I think it was a long time ago.
Yes, it must have been.
I think this was back when the age of innocence was still innocent.
But somehow, I know that purity exists. I know there are good people out there.
I know because I have seen them arrive at times when I was alone or facing the consequences of life-long decisions.
I was that one too.
I know that I was better and smarter.
Perhaps maybe this is why I swore that I was stupid because deep down, I knew better. Of course, I did.
See, no one talks about the results of trauma or the symptoms of depression.
I knew that I was being lazy.
I knew it all too well.
I knew I was capable of more. Of course, I did.
How could I not know?
I had everyone telling me that I had so much potential. I hear this all the time.
I heard this so much that potentially, if one more person told me about my potential, I swore that I would lose my mind!
The inherent laziness took over and the internal disdain for me was blinding.
I hated how I was and the troublesome comparisons of body, mind, and soul were too crippling to say the least.
There are no rules to the game. At least, not per se.
Win at all costs and by whatever means necessary.
Right?
I know people talk about the Golden rule or how to treat people as they wished to be treated.
I know we are supposed to take turns and learn to share.
Play nice and be fair. I know.
But how many people follow this rule?
I know we are taught to be good or to be like it was back when we were little kids on field trips—find a buddy and hold hands, especially when crossing the street.
Robert Fulghum writes about this.
He writes about this better than I could ever hope to.
However, our motivations to write about this are not the same.
Perhaps, our cultural differences separate us by age or proximity and of course, we are generationally different too.
But at the core, the need and the feelings and the desires to go, be, and do are the same.
I don’t know what changes us.
I don’t know who has the right to corner the market on beauty and dee everything or everyone else as ugly.
Maybe I cut class the day they voted on who is popular and who gets the table scraps or the leftovers.
And, so, I assumed that this is me.
I am that one. Pathetic and outraged.
Angry and aggressive.
I am the one who is destined for leftovers and thus, unless I stole or unless I learned to work an angle; I would be the one left back and undesired and with an undesirable life.
FUCK THAT!
Sure, I was angry.
I was hateful that I could never seem to get myself together.
I was resentful that I could never openly love someone.
I hated life and thus; I hated you and your beauty because all this did was highlight and expose the depths of my ugly self.
I never asked to be ugly.
Who asked for this.
I never wanted to be ugly
but I was.
and hateful too.
I don’t know if this was life happening or if there is some kind of greater cosmic force, eager to teach us a lesson of higher morality.
I never had that moral dilemma. No that compass was broken.
I had the angst of hateful vengeance and the disgust that I swore, at best, I was only fit to be the person I was predicted to be.
Alone and hated or ostracized and vanished.
I don’t know why people die or good things come to an end.
I don’t know why good things happen to bad people or the other way around.
I don’t really know why the sky is blue or the grass is greener on the other yards of my fence.
And I don’t know why envy is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, —and that’s how he gets us.
Somehow, this trick and the temptations to be better, or bigger, or stronger can be enough to lead someone to madness.
I know this because I am madder than any madman and yet, I am aware and thus; it is my awareness that makes me sane and equally guilty because I know better.
I don’t know when or where it all began.
I don’t always understand.
I’m not sure why we have this need to keep up or that somehow, if we don’t keep up, we fall behind.
And then what?
I expose too much.
I know.
And since this is so, my inner demons scream at me:
“Who the hell is going to want you now?”
Someone, maybe.
(I hope so)
I wonder if this is more geographical than anything else.
Maybe . . .
Maybe these ideas are less burdensome in other places or parts of the world.
Maybe . . .
Maybe the people who live in unknown places, say, in a small town down south . . .
Maybe there are people who live in places where the sunsets are celebrated.
Maybe if I lived there too, you know?
I want to live somewhere that changes my perspective.
And I can be here and be home.
Happily.
I want to live where watching the fireflies are like a spectator sport.
Maybe there is a place where the wholesomeness never fades.
Every day is like the end of mass on Sunday morning; and people walk by with a greeting and say things like, “peace be with you”
and yeah, I know.
I know that the modern church says to answer with, “and also with your spirit.”
But I prefer the older response.
I preferred when people say, “and also with you,” because to me this was more heartwarming, —or maybe this was even lifesaving on some occasions.
Did I ever tell you about a time that I once got into a traffic altercation?
We both got out of the car on Meadow Street.
I stood my ground.
I refused to back down, but to be clear, the man was enormous.
He’d have beaten me quickly and badly and is weight was better than 300lbs when mine was somewhere around 145
He was in the wrong, Or maybe I was in the wrong.
Who knows?
Maybe we both were wrong.
But who cares about right and wrong when the fight is about to begin.
You can’t care about being right or wrong
you just have to mean it . . .
fight hard and be deadly.
Maybe my size was small and I was more mouth than action.
I know I was.
My ego was too bruised and too afraid to be shrunken, and therefore, I had to pretend as if I were huge and almost demonic enough to instill fear through some kind of wild brutality, —I had to be like David was with Goliath or how Samson gained his strength from his long hair. Only, I was never so pious or pure
Samson’s strength came from his long hair.
This was true until Delilah cut his hair and thus, Samson lost his strength and then he lost his fight to the Philistines.
My hair was not so glorious or so long but yes, I had my share of Delilahs . . .
I pluralize the name specifically because I have lost to things like this, to weakness, to the need to gain, or the need to be fulfilled in ways that are lower in morality but higher with instant gratification.
I was never pious or pure.
The next morning after the traffic altercation was a Sunday.
I had gone out with the usual friends.
Or I should call them my so-called friends.
I had undergone yet, another night of pointlessness and the useless attempts to stand as if I was cool.
I tried my best to stand as if I had a pair, like I was tough.
like I had balls!
I always tried to perfect my look and pull off the way I would lean against the bar.
I kept my look smooth, or so I tried.
I had a cigarette dangling from my mouth in such a way, —as if to act like I was the new and reincarnated version of James Dean, a rebel without a cause, or maybe I was a cause without a rebel.
I don’t know
I knew I was existing in a life and staying at a place that I did not fit or belong.
I knew my friends were not good friends and that everything else, such as all the trends, all the fashion and the bullshit and the bourgeois nonsense of “keeping up or be left back” was all too real to me.
My anxiety and my stress was unthinkable.
And worse were the internal whispers.
I knew about my insecurity.
Meanwhile, I have to say there was a good girl who loved me.
She was good. Yes.
She was!
I was unable to love her back though.
I knew that one day, she would catch up and find out that I was lacking in every sense of the word.
She knew me.
She knew I was insecure.
She knew a lot of my secrets and most of what she knew was unspoken, which made me feel unsettled because I knew she could see through me.
However, the worst of my sins are this –
She absorbed my insecurity and somehow, this allowed her to take on a sense of inferiority or the shame of wondering if it was her and that perhaps she was not “enough.” —as if it was her that was not good enough when I fact, I knew it was the other way around.
I knew I was on the verge of losing more.
I knew loss all too well.
I knew that I deserved a beating from the man who who wanted to fight me
I knew that my business life was short of fantastic and that my illegal gains were void of truth.
I knew that I was absent of a moral high ground.
I was lending money to weaklings. I was charging an unthinkable interest.
I stole.
I was far from living the 12-step life that I was posturing with.
I was clean in name only.
No drugs in my system or alcohol.
But I was evil.
In fact, I might have been more aggressive and hateful at this time than when I was on drugs. I think I was more hateful at this time than when I was approaching a drive-by shooting – but the target was not there.
.
And to be clear, the biggest dealer I ever met was not when I was on the street.
No, this was someone in my 12-step fellowship, also known as Alcoholics Anonymous.
He was bringing up 50 pounds of product from Arizona twice a week and selling this off to a local dealer.
He was earning $100 for each pound. Sometimes, his score was three times a week.
Sometimes it was more.
I was broke.
I drove a beat-up, four-door Chevy with a bad muffler.
This car was so loud that I can still hear the car start—Vroom!!
And albeit dead and more than 30 years ago; I can still hear that car rumble.
God, that car was awful but I did have some memories with it
But again, I digress.
I was probably home after sunrise and most likely, I was unhappy, unfulfilled, and more than likely, I was probably angry about something that took place the night before.
I was always that one to overthink.
I was always that one who rehearsed my old arguments because I was unhappy with what I said and of course, once the fight is done, I have always been “that one” who wished I’d fought differently.
There was a knock at the door.
This was early too, like church-going early
But I was sleeping.
I lived in a basement at the time.
I lived in a little room, which was a mess!
My life was a mess.
(Not unlike now)
I hated my job. I hated my life.
I loved my girl, —and she was a good one too.
But I knew my time was up.
She was pretty.
So Sweet
And her innocent look made her sexual to me, as if to foul her goodness with my sexual fetishes drove me more insane tha anything I can describe..
She dressed very well.
Her classic style was definitely amazing to me.
And she had the cutest toes.
Always manicured and always pedicured.
She had a beautiful smile too.
Her eyes were amazing to me, —only, the color of her eyes always looked different.
Sometimes, I swore they were almost green.
Sometimes, they were hazel.
And sometimes, they were soft, like gentle almonds and meaningful, like the way an Angel would look at your soul to see your inner-truth.
Like I said, she was a good one.
I never dared to tell her these things because I was always afraid to lose the upper hand.
I knew what it meant to be played for a fool.
I knew my first “real” attempt at having a girlfriend was awful at best.
She called me another man’s name in the heated moments of intimacy.
Well, now that I think of it, this happened three times.
The first two times, it was her ex-boyfriend’s name.
The third was a married man whom she had a side thing with.
She told me it was okay that he was married because his wife was cheating on him with one of her own family members.
And, so, yes.
I was scarred.
I was that one too.
I was the fool.
I never dared to tell the girl I was with that she was beautiful.
I never did this because then she would know,.
She would know that I was weak and vulnerable.
But more, I knew it was only a matter of time.
She would see that I was nothing more than a fake and a fraud and that yes, —I was the lowest and weakest.
I knew this would be inevitable and that everything she found attractive about me was an illusion and fleeting a best.
This was my moments in bed, alone, and always overthinking,
The knock at the front door persisted
Someone came down to the basement to wake me up.
He was my cousin.
He told me there was a man at the door who had an altercation with the person who drove the blue Chevy.
That was me.
My cousin told me that the man said he owed me an apology,
A what??
I put on some clothes and went upstairs.
It was him.
His family was in the car.
I remember that.
I stepped outside to hear what the man had to say.
The man told me how he had just come from Church and that he listened to the sermon.
He said that he was wrong and then he extended his hand to mine and apologized.
He found where I lived just to apologize.
I remember thinking how I have never been that big of a man.
And be clear, personal size had nothing to do with this comparison.
“Peace be with you,” he said
“And also with you,” I told him.
That was more than 30 years ago,
I remember this well.
Today is not about God.
Not for me.
Today is not about whether He did or did not rise from the dead.
I have no tickets to the resurrection and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure that there is a seat where I will be welcomed.
My sins are gathered and collected but not accounted for.
I am only a man. And sinful at that.
At best, I am this man or “that one” who sees myself “as I am.”
And I understand truth.
I understand the retrospective value of coming to a constructive conclusion.
I know what it means to receive both a helpful and constructive criticism.
I have always seen myself as someone who was behind and therefore, no matter how I tried, I could never keep up, —not even when I cheated.
Today has nothing and everything to do with God because to me, I would rather hear a message of hope.
I would rather be more like that man with a family who came to apologize.
I would rather enjoy the wholesomeness of something beautiful than be alone and rethinking what I should have said (or done) when the fight was live and in front of me.
Whatever I am, and whichever one I am in this world.
I know, —I want to be a better one.
One step.
One choice
One minute
and yes, one day at a time.
The Written Addiction 