I am feeling very reflective lately and without any doubt it is all about the coming changes coming into my life. I made the leap from the plane to say ‘I am moving to San Francisco’. I made a choice for change and I am falling out of through the sky headed for earth with my fists clenched and teeth gritting together….
At some point the parachute is going to open… right? At some point fate and life is going to shift speeds and I am going to land and be able to walk on a new path and start making a new life.
I have to be able to to walk and keep walking because I am at middle age. I have to look to the future and say – ‘hey, you have no retirement and no pillow if the world falls out from under you’. There is no one who is looking out for me or can rescue me will have my back.
When I think about those people I CHOSE to have in my life I have chosen to be involved with people who would never help me. That is until I met many of the Burners I have met. In the default world one of two things have happened:
- People in the world I have called friends (the kind of friend you think always had your back) have about 90% of the time stabbed me in the back and tried to destroy me…
- Or ask for help and see their hand jut out looking for something in return…
More people and family have failed me than I can really stomach.
I have failed a lot of people in life myself and at some point realized it. The problem with having an epiphany like that is that there is no going back. There is no building that bridge again because it means trust has been destroyed.
I do think I am different in this area though and in rare cases hold real grudges. I can think of some people who I felt really betrayed by and if they sat down with me and had a good conversation I would open up to them really quickly.
That’s neither a fault or a blessing, as it were, neither being conducive to ruminating on the past or carrying that baggage any further into the future.
The one relationship I will never be able to recover that I regretted fucking up more than any other is the one with my sister. Her and I have not got along well our entire lives. There is a ton of baggage on that and inside me from it. This does not include my step-siblings whom I feel close to.
If I died tonight I would ask this site be kept alive as long as possible and people get to know me. I do want my story told, but somehow I would think I would have to be the one who wrote it. There are some features in that story that would make a lot of jaws drop open and… most guarantee that the people who think I am nuts… would be sure I was nuts.
I have a lits of people I would apologize to and ask for forgiveness to:
- Mom: I wish I was a better son and I wish I never went to you to borrow money and failed to pay you back. You probably should have told me “no”, but I know you love and cared for me more than anyone. I know you did more for me as a kid and as an adult than anyone.
- Bob: You were at times more of a dad to me than my own father because you were open with me, you set boundaries, and you proved you can be vulnerable. I see the relationship with your biological children and see it very different than they. I feel lucky to see you as I have. I respect what they perceive.
- Lynn: There are no words to tell you that from the beginning that I would imagine what future we had and did not have. I was a horrible brother and I got so caught up in the wrong things. I still get lost in them, but finally I am seeing that I have made a lot of stupid and selfish choices.
- Jack: I want nothing to be like you. If I open my mouth and hear your voice come out I actually shake. We were father and son for most of the first decade of my life, but when you decided to make our lives an accessory to yours you found out you could detach and divorce what anyone else cared about. You have no idea how many mean and evil things you said to me since in I was a little kid. You have no idea how much you screwed me. You think when I divorced you that it was about money but it was an epiphany that I was not the fat, stupid, worthless, not worthy of your name kid you abused the shit out of in his teens. And the shadow you kept casting over me in adulthood had to be turned off.
- Christine, Jennifer and Sean: It was good growing up with you. You are like my own blood, but Jennifer these days I barely know you.
- Rob, Mona and Tracey: I like you very much and I wish we had more connections.
- Ron: My first true love and soul mate – I still think of you and regret that I lost you. When you died I was left with a big weight on my heart that never went away.
- Adolfo: The last man I can imagine ever loving as much as I did and a soul mate that gave me this awkward balance I wanted to keep so badly. Then it all went horribly wrong and it was my fault. Then we tried something for a moment and it broke like a crystal ornament falling to the ground. I wish you peace and love in your heart.
I suppose I would think of more one day. But these are the people that dominate my mind and my therapy. The biggest demon of that time has been the issues I had with my father and that is a mountain unto itself.
I regret that my heart has been seemingly made of green grass and I have been out and out cruel to so many people around me. I am sorry I have been so impatient to so many. It bothers me I can look into someone’s eyes and see an empty void. It is hard to see through people who are so disingenuous and actually lie so easily.
There has been a lot said here tonight and a lot laid out that no one will care about and no one will appreciate for the right reasons.
If this was a suicide note I might have expanded a little more, but suicide is something I could never do. I have wished for death and prayed for a swift end… even often wishing I would never wake up in the end. In some ironic metaphysical bitch-slap our dear God has managed to keep me healthy and strong as a cosmic ‘kiss my ass‘.