Memento vivere.

5:19

Anoymous — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 12:19:18 +0000

I’d be lying through my teeth if I told you that I’m OK. When July came I thought I had it all together until you said “I need some space.” Truth be told, it’s so hard to wait with one eye on the clock and one on the phone. It’s 5:19; I’m feeling alone. And if I could talk to you, I’d want you to know: I’m holding loose, but not letting go.

We both know that I could think myself dizzy. Right now I’m spinning around. I know you said “baby, don’t worry,” but I miss you right now. I said I miss you right now. Baby, take all the time you need. I just want you to know I’ll be here waiting with one eye on the clock and one on the phone. It’s 5:19; I’m feeling alone. And if I could talk to you, I’d want you to know: I’m holding loose, but not letting go.

(Matt Wertz… look him up.)

Positive Steps

Anoymous — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:11:18 +0000

I’ve been going to some counseling to help me though this ordeal. It has worked out very well. One thing I am going to try to start doing with this blog is to write about positive steps. I give so much attention to the negative stuff because it helps me to write about it; to write my way though it.

Anyone reading this must think I’m the most miserable person. I’m not. I am very happy, actually. I’m strong, and I’m valuable, and I’m important. Let the positive blogging begin!

I’m no longer a slave to my emotions.
I have come to realize that we can’t be best friends right now. I can fake it (I’m actually not sure that you can), but that’s not fair. It’s not right. So we’ll do things the hard way… the better way… the right way. Rebuild from the ground up.

That’s important.

I also have learned that I can be found attractive by other men. I’m not incapable of dating. That’s something to get my head around, but for now I take comfort in knowing that I might just be ok after all. Now that’s a positive step!

Wow

Anoymous — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:43:32 +0000

You think you know someone… and then they go and act like that. Cold. That’s not you. You know it and I know it. That’s not the person I fell in love with. I don’t even know anymore.

Maybe I can put into words better what this all means… but not at 7:00 on Thursday morning when I haven’t even been to bed. It just feels good to say what I think. And it’s safe. This keeps me from calling you.
More to come… maybe I’ll call it Wow II. For now, I’ll just say that if I were a bridge, I would be impossible to burn. (I am impossible to burn as a bridge, in fact. Still, you try.)

The 8-Minute Smile

Anoymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:47:29 +0000

Somewhere I learned that if you can just force a smile and a positive attitude, all it takes is 8 minutes before you really take on the mood you were “faking.” I need this on a much bigger scale. In fact, I know that it works on the smaller scale, because this little exercise has gotten me through countless hours of intense (tense!) rehearsal.

I think that’s what I’ll miss most about performing. The adrenaline rush from nerves wears off when you’ve done it as long as I have. In the beginning, that was the rush; the payoff. But as time goes on, the thrill of a large crowd, or the anxiety from not being 100% sure you know what you’re doing goes away. Then, the payoff comes after the performance. I walk out on stage, often weary from a day of travel and rehearsal; cranky from not having enough quiet time; and sweaty because the dressing rooms are over-crowded, and I look to all the world as if there’s no place else I’d rather be. (I know I’m not meant to do this for the rest of my life because, often, there were many other places I would rather be.) Regardless, after the show was through, those 90 minutes of faking being the happiest guy in the world stuck. Too bad that good attitude was always wasted on an uncomfortable bus ride home.

Well, here I go. The show must go on, right?

I’m not ok. And I don’t believe that I will be yet. But I can make it appear that way, and I will. Maybe it will stick. Last resort? Ha! I’m past that. There is only one last resort.

Dividing Day

Anoymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 11:45:18 +0000

In one of my favorite stories (and musical), The Light in the Piazza, a mother and daughter from Winston-Salem, NC (c. 1950′s) take a vacation to Italy. The daughter, Clara, finds true love, but the mother, Margaret, has the startling realization that she no longer is in love with her husband, and hasn’t been for a long time. On their first day in the city, Clara and her mother stroll through a piazza. Clara asks Margaret, “Mother, what happened here?” Lost in her thoughts, Margaret echoes back, “What did happen here… I played a tricky game.” Saying it out loud appears to shock her out of her daydream and she hurriedly flips through a guide book to tell Clara the historical significance of their location.

That tricky game was love. It turns out that Margaret had met her husband (or at least fell in love with him) on a trip to Italy when they were younger. This has to be one of the most tragic moments in anyone’s life. I sit on the other side of the fence, and this song haunts me. If you ever get a chance to listen to it, it is one of the most beautiful, eerie, song you’ll ever hear. (The second set of questions is particularly chilling.) In a thick southern accent, Margaret sings her thoughts:

“Dividing Day” from The Light in the Piazza

Dashing as the day we met,
Only there is something I don’t recognize.
Though I cannot name it yet, I know it.

Beautiful is what you are,
Only somehow wearing a frightening disguise.
I can see the winter in your eyes, love, telling me:

“Thank you, We’re done here, Not much to say.
We are together but I have had Dividing Day.”

So when, when was this day?
Was it on the church step?
Suddenly you’re out of love.
Does it go creeping slowly?
When was your Dividing Day?

I can see the winter in your eyes, love, telling me:

“Margaret, we didn’t, You courtesied, I bowed.
We are together, but no more love, no more love allowed.”

When was dividing day?
Was it on the church step?
Did it happen right away?
Were you lying next to me,
Hiding what you couldn’t say?
How could I have guessed?
Was my cheek upon your chest?
An ocean away…

When was, when was, when was Dividing Day?

“I played a tricky game.”

Anoymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 11:36:55 +0000

I expected to wake up this morning to find out it was all a bad dream. I’ve done that 27 times. I fight like mad to fall asleep. I fight like mad to stay asleep. And I fight like mad to get up to face another day knowing it’s all real. Nights are the hardest always.

Yesterday I asked some questions, and I got answers. At the time it really did help. But the bullet holes will take a lot more time than I knew to heal. I’m already weak. Every time my mind slips to thoughts I try to avoid, my stomach physically feels the sensation of a quick, unexpected free fall. Like on a roller coaster, or one of those sudden drop towers. It makes me sick. It’s a ride I can’t seem to get off.

I had to look something square in the eye for the first time yesterday. When you are so sure of something that it becomes an undeniable fact not only in your mind, but in your life as well there are only two possibilities. 1. You are right. 2. You are wrong.

Either I was right: He is the one I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. I’ve lost. There isn’t a thing I can do now. I’ll have to settle for second, or it’s up to him… or fate, I suppose. (Fuck fate.) Or I was wrong. In that case, how can I ever be sure of anything again?

I played a tricky game.

Another Long Drive

Anoymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 01:53:22 +0000

I felt trapped.
I was suffocating.
Drowning.
I needed to get out.
I took another long drive today.

After the first round of sobbing cleared my system (somewhere around Indianapolis), I felt an incredible sense of peace. In that heightened emotional state, I honestly didn’t care what happened. I rolled down the windows and turned off the air conditioner to feel the wind on my face. I was driving and I didn’t know where I was going to end up or if I would ever come back. For a good while, I didn’t care if I ever made it back. (Sitting here now, I still don’t care.) The ironic thing is that my drive was the most peaceful time I’ve had in the past month.

Today is the first of the month, you see. The first was our anniversary. It was hard to face the fact that it would be impossible to escape the day no matter how hard I pushed that pedal to the floor. Defeat caught me somewhere on Interstate 65 when I had to stop for gas. That’s when the tears caught up, too. I had lost. Game over. The end.

Now I sit in Muncie… I called my mom and asked her to come. I can’t tell her the real reason I need her here. I’m scared of the defeat. Really, really scared. “Memento vivere” just annoys me now.

I’m still trapped.
I’m still suffocating.
Drowning. Yes.
Something has to be done.
Maybe another drive will succeed. This one didn’t.

If You’re Going Through Hell

Anoymous — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:09:27 +0000

Today, I drove for 4 hours on the interstate to clear my head. I sat in silence for most of it, but there was some music. I’m pasting the lyrics to the song that is important to me. A little background: this is the first song someone special and I listened to in the car (I’ll never forget it), and it’s the song I cried my way through when it was performed live at a concert in Dayton when we were on what I know now to be our last date. How ironic is it, then, that this song is helping me through the hardest Hell I’ve ever experienced?

Rodney Atkins: If You’re Going Through Hell

Well you know those times
When you feel like there’s a sign there on your back
Says I don’t mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has
Things go from bad to worse
You’d think they can’t get worse than that
And then they do

You step off the straight and narrow
And you don’t know where you are
Use the needle of your compass
To sew up your broken heart
Ask directions from a genie
In a bottle of Jim Beam
And she lies to you
That’s when you learn the truth

If you’re going through hell
Keep on going, don’t slow down
If you’re scared, don’t show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you’re there

Well I been deep down in that darkness
I been down to my last match
Felt a hundred different demons
Breathing fire down my back
And I knew that if I stumbled
I’d fall right into the trap that they were laying, yeah

But the good news
Is there’s angels everywhere out on the street
Holding out a hand to pull you back up on your feet
The one’s that you’ve been dragging for so long
You’re on your knees
You might as well be praying
Guess what I’m saying

Yeah, If you’re going through hell
Keep on moving, face that fire
Walk right through it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows your there

This song was written for me.

A story about a puppy…

Anoymous — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:04:56 +0000

There’s a puppy down the street that gets let out into the yard to play when it’s convenient for the owner and then put back when the owner is finished. The puppy is confused because he sees his owner trying to be nice to him, but it’s not exactly what the puppy needs. And the puppy’s reaction to that treatment is to chew up paper and bedding and pee all over his cage. Now the puppy is in trouble, and while his actions were directly his fault, the cause of those actions is an owner not taking care of him like he needs to be taken care of.

What the owner doesn’t know is that when he’s away, the neighbor boy comes along and kicks the puppy’s cage and rattles the door. He treats the puppy with cruelty. When the puppy tries to tell the owner how he is being mistreated by the neighbor boy, the owner gets angry at the puppy and the cycle starts all over again.

The sad part is that the puppy knows that when the owner gets done playing with him in the yard, he spends time with the neighbor boy. They’re friends. And what’s even sadder than that… despite it all, the puppy wants nothing more than to be friends with the neighbor boy.

You do things that you think show me you care…. I’ll say that again: You do things you think show me you care. The puppy in me is crying out telling you the things he needs to feel loved and to feel taken care of, but telling the owner what the puppy needs only makes the owner mad. I have a huge weight to carry. I’m going through a really rough time. I need your help to carry the burden. Be my friend.

Penny for your thoughts?

Anoymous — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:35:38 +0000

I spilled my damn pennies last night. I had been saving them up like a 9-year-old with a piggy bank. My bank is my heart. I have been finding pennies all over the place for the past month…. Sometimes I spend them prematurely, and sometimes they get cast to the bottom of the bank not knowing if they’ll ever get out. They got out last night. I poured them out onto a dark sidewalk. I poured them all out without really meaning to. I knew what I was doing, don’t misunderstand, but I wish I hadn’t done it just like that. Damn pennies.

Some people have walls. My walls, for example, hold in all my pennies. They also keep other pennies from mixing with mine. I take care of my pennies… they get turned and polished and turned and polished until they shine. Some get polished smooth, and some even get polished until there’s nothing left. When those walls come down, the pennies fall out. That’s a good thing, but sometimes it allows my precious copper circles to mix with others. It can hurt. It makes me vulnerable. And once I clean up the mess from my pennies, there’s always the new ones that need polishing. So I set to work. Diligently.

I’m afraid of being vulnerable. It’s hardest to open up fully to those you love. It takes practice and dedication. I’m new at this. You can’t master love in a year. Just when I was starting to get the hang of it, the bottom fell out. A year is a long time. But it isn’t a definitive amount of time during which certain things must be accomplished. Sure, we have wants (needs, even) that we wish would be met. I believe if we tell one another about those things, that’s a big secret to success. But, once again, dropping those walls and spilling those pennies makes one vulnerable. Open to rejection. It’s the chance we take. Take the chance. I’ll come though.

I made a mistake. (I made mistakes!) I wish I coud be forgiven in a way that washes away what I have done/have failed to do. My love can do that. In fact, the pennies I spilled last night were all polished out of that same love. They were spilled out of love, too. They were spilled because of a love so strong, I can’t control it sometimes. I hope everyone in this world gets to experience feelings like that. I hope they never have to experience the ugly side, but I’m afraid we all must.

I want to tell everyone. I want to fight. I think, in secret, you want me to fight. I don’t know what I’ll do, or how I’ll do it. But I will fight. I’ll not fight against anything, but for something… for someone. I believe love gives second chances. People fight them, but the love lets everything be ok. I’ll not make the same mistake twice. I’ll never make those mistakes again, because I see what it cost me. (Almost cost me?) I’m paying a big price for foolishness, and rightly so. But love is bigger than that. Mine is. I’m babbling. Time to stop.

I hid a poem that I found on another WordPress account. X marks the spot.

Remembering to live!