This Is A Story About A Bed

1

     This is a story about a bed. Or maybe it’s a story about a couch, it could go either way. It's a story about a man and a woman, and I guess about people from their past. I'm the man in the story, let's clear that up right off the bat. This is brutal non-fiction. It’s also a story about mental health and heartbreak and danger. So it's a story about a bunch of things, and it starts with a bear eating my finger.
     I'm aware that most of you know about my finger being eaten by a bear. You can find out about it in another story amongst all the stories on this blog, in a story that's not actually about a bear. It comes up fairly often, although I don't see it as a defining moment in my life.
     Which is weird. Because it certainly must be a defining moment. What's the point of having a bear eat a body part, no matter how small, if it's not going to be some big moment in your existence? I don't know, I mostly view it as a great story to tell at dinner parties, not that I really get to many dinner parties in my life.
     So anyway, the bear ate my finger, and after they stitched up what was left, I was sent home to heal. I had to sleep on my side, so as not to roll onto my hand and rip the stitches or damage the hand any further.
     Initially, they wanted to remove more of the finger than I was willing to give up. They told me how having one segment or two segments or no segments really made no difference. They even wanted to take part of my hand, so my ring finger had a smooth line back to my wrist, because they thought it would look more normal.
     "In what world where I'm not a cartoon character or an alien does that look normal?" I asked, hoping I was adequately conveying the incredulity I was feeling. Besides, I had this strange notion that I had some magical regenerative powers. I suppose that was an offshoot of how we all feel like we're immortal, until one day we grow up and realize that's not true. I hadn't arrived at that point yet, and I was firmly convinced that my finger would grow back.
     It did not.
     In fact, it did the opposite. It turned black and gangrenous, and started to smell like rotting flesh, mostly because it was indeed rotting flesh. I had to return to the hospital, where they cut off the part of my finger that they had wanted to cut off in the first place. That is how I discovered that I'm not immortal, or at least not part lizard.
     Again, I had to make sure to sleep on my side, so as not to damage my finger any more than the bear and my own reptilian pipe dreams had already.
     Why is this even important? What does it have to do with a bed or a couch? Well, I'll tell you.
     The easiest way to ensure that I stayed on my side while I slept was for me to sleep on my couch. On my side, with my back pressed against the back of the couch, I wasn't going anywhere. It was no big deal, I had a comfortable couch. I was single, so no one missed me if I wasn't sleeping in a bed at night.
     Due to the original injury, and then the subsequent amputation, I wound up sleeping on my couch for well over a month. I got used to it, which wasn't so strange. Soldiers get used to sleeping in foxholes, so this wasn't much of a stretch. I liked the security of the back of the couch up against me. I found that I much preferred sleeping on my side than my back.
     In fact, I snored when I slept on my back, and I'm a fidgety sleeper, so I often wound up like that when I slept in a bed. The couch seemed better. I felt safe and secure there. I liked the extra contact I got from sleeping with my back against it.
     More than that, I found that I didn't like my bed as much anymore. I have a pretty nice queen size bed. It's very comfortable. After the relative cocoon of the couch for six weeks though, the bed felt huge and empty. It felt lonely, and it almost seemed to mock me. I didn't want to go back to the bed.
     I have had a lot of relationships in my lifetime. The problem is, they haven't really been adult relationships. I lived at home until I was almost 30, so up until then, I didn't really share a bed with anyone for more than a night or two. After I got my own place, I was dating women who were also in their 30's. They had their own places as well, or children or pets at home. They didn't want to sleep over all the time. I was kind of okay with it, because I was enjoying my first real experience of having my own space.
     And so it went. The years rolled by, and I wasn't avoiding commitment or anything, I was just going with the flow. I happened to date a bunch of women who actively avoided commitment, which was probably an unconscious choice on my part. I would lament about how no woman wanted to get serious, but I apparently avoided dating any woman who seemed stable or who wanted to live together or get married.
     Which is strange, because I really did want to get married for a lot of my life. My parents have a very successful marriage, over 60 years, and that appealed to me. The problem was, every woman I wanted to settle down with didn't want to settle down, and the ones who seemed like they might just bored me to tears.
     Yeah, I know. I see it, just like you do.
     I guess I'm just like a bunch of other annoying men who drive women crazy. I found the messed up ones exciting and sexy, and saw the dependable and responsible ones as uninteresting. I really did want long term, committed relationships with the women I loved, but they weren't really having any of that, and I must have been okay with that on some level. Still, I would make them out to be the bad guy, and blame them for not wanting to settle down. If one of them had ever done an about face and said yes to marriage or cohabitation, I probably wouldn’t have known what to do.
     At any rate, it was fall of 2004 when I lost my finger and was relegated to the couch. I never went back to my bed. Once in awhile I would have women stay overnight, and I slept in the bed with them, because it would have been really weird to have sex, and then leave them to go sleep on a couch. Sadly, that did happen a few times. Sometimes, they weren't used to sleeping with someone, or I would snore, or they had intimacy issues, and I would wind up sleeping on the couch by myself while they slept in the other room. Ah, romance!
     Mostly, though, it was just me in my apartment at night. The women in my life kind of liked having a part time boyfriend. It was easier for them. Some of them were just selfish, but as long as it made things easier for me to be lazy about everything, I didn’t mind. One woman I dated told me how her perfect man would be someone she could turn off and put in a closet, and take him out once or twice a week when she felt like it, and not have to deal with their needs or wants. She told me that’s why she liked me so much, she only had to see me once or twice a week. For some reason, this sounded reasonable to me! I had a fairly long term relationship during that time with a woman who had a kid and her own place, so we didn't have many sleepovers, and I was okay with that. I told you, I liked my couch.
     So for ten years, I only slept in my bed about 15 times, and never alone. The thought of sleeping in my bed alone was starting to fill me with anxiety and dread. It made me feel pathetic, which was ironic, because sleeping on a fucking couch for ten years is kind of the definition of pathetic. The only other times I slept in a bed was when I stayed in a hotel.
     I was happy with that, or so I thought.
     Then I met a woman, and I fell in love. For the first time, it felt like an adult relationship. We were together all the time. She had been with someone for a couple of years up until a few months before we met, and had moved back with her father while she looked for a new place. Thing was, she could do that because she had never given up her room at her father’s house. She always had it as a safety net, at 37 years old, but I didn’t find that odd at the time.
     So we met, and soon we were spending all our time with each other. She was really together, but exciting and interesting and funny and cool. I mean, she was really cool. She was a musician, she was artistic, she knew as much about music as I did, maybe more. She was beautiful, she partied, she had a bunch of interesting friends. She had traveled, she knew good food and liked to eat. She was an adult, and she was badass! My parents loved her, my friends loved her, I loved her.
     She slept at my place six out of seven nights a week, occasionally spending a night here or there at her father's house. He lived alone, and she liked to stay there for a night now and then, to cook for him and clean and do her laundry. It gave us a little time to miss each other as well.
     The thing is, I now loved sleeping in my bed with her. We slept completely entwined with each other, wrapped up tight in each other's arms. We couldn't get close enough, or have too much skin on skin. That was something new for each of us, and we couldn't believe how right it felt. In the rare night she didn't sleep at my place, I went back to the couch. The bed seemed especially empty without her there. I say that like it’s a reasonable thing, that I shouldn’t ever sleep in our bed if she wasn’t there. That’s how much that part of me was still broken.
     It really felt like an adult relationship, and the way she loved me really did wonders for me. She made me feel loved and inspired me. She made me feel attractive and desired. She gave me confidence and security, and with her, I could actually live in the moment, something I hadn't been able to do in a long time. She loved me as much as I loved her, and that was an equality I never experienced with anyone until she came along.
     I did that for her as well. She was astounded that she felt happier than she ever had in her life. We used to talk about how it felt as if we saved each other's lives, and that was not much of an exaggeration. We were talking about getting married, and I, along with everyone else, thought that this was finally it.
     So you're probably thinking that she moved in with me. I mean, she was there almost every night, and it all seemed like a fairytale romance, so why wouldn't she? We talked about it, and I was all for it, but we just didn't seem to get around to it. Part of it was because things were so great the way they were, so if neither of us was going to push it, why bother? Let things stay perfect.
     Only they weren't perfect.
     The closer we got to getting engaged, the more she started to seem distant. Her parents marriage had been troubled and turbulent, and now her mother and stepfather had recently split up. There was a history of mental illness, her mother and her aunt, and she was always afraid that she might fall victim to it. I soon found out that her fears were well founded.
     She had a history of abusive relationships before I came along. She would tell me stories that broke my heart. Some of the things she told me about that had happened to her were truly horrific. I was proud of her, because she seemed to be handling it all so well. She wasn't, though.
     She had ptsd, and I had to be careful not to get excited about anything and raise my voice at all, even if it wasn't angry. Any loud voice or noise affected her. She would panic. I had to be careful not to stand between her and any exit out of a room, or the anxiety of feeling trapped overwhelmed her. I had to relearn a lot of things so as not to trigger her.
     And still, it happened anyway. After the first six months, I started to notice how she looked for anything as a sign that I might suddenly change, and become angry or abusive. If you've spent time around women who have been abused, or even a lot who haven't, you'll notice that they apologize for so many things that really need no apology. They do it automatically, because they would never know what might set some asshole off and get them yelled at or hit. My girlfriend would tell me stories about how she would get punched for saying she liked a certain band or musician. She would get hit for dressing too nice or not nice enough. She got punched in the face once for taking a French fry off of her boyfriend's plate.
     So she lived in constant fear that I would one day start doing that, and she started to resent me for it, even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong. No matter how nice I was and how hard I tried to be calm and gentle and kind, she would see it as some sort of trick, meant to fool her, until one day I would show my true colors.
      She started to accuse me of ridiculous things; not even tangible things that had happened. Things that she thought I might be thinking, or planned to do. They were sometimes completely irrational and ridiculous thoughts, but to her, they seemed plausible.
     One of the first things I should have paid more attention to was that one day about three months into the relationship, she suddenly started telling me that my bedroom furniture was arranged the same way one of her most abusive exe's bedroom furniture was arranged. She told me how it terrified her sometimes, yet she somehow hadn't noticed it the first three months we were together. I offered to rearrange it, but she insisted it was fine, and then it passed. Everything was okay again.
     Then a month or so later, she informed me that my sheets and bedspread and curtains were the exact same pattern as his were, and it freaked her out! I was taken aback, as you can imagine. How could that be? And how could she just now be noticing that? She also told me how my furniture was not only arranged the same way, it was the same exact style furniture as this guy had years ago. It made no sense. Still, she would tell me it was okay when I offered to rearrange everything or get new sheets and curtains.
     Now, I collect old newspapers, and have some particularly nice ones framed and hanging in my room. One day, she informed me that her ex also collected them, and had them hanging in the same places as I did. Now I knew for sure that something was wrong. I asked her how that could be, and she flipped out, saying I was accusing her of lying.
     All this was happening over the course of months, and in between these outbursts and telling how my room was a carbon copy of her abusive ex, she was perfectly fine, and would apologize for thinking it. But the cracks were really beginning to show. So after almost a year together, a few weeks before I was going to give her an engagement ring, she completely lost it. The girl I loved so much, my first real adult relationship, imploded. It got very scary and ugly, and I didn't know what to do.
     And then she was gone.
     Of course, I went back to my couch. If you think it was hard sleeping in my bed alone before, now it was torture.

2

     I’m not someone who sits around and has a lot of regrets. I had gotten a lot of good things out of my relationship with her. It was the first time I felt truly loved. I felt supported and cared for, and like someone really wanted to spend time with me. She wasn't a horrible person, quite the opposite. She was damaged, but she was kind and loving and sweet when she wasn't being completely irrational, especially that first year.
     I have always had a very bad self image. I have some pretty severe body dysmorphia stuff going on. I think I'm hideously ugly, and much heavier than I am. I know it's not reality, but I can't help it. It’s a defect in my thinking, brought on by years of abuse, and it shapes my reality.
     I hate the sight of me. If I see myself in a mirror when I'm out at a bar or restaurant or store, I sometimes go into a full blown panic attack, that's how much I hate it. I’ve had incidents when I went to the restroom in a bar or restaurant, saw myself in the bathroom mirror at a bad angle or light, and it took everything I had to walk back out there and function like a normal human being. I’ve looked at myself in a mirror in a dressing room at the store, and been so repulsed by myself that I just dropped everything and fled the store, not able to catch my breath until I was in the car.
      It's embarrassing, and I feel foolish and pathetic when it happens. It's irrational, and it's infuriating that I know better, but still can't always get a handle on it. It makes no sense that something you know isn't real can still have that kind of effect on you. We make our own realities, and we don't usually create them by ourselves. We have plenty of help along the way from bullies and manipulators and abusers, and even by well meaning family and friends. People don’t understand the power of words, and how much damage they can do.
     My ex had really helped me with my self esteem. She honestly found me attractive, and while I assume all of the women who have dated me must have found me attractive as well, none of them made me feel that way. Whereas I used to have to sit in my car in the store parking lot for a few moments to give myself a pep talk and remind myself that I was no more hideous than anyone else out there, now I would find myself thinking that if she found me attractive, who cares what anyone else thinks? It kind of freed me from the anxiety and insecurity.
     The thing is, it wasn’t really a fix. I still thought I looked like a troll, I just didn’t care as long as she loved me and thought I was good looking. That’s pretty much the opposite of good mental health and self esteem. Still, it allowed me to function and breathe, and it felt better than the way I usually felt. It was one less voice in my head jockeying for position to make me feel bad about myself.
     Out of the many things that devastated me when she left, one that really frightened me was losing that feeling and that security, even if it was flawed. I had spent so much of my life so anxiety ridden about just being seen that I couldn’t bear the thought of giving that up. I had gotten used to not being repulsed by myself as intensely as usual. The thought of going back to it terrified me.
     So I determined that I was going to hold onto as much of the good things she brought to my life as I could. I would still remind myself how much she had loved me. Even though it broke my heart, I would read letters and notes she had written, and think about all the good times and good things. On one hand, it was excruciating, poking at that wound everyday. With the pain came wisdom and strength, and I managed to hold onto some of what she had given me. I still thought I looked horrible, but I still didn’t care that much, because she had loved me.
     A couple of months after she left, I got up one morning(off the couch, of course!) and stumbled into the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, which I still usually tried to avoid. But this time, I couldn't help but stare at what I saw in the mirror. I didn't look like me at all! I looked normal, almost a little handsome. My face wasn't misshapen or troll like, my body wasn't immense and bulging in weird places. I was actually frightened, because I didn't really look like me, at least not the version of me that I had been seeing all these years. I was actually seeing me the way I really looked. I didn’t look like Brad Pitt or anything, but I looked tolerable.
     The difference was so startling that I really feared for my sanity. I thought maybe something was really wrong. I can’t even describe how bizarre and jarring it was. It was like I was looking out of some alternate reality version of me, like my mirror was actually a portal to a different dimension, one where I wasn’t gross. It took me a week or so of seeing my own real reflection until I finally accepted it. I could finally see myself the way the rest of the world saw me. That was because of her. Even though she was gone, the effect she had on me was still here.
      So I decided to hold onto as much of that as I could. I started to get my life in order. I was eating healthier, getting out and riding my bike and playing golf. I was really figuring it all out, even contemplating sleeping in my bed again.
     Then, about four months later, she returned.
     What followed was about two and a half years of sheer hell. I was determined not to give up on her, I wanted so badly to save her, but I didn't stand a chance. The woman I loved, who loved me, wasn't there anymore. It was paranoid schizophrenia, and some of those personalities really wanted to make me pay for all the hurt anyone had ever caused her. She was hearing voices and hallucinating. She told me that she knew I was telekinetic and was moving things around behind her back, and that I had a giant magnet hidden under the bed to control her and mess up her cell phone.
     There were fights and drugs and arrests and psychologists and more horrible things that I can't even write down to this day. It's too hard and it's too painful. Finally, she was so far gone and became so dangerous and abusive that I had to walk away. There was nothing else I could do, I had tried everything.
     So back to the bed and the couch.
     At several points during the two and a half years, she would move in with me. It would only last a month or two before she would leave, living in her car or on the street, or in some flophouse apartment. At one point when she was living with me though, I came home from work to find that her friend had come over, and they rearranged my bedroom. She had finally done it.
     It looked ridiculous. If you've ever had an apartment with a corner bedroom with two windows, a full bedroom set, and electric baseboard heat, you know that there is really only one optimal way of positioning everything. She had things all over the place. Nothing made sense, you couldn't get around, but if it made her feel better, I would go along with it.
      We didn't sleep in the bed anyway. If you've had any experience with bipolar people, you have probably seen them stay up for days. It's like they're afraid to sleep. Then they sleep for 20 hour stretches. I would sleep on the couch, what little sleep I got, while she would pace around the apartment, or spend hours on her phone messing with the settings because she was sure someone was spying on her or tracking her.
     The terrible thing about damaged and broken people is that they damage and break the things around them as well. You don’t even notice it while it is happening. She had been so haunted by ghosts of the past that she could never be free. I watched them torment her for years. I saw them appear out of nowhere. I saw them trailing behind her. I saw them touch her so lightly at times, whispering in her ear like a faint breeze. I saw them swirl around her, beating her down and screaming like banshees.
     All that time, I could do nothing. I tried, but it's not easy to grapple with a spectre. There's no real form to make out half the time, and no way to drag it off someone and banish it to the shadows. I'm not an exorcist or necromancer, I cannot command the dead. I could only watch them torment her, and see the anguish and terror they caused. My pale words and reassurances meant very little. The people she needed to hear apologize or explain, or even just admit to what they'd done, would never give her that peace and satisfaction.
     That's why denying your victims the simple act of confessing to your crimes is almost as bad as the crime itself. They are doomed to a half life, never getting any resolution. Never getting any confirmation that they didn't deserve whatever was done to them. There will always be people around them wondering if they are telling the truth, doubting their stories and looking to blame them. They live never getting an answer that only the perpetrator of something so terrible can give them. So they look to you, and hate you because you can't give them solace or satisfaction. You are just one more person who can never understand, who can never make it stop, who can never drive the ghosts away once and for all.
     When she was finally gone for good, I discovered all the ghosts she had left behind for me. There was the pain, obviously. It was more than just losing her and the light she had brought me. It was the same thing that she was dealing with in some ways.
      I had no answers, and she wasn't going to give me any. She couldn't. She wasn't even capable of seeing how hurt I was. She was sick, and she couldn't even help herself. The jagged pieces of her mind no longer fit together, so there would never be resolution for me. The woman I loved, the one I held so tightly while we slept, the one who finally somehow left me feel as if the world made sense… she didn't exist anymore.
      It’s a cruel trick life plays on you when you want so badly to help someone you love, but helping them only enables them and makes it worse. It is a test with no right answers. In some cases, you can let them hit bottom, and that might make them see what they are doing, to themselves and to the people around them. Sadly, most people don’t hit bottom, or when they do, they can’t even recognize it. When you try to help them and it slows their descent, it has the effect of making it a gradual transition that takes away the big moment of clarity. If you fall fast and hit hard, and awake one day to find that your life is unbearable, it is a great motivator. If you fall softly, and your life has been deteriorating slowly due to the fact that people have been cushioning that fall all along, you barely even notice. You think to yourself well, it could always get a little worse, it has before and it hasn’t killed me, and on you go, sinking slowly. Kind of the same way it wound up seeming perfectly fine for me to sleep on my couch for 15 years. I had to accept that there was nothing I could do, and that was something that I had to try to convince myself of every single day.
       She was good looking enough and manipulative enough to find other people willing to enable her when I wasn’t there to do it. I watched as she lost more and more, but it still didn’t shock her into seeing just how bad things had gotten. She lost her job, she lost her car. She lost family, she lost pets. She lost her self respect. She would actually sit with me and lament about how bad her life was and how much she hated being the way she was, and then turn around and tell me how she could actually sink deeper, so it wasn’t all that bad! She would cry about the things she lost, and then just make up her mind that she could still go on. So when she finally lost me, that didn’t matter either. Nothing I said or did made any difference, other than to be enable her more. You can’t win a fight with delusion.
     I couldn't even have the petty satisfaction of being angry or hating her. It wasn't her fault. Brain chemistry and genetics made her susceptible, and predators and abusers and addiction did the rest.
     Even as I understood all that, while friends and family assured me I had done all that I could, I still felt like I failed her. I still knew she was out there, afraid and traumatized, hearing voices and sinking lower. It was like someone else was now inhabiting her skin, a ghost in the machine, destroying her from within. I had to remind myself all the time that it wasn’t my fault, and tell myself that in the end, I had to preserve myself. I wasn’t helping her at all, I was just enabling her and helping to destroy us both.
     That’s hard to do. There is a difference between knowing something and feeling something. There is a difference between forcing yourself to live with something that eats away at you every day and actually accepting it. Most of the time, we never truly accept things or let them go, we just put a band-aid on it, and self medicate or otherwise distract ourselves from the pain. Meanwhile, we find ourselves prodding it, poking at it, and giving it attention anyway.
     That’s where I found myself; accepting it, but not accepting it at all. I was broken and scared and raging inside, but I had to keep it together on the outside. I had too many other responsibilities; to work and family and other people, to give up and collapse. That was okay, I would tell myself, that’s what I did. I was the person people go to with their problems. I was the together one, who helped everyone else. I would be fine.
     Life is full of weird bullshit instances where your brain shoehorns you into some stupid box as it constantly tries to make sense of a nonsensical world. One of those bullshit things is that if you're a person who helps others with their problems, if you're a giver… well, your brain assigns you a fucked up set of rules and parameters to guide you along. You're given a role, and your brain tries to make you play it like some crazed and power-mad community theater director who thinks he's on Broadway. Unfortunately, those rules mess up other huge aspects of your life, because we are complex, and need committees and debate and nuance to navigate life, not one dictatorial brain with a hammer.
     One of the biggest bullshit rules your brain gives you is that if you're a helper and a giver, it stands to reason that you cannot ask for help or be a taker. You need to stay within the bounds of your rigidly defined role. What that means is you wind up feeling guilty or a failure or a burden if you have a problem. In your head, you have failed at your prime directive.
     I’m a helper and a giver, so I have to constantly remind myself that my brain is full of shit, and its rules are too simplistic and rigid. So I do try to talk to my friends about my problems on occasion. You’ll find that people want to help, even if they don’t see themselves as helpers. Takers aren’t monsters, they might just be a little more self absorbed or needy or melodramatic than helpers. So they try their best, but their own brains are not really comfortable with the role reversal, and to be honest, neither is mine. You see them as needing comfort, so it seems like you are burdening an already fragile person with your issues. That’s not even a fair view of them, but your brain doesn’t care, the roles demand it. Even when I do talk to them about my problems, I hold back, and I keep it simple, and I’m very conscious about how much I’m whining.
     “Whining.”
     That’s my brain with its bullshit again. It is invalidating my problems and pain, even as I look for help and guidance. While I have truly spent a good portion of my life listening to some people whine about really trivial shit, even then I don’t tell them that they are whining. I don’t make them feel like they are wasting my time, because even the drama queens have legitimate pain and misery at the core of their drama. You have to listen to the whining to get to the root. Still, my brain tries to make me feel like I’m a loser and a mess for talking about my problems.
     I do have helpers in my life as well, but again, when you ask a helper for help but they identify you as another helper, their brain won’t let it all line up properly. You are still out of your role, and helpers are programmed to help takers, not givers. It is all very complex and ridiculous, but human beings excel at making their lives needlessly hard and dysfunctional.
     So I wind up downplaying my own stuff, and even when I do talk about it to someone, I soon make myself stop because I think I am boring them or making them feel uncomfortable out of their roles. As a result, I internalize a lot of stuff.
     I ended up with ptsd myself. I would panic if I thought I saw her on the street, and everyone looked like her from a distance. I would see a car that looked like her car, a car that she hadn’t even owned for over a year, and my mind would instantly flood with apprehension. Even though I knew she no longer drove that car, it would still be a trigger. It seemed familiar though, because she would see her past abusers everywhere, even when it wasn’t possible. They were nowhere around; two were in jail, and one died about a year and a half after I had first started seeing her. Still, every couple of days I had to hear about how she was sure she saw one of them, or heard their voices outside her window. We would be driving down the street and she would panic and point out one of them, only to get closer and find that it was not them at all. Sometimes it wasn’t even close. It was a woman, or elderly person, or a bush. I would marvel about how she could be so wrong all the time, how she could be so irrational, yet here I was freaking out just the same because I thought I saw a car that she once owned. I was sent into a panic when the phone rang, afraid it would be her raving and screaming at me, or texting me hateful and nasty screeds that made little sense. I would sit in my living room, and jump at every noise in the hallway, thinking it might be her back at my door.
     It never was.
     I had blocked her number, and told her never to come back, and it worked. Still, I lived in fear for so long that she would. Not because she would do something violent or dangerous, although I knew she was capable of that. She had told me so herself, that she had fantasies about killing me. She had already tried to hurt me, hitting me or throwing heavy and sharp objects at my head.
     She used to hide anything with a point or a sharp edge in the house. I would find all kinds of things squirreled away in the linen closet or the back of a drawer, sometimes wrapped in a sock or washcloth. I used to think that she did that because she was afraid that one day I would snap and try to kill her, but it slowly dawned on me that she didn't trust herself not to hurt me. One night, she sat here in my living room, and told me that, in a voice I barely recognized, with a look in her eyes of cold, calculated hate. Schizophrenia is a very scary thing to witness.
     I was just afraid to have to face her again. To open up all the old wounds again, to try to reason with an unreasonable person. It would hurt me so much, and I would have nothing to gain. I feared that I would wind up taking her back, and open myself up to more months of abuse and misery. I really felt like it would kill me if I ever went back there again.
     So here I was, damaged and broken and terrified. Instead of helping her, I was inflicted with some of the very things I tried to help her overcome. That's the danger of trying to deal with things you don't understand. That's why you need professionals. That’s why there needs to be separation and professional detachment. If you're not a psychologist or psychiatrist, you're just going to fuck up your life and theirs. The things you think are helping are actually hurting. While you may think you're strong and holding onto your sanity, it might be slipping away and you don't even see it.
     Crazy people don't think that they're crazy, right?

3

     So now, here I was, broken hearted, confused, estranged, completely shattered. I felt like a failure in many ways. I had a whole bunch of conflicting emotions raging inside me. The rest of my life was stressful and crazy as well. In trying to help her and keep her out of jail and the poor house, I had really screwed myself up financially.
     I built a ton of credit card debt, wiped out any savings I had, and really put myself in a tough spot. I started the long climb back to solvency and good credit, and I'm still not there yet. It’s been a rough couple of years, but rough in a completely different way than the three years that preceded them. It’s amazing the multitude of ways that life can knock you down, from small things that feel like a thousand little cuts each day; to huge, overlapping arcs that play out and set the tone over years or decades or a lifetime.
     I haven't really thought about dating or moving on. Who would want to date me right now? I'm sort of broke, I'm damaged, and I sleep each night on an old, ratty couch. I certainly couldn't bring a woman home to my ridiculous bedroom! I hate it at this point. I am surrounded by reminders of how badly I failed and how monumentally I fucked up nearly every aspect of my life for a time. The biggest reminder, the one that seems to encompass everything bad, is my bedroom, and that goddamn bed sitting in the middle of it.
     So for about two years now, I have hardly even gone in my bedroom. I kept meaning to put everything back in its correct place, but just like the way she would put off changing it, I have been putting off changing it back. I even got new sheets and a bedspread a year ago, and never took them out of the packaging. It's hilarious, actually. I pay for a two bedroom apartment, and don't use either bedroom.
      My couch isn't comfortable anymore either. It's old and lumpy, and should have been replaced years ago. I was starting to stall before she came along, and even though I really made some strides when I was with her that first year, I've fallen even further back in many ways. Sure, my mirror image isn’t as horrible as it once was, but I still don’t have much motivation or drive. I don’t think in terms of a bright and shining future, I don’t feel anticipation, I feel dread. Inertia has completely engulfed me, and I'm not sure how to get moving again. It's killing me, but I just can't seem to do anything about it.
     That’s not to say that I don’t do anything. Other parts of my life are busy and stressed, but most of them are not fulfilling in the least. I have responsibilities to friends and family and work, and I take care of those. Some are even kind of gargantuan. Then I find I myself at home, with no motivation, no real purpose, and nobody, and just taking the trash out seems like an insurmountable thing.
     Still, I’m not miserable. Most of the time, I laugh and joke around. I’m fairly pleasant to be around, at least I think I am. I think life is absurd, and I am definitely nihilistic, but I try to remain optimistic, even if my idea of optimism and best case outcomes is probably vastly different than yours.
     It’s not that I can’t imagine a better future, it’s just that I don’t really know if it’s worth the effort to try to get there. I’m 55 years old, and I’m tired. I’ve seen most of these movies before, I know how they turn out. Still, I have not given up. Everyday, I look around me and see success stories. Everyday I see things that inspire me. I just have a really bad habit of stubbornly waiting for the world to meet me halfway, and that’s not something the world really has any interest in doing.
     I’m not depressed, not in any clinical sense. I don’t get melancholy out of the blue, and I don’t get sad when I’m doing something happy. I know people with depression, and it can be debilitating. I’m not saying that I don’t have any issues, I just spent a bunch of time illustrating most of them right here. More than anything, I am just worn down. I have a bunch of reasons why I’m kind of spinning my wheels, but at least half of them are valid. I recognize that I am at a transitional point in my life, I have been there for awhile now, but I’m just not sure how to move forward yet.
     And so I wait; for inspiration, for someone to walk into my life and make it better, for some opportunity to present itself. Like I said, though, the world has no interest in doing any of that for me. Perhaps I will never find the spark I need to start getting my life back together again.
     Then, for no reason at all, I walked into my bedroom yesterday, took my bed apart, and moved everything back to the way it used to be. I stood there afterward, kind of in shock that I did it. I hadn’t even been thinking about it, I was just watching TV and being bored. It was like something snapped, and I suddenly had a purpose, no matter how small. Now, here I was, staring at my room with everything back in its original position, and marveling at how I hadn’t done it sooner. Then it seemed kind of overwhelming, and I was suddenly very aware of the room and myself, and I instantly decided that was enough for one day. Back to the couch!
     Today, I went back into the room, and I went through piles of clothes that had been there for years. I vacuumed and cleaned everything, the first time in ages. I got rid of a bunch of junk that served no purpose other than to remind me of her and what I had lost, what we both had lost. I got the new sheets and bedspread, and I made the bed. I stood in the doorway, and just looked at my room, clean, organized, and reclaimed.
     It felt good.
     It felt weird.
     Uh oh. Back to the couch again!
     A few hours later, I thought about how I haven't laid in a bed in so long, even my own, and I realized that I didn't even remember what it felt like. My bed was there, in the next room, freshly made, where it was supposed to be. It was my goddamn bed!
     So I went in, and I flopped down on it, and it was so comfortable. It was my bed, the one I remembered from so long ago. I didn't think about how big it was, or how empty it seemed. I didn’t focus on who wasn’t there with me, and wonder if anyone ever would be again. I just thought about how good it felt to actually lie on my bed. It felt like progress. It felt like closing a chapter.
     It also felt like opening a cage door; or maybe the door was never closed, but I was trapped in there just the same. As I lay there, I thought about a lot of things, and the pain that usually accompanies those thoughts wasn't really there anymore. The memory of it was, and it was a little frightening, but it was controllable.
     It dawned on me that maybe I had turned a corner. I knew that I still wasn't going to sleep in my bed tonight. I may have turned a corner, but that's still farther down the road from where I am presently. I can see it, though, and that's enough for now.
     Now, I'm back sitting on my couch, but I am writing this down, and that's the real accomplishment. That's acceptance, and that's growth and bravery and time. I’m making lists and plans to reclaim other parts of my apartment and life as well. Soon the time will come when I can sleep in my own bed, by myself. I used to feel so lonely, and think that I was bereft and unlovable, and deserved to be there with no one beside me. That was me fooling myself again. It was never just me. I always had company with me under those sheets, but no more! The ghosts and demons will have all disappeared, and I'll be glad to be alone once more.
     Maybe we have to be our own exorcists…

+/-

     I made a conscious decision years ago to be more positive. This seems to annoy a lot of people. I post about it on social media all the time, to very little fanfare. There is a core group of people who seem to like it and get something out of it, but most people just ignore it. Some people actually get mad about it, but I think if you get mad at someone else for saying that things aren’t as bad as they seem, and there is beauty and kindness in the world if you look, you might have some more pressing personal issues you need to sort out. Ultimately, it seems to help a bunch of people, as well as myself, so I'm not going to stop talking about it.
     I used to be one of those people who got mad at other people who seemed to be content or nice or happy. I remember reading about Sting some years back, and how he meditated and examined himself and how he really was at peace. He seemed sincere. It seemed genuine. And I hated him for it. I used to think he was a smug, happy bastard, who was just rubbing my face in it. It’s easy to be happy and at peace when you’re a rich rock star, you deluded asshole!
     Then, I started to notice that there were people from all walks of life who had somehow achieved this inner peace as well. I realized I was jealous of them for not having that inner turmoil and anxiety that I knew so well. I envied their cool confidence, and how they saw the good in everything and kept hope alive. All of those things were about as far away from where I was as you could get, but I had no clue or roadmap on how to get there.
     So, I used to be anything but positive. Like most negative people, I think had myself convinced that I was the most positive person in the world. I would explain how I was a realist as well. I would go on about how I wasn't going to ignore the truth, and somehow twisted my cynicism, fear, and bitterness at the world into some half baked, pseudo philosophy that didn't quite hold up under scrutiny.
     So I just didn't scrutinize it.
     I was proud of the fact that the way I would approach any problem or concern was to first and foremost imagine the worst possible outcome. I would then reassure myself that I could handle it if it came to that, and work my way back from there. To me, that was sensible and logical, the pinnacle of reason.
     The problem was, I was training myself to immediately visualize the most negative outcome possible, and that's not positive thinking, that's trying to control the uncontrollable. That's starting from a place of fear, and worrying more about your ego, and succumbing to irrational thinking than addressing the problem at hand.
     If you think that's reasonable and logical, let's look at it from an oddsmaker's perspective. How many times have you been faced with a problem or uncertain future, and the worst, most absolute possible outcome you could conjure up came true? It would be something like close to 0%, because we face stuff like this all our lives, and we're not all living in a shack by the river with the bubonic plague and wooden stumps for legs. Sure, a few times in your life, you're probably going to get some really bad news, but when you compare that with all the times you basically skate through stuff that terrified you at first, it's almost nil.
     So worrying about the absolute worst thing you can imagine every time you're faced with a conundrum is not very reasonable at all. It's like going to the track and betting the longshot every time. It's like hitting on 20 in blackjack, or mortgaging your house and buying lottery tickets with the money. It's like a whole lot of other sucker bets that make no sense, and go against the odds every time. Ask any gambler, you're not going to get anywhere by doing that.
     You're brain tricks you into believing all kinds of absolute bullshit, just to alleviate your fear. Make no mistake, we are all living in terror most of the time. We are so frightened of the unknown, paralyzed by uncertainty, that we will base all of our behavior on trying to reassure ourselves, no matter what we have to tell ourselves to achieve it. One of the easiest ways for our brains to do that is to lower our expectations. To denigrate the things we really want, to invalidate our dreams and desires, so we don't miss them when we inevitably don't get them. Aim low, and that way you're never disappointed. You don't deserve it anyway, so settle for what you get.
     Then we convince ourselves that we are being responsible and realistic. We are parading our negative attitude around like it's some sort of admirable trait.
     There's an old joke about a traveling salesman, whose car breaks down out in the country on a desolate road on a rainy night. He trudges down the road for miles, looking for a house to use a phone to call for a tow truck. He's cursing the rain, cursing the chill, cursing the dark. He thinks to himself how he will most likely find a house, and no one will be home, or he will get a door slammed in his face. Maybe it will be a farmhouse, and some dumb hick farmer will try to shoot him for trespassing, or because he thinks he'll try something on his daughter. Out here, they probably won't even have a phone.
     Finally, he comes to a house, with a light on inside, and walks up to the front door and knocks.
     The door opens, a man opens the door and says "Can I help you?" 
     The salesman yells "You can shove your phone right up your ass!" and storms off into the night.
     The reason I know that joke is because since I was a boy, we teased my father that he was like the salesman. My father has a lot of amazing and admirable qualities, but he is a Ferraris, and we come from a long line of negative thinkers. In our family, to this day, when one of us catches the other being negative and bitching about things that haven’t even happened yet, we just say "Shove your phone up your ass!" and the point is well taken.
     Like I said, I used to be negative as well. I expected the worst; out of people, out of the world, and ultimately, out of myself. I didn't even realize that I was doing it.
      I'm a Ferraris.
      My brother is a Ferraris as well, but he's not nearly as negative as the rest of us. None of us are sure why. In fact, we kind of saw it as a defect in a way. The prevailing opinion of my brother was that he was a dreamer, a butterfly who flitted about without a care in the world and no sense of responsibility or how to live in the real world. He stays up too late, and sleeps in some times, and is often running late.
     The thing is, my brother can be cynical or get down at times. As far as not having any sense of responsibility, he somehow managed to build a career, get married, raise two wonderful children, and become a pretty amazing potter along the way. My brother lives his life. He does more in a day than most people. He works, he takes care of his family, he helps out his friends, he gets to his studio, he goes to museums and lectures and lunches, and he finds time to talk on the phone with me and goof about dumb pop culture references and inside jokes when he's not listening to my problems.
     It turns out that the joke was on us. My brother might be as imperfect as the rest of us, but the things we saw as weird and irresponsible was just him not being as miserable and negative as we were. He did just fine, thank you.
     So one day, about 8 years ago, my brother and I were playing golf. Around the 5th hole, I suddenly realized that my necklace was missing. I had that necklace since the early 90's. It was a trilobite fossil a friend had given me, and my parents had a jeweler they knew make a special setting for it, with a silver chain. I have worn that necklace every day of my life since I'd gotten it, some 20 years earlier.
     Now it was gone.
     I immediately thought to myself that the odds of ever seeing it again were zero. It was lost on a golf course, and probably had already gone through a mower. In an instant, I gave up any hope of seeing that necklace again. I convinced myself to just let it go, because there was no sense even thinking I would ever find it. I told my brother we should just forget about it and keep playing.
     He looked at me like I was nuts. He wanted to drive back over the course and look for it. He wanted to see if anyone had found it and turned it in. I told him he was crazy, it was gone, just let it go. He searched the golf cart a few times, and kept trying to think of places it could be. In my pocket, down my shirt, in my shoe, all which seemed ridiculous. I told him again to just let it go and forget about it.
     He refused. He told me how he always envisions the positive, and believes that there is always a chance for a happy outcome. There goes my wacky brother again I thought to myself. Always a dreamer.
     Still, we traced our path back across the golf course, and just like I thought, we came up empty handed. We finished our round, and once back at the clubhouse, he asked if there was a lost and found, and if anyone turned in my necklace.
     No one had.
     The guy at the counter told us that odds were it was gone, just like I'd been saying. Still, my brother said he refused to accept that there was no hope, and that it would turn up somewhere. It was starting to get annoying. He went to his car to put his clubs in the trunk, as I walked to mine to do the same. I was angry about my necklace, and perturbed at my brother for being so daft as to think that I would ever see my necklace again.
     As I reached down to open the trunk, there was my necklace on the ground. It had fallen off when was getting my clubs from my car trunk earlier. It had been here waiting for me the whole time. I picked it up, and put it around my neck, only then willing to even admit to myself how wrong everything seemed without it. I couldn't even let myself feel distraught about it missing, let alone entertain the thought that I might get it back.
     I went over to my brother and showed him that I found it and told him where it was, and he didn't seem all that taken aback.
     "See," he told me, "I told you it would probably turn up. Think positive."
      At that moment, I had one of those epiphanies we all have all the time, then immediately forget about. Only this time, I didn't forget. I thought about how I easily I had given up on something I loved and cherished as much as that necklace. I thought about how many times I had just given up without trying because it was safer and easier than having hope. I remembered how a friend of mine once said to me that the reason I was so tormented was because I still had hope, and to be truly happy, I should get rid of that, and I had thought he was the wisest person I'd ever met.
     From that moment, I decided to be more positive and as fearless as I could be.
     But yeah, turns out it wasn't that simple.
     When you have epiphanies, the universe sees it, and takes it as a challenge. At least, that’s the way I saw it. I had a lifetime of fear and anxiety drilled into me. It had been beaten into me by bullies, absorbed by frightened and confused people all around me, it loomed over everything during the Cold War, where we were reminded that we could be vaporized in a nuclear holocaust any moment.
     It was all around me even now, in the news and in advertising, in political speeches and urban legends and horror movies and true crime shows. Most songs were about heartbreak, most people seemed suspect, and everyone seemed even more terrified than I was.
     Everyone was afraid of being alone, yet afraid of being in a relationship, afraid to care, afraid to trust, afraid to live. I was no different.
     Still, I thought I saw a better way. On paper, it still seemed like it made more sense to be positive and forward thinking than to be stifled and caged by insecurity and fear. I needed to somehow transfer that from an idea to a way of life.
     I needed to reinvent myself.
     Some people accuse people like me of putting on an act. They think I'm fooling myself, or trying to trick them, or manipulate others. They think I'm trying to put lipstick on a pig, or polish a turd, or some other disturbing metaphor that people in times past could relate to, for some reason. They think I'm fooling myself, and trying to convince myself of something that I don't really believe.
     Here's the funny thing about that. At one point in my life, that was probably more true than not. After that day on the golf course, I was still pretty skeptical about the whole thing. Negative thinking and low expectations was my safe place. It was like I was afraid to expect anything good, like even allowing myself to hope for it was jinxing myself. It was scary to simply accept that there was a chance things could work out, even though most of life things pretty much worked out okay.
     I still get that. I still knock on wood and try to rein in my enthusiasm at times, like if I say what I want out loud, or even think about it too much, I'll ruin it, like the way you can't tell anyone your birthday wish, or it won't come true. I didn’t want the universe to see it as a challenge.
     So for months afterwards, I would have to force myself to stay positive, and I was so anxiety ridden that I was somehow asking for trouble by thinking I might deserve the best possible outcome that it seemed completely wrong and counterintuitive. I felt like a phony, like I was trying to convince myself of something that I didn't really believe.
     Because I was. It took work. It took facing my fears and insecurities. It took strength holding onto that positivity until things did turn out okay. Even more, it took faith and hope that when they didn't, it wasn't the universe punishing me for wanting it. I came to realize that whether or not I worried and fretted about things that were out of my control, things were going to happen the way they happen, so why should I spend that time worrying?
     You might say that I'm just giving in, or not trying, but here's the real secret about positive thinking your frightened brain doesn't want you to see. You waste your energy on controlling an outcome that doesn’t even exist yet, rather than work in the moment on the things you can actually affect. When you're not wasting your time and energy on things that are beyond your control, you can put that time and effort into the things you can influence and determine. Letting go of your illusionary stranglehold on things is a huge help in itself.
     Have you ever been driving down the road and noticed a pothole up ahead? Sometimes, you focus on it, and start telling yourself the one thing you don't want to do is hit that pothole. You find yourself transfixed to the point where you can't see anything but the pothole, and before you know it, you're driving right over it and knocking your front end out of alignment.
     That's the real damage negativity does to us all. It gives you tunnel vision, it sucks your will and strength, it holds you back and holds you down. No matter where you are, all you can see is a destination you want to avoid. That’s like planning a trip to the Grand Canyon with a map of the Sudan.
     Eventually, it makes you see the world around you as a place to fear and hate. It makes you see people as weak and corrupted, because that's how we start to see ourselves. When you focus on the bad, that's all you see. We downplay the things that should bring us pride and confidence, and as we push ourselves to failure, we diminish the love we have for who we are.
     We lose track of the fact that we are amazing and capable of greatness. We lose sight of our dreams, because the more we fear failure, the more we are ensuring it.
     I realized all this, but I still couldn't quite have the courage to live it. I knew it, but I still didn't feel it.
     So I faked it. I put on a brave front, even though I was terrified inside. I acted like the person I wanted to be, not the person I felt I was. But you know what? One day, I realized that I had become that person. I willed myself into becoming the thing that I wanted to be; the thing I was pretending to be ceased to be pretend.
     I was a real boy!
     No, wait, that's Pinocchio.
     But really, I was so much freer than I had ever been. I wasn't trying to fool myself or fate or destiny. I wasn't trying to manipulate the universe into letting me be safe and average. I wasn't denying who I was and what I wanted out of life.
     I started sharing my writing and my outlook online. I started singing with a band, and writing songs. I took chances in life and business and love. I talked to people I met, and learned how to listen and care and express myself. I learned how to put myself out there and not be afraid of hearing "no" or getting hurt.
     And I got hurt at times. I came up short at times. I got discouraged now and then, and there was still heartbreak and misery along the path.
     I took those failures and heartbreak, and I gleaned wisdom from them. I cried when I needed to, but it made me stronger and strengthened my resolve.
     I'm still not where I want to be. I'm still prone to tripping myself up at times. I can still be a little self destructive, like all of us. I still fuck up, and say the wrong thing, or make the wrong decision, or bite off more than I can chew. I still disappoint others as well as myself.
     The difference is, I don't sit around beating myself up for it. I don't let it stop my forward momentum. I apologize when I'm wrong, I course correct when I need to, I laugh at my faux pas, and I make sure I learn whatever lesson is there to be learned from my mistakes. I still get bogged down, but I use that time to plot a new course. I don't let people take my missteps or failures or shortcomings and use them against me. I don't use them against myself.
     I find the strength to keep going in myself, and in the belief that the world is full of opportunity and kindness and second chances. I find inspiration everywhere I look, and in the people I know and read about. I share all the little and big things about myself with the world, because I think it makes the world a better place. I think it brings comfort to people. I think it makes me stronger and more accessible. I look for light, and I find it all around me, and I let that light vanquish the darkness.
     I know who I am, I'm David Ferraris, and I'm kind of wise, and somewhat talented in a couple of areas. I'm loyal and funny and smart and comforting. I'm sort of easy on the eyes, and I really like that I can feel that way and accept those things about me, because for so long, I couldn't . I thought I was wrong or ashamed for liking and embracing myself. I want to inspire others and find the good in people. I want to leave things better than I found them. I want to succeed and grow and learn, even if that means failing at times or looking silly. I'm proud of who I am, and I'm happy that I'm the sort of person who wants to lift everyone up around him and try to save the world in my own little way, one person at a time. Life’s a journey, you might as well make it a pleasant one.
     I expect nothing less, and neither should you.

A Story About A Hat

     When I was a kid, one of my favorite people on the planet was my great grandmother. We just called her Ma, and with the Jersey accent, it sounded like Mar to me, so that’s what I called her. She was a tough old broad, born in the late 1800’s, but she was also very caring and loving and nurturing. I have a million stories about her, some funny, some bittersweet, and most of them heartwarming, but I’ll save those for another time. All you need to know is that she helped raise me as well as my brother, and I learned a lot about family, trust, and self respect from her.
     This is a story about a hat.
     My great grandmother Mar bought the hat you see pictured here off a clearance table at a department store before I was even born. She got it for my brother, and he wore it for a few years, but to him it was just another hat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, that’s the attitude you take with most of the clothes you own throughout your life. They are just shoes or pants or a winter hat.
     Except sometimes when you’re a kid. I think most little kids get attached to certain articles of clothing. It’s probably a security thing, like Linus’ blanket from Peanuts. Most kids can’t get away with dragging a blanket with them everywhere they go, so they instill some hat or shirt or backpack with magic properties to act as their armor to the world. Often, it is something with a picture or logo of whatever is culturally popular at the time. When I was young, it was either some Saturday morning cartoon character, or Evel Kneivel or the Fonz. Whatever it was, most kids had some trademark piece of clothing they wore everywhere.
     When my brother’s white hat got passed down to me, it became my favorite piece of clothing. It was nothing special, just a plain white hat. In fact, I probably started wearing it before I was dressing myself, or even aware that I had a hat on my head at all. As I came into self awareness, the hat just seemed to always be there. The fact that my great grandmother bought it meant a lot to me as well, even as a very young child.
     I was not the most secure kid in the world. I have detailed all the bullying and crap I had to deal with from the age of five, and I was afraid of the world in a lot of ways, especially when it involved other kids. The first day of kindergarten, they had to pry my hands off of the street sign in front of the school, and drag me kicking and screaming into class. I haven’t really gotten any better at going to new places and doing new things. I don’t cry as much, but I still have a lot of apprehension and anxiety.
     So my hat became my security blanket. I wore it every chance I got, and if it was too warm for a hat, I would sometimes just carry it around with me. At school, I would never leave it in the coat closet, I would keep it in my desk just to have it near. I would sometimes sit and compulsively fold it; in half, then in quarters, then smooth it out flat again. I would panic if I thought I had dropped it or left it behind somewhere, but I managed to hang onto it throughout my childhood.
     The weird thing is, the hat didn’t really help my image at all. In fact, it was bright white, and stood out in a gaggle of kids. My parents could always spot me in a crowd, or from a block away. That might have been part of what made me feel more secure as well.
     So what ended up happening was that I wore a little kid sized hat long after I shouldn’t have. You usually wear a winter hat with the edge turned up and doubled back on itself, but as I got older, there wasn’t really as much material to enable me to do that. Winter hats usually had a little extra space, and a little bit of a peak on them, mine was stretched tight as can be, barely covering my ears. I was now entering high school and still wearing a bright white hat that was meant for a pre adolescent.
     I didn’t care, though. It was all I had from my former life in New Jersey. It had gone with me to Texas, and now back to Pennsylvania. It kind of became my trademark, and in that weird way that someone who is acting or dressing strangely and different when you’re a kid, you weren’t sure if you should mock me or think I was cool. For years, I kind of fell in the middle. I was picked on anyway, so the hat didn’t really matter one way or the other, and for other people, it became part of my identity.
     Then one day, some kid came up with the idea that I looked like a sperm in my white hat. Yes, I know that doesn’t really make much sense, but it didn’t have to. The die was cast. From then on, a bunch of people would refer to it as the sperm hat, and there is no way to make that cool at all. I tried to ride it out and hoped it would pass, but it didn’t. So one day in my mid teens, I finally took off the hat that my great grandmother bought all those years ago, the hat that was a part of me before I was even really me, and I put it in my dresser drawer and forgot about it.
     And as far as I knew, the sperm hat was long gone. I had last seen it about 40 years ago, and figured it had been donated or thrown out decades earlier.
     My parents have been preparing for a garage sale the last couple of weeks, so when my mother said “look what I found when I was going through some old boxes” and tossed it in my lap the other day, it took me completely by surprise. I got such a genuine thrill and nostalgic ache the moment I saw my small white hat from all those years ago.
     I’m not a sentimental guy about material things. My grandmother was a hoarder, and my mother tends to get way too attached to a lot of things, which is probably why she still had the hat in the first place. I know this, so about 15 years ago, when I noticed that I was starting to accumulate a lot of things I never used or even looked at, I made it a point to get rid of it all. I am constantly reevaluating things that have little emotional attachment to me or that I get any use out of, and moving it out the door.
     Still, when I saw that hat, so many memories came flooding back that it kind of staggered me. I was so happy to see that old stupid hat again, so much that it shocked the hell out of me just how much I cared. I thought about my family, my great grandmother, how that hat was present during so many of the incidents and daily life that formed who I was. It took me right back to all of it, good and bad, and I realized how much that hat was still a part of me, and always will be.
     So I still am not going to hoard a bunch of old crap, and get sentimental over material things. There was a lot of other stuff from my youth that I came across while going through stuff for the garage sale, and almost none of it meant anything to me. Maybe a fleeting fond memory, then I tossed it in the trash. I don’t get attached to material things, and that isn’t going to change.
     Except my hat. I am never letting it go again. I will always have it tucked away somewhere safe, and hopefully someday when I am very old, I will sit in my rocking chair and hold it, and think back on my family, my friends, and all the things I did in my youth while wearing my small white hat that my great grandmother bought from a clearance table.
     I might cry, I might smile, but I know that I will be content, and probably feel a little safer, with my old friend from the beginning still there close to me at the very end. Who could ask for more than that?

Romolo's

     So this is an old matchbook from a bar called Romolo’s. When I was a kid, my parent’s life didn’t end just because they had children. My mother had a job as a cocktail waitress in a bowling alley, and my father was in a league there. Every Friday night they went there, and then out drinking afterwards. Their main hangout was Romolo’s, and as far back as I can remember, I heard all kinds of stories about that bar and the people who frequented it.
     I grew up with a romanticized ideal of what barhopping and Romolo’s was all about. To me, it seemed like a magical place full of good times, good people, and nonstop fun. I used to bug my parents relentlessly to take me there, to see this Shangri La in person! Now, my parents liked to have a good time, but they weren’t monsters. They certainly weren’t going to take their preadolescent child to a bar at one in the morning.
     Still, one day, I tagged along with my father someplace, and we were in Fort Lee, and we passed Romolo’s! I’m sure he instantly regretted pointing it out, because I made a big stink about going there again, so my father finally relented and turned the car around. So I finally got to see Romolo’s, even if it was only three in the afternoon.
     Well, it was basically a shitty corner dive bar. I got to sit there at the bar and drink a coke with some maraschino cherries in it, and play a song on the jukebox(which meant a lot because my parents sometimes gave me old 45’s that came off that jukebox when they switched out records). It wasn’t magical though. The thrill quickly wore off, and if you’ve ever been in a dive bar in the afternoon and seen the people that were there at that time, you know it’s kind of depressing. None of the crazy people I had heard about all my life were there. No one was doing anything zany or hilarious.
     So I went home somewhat disillusioned, but that didn’t last long. Soon I was listening to my parents tell more stories about the wild goings on at Romolo’s, and I just figured I needed to go there late at night to experience all the fun. It was kind of a goal of mine to grow up and someday get to drink at Romolo’s, which is a weird goal for any 8 year old to have.
     I never did get to do that. We moved to Texas when I was 13, and Romolo’s allure faded. By the time I was old enough to go drink, Romolo’s was long gone. So I found my own hangouts and my own crazy friends, and did my drinking there. Still, most nights I never found it to be as fun and magical as I imagined my parent’s nights at Romolo’s. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why in my 20’s and 30’s I always wanted to keep the party going. I drank way too much back then, and was up for anything, because I kept waiting for that wonderful experience my parents seemed to have had.
     Then one day, about 20 years ago, it dawned on me that maybe my parents had better experiences because of who they were. They love people, I am more leery of them. They find happiness in everyday things, I have very unrealistic expectations. They are open and engaging, I can be kind of scowling and perpetually annoyed. I guess Romolo’s was a great experience and good times for them precisely because they were who they were, not because of where they were.
     So I still have this weird vision of Romolo’s in my head. I still think back fondly on the stories and the people who populated them. I still wish I had a place like Romolo’s to go to sometimes. I guess it turns out that Romolo’s exists inside you, it’s not really a place or a time in history. If you’re that kind of person, Romolo’s is wherever you want it to be. So for the last 20 years, that’s the kind of person I have been trying to be, just some guy trying to enjoy life and tap into his inner Romolo’s.

Love And Other Lies

I wrote this four years ago.

I want to preface this by saying that the issues I bring up here are generalized and put forth as examples, and no particular one describes anything specific that happened to anyone I have dated or known.  I am not trying to expose anything that was ever said to me in confidence, so I use examples made of a conglomeration of experiences I've had with many people. They are very real problems faced by people everyday.  In some cases their own experiences were not nearly as bad as the examples I cite.   In some cases the real stories are much much worse. (If you are a man, you should sit down and have an honest talk with any women in your life and you might be horrified to learn what they have had to deal with in their lives.)
It is a tightrope I sometimes walk with my writing, I feel comfortable telling complete strangers intimate things about myself and that inadvertently involves people in my orbit, and if it upsets them, I apologize. I am trying to concentrate on the effect here, not the specific cause.  This is not a big "Fuck You" to anyone.
Also, to any past girlfriend that might end up reading this, I realize not every relationship I had was like this, but most of them were.  No matter what, I don't regret anything or harbor any ill will towards anyone.  Not ever.  I hope all of you feel the same towards me.

Love And Other Lies

So a month or so ago another relationship came to an end.  I loved her very much.  We almost made it a year, then out of the blue it ended.  By virtue of being 50 I have had plenty of girlfriends in my life. They were all very special to me, but unfortunately fate and poor judgment dictated the outcome in most of them.  I’m not sure why, but I have always picked women that just weren’t ready or weren’t capable of doing what it takes to be in a real relationship.  Real relationships take work and sacrifice sometimes, they demand that you put the other person’s needs before your own at times, and trust that they will do the same for you. 

Trust. That’s a big one. 

Everyone has been hurt at some point or another by someone they loved or thought would protect them.  Some of us have been hurt in imaginable ways though.  Physically beaten by a parent or a partner that is supposed to love you and protect you.  Sexually abused by someone close when you are a child, or raped by a complete stranger when you are older.  I have had people tell me things that I have a hard time even thinking about now, and I wonder how they lived through it. These experiences leave scars and damage that in some cases even the victims can’t see, or in many cases don’t want to.  I have sat while some people told me about their childhood and how good it was as I cringed inside about the dysfunction and abuse they describe.  Sometimes it’s not even abuse that does the damage, but neglect.  I can’t blame them for acting badly in response to something traumatic and unthinkable that happened to them in the past.

Some people will say that they should get over it already, go to therapy and get some help.  Perhaps they should, but it isn’t as easy as all that.  What people don’t take into consideration is the fact that what it would involve is reliving the most horrible thing that happened to you over and over again in the hope that you will make your piece with it someday. 

Forget the fact that mental health services aren't even available to the majority of people in this country, therapy is essentially talking to someone for an hour about the most difficult thing in your life you’ve ever had to deal with, and then going home with an open wound and waiting a week until you can talk about it again.  That is not an easy thing to do, and I don’t know how you could do it without a big support system around you.

The problem is, most damaged people don’t have that.  They don’t trust people enough to let them inside.  In their experience the people that they trusted have hurt them, physically and mentally, blamed them for things that aren’t their fault, punished them for sharing their thoughts and honesty.

Which brings us to me.  I am very easy to talk to, I try not to judge, I make people feel safe.  What happens then is that women who could never trust someone before will trust me.  They fall in love, they are happy for awhile and they think that everything will be okay.  Unfortunately though, they still have all the damage inside, they are just ignoring it.  Still, they blossom, they feel so much better about themselves, and they feel freer than they have in a long time.

But …

Unfortunately no one else can solve your emotional issues for you. The unresolved issues always start creeping back in. They start examining everything you do, testing you constantly, and if their tortured psyches can latch onto any little flaw they perceive in you they will hang on to it like a dog with a bone.  Every time they bring it up it will be embellished, and much worse in their minds, and you can’t tell them anything different.  They expect more out of you than they do of themselves, and they blame you when you can’t live up to their unreal expectations. 

The primal part of their brain knows that you will fail them like everyone else they know has.  The damage is deep set, and it overrides anything logic or reality tells them.  It is like a test with no right answer. They will believe whatever they have to if it means they can justify running away, whether it’s into their delusional world where they feel safe hiding from life or to drugs or alcohol, or even to an abusive relationship where they feel they are being treated they way they deserve to be treated.

I think some of them use the fact that they broke my heart as proof to themselves that they are no good and the cycle of self-inflicted punishment and self-hatred continues. 

I want to be careful here and point out that it’s not just women, and most women are not damaged like this.  Plenty of men are just as messed up.  Ironically, it is usually these men that are the root cause of the damage that women are saddled with. 

Nor do I suffer any delusions that I am perfect in any way.  I have my own set of baggage, and my own damage.  Fortunately I somehow developed the ability to self examine everything in my life and understand that some things weren’t my fault, and the things that were my fault are forgivable. With that comes the awareness to try not to take my issues out on the people I care about.  I am very lucky in this regard. Some people are just not equipped to do this.

When the end comes, I see how much of what I thought was love was predicated on lies. Lies are tricky though.  I was guilty of talking myself into believing them because I wanted to.  The liar depends on this.  They know that people will always hear what they want to hear.  Our own good natures and desire to think that people are good at heart is sometimes our worst enemy, and a liar’s best friend.  Again, you have to remember that when damaged people lie they are not just lying to you.  Were they lying if they didn’t know it?  If they were lying to themselves?

So I can’t really blame them.  I don’t get the luxury of getting mad or hating them.  I love them and I feel sorry for them.  I sincerely hope that they figure it out, and if they can be happy with someone else someday, good for them.  It hurts, but I would rather see them at peace, even if it’s not with me.  Understanding other people and forgiving the things they do to you is painful, and leaves you swimming in the wreckage they leave in their wake, knowing you will never get closure or peace.  It’s something that they just can’t give you, and you have to accept it and try to live with it. 

That’s what I’m doing now. Again.  Past history tells me I’ll live through it this time, just like I did all the others.  I spend some of my time replaying things and wondering if I could have done anything different, but I know I couldn’t have.  Even if I had averted disaster this time, the following days would have brought more drama and turbulence, and ultimately the same result would come to pass.  The only thing wisdom has brought me is to not hang on to something that’s gone and cause myself more grief and pain. 

It’s little solace.

I also spend a lot more time examining myself and wondering why my relationships tend to follow these patterns. Do I just attract broken people?  Am I too gullible and trust too much?  Do I have self esteem issues myself and think a well adjusted girl wouldn’t want me?  I pick at all my faults over and over.  I am not afraid of being alone, although I do get lonely.  I like sharing things with someone, I like being close to someone, I like the contact and intimacy that comes with being exclusive to one person.  Do I see it where it doesn’t really exist? 

I don’t know, relationships are hard.  They are impossible when the other person is working against you. 

I sometimes feel time is running out for me.  As I said, I am 50 and most of my life has been lived at this point, barring some incredible medical breakthroughs.  I know plenty of people find love later in life, but the odds are greatly diminished. 

I will keep at it though, I’m sure.  I have always kept an open mind and I do my best not to project past relationships onto new ones.  I start them all with a clean slate.  I don’t get suspicious, or negative or jealous or possessive. I wouldn’t even start a new relationship if I felt that way.  I would be better off alone then in a situation where I thought the person I loved was lying and scheming from the start.  I know I am capable of giving love.  I am kind, generous to a fault and I feel I always make life better for the people I care about.  I guess I just have to wait until I find someone who can do the same. I know they exist, I’ve seen it.

Perhaps the trick is to get rid of any illusions of what love is.  I see other couples that are in long term, loving relationships and not one of them is exactly the same as the other.  Love is something different to everyone, and it’s never the same as we’ve been shown in movies and on TV shows since we were kids.  I look at some relationships and think I would never want that for myself, but the people involved seem happy and fulfilled.  I see other long term relationships that seem like a disaster, where the people don’t seem happy at all, and yet they still go on. 

I suppose that somewhere out there is someone for me. In the meantime, I just have to keep on working on myself so when she comes along I’ll be ready to give her the best that that I can.  Then maybe in her I’ll find the closure I’ve been denied all these years.

*A little epilogue to this whole thing: I wrote this over four years ago, and I have had it sitting in limbo as a draft on this blog since then.  I wasn't sure if I was getting my points across the way I intended.  I didn't want it to seem like some misogynist, women are psychos kind of thing, because that is not how I feel at all. I think I'm probably damaged as well, and even though I will convince myself that I am in a relationship with a complete and capable person, my subconscious knows I am not.  It seeks them out, and that surely must be some fucked up self esteem thing I have going on.  Or maybe I think it's romantic to try to save people, I don't know.  It's something I am working on, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm really that much better.
I also wasn't sure it was fair to post it.  As I said up top, I share a lot about myself online, but I don't feel right sharing things about other people that they might not want out there.  They aren't my secrets to share.  Reading it now, I really don't see anything in here that is a betrayal or too specific.  There are a lot of horrific and specific examples and stories I could tell, and I have pretty much avoided them all.  It was still very raw when I wrote it, so I wanted to wait a bit to see if it was something I really wanted to put out there, and then it kind of faded over time.
In the four years since this breakup, we got back together, but she wasn't even the same person.  She was much worse, and really treated me horribly.  There were a lot of lies and verbal and physical abuse, all kinds of things that mentally unstable people do.  I kept trying to help her, trying to fix everything, hoping the woman I loved would somehow magically return.  She didn't.  It just kept getting worse.  I ended up watching her life completely fall apart, and I got myself into a lot of debt trying to help her out.  I am still paying it off. 
If any of you reading this are in any kind of relationship with someone with the kind of severe mental health issues I've experienced, my heart goes out to you.  It is a brutal and thankless job, and it almost never ends well.  Having lived through it, and tried my best to help, I can honestly say that in my opinion, if the other person isn't trying at all to help themselves, you should walk away if you can.  That's what I ended up doing two years ago.  It still hurts, but I truly believe I would be dead by now if I didn't.  I wasn't helping her, and every other aspect of my life was suffering, severely.
There is nothing you can do for someone who doesn't want to help themselves.  Period.  There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.  You can't fix them if they are fighting you.  If you are in a position to have them committed, then that might help, but usually what ends up happening is that they get out in a few days and resent you for it.  God forbid if they are violent, because they will make you pay. 
My heart breaks for parents of children with severe maladies like schizophrenia and paranoia and other bipolar issues.  So many of them simply get to watch their children live in torment, until one day, they don't.  Then they live the rest of their lives with questions and guilt, and an empty space that can never be filled.
I'm going to stop here, because this is opening up a lot of old wounds for me, and while I might be pretty adept at laying this all out there for everyone, it really takes its toll.  All I can say to anyone reading is to try to be kind.  To everyone.  To the people who love you, to the people who have hurt you, to those closest to you, and to the strangers you meet everyday.  You don't know what they are dealing with, be it their own mind working against them, or having someone in their lives they are trying to help with it.  They might not be dealing with any of that, but they could still be heartbroken, bereaved, scared, lonely, anxious, stressed out from tragedy or simply daily life.  Simple kindness from you might make all  the difference to them.  They might not get it from anyone else in their life.
Would you deny them that as well?

Birds

Birds don't know what time it is
They only know the sun has risen
They don't set their clocks forward or back
Perched in the darkness
They persevere
Then they see the light
And sing