fact many someones, that haven’t been a solid part of my life for so long, I have trouble remembering what some of them even look like now.

When the words start to get loud and the emotions start to run, I go back.  And there I am, standing in front of someone I don’t even know anymore, trying to scream at the top of my lungs all the things I never said because I was too afraid or ashamed or embarrased.  And my wife, my amazing, loving, strong-as-a-bull-ox-on-the-inside wife, stands there and takes it and fires back at me.  Which, of course, just makes 99% of me go back all over again.  But only 99%.  I’ve  noticed that now there is a small voice in my head, a tiny, squeaking lilt of reason that has started to make a protest when I am officially acting like an ass to my wife.

I don’t know what it is, but I almost want to fight with my wife again so that I can find out.  I wonder if it’s the me that I fear is in there.  The me that knows every awful thing that ever happened to me and remembers every slight, every insult, every ultimatum.  The me that knows how little actually developed over the years thanks to people that could have cared less that I was an individual and not a carbon copy of them.  The me that never tried to fight it because I was so desperate to be respected and loved by those same people.  The me that said “I’ll show them!!!” and only ended up destroying a good portion of my life.

Could it be something new?  I hope so.  Lately I’m starting to feel a stirring in me.  An awakening of something raw and full of energy.  I can’t put a finger on it but I feel as though it’s trying to wake up, that it’s looking around at the mess before it, and realizing what it has to do to fix it.  It’s a living, breathing thing that has an awareness to it.

This hurts.  All the holes I threw psychological tarps over my entire life have been exposed.  It’s like looking at the remnants of a mine field after all the explosives have gone off.  Holes everywhere, everywhere in me.  Huge, gaping chasms that end in darkness.  Some of them have monsters in them, I know.  And when I try to look in to find what’s there, I see only the ugliness that remains.

I know that may sound whiny.  I wish I didn’t feel compelled to say these things, even if it’s to some stupid blog.  I wish there were a way for me to just suck it up and deal, even though that’s what got me here in the first place.

I’m so confused anymore.  I don’t know where to go, what to do.  How to ask.

I really hate fighting with my wife.  Sigh.  See you all on the flip side.

Decisions, decisions……

In the realm of my passions, I would have to say that confusion stands tall as the winning emotion.  I’m writing again, though not on the blogs as much (as you three can plainly see, lol)  I am feeling much better about the quality of my writing and the research that goes into it.

And yet.

More and more lately, I find the peace that writing brings me.  I find the happiness that seems to well from the depths of me when words meet the page.  I can’t explain it at all.  I never felt good really doing anything.  Then I found writing.  And now in the space of my mind, two roads have appeared.  I see down one a dependable, stable, attainable career as a doctor and something that would bring me fulfillment and happiness and a wonderful lifestyle.  On the other side is a road that leads to being a writer and novelist.  This side of me features the excitement, unpredictability, passion, art, and knowledge (not to mention the exclusive out-ness of my bookwormy self) that makes me pause when I consider the ten years of school it is going to take to reach the goal of being a doctor, not to mention the expense of said education.

Some of you may think it would be fine to do both.  A nagging fear has bubbled it’s way to the surface over the past few weeks, making me not so sure that it’s true.  If I try to do both, to be both, I would be terrified that I would, inevitably, let one of the two suffer.  If I concentrate solely on being a writer, I don’t know that I would have the time to go to school, work, maintain a marital relationship, be a good dog dad, and prepare for my future as a doctor.  If I choose the medical route, I don’t know that I would be able to dedicate the time and the resources to the novels that they deserve.

I know that there are people that do many things, and that there are professionals out there who are also authors.  I would also hazard a guess that many of them would rather just write.

I can’t tell many of this dream.  I know the wife can sense it.  I know it scares the shit out of her, too.  I wish I could somehow reassure her that I’m not of the mind to write my novel as fast as I can and get it to print before the economy totally tanks so that I can try to make the extra money we need from that.  But that, I am afraid, is something I can’t tell her.  I want to.  Whether I will is another matter.  There are not now, nor were there ever, any guarantees that I would be able even to self-publish.  That alone is enough to give me a reason to hold off.

So here I sit, banging on the keys again, no further than I was when I started, though a little more peaceful for having said it.  I hope, L, if you’re reading this, you believe that I wouldn’t do something that would put us in jeapordy.  I just feel so confused about what to do.  I love you.

Until we meet again, my freinds.  See you all on the flip side. 

Ugh.

Today isn’t a good day.  I’m sitting here on the couch and not doing a thing.  I told her I’d start on the dishes and the laundry, and so far I haven’t so much as moved to do either.  And for what?  Some stupid show on television? So I can try and think harder than I already do?  I don’t even know anymore.  I sit and I sit and I sit.  And all the while, all the things I wish I were doing are falling to the wayside.  I still haven’t touched the book.  I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me on that front.  I just don’t.  I’m not afraid to, and all I can do is think of things to put into it, but for some reason, I always find something else to do with my time.  And it’s stretching out into other things as well.  My calligraphy, which has already proven to be viable, has started to suffer as well.

All I can do is nothing.  I feel lazy, out of sorts with everything around me.  I don’t know how to get past it.  Sometimes I get so wrapped up in thinking about how I’m gonna do things, I forget to do them.  Seriously.  I’m starting to wonder if we should have gotten cable.  I was so much more productive without it.  Sigh.

I miss writing.  I miss it bad.  I felt so whole when I would write.  Even this tiny blog is making me feel better. But will I go into the bedroom and pen myself another chapter or two.  Probably not.  After all, I might miss something if I did.  I’m afraid that one day, I’m going to look back on this time I wasted and think of how different things could have been if only I’d gotten off the couch and back in front of the keyboard.  I don’t want that to happen.  I don’t want the rest of my life to be a long list of could have’s or should have’s.  I don’t know how well I could handle that.

It deserves to be written.  I keep saying that.  Along with so many other things.  But I know the book needs to be penned.  Or typed, as it were.

Will I get up and do it?  I hope so.  I want to.  I need to move the hands.

I need to move the hands.

See you all on the flip side.

I’m a loser! :-/

Wow.  Been a while, eh?  Sorry for the incommunicado, folks.  I know all three of you have been really concerned.  Ha.  Anyway, I guess the holidays have come and gone.  Christmas was good, got some stuff I’m totally excited to start using in ‘09.  New Year’s was a wash, since I was at work.  Nothing like watching the ball drop in the break room.

I finally started writing again.  I didn’t get much out, and to be honest I’m wondering how realistic it was to say that I would have the second draft done by Valentine’s Day.  But I know that I’m gonna try.  I think for a while there I was really getting wrapped up in the idea that I needed to write the thing perfectly so that it would get published.  And in doing so, I forgot to write the story.  It deserves to be written.  I should just do it.  So I am.  Publishing be damned!!

I’ve also been doing alot of thinking of where I want my time to go this year.  Do I want to finally get back into shape?  Do I try to learn to play guitar, or maybe learn to speak Spanish?  Do I try to get a second job or just make cutbacks to make the money I need to get back to school?  Do I finish the books?

A resounding answer to all of these questions has been (so far) a great big “I don’t know!”.  I want to do all of them, but it just seems as though there’s never enough time.  I hope to be able to do at least a couple of them.  I know that getting a second job is probably a given, and hopefully the books are too, no matter whether they get submitted or not.

Anyway, I guess that’s it for now.  See you all on the flip side!

The eleventh commandment…..

My whole life, I’ve been a procrastinator.  I can’t help it.  I just think everything is gonna take less time to do than it actually does.  And so I wait.  And wait.  And WAIT.  And then, before you know it, it’s either too late, or I end up turning out substandard performance or goods because I was too busy playing my PS2 or watching Lifetime or some such nonsense.  There are good days and really bad days, but most days seem to fall into the category of “generally unproductive”

I wonder what God thinks about it.  I wonder if He’s ever thought, ‘You know, I should have added another commandment onto that list before I sent Moses back.  I knew it was too short!’  There should have been another one, I think.  Thou shalt not delay.

It would have made so many things easier, just in and of themselves.  Going to the bank?  Eleventh commandment.  Getting a flu shot?  Eleventh commandment.  Punching some idiot in the face after he called your wife a bitch?  Eleventh commandment, baby!  All over him!

Mostly I’m just a little mad at myself for not writing lately.  My book has basically been sitting stagnant for a number of weeks, and I haven’t even looked at it.  I don’t even know why.  I just haven’t even thought about it.  And I’m pissed at myself for it.  They say it’s always harder to get back on the horse when you’ve been gone that long.  I’m scared they’re right.

Nonetheless, here I am, writing again.  I suppose that’s a good thing.  It’s a start anyway.  With all that has been on the old noggin lately, I’m surprised I remembered that I was writing a book at all.  Ha.

So thank you C, for the shark analogy.  The words of Dori from “Finding Nemo” are now ricocheting off the inner walls of my brain like a steel ball tossed into a round iron room.  “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..”

So, swim I will.

See you all on the flip side.

licking invisible stamps….

As I had said in my last blog, I’ve been bringing out things from the inside of me that were locked up so long ago.  I realized, as I was doing this these last three months, that there is a lot in the old bean of mine I haven’t dealt with.  At all.  So this is my idea.

For the last few years I’ve had these nagging urges to write letters to all the lost people of my past and try to get that infamous “closure” everyone talks about.  I know it’s a pretty ridiculous notion, but it’s always been on my mind.  There are a few people, my father and mother mostly, who have almost received these letters on numerous occasions.  I can’t imagine anything would have come of these things, but I have always wanted to try.  So I have decided that I will do just that.  I am going to write all the letters I always wanted to, and to the people I want to.

These may be letters of love, of anger, of apology, etc.  But for some reason, inside me, they need to be written.  They will not be read by their subjects, unless of course one of them happens upon the letter and figures out it’s about them.   In which case I’m sure the weather in Mexico is good this time of year if I need to be out of town for a few days.  Ha.

This is being done at another blog here on wordpress, specifically letterstomypast.wordpress.com.  They will be able to be viewed today, starting with a big one, the letter to my dad, whom with I haven’t spoken in close to five years.  This blog, list of faults, will still cover my everyday drama, while the other will help do a little spring cleaning of the soul.  Hopefully, anyway.

See you all on the flip side.

Under the covers and dreaming….

I can’t sleep.  All I can think about is this thing I’m starting to become.  For the past three months, I’ve been exploring things I’ve left buried in me for years, too afraid of the ridicule to bring out in the open.  I remember when I was a child, telling my father that I thought  I might be a good writer and he actually laughed.

There have always been three things that have cemented themselves into my mind when it came to my creativity.  Writing was always the most pervasive, and it was always in the forefront.  I wanted to write from an early age, and I’ve tried to hone that talent through the years, secretly.  Next on the list, (and forgive me for letting my nerd out here) was a love of swords.  Not just samurai or rapier, but all forms of bladed weaponry.  I am a SERIOUS LOTR nerd.  Ha.  But as much as I always thought it would be amazing to make the swords themselves, I have started to discover that I would actually be much happier making decorative sheaths and scabbards for existing blades, as there seems to be absolutely NO place for a sword collector to find a decent scabbard for some of the display pieces they may own out of a catalog or something like that.

Along with the writing also came a love of old text, specifically the amazing calligraphy that seems to have fallen to the wayside as an art form.  I want to learn this art, even if only for my own means.  I have always loved the way calligraphy can bring life to the written word, and I hope to someday be able to master this.

All of that is wonderful, but it’s not what’s keeping me awake when I know damn well I should be out cold right now.  What isn’t allowing me to go into dreamland is the thought that I would not only love to learn to do all of this, but that I wish I could just do it for a living.  I want to write novels, make scabbards, and do calligraphy.  And make money doing it.  I don’t know if that’s even possible.  I know writers make money, but as for the other two skills, I’m not sure they would even be needed anywhere in this modern world.  I would be pandering to Renaissance Festival types who wouldn’t have the money to purchase hand-made goods in the first place, or to collectors that can probably pay for something far more extravagant than I could design.  I’ve never done either of the latter two before, outside of my own tinkering, and I would doubt that even with constant practice I could reach the level of skill that the true masters of those art forms have achieved.

I certainly don’t want to sound like I’m whining about this.  I just want to do it.  And with all of the things going on in my life already, what with the trying to get into shape again and working nights, I’m not so sure that I’ll be able to really ever learn to do any of it, and that sort of scares me.  I don’t even know why.

Anyway, my eyes are heavy and my mind is finally emptying out.  I think.  So, for at least a few hours, I will try to dream of a day when I can be a merchant of all things scabbardly and written.

See you on the flip side.

Rubbing the Buddha…..

I have decided that there is no way that I’m going to ring in 2010 the same size I am going to do it to 2009.  At the moment, I am thirty pounds overweight.  My wife likes to tell me that I’m still the most handsome man in her life, and for that, I love her so much.  She makes me feel handsome even as people at my job walk up to me and rub my ever-expanding belly for luck.  I know that I quit smoking a scant 18 months ago, and that I should be more gentle with myself.  But it seems that I’ve simply traded one addiction for another.  I can’t seem to stop eating.

I remember when I was a fighter.  I was a trim 189, with about 10% body fat, and I was in amazing physical condition.  I could run 4 miles daily, swim solid for 2 hours, and could do 45 pull-ups like it was nothing.  I can’t even do ten full push-ups now.  Sigh.

I miss that shape.  I have been so scared for so long to go back to that.  I’m afraid if I do, that I’ll want to fight again, even though I lost my license to do so due to injuries.  My wife tells me that would be okay, but I don’t know if I’m the same guy anymore.  I wouldn’t last in the ring now.  I’m not tough enough anymore.  No, tough enough isn’t right.  I’m not hard enough.  Not made of the same impenetrable material I was when I was a fighter.  I’m softer now, more of a lover.  And I think my wife likes that, though I doubt you could get her to admit it.  Ha.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get myself into shape now.  None of the things that I used to do even apply to me now.  I’m not a fighter, so I don’t need the same conditioning that I used to need.  I don’t even have the same body that I did then, as I seemed to fill out later than many of my classmates.  I’m bigger all around, and not just because I’m fatter.

So here I sit at this keyboard, and I know that I have to do something.  I’m really starting to get scared.  Diabetes runs in my family, as does cancer and heart disease and dementia.  All things that are exacerbated by being overweight.   I don’t want to die before sixty.  Hopefully, I want to make it to eighty or ninety.  But there’s no way I’m gonna do that pulling the shit that I am now.  I owe it to my wife, hell, everyone I care for to take care of myself and be strong.  You never know.  I might need that strength someday.

I have to try.  I have to do it.  For L.  For me.

I’ll try to keep a record of my successes and failures on this.  My goal weight at the moment is 195, 15% body fat.  That’s pretty low for a non-athlete, but it’s what I want to shoot for.  Thirty-five pounds to lose.  Here goes nothing.  See you all on the flip side.

In the sack……

I think there’s something wrong with me.  I don’t say this because I’m experiencing any strange physical maladies, nor am I taken by the sudden desire to climb a water tower with a fully automatic weapon and start taking out pedestrians.  No, I say that there’s something wrong with me based on the following.

Tonight, while I was at work, I happened to overhear two of my male co-workers discussing their sex lives.  Now, this is not something I have an issue with.  On the contrary, sex is one of my favorite subjects to discuss, for I have many strong (and some say extreme) opinions on the subject.  I asked what the topic was, just to be curious (after all, you never know when you might learn something new) and was given a pretty interesting story.  Evidently, one of these guys, whom I will call Ray, is fighting with his wife about sex.  Most of the men reading this blog are no doubt nodding their heads, for they know where this is going.  Not so fast, boys.  The reason they are fighting, I was shocked to learn, is because his wife is upset over the fact that he is seemingly refusing her sex.

Now, at first, I thought there might be some sort of rational explanation for this.  Upon questioning him, however, I found out that he is indeed attracted to his wife,  that there isn’t anything that is a medical roadblock, that they have an otherwise happy marriage, and even went as far as to say that since she became pregnant with his son, the sex has indeed gotten better.  No, his reason for refusal was because she kept trying to wake him up to have sex.

To which I could only say “Are you FREAKING kidding me?!“

Now, we are both on the overnight shift, so I thought maybe this wonderful wake-up call was happening only a few hours after he went to sleep for the day.  Nope.  Middle of the afternoon.  Is she being rough or demanding with her attempts to get him to have some fun?  Not even a little.  Mostly just soft kisses and touches.  After a moment or two of staring at this otherwise intelligent human being, I decided not to pursue the issue with him, as he was most insistent that this was something that was wrong with her, and that it was really becoming a problem.

Becoming a problem?? Holy shit, man!!  I wish that my biggest problem was that my wife always wanted sex!  You gotta be kidding me here!  I don’t know what’s happening to men lately, but this is not the first time I’ve heard of this sort of thing.  It seems that there is an entire society of men that are becoming as stingy with the lovin’ as many of the femi-nazis that would rather hump a cactus than a man.  This is something that I cannot understand, on either side of the fence.  Some of you may consider me a sexist or a chauvinist, but I absolutely believe that there is a certain responsibility that a married person has (barring any physical, medical, or serious psychological roadblocks) to simply have sex with their mate.  Any person that cannot commit themselves physically to another human being should not be married to them.  And let’s face it, married couples that have a lot of sex stay together longer and enjoy happier relationships.  That is a statistical fact, Jack.

Now, before you start throwing things at the screen, understand that I don’t think it’s the job of either the man or the woman to simply give in to the sexual needs of their partner.  I know that there are going to be plenty of times when you can absolutely refuse to have sex.  I may not agree with all of them, but I am the last man that will ever try to tell my own wife that she has to have sex with me, whether she likes it or not.  I just think that so many of us, men and women alike, have really stepped away from one of the oldest and most effective ways to really show our mates how much we love and adore them.  So many things can be said in the bedroom (often without a single word) that cannot be either spoken or understood in the outside world.

Sigh.  I hope that if you’re reading this, that you’re not one of the many people that seem to be just fine denying sex to their partners simply because it’s an inconvenience to their schedule, sleeping or otherwise.  I hope that you agree with me that there are few better ways to show someone how much you really adore them than to get between the sheets and SHOW them.  Most of all, I hope that you are all as satisfied in your own relationships and marriages as I am, as these beliefs are not only held by me, but my wife as well.  But then again, we could be wrong.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me after all.