Category: Personal Growth

Walls

The beard is back. If for no other reason, it’s the closest thing I have to a force field. I’m back to playing social defense. People, especially the fairer sex, have done some possibly irreparable damage to me lately, and the only thing I can think of, besides making a Tee shirt that reads Not interested in meeting new people that may hurt me, the beard will provide that extra layer of protection.
I’m uglying myself up.

How sad is it that I’m finding ways to shield myself? How did a person with such a good heart and intentions, who genuinely likes people, who talks (talked?) to strangers, and who loves to laugh, become so jaded? To be clear, I am still all those things listed above, but I now view them as liabilities and aspects of my personality that I would rather keep from the world.
It’s a sad state of affairs.

I hate that it has come to this but here I am. I can’t be the person I want to be for fear of spiraling down the rabbithole of anxiety and disappointment, and the ensuing self-flagellation when someone lets me down or hurts me is simply exhausting.

I’m putting up walls. This way is easier.

Instead of seeking the companionship that I can likely do without, I want to focus more on the bigger picture. My energy needs to be channeled into finding my purpose and riding it into what I can only hope will be a fulfilled life. There is something I should be doing and I need to find it. I know that the Universe saved me, more than once, for a reason.

Chasing people that don’t get me or aren’t worthy of me is just getting in the way.

2 years

2 years ago, on a quiet Sunday afternoon I got “the call”. I’ve received important calls in my life but this was the biggest. The Kidney that I needed so badly, the one that I had resigned myself to accepting that I would probably never get, was waiting for me.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I was not doing well at all. Dialysis had been really beating me down. For the first 2 years of treatment, I was breezing through treatments with ease. Until the one day that I wasn’t. My blood levels became constantly unbalanced and the side effects were bizarre. Treatments became unbearable and for the first time in my life, I was experiencing despair, even intrusive suicidal thoughts.

I raced home to pack a bag. I drove on the edge of my seat for 2 hours to the hospital where I was received in a hallway lined with applauding medical staff. It was a surreal moment, to say the least.

I emerged from surgery as if I was a new man. The first day with a new kidney is a remarkable experience. The brain fog, fatigue, malaise that characterizes Renal disease is just gone and replaced by a clarity of mind and renewed sense of hope. It’s beyond medical or physiological, it’s almost spiritual. I wasn’t beaten down any longer. I was in pain, excruciating at times, but it was glorious.

I’ve been given the gift of new beginnings twice. First, a coworker selflessly donated to me in 2011. I hate that her gift didn’t last longer but I am still indebted beyond measure to her. My second donor I never met. She saved my life by filling out an organ donor card. Bless her anonymous soul.

I am truly blessed. Or just the luckiest man alive, if you subscribe to such a thing as luck. Regardless, it is concerning that sometimes I lose track of that.

I need to stop doing that. My story is awesome and I need to not only tell it but to live it. The mere fact that I am still standing after all of the shit that I have been through is nothing less than remarkable. While I’m not prepared to step in front of a train, I’m seemingly bulletproof. I need to embrace that more. I can start by no longer allowing small things get in the way of a fulfilled life.

I know I have a purpose. I also know that experiences tend to find me. If I continue to wallow on what is directly in front of me I am distracted from what’s on the horizon. There I will find the next great happening in my life.

I’m always telling people to look up and around, not just straight ahead. Maybe I should follow my own advice. No more wallowing in petty shit and no more time wasted with people who don’t deserve me.

Fortunately, I have these yearly reminders of the fragility of mortality to ground me and set me back on the right track.

Under Construction

One good thing, perhaps the only thing, about breakups is you find yourself wanting to work on yourself. After the dust has settled, all of the blame has been addressed and reconciled, and the impulse to blame myself for everything has subsided, I find myself in a better place. Not a great one, but better.

The Stoic in me has again resumed its throne at the front of my psyche and I have found strength within myself to ask the right questions, place errant emotions in their respective boxes, and provide the tools to choose how I react to things. I came up with that, Stoically speaking, I need to decide to flip this thing into a positive. And that is by emerging somehow better than I was before. And that can only be achieved by working on myself. One really can never do enough of that.

I have been drinking a lot. Eating badly. Too much 4:20. I haven’t been working out. Sure I’ve been active, I have worked 2 jobs all summer and have been very busy. But I’m not taking care of my body. Consequently, I’m failing on both fronts of life. I’m not physically or emotionally fit.

One is easy. I dumped out the last of the 1.75 of Scotch and gave away the 30 pack in my fridge. I restarted my Intermittent fasting and I have been working out again. Surprisingly, despite my period of neglect and excess, I gained only a few pounds. But fasting and a change in diet have cleansing properties that benefit both mind and body and I feel a bit better.
I expect to get my swagger back soon.
Of course, my swagger is nothing but a defense mechanism. I may walk upright and confident, that is just so that people will leave me alone. My confident and self-assured facial expression, that is a mask as well. My good-natured humor and dad jokes are a partial veneer as well. I’m not in a particularly good mood and I don’t find much funny these days.
But these things will get me by as the internal construction continues. The physical aspect is challenging but it’s still the easy part. Getting my psyche whole is going to take a lot of work. After a long and arduous search of my soul,

I know what I have to do.

I need to get myself right before I can hope to share what and who I am with another.

Achilles Heel

I don’t lack self-confidence. My posture and manner in which I carry myself have been likened to that of a proud peacock. While I did not particularly care for that characterization I recognized it as a favorable sentiment. My Dad taught me to project strength and confidence in my gait. He said, “If you look like you can handle yourself people are less likely to f*ck with you”. He proved to be right because, at age 58, I can count on one hand how many times I have been f*cked with. It’s the walk. But between us, the gait is merely a defense mechanism. I am not as confident as I project. I’m very self-conscious.

Is it okay to say that you like yourself? While there are things that I want to change about myself, and I am committed to self-improvement until I draw my last breath, I feel mostly good about my place in the Universe.
In my circle, I am generally well-liked and respected. I am a loyal friend, and known to be a considerate and respectful guy. I love animals and I try to see the good in everyone. I have a great story (I have endured many health and personal battles that could have left me a bitter and angry mess) and I live an attitude of gratitude.

Overall, I’m fairly happy with my life. It’s not anywhere what I had hoped but I don’t dwell but instead hope for a better day.

So why do failed relationships always send me spiraling to a place of anger, depression and self-doubt? My last breakup, in which I truly believed (because of my overthinking) I had no role in, made me question myself way more than I am comfortable with. And it troubles me that my first reaction to any rejection is a loud and profound “What did I do wrong?” Why do I go there? If I do something wrong I am very aware. After all, I am quite experienced at being wrong so it’s no big trick.

I really need to stop letting women, and the inevitable prospect of relationships not working out, affect my self-esteem. Despite the forward progress I have made in my life to date, all the obstacles that I have overcome, and all of the self-discovery I have obtained…relationships are my Achilles Heel. Especially if I continue to make everything my own fault.

I need to move the notion that sometimes it’s YOU, not me, to the forefront of my consciousness. And soon.

Nostalgia

Every once in a while, Netflix gets it right and they actually add a movie that I want to watch. Imagine my joy when I stumbled across one of my all-time favorite movies, George Lucas’s 1973 hit American Graffiti.

Where do I begin? The cast?
Ron Howard, six months before he would debut as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. Cindy Williams 3 years before she became the infamous Shirley on Laverne and Shirley. Richard Dreyfuss. Mackenzie Phillips, Suzanne Somers, and Harrison Ford were all in their first big role. Add to the mix Wolfman Jack and you have a heluva cast.

The cars?
John Milner’s chopped ’32 Ford Standard coupe. Bob Falfa’s (Ford) badass ’55 Chevy Belair. The mysterious ’56 Silver Thunderbird with the porthole windows driven by Somers. Steve Bolander’s (Howard) cherry ’58 Impala. Oh man, for a Detroit muscle buff such as myself, it is a veritable wet dream.

The story?
It is 1965 Modesto California. It is a typical Saturday night and the locals are blowing off steam. Typical of the time, looking “cool” was the law of the land and, given the puritanical nature of the time, there was not much else to do except ride around in cars, go to arcades and sock hops, and create a harmless ruckus while driving around. We are introduced to the players; the too-old-to-be-hanging-out-with-teenagers guy with the hot car who is always being challenged to race. The local young people that have menial 9-5’s and live for the weekend. Gangs, car clubs, and packs of teenage girls defying Daddy for a few hours. Add to the mix that this is no typical Saturday night for a small group of teens, for it is the eve of them leaving for college the next morning. Relationships are called into question(should we see other people?), feet are getting cold as one promising student is thinking of not going. They are all grappling with change and fear of what the future will hold. I won’t ruin the ending for you other than the inevitable drag race ends up altering the plans of two of them.

It is a wonderful character study about fear and uncertainty. Of the familiar and the question of whether it is better to be comfortable or to try something new. All against the backdrop of 1960’s America.

And there it is, that is what I love about the movie. The era.

I was born in 1965. A mere 3 years earlier my mom and dad were likely in a similar scene. My dad was a car fanatic and he belonged to a club. He was an amateur stock car driver. He was also a bit of a hellion with that fast Lincoln of his. Cruising the strip, bantering with other drivers with my mom under his arm is totally conceivable. My mom telling him to slow down, not get a ticket or into an accident, and to have her home before her father “grounds her” is also very believable. They lived the movie. The two of them could have been dropped into the set of that movie and nobody would have blinked. The guy in the white tee shirt with the Camels rolled into the sleeve? That was my dad. The girl in the Pencil dress and sensible shoes? That was my mom.

I often fantasize about being a teenager back then. While they may have thought that they were pushing the envelope, we now know that their version is pale compared to today. It can almost be considered tame and wholesome. But they didn’t know that.

They also didn’t know what would happen just a few short years later. Vietnam would escalate. Draft cards were coming. Parents and authority figures, particularly parents, became the enemy as generations clashed. People would be forced to tune in or drop out. EVERYTHING would change soon for the innocent, harmless locals.

But there is always the movie. A reminder of a better time. A more innocent time. A time that ceased to exist not long after. Oh yeah, did I mention the CARS?

In my head

I have been in a phase of self-improvement characterized by an uncharacteristic amount of actual progress. I’m not sure if I’ve ever revealed this fact about myself here, but despite my genuine desire to do and be better, my follow-through needs work. I can attribute this to a few factors. I try to do too much too fast, I can’t undo all those years of bad habits and ingrained negative results, I underestimate the magnitude of the task and get intimidated, and I fail to recognize the power of the biggest obstacle of all, my near-crippling anxiety.

I was on Adderall until the national shortage ended it for me in December, 2022. It was quite a move for me to start taking it, I am staunchly anti any mood- altering medications. Short of diagnosed schizophrenia, I will insist that the world deal with me in my actual state, as fucked as that may be. Deal with it. But I was informed by my PCP that a low dose of Adderall has anxiety-reducing effects on some so I tried it. I was pleased with the results. It wasn’t a massive change, it just slowed my overthinking down a bit and got “out of my head” somewhat. The shortage ended that, and now that I am not working in an office setting I’m giving it a go without the med.

I am so much worse now. Now, I’m becoming the guy I’ve always feared. The one who avoids situations because of all of the gremlins that lurk in all scenarios. From daily activities or making plans to avoiding the possibility of beginning a relationship for fear of being rejected or hurt, I procrastinate when I can and often experience dread and even fear at the prospect of doing things that are normally comfortable for me.

Today, I did 2 things I do every Spring. I rode my motorcycle to my mechanic to get my yearly service before riding season starts. I was tentative to get on my bike, my mind was toying with my confidence and flashing images of crashing in my mind. What? I LOVE riding my motorcycle and I am very confident in my skills. I got there no problem, I was comfortable and competent. But I invested way too much mental angst. It threw me.

My second task of the day was to do my first detail of the season. I enjoy cleaning cars, it is very satisfying and I also find that I do some of my best thinking while doing it. But today, and for days preceding, I was concerned that I didn’t have the stamina, that it would be too tiring, that my back would bother me. What? I’m in GREAT SHAPE right now. My stamina is fine as is my back. And yup, you guessed it, it went well and I feel fine.

I hope that the Government never forces me to go back to work full-time. I can’t even begin to imagine what actual responsibility with consequences will do to me.

Or, I could see my doctor and find out what the actual fuck is happening with me. I don’t like this and in conformance with my new mindset; I want to do and be better.

Takeaways

I’ve been back from Florida for 8 days and this is the first time I’ve made an attempt to journal.
I wish I could neatly sum up what and how I have been doing since my return from my hiatus/break/retreat/mental health break/run-from-my-problems trip to Florida. The only thing(s) I can accurately report is that I like the weather there much more, and that my problems were still here waiting for me.
And that’s ok.
It was silly of me to think that, despite all of the soul-searching and Zen moments I created/experienced while away, I would return as a significantly different person.

One thing I am sure of is that I learned enough about myself to lay the groundwork, a foundation if you will, of how to accomplish a life well-lived. I narrowed it down to 3 very simple principles that I know I am capable of adhering steadfastly to.
1) Stop caring what others think of me.
Sounds easy enough doesn’t it? Don’t we all know those people that pound their chest in a Bluto-esque display of Bravado and say “I don’t care what others think of me!” Problem is, I don’t believe 90% of them. Sure, there are people who really don’t but it’s a small number. But I’m now in that percentage. At this point in my life I have to be me and people are going to have to deal with that. I have learned that it’s not so bad to be me.
2) Forgive myself.
I have wasted so much time dwelling on the past. It’s truly wasted time to dwell on it because I can’t change it. I vow to treat everything in my life pre-today as a lesson in either how or how not to do something. That’s all it can be. I’m done beating the shit out of myself.
3) Don’t chase.
That may sound like an odd one but it’s huge for me. I take it real hard when I am rejected. I should be used to it but it has always been a problem. Friends, family, and women alike have abandoned me over the years and I spend an inordinate amount of effort fixating on it. Not to say that I have no fault in any of it, instead I am saying that I am not chasing after the fact. If you choose to leave my life, and I have made all appropriate efforts to make things right, then you are free to leave and I will just have to make peace with it.

That’s what I came up with in Florida. Now, as I return to life I am going to do what I told my clients as a Case Manager; instead of returning to an old life, I will begin a new one. As often as I need to in order to get it right. Any and all decisions that I make as I work on the many areas of my life that need improvement will be guided by the three principles stated above.

Starting today.

Jeremey

A story of addiction, recovery and a friendship for the ages

I got a text today from Jeremey.
Hey buddy, just wanted to let you know that I’m doing great. Love you and appreciate you.
It warmed my heart to hear from him. It also served to remind me of how much I miss my job. Two things you need to know here:
I took a hiatus (possibly for good, I just don’t know right now) from a job that I love.
Jeremey is letting me know that he is doing great not only out of friendship but over an incredible bond that we formed when I was his Case Manager at a Drug/Alcohol Recovery Center. Affectionately known as a Rehab.

When I met Jeremey he was not great. Anything but. I met him at the lowest point of his life.

It was a cold December morning when I made the 1500-yard trek to the Detox building to meet the new client assigned to me. I walked in, shook the cold off of me and went to the common area to find my Client. I called out the name and a man about my age weakly forced himself out of the deep cushion of the sofa and slowly trudged his way towards the chair I motioned for him to sit. I was amazed at the effort it took for him to get to it. Then he spoke. Over the course of the interview, as I explained our program, my role as case manager and his expectations for treatment, I must have asked him to repeat almost everything. He was too weak to speak clearly and with any volume.
What he was able to say was nothing but pure denial and resistance. The broken man before me was utilizing all the strength he had to fight me on whether he needed treatment or not. He wanted to leave after Detox, I politely suggested that a full program would do him better. I didn’t fight him. At the Detox level, that is not atypical. As they say, De-Nile (denial) ain’t just a river in Egypt.

This went on for days. Despite my requirement of seeing a client twice a week, I met with him every day. As his strength grew, so did his insistence that he didn’t have a problem. Recognizing that I had a challenge, and a chance to do some good I pushed back. Day after day. Finally, he agreed to stay for 2 weeks. This was a victory. This one became, against all judgment, personal for me.

Jeremey would fight me on everything for those 2 weeks. I dug in and challenged him. I couldn’t work harder on his recovery than he was willing to, but I really wanted to see him get better. 3 weeks became 4weeks. He began to buy in and just when I thought that the therapy sessions and meetings were working, after 4 weeks he made a huge push to leave. I worked with him more, throwing everything I knew about the model of addiction I had to have discussions. I paired him with other clients that were where I was hoping he would get to and he still wanted to leave. Finally, everything combined wore him down. He finished the program.
And in the process, we became wonderful friends. It evolved to the point that when we saw each other we would hug and often he asked how I was doing before I could ask him.
On the last day of his 9th week Jeremey left our care. The man who was too weak to speak, a disbarred lawyer and 25 year career-alcoholic whose most recent memory was waking up in his brother’s recliner (he was homeless), vomiting on himself in front of his 2 nephews, swigging a beer and passing out again, was leaving with a reservation at a Sober House, a job (we coordinated interviews while he was in rehab) and an entirely new outlook on life.
I was so proud to have been a small part of such an amazing story.
So back to the text.
We parted as amazing friends. He made a commitment to check in with me periodically, knowing that my failure to hear from him may indicate that he may have relapsed. I hadn’t heard from him in a while. To get that text means that he is still doing great.

That’s why I became a Case Manager. To become part of something like that.

To Love again

That’s what I want…I think

I’m beginning to think that I am going to be alone for a long time, maybe forever. I’m conflicted at times, oddly at peace with it others. It comes down to reality vs. want and I will come down on the side of reality more often than not. The reality of it is that I have a very unremarkable and disappointing history of relationships and I’m not interested in adding to the heap.

But part of me still wants to be with someone.

The negative guy in me could say that my lack of success in relationships is my own fault. After all, it makes sense that the immaturity and character flaws that negatively affected every other aspect of my life would certainly affect my relationships. I was, and perhaps still am, a very mixed-up person. But it was not all bad. I had some amazing relationship moments that I will always cherish. Also, it isn’t fair to myself to assume that my relationships didn’t work only because of me.
It’s not always me.
But unfortunately, in the absence of answers, my nature is to blame myself.

Now that I am in a forgiving phase of my life, I am able to take a hard look at the possible reasons that I am single and without prospects. I am capable of taking an honest look at myself and dealing with what I come up with. So I ask myself…why am I single?

Physically, I have some challenges. Should a woman actually take a look at me I look old. I shave my head because if I don’t my hair grows in like the infield of a little league baseball league in August. I have a goatee that is not even gray anymore, it’s white. I wear glasses and hearing aids. I am a bit overweight. That is what the world sees.
Should a woman look past those things and want to learn about me they will then find that I am not financially independent and do not have my own place. These things, along with hair, matter. How do I know? I have been openly rejected on dating sites for those very reasons.

That hurt a bit.

It’s a shame that character doesn’t matter in the transactional dating world of today. If it did, then someone could see that I am loving, affectionate, caring and loyal. I have no problem with monogamy. I like it. Because I’m honest. When I find something I like, I don’t look for something else. It’s too bad that doesn’t matter anymore. If it did, someone would also learn that I have a very youthful attitude and the sex drive, and prowess, of a much younger man. I know how to work the equipment. I’m in the Union.

All that aside, as 60 approaches, it appears that I may be alone. I can make peace with that. I’m just sad that I have to. I’m a romantic at heart. I feel a tug when I see happy couples in real life. I want to live the moments portrayed before me on TV and movies. I want to hold someone’s hand, yet all I have to hold is the remote. I want another chance at being in love. At living my life with someone else. To have my heart skip a beat when I think about someone.

Maybe it isn’t in the cards for me to have another shot. Maybe I’ve had all the second chances In life. Maybe I don’t hold the appeal that I think I do. I can, and likely will make peace with that. I may have to. After all, who says that I deserve anything? I may have already been given my one and only and screwed it up.

I think the best course of action is to let the universe do my bidding for me. I’ll see if Love finds me when I’m not looking. After all, that is how the many blessings I have been given have occurred. Why not another?

Fairness

The other day I overheard a young woman loudly state, while involved in a heated conversation with what I can assume was her mother, that she deserves to be happy. She followed it up by emphatically stating that it is her “Constitutional right” to be so. I wanted to jump in so badly and offer that the pursuit of happiness is mentioned only in the Declaration of Independence and nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, that the only promise implied was the pursuit, and that it was only meant as an assurance from a young Country that it was committed to freedom for all individuals, without persecution, to pursue God-given (inalienable) rights, one of them being happy, which in and of itself cannot be guaranteed.

But common sense and experience prevailed. I inferred her age and concluded that not only would I not make any kind of meaningful impact on the conversation, but also that it is not entirely her fault. She was a twenty-something, a member of a generation that has been raised on validated feelings, cancel culture, banned history, and soft truths delivered in a manner as not to offend delicate sensitivities. I kept to myself, knowing that while I meant well, I would probably come across as an old fart dishing out unsolicited opinions. I could see how the conversation would go. I could even see the ending, the introduction of the concept of fairness.

This is where my concerns for today’s generation lie; the expectation or assumption that life is fair. In the great quest for equity on all fronts, somebody made the bold assumption that all things, including happiness, would be evenly distributed. They want life to be fair.
Newsflash: LIFE.IS.NOT.FAIR. Don’t expect it to be and you will never be disappointed.

I have had a hard life. Many challenges have risen to meet me on the road of life, and I have had my share of hardship. My life has been a struggle to say the very least. But that does not mean I haven’t experienced happiness. I have had many moments that I can recall, and they are etched in my brain. But they were brief and fleeting. In between those moments was everything else that I, and countless other people have to do every day.
Such as dealing with people and things that I did not want to but had to.
Working jobs that I hated because people depended on me and there was no plan B if I lost my job.
Biting my tongue and not punching the fucking shit out of somebody because I either worked for or with them, or I feared going to jail.
Facing the truth even when it was painful.
Allowing my children to feel hurt and sad because I knew that by fixing their problems for them, they wouldn’t learn anything.
I’ve had heartache, illness, financial problems, and relationship issues. There are so many examples, but I’ve made my point. I and countless others have survived all of those things and so much more and didn’t develop a victim mentality or lament the lack of fairness. If you get how life works, you do it because that is what life is: survival. Getting through all the crap in order to enjoy something, anything, that makes you smile…that’s happiness.

Chase it, create a healthy definition, and appreciate it when you have it. Know that you are not entitled to it. And don’t expect to be happy. Because life is not fair.