Completely and Totally
I'm not sure when I completely and totally fucked my life up.
If I could put an exact date on it, I might at least understand how things got this bad. At this point, all I can do is look at the path that got me here, and wonder how and why I ignored the signposts along the way. It's not that I didn't see them. I did. I just chose to ignore them.
The last, and perhaps only, contented time of my life was when I was 25. I was fresh out of college, had a job, living in Miami and discovering gay bars. I thought I was finally at a place that was right for me. And even though things were OK in Miami, what I really wanted to do was drop everything, move to New York, be a writer, and find the love of my life. It had been my dream since I was a kid. My job involved a certain amount of writing and people said I was good. Teachers in school had said I was good. And where else to find a man to love me, than New York. So, why not?
"Why not" happened when I started thinking about it too much... with my head instead of my heart. "Why not" happened when the voices in my head kept having this debate between doing the adventurous thing I always wanted to do... or staying where I was, in something safe and reliable. Safe and reliable was really the one thing in my life I had never had. Why should I give up safe and reliable for a dream?
So I didn't. I stayed where I was and never went searching for life and love in New York. That was a signpost.
By the time I was 29, I had moved up at work and was exploring jobs elsewhere. I was thinking Atlanta, Washington, Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles. Instead, I took the first job I was offered and went from Miami to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Believe it or not, a pleasant, livable city where I made some friends and was fairly successful professionally. I certainly didn't find love there, but I didn't go looking for it either. It was, however, the first time I began to fear my life was spiraling out of control.
It went from bad to worse. Bad life decisions took me to Virginia, back to Florida and then to Texas for the first time. The fact that I say "Texas" and "the first time" in the same sentence should be a sign of the disasters I created and the pit of despair I seemed to constantly call home. Along the way, there might have been opportunities to bring someone into my life. There might have been a time to stop being lonely. But, like everything else, I have always been too afraid. Fear of taking a chance, fear of rejection, shame, disgust, self-hating, self loathing... whatever you call it. My love affair was always with fear. Never with someone else.
I kept playing it safe. I kept pretending I was where I wanted to be, because I was too afraid or too ashamed, or both, to say "Fuck this" and start over.
My addictions (there, I said it) were getting the best of me. My life was more out of control every day, although I somehow managed to hold it together at work. There were occasional bizarre behaviors and ludicrous decisions. I pretended to be audacious, eccentric or charmingly crazy. In reality, I was out of my fucking mind. And I was alone, because it was too dangerous to let anyone else see what a mess I really was.
I made a stab at a drastic career change that finally brought me to New York (the first time). I failed miserably, because I was too fucked up to admit I had a lot to learn, and I was working for people more messed up than me. And I made the mistake of living in Chelsea. If I didn't feel bad enough about who I was already, living in the center of Pretty-Boy America made it even worse. Look for love? I was too afraid to look for the laundry room.
I ran back to safe and secure, where I have been ever since. Now, I am at an age and a point in my life where change just doesn't seem to be an option.
Someone once told me after one of my disastrous life choices "Well, you really screwed the pooch on that one". I hated her for saying out loud what I knew too well. I still do. The truth is, I started screwing the pooch back when I took that first safe road, and stayed on that course over and over, despite the gnawing, screaming desire to go in search of joy.
"Safe" is like a drug. "Safe" is addicting because it lulls you into a false sense of security. It makes you feel protected, warm and oblivious to what is happening around you. But like drugs, "Safe" is a lie. It will sneak up on you, drain you of everything that once was good, and then abandon you on the street, with no one to hold you and nothing to protect you.
Every day, I work on trying to fix what is broken. I can barely stand to get up in the morning and face my life. I'm told it will get better. The pain will pass. I will overcome the fear. I will learn to live and love in the now. I spend a great deal of time with people who like to say "We will love you until you learn to love yourself." I'm not sure they have that much time or patience.
There's no one place or one incident or one date in time I can point to where I can say "This is where it started to go wrong." I've always played it safe because I never believed I was good enough to play it any other way, or that anyone else would want to play with me.
I lot of paragraphs ago, I started off by saying I'm not really sure when I completely and totally fucked my life up. Maybe it was when I took my first taste of "Safe" and never learned how to stop.
If I could put an exact date on it, I might at least understand how things got this bad. At this point, all I can do is look at the path that got me here, and wonder how and why I ignored the signposts along the way. It's not that I didn't see them. I did. I just chose to ignore them.
The last, and perhaps only, contented time of my life was when I was 25. I was fresh out of college, had a job, living in Miami and discovering gay bars. I thought I was finally at a place that was right for me. And even though things were OK in Miami, what I really wanted to do was drop everything, move to New York, be a writer, and find the love of my life. It had been my dream since I was a kid. My job involved a certain amount of writing and people said I was good. Teachers in school had said I was good. And where else to find a man to love me, than New York. So, why not?
"Why not" happened when I started thinking about it too much... with my head instead of my heart. "Why not" happened when the voices in my head kept having this debate between doing the adventurous thing I always wanted to do... or staying where I was, in something safe and reliable. Safe and reliable was really the one thing in my life I had never had. Why should I give up safe and reliable for a dream?
So I didn't. I stayed where I was and never went searching for life and love in New York. That was a signpost.
By the time I was 29, I had moved up at work and was exploring jobs elsewhere. I was thinking Atlanta, Washington, Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles. Instead, I took the first job I was offered and went from Miami to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Believe it or not, a pleasant, livable city where I made some friends and was fairly successful professionally. I certainly didn't find love there, but I didn't go looking for it either. It was, however, the first time I began to fear my life was spiraling out of control.
It went from bad to worse. Bad life decisions took me to Virginia, back to Florida and then to Texas for the first time. The fact that I say "Texas" and "the first time" in the same sentence should be a sign of the disasters I created and the pit of despair I seemed to constantly call home. Along the way, there might have been opportunities to bring someone into my life. There might have been a time to stop being lonely. But, like everything else, I have always been too afraid. Fear of taking a chance, fear of rejection, shame, disgust, self-hating, self loathing... whatever you call it. My love affair was always with fear. Never with someone else.
I kept playing it safe. I kept pretending I was where I wanted to be, because I was too afraid or too ashamed, or both, to say "Fuck this" and start over.
My addictions (there, I said it) were getting the best of me. My life was more out of control every day, although I somehow managed to hold it together at work. There were occasional bizarre behaviors and ludicrous decisions. I pretended to be audacious, eccentric or charmingly crazy. In reality, I was out of my fucking mind. And I was alone, because it was too dangerous to let anyone else see what a mess I really was.
I made a stab at a drastic career change that finally brought me to New York (the first time). I failed miserably, because I was too fucked up to admit I had a lot to learn, and I was working for people more messed up than me. And I made the mistake of living in Chelsea. If I didn't feel bad enough about who I was already, living in the center of Pretty-Boy America made it even worse. Look for love? I was too afraid to look for the laundry room.
I ran back to safe and secure, where I have been ever since. Now, I am at an age and a point in my life where change just doesn't seem to be an option.
Someone once told me after one of my disastrous life choices "Well, you really screwed the pooch on that one". I hated her for saying out loud what I knew too well. I still do. The truth is, I started screwing the pooch back when I took that first safe road, and stayed on that course over and over, despite the gnawing, screaming desire to go in search of joy.
"Safe" is like a drug. "Safe" is addicting because it lulls you into a false sense of security. It makes you feel protected, warm and oblivious to what is happening around you. But like drugs, "Safe" is a lie. It will sneak up on you, drain you of everything that once was good, and then abandon you on the street, with no one to hold you and nothing to protect you.
Every day, I work on trying to fix what is broken. I can barely stand to get up in the morning and face my life. I'm told it will get better. The pain will pass. I will overcome the fear. I will learn to live and love in the now. I spend a great deal of time with people who like to say "We will love you until you learn to love yourself." I'm not sure they have that much time or patience.
There's no one place or one incident or one date in time I can point to where I can say "This is where it started to go wrong." I've always played it safe because I never believed I was good enough to play it any other way, or that anyone else would want to play with me.
I lot of paragraphs ago, I started off by saying I'm not really sure when I completely and totally fucked my life up. Maybe it was when I took my first taste of "Safe" and never learned how to stop.
posted by Bill at
7:11 PM
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