Although this is intended to be mutually interactive, there is a reason behind each of my entries. Today, I have decided to make this entry about me, just a little.
I remember a morning when I was going through a series of heartache and decisions. I remember a time in a basement, where my heartache was so thick and unfortunate that I could not take the pain.
But I had to.
My so-called life had changed in an instant. My life was heading in an unknown direction and worse, I was alone in more ways than I could handle.
I lost myself. I lost love. I lost friends and, more to the point, I lost my way.
I was too sad, too hurt and too confused to understand what was happening. Again, I understood the reasons for my pain. I understood this from an intellectual perspective. However, my emotions and mindset were off, to say the least.
So, in the middle of my passive breakdown, I needed to hear something. I needed a sign. I needed something to bring me up or encourage me—but in moments like this, I find it sad but funny how every random song can come on and somehow remind you of your losses or remind us of better times that will never come around again.
I closed my eyes and wired my ears to my network. I rested my head on a pillow after realizing the truth, which is no one was coming to save me. And that hurt.
I started listening to different motivational speakers who upload their content online.
And then . . .
then I heard a voice.
The tone of the voice and the way the words came through were exact or a perfect match to the depth of my pain. So, in the battle of desperation, I had to choose.
I had to find something inspiring. I had to find something uplifting because like much of the world, I am human. I am weak. I am vulnerable and imperfect.
I am a man. I am a child. I am loveless and broken and fortunately; I am strong enough at my weakest to recognize that this is not the place for me.
I have been on my knees before, desperate and beaten by myself. I have been betrayed and I have found myself in the belief of lies because pretty lies can be more attractive than ugly truths.
I was wounded by the terms of life. As well, I found myself in the aftermath of my stupid decisions, and like a brat, or a child, or like someone who cut off his nose to spite his own face, I was in the wake of my destruction, and lost or somewhat drowning in the murk and madness of my own insanity.
This is what I mean when I mention the emotional quicksand. This is when we sink and drown in the air of our regrets. Oh yes.
I have been here.
Yes, I have been here before, on my knees, crying or weeping, uncontrollably, like an infant or toddler who lost its comfort. Therefore, without a voice or the words to explain myself, I wept and I cried. No matter what I did or tried to do, there was no pacifier in sight.
For example, as it was reported in one of my first published journals, Operation Depression, I was on my knees. Broken beyond compare.
I remember looking up at the ceiling, as if perhaps I could look through the whiteness of the flat wall above my head, and living in my small apartment.
I looked up as if to be hopeful that maybe, just maybe, there is a God or a Higher Power, or a means, a vehicle of sanity, or if at all, if there is or was, or if there could be a sense of divinity, or as I have heard it prayed before—in the name of the Father, and The Son, and of The Holy Spirit, I wept myself into a tired supplication, or an agreement with this — pleading my way towards hope or to find redemption.
If there is such a thing.
This is more than when The Son of Man spoke the words, “Why have you forsaken me?” because it was clear and highly apparent that it was me who put myself where I was.
God did not forsaken me.
I did.
No one else did this to me.
No, I did this to myself.
I have been here. Yes.
I have.
I have been here before and perhaps I might find myself here again. However, rather than allow myself to drown in the sadness of my own thinking or rather than repetitively thinking the same thoughts or reliving arguments or wishing I never said what I said or done something differently; I was aware that I could not negotiate my past or change what took place.
Yesterday is gone and I can’t live there anymore.
I have been to this place, beaten and sad, and lugubrious, like a day of clouds and rain and cold dampness that fill the bones with despair.
I have been to my knees after living in the humbled nature of life’s terms. In the aftermath of my own decisions, I needed to find something.
I needed to hear something or see something or better, I needed to come across a sign that somehow exchanged my lonesomeness for a sign of reassurance.
I remember hearing a man speaking. My eyes were closed. His voice was broken as if to reflect the emotional tears and the pain which came from a soft, understanding voice.
I remember him saying, “Sometimes, it’s like you have to save your own life . . . every day.”
I agree with this.
I agree that we have to save our own life every day. I agree that waiting for someone or something can lead us astray, or lead us to find that people are not who we thought they were.
I can see how we find out that people are only human, or that even the most amazing people in our life are still people, and even they have an agenda too.
I can think of a list of people who I semi-devoted myself too, and wait, I explain my semi-devotion because of my own sad or imperfect self-image. Or better; in fear of finding myself to be the weak one, or the gullible one, again, or rather than allow myself to be perfectly vulnerable, I was too afraid and lost in my own selfish regard to be truly devoted.
But that was then.
I was self-centered too, of course, and just as sinfully as I was hurt, I can see how I was hurtful in response. I was always living in response to an idea, a thought, or an assumption or belief that in the end, I was going to be hurt or betrayed or worse, I was afraid of my childhood traumas and afraid of my old damages becoming present again or just as real. Even worse, this would all be just as painful or humiliating, if not worse
I admit to you and to myself as well as to the world that I am far from innocent. I am further from perfect and at times, I find myself down or hurt or sad, and yes, the man was right.
You have to save your own life, like, every day.
No one is coming to rescue me, which is relative and not entirely true or false. But more, at the end of the day, there is only one face looking back at me in the mirror. There is only one reflection when I see myself before I lie down in bed and go to sleep.
This is why. This is what sets us apart from those who quit, and from those who learn and grow. But more, this is what separates us from those who cannot and those who can endure.
This is why we need to come to a decision. This is why action plans can save a life. I say this because in the moments of my lonesome despair, I had to pick myself up and save my own life.
More than once.
Years ago, like when I was 19, I was dangling by my neck from a sprinkler pipe in an upstate treatment facility.
I went black and lost consciousness. I was about to lose my life to my own hand, but no.
The knot around my neck slipped from the way I tied the pantleg around my throat.
I woke up with the other pantleg around the sprinkler pipe, and me?
I was on the floor.
I woke up, somewhat convulsing on the bathroom floor and coming back to consciousness, I re-entered the world from an odd dream state and then . . .
Then I realized what had happened.
I just survived suicide.
I don’t ever want to be there again. I don’t ever want to be as sad or as desperate. But life hurts.
Equally, life is a beautiful place. I know this.
However, if (or when) we find ourselves ugly or living with an ugly mindset, the purity of life or its beauty can sting like the solvent from mother’s cotton when she cleans the scrape from a knee with antiseptic.
It has to hurt . . .
. . . if it’s to heal.
We have to save our life on a daily basis.
Some days we do this well.
Some days we need a little help.
Sometimes we need love or warmth from a lover’s hand.
Sometimes, we need to love ourselves enough to get us back up, as in up from our knees, and back in the game
This is what an action plan does for the desperate.
Do you want to know how I know?
I’m still alive.
Aren’t I?
By the way, there are other things that save us.
Like the touch of the hand from someone you love.
Like the voice of your person.
Like the kiss from your angel . . .
Even still, life is beautiful.
So are you.
Had I not woken up on the floor that afternoon, or had my plan come to pass, I would have never had the chance to know, see, touch, kiss, or love you.
Blessed Father,
I know that there are those who don’t believe. And I know about my battles that tend to hurt my faith. But I know there are signs. I know that there is something out there, waiting for me to open up, and I know I will hear “it’s about time you woke up. I’ve been waiting my entire life, just for you.”
I know there is a life for me, and love, and I know in my heart—she has not forsaken me, or forgotten me, even if she has every reason in the world to walk away, or run, for some reason, she is always going to be mine.
And for this, I have to say –
Thank you . . .
I think I need to go fishing again.
You know?
The Written Addiction 