Then And Now

Go To Part 1 Of The Blog


Well it is 2014 and the end of June. When I began this blog it was in November of 2007 and a lot has gone on since I was here last. Currently my 95 year old mother is in the hospital having had a stroke as well as pneumonia, and my 70 year old schizophrenic brother Bill, had some sort of blackout/seizure and fell at his apartment, and could not get up. I had to call the police to get into his place and they found him sprawled out on his kitchen floor. I myself have been trying my damnedest to carry on and keep things afloat, but the load has been, to say the least, a heavy one to bare. The headaches I had when I started writing some seven years ago are still with me, and make all of this seem impossible to cope with, but a day at a time I muddle through.

I spent and hour or so today looking through some of what I wrote in the past and thought I might come here to convey a few new thoughts and feelings. There was never any doubt, when I started this blog, that what I might write here would change anything in my life much, which it hasn't. I got older, I'm still clean and sober, and I still feel as separated from the human race as I did when I began. I think if I hadn't had these headaches all the time I may well have done much better, but the limitations of 24-hr a day pain, for nearly sixteen years, allows little peace I have found.

As years have come and gone, so have the people. A few stay on but many more do not. It is excruciatingly painful to watch some, that I have truly cared for, begin to lose interest and move away, and then disappear altogether. But in part, it seems to be because of the physical limitations I am forced to exist with, to try and function with. If I could live my life as I chose to, instead of being chained to this rock, then I believe much would have been different. I spend each day trying, with all the power I can find, to get well. I never truly give up my belief that I can, and will, even though at times I have felt like throwing in the towel. Because I was able to get clean and sober, and stay that way for thirty-eight years, I have the model for eventual success with these goddamned headaches.

Then too, there is the fact that I am a pain in the ass, and hard to get along with at times. I do not shy away from this fact and freely admit to it. But again, for the most part, it is a direct result of always having to fight through headaches while trying to communicate with people. If I sound like nothing more than a whining weakling I apologize. But it has, and is, next to impossible to explain my actions without putting this fact squarely at the front of the line. I only hope that someday soon I can show up without this malady and people can judge for themselves the difference it makes, not in words, but in completely concrete terms and actions, as in transformation.

No one can ever know what is in my heart or my mind other than by my trying to convey that in words and/or some form of artistic endeavor. My experiences are what they are and my dreams still flash on the horizon. I only hope I get the chance, to be on the outside, the human being I am on the inside...and make some of those dreams come true. For those who have cared I thank you. For those who have left, or are leaving, I salute you, and for those who have found fault with me I understand completely.