PhotoDude.com

Thu. Jun 29, 2006

State of Me

If you tilt your head a certain way, the mechanism of a weblog can be seen as a loose metaphor for your life. Yesterday and today are right there at the top, in the forefront and the focus of our lives. Scroll down the page, and you find previous events. Some good, some bad, all relentlessly pushed down the page by the march of new happenings

And even if there’s a really bad event, if you pile enough new events on top of it, it eventually will completely disappear off the front page of your life (if only to rest in the archives of your nightmares). But sometimes, part of you doesn’t want to let them go. Even the bad ones.

When I wrote about the good news of being Delivered Via Postcard, I pushed the death of Fuji off the front page. When I posted about the State of My Politics, the day of my Dad’s death slid into the archives. Soon, 32 Dark Days and Memories of the Best Kind will get pushed off the front page, too.

And part of me is reluctant to let it happen, even though there’s no “web logic” to it. Why? Because they still reflect a large part of where I’m at today, months later, and the changes in my life.

In what ways am I different than I was at the first of March? I am fatherless. And with the loss of Fuji, I feel childless as well. It was like having the carpet pulled out from under you as the sky crashed down upon you. Two heart wrenching losses that happened barely two weeks apart. Two core-level relationships brought to an abrupt end.

I’ve always thought I was a fairly tough dude, not by choice, by nature, and I’m not alone in making that assessment over the years. I’ve survived a bad marriage, a broken neck, office coups, professional female mud wrestlers, the Harlem Globetrotters, nearly a decade of being a DJ, two decades of freelance employment, being left handed in a right handed world, and a whole lot more.

But this series of blows made me simply fragile for a while, in a way I’ve never been. Physically, it was rendered in the form of a full fledged “call 911” anxiety attack (thankfully a one time event now three months past), and some weight loss.

Mentally, for most of March and April, it often felt like my emotions were about one sixteenth of an inch below the surface of my skin. I just had to brush up against the slightest memory trigger, or get a slight bump or jostle, and those emotions would bust out and overflow very quickly. Just a small trigger of familiarity in the most pedestrian TV show would find me trying to swallow my heart out of my throat and back down into my rib cage.

Today, similar emotions pop up at times, but now they feel like they’re a good half inch below the skin. And when they do overflow, it’s different now somehow. A little less engulfing. The way “they” say it is supposed to grow with time.

Here’s another anecdotal indicator. Much of April was kind of a hazy “zombie” time for me. Not in the “curled up in a fetal ball” sense, I was taking care of work that clients needed done, and basically going through the motions of life. But pretty numbly.

I often listen to music while working at the computer, with iTunes set on random shuffle. I’m first drawn to a song by the music more than lyrics, being a groove kind of guy. But every now and then the lyrics of a song will speak to me, loudly, and the moment that I’m in. One day in April that happened to such an extent I stopped work to track down the lyrics of the song that had grabbed my psyche, and copied them for future reference:

I believe I can see the future
Cause I repeat the same routine
I think I used to have a purpose
But then again
That might have been a dream
I think I used to have a voice
Now I never make a sound
I just do what I’ve been told
I really don’t want them to come around

Oh, no

I’m writing on a little piece of paper
I’m hoping someday you might find
Well I’ll hide it behind something
They won’t look behind
I’m still inside here
A little bit comes bleeding through

Nine Inch Nails, “Every Day Is Exactly the Same”

This was during my “silent” period on this site, and I think the lack of a creative outlet took a toll as well. I just felt like I had nothing at all worth saying here, at least, that I was ready to say. That’s a very unusual place for me to be with regards to this site, and felt pretty odd. That’s why lines like “I think I used to have a voice, Now I never make a sound” rang out to me.

Now, about six week later, same scenario. I’m working again with the music going. This time I’m fleshing out the new design for this site, and have also been spending time writing the tributes to Dad and to Fuji. And again a song comes up on iTunes that makes me go to seek out the lyrics:

You can walk, you can talk, you can fight
But inside you’ve got something to write
In your hand you hold your only friend
Never spend your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen
Your guitar or your pen

When you take up a pencil and sharpen it up
When you’re kicking the fence and still nothing will budge
When the words are immobile until you sit down
Never feel they’re worth keeping, they’re not easily found
Then you know in some strange, unexplainable way
You must really have something
Jumping, thumping, fighting, hiding away
Important to say

The Who, “Guitar and Pen”

With me, it’s more “your camera and your keyboard,” but I made that translation in my head. Coming out of the numbness was as much about writing my way out of it as anything. Writing Memories of Dad and Memories of Fuji truly drew out a lot of the pain I’d been feeling. It didn’t heal me. That will take a lot more time. But it got me centered again.

And perhaps “centered again” isn’t quite accurate. I’m not the way I was before. I’m far less agitated about the “issues of the day” that inflame others, and used to (somewhat) inflame me. The one that comes to mind in this respect is immigration. It has completely played out in the media and in DC during the time I was severely distracted and disinterested in such events.

And I know it’s an important issue. I know there are strong feelings about it. I know it needs to be addressed. I simply don’t care. Not in the traditional American sense of political apathy, but in the sense that my “well of caring” is only so deep, and it has already been dipped deep this year. I have to leave some in the bottom for me.

I’ve been violently upset about some things this year. Justifiably. And when I compare those reasons to, um, immigration reform that looks like it isn’t going to pass anyway? Marriage amendment and flag burning amendment proposals that do nothing but eat clock and beat chests? Karl Rove’s current state of indictment? Is Kos either “on the take” or no longer able to fit his head through standard sized doors?

Please.

I simply don’t care. And frankly feel more rational for it.

Disclaimer: This does not preclude management from issuing a Grade A Rant should any future circumstances warrant. Some things don’t change.

And that’s pretty much your disjointed report on the State of Me. Between a lot of time, a lot of writing, and getting this site rebooted as a creative outlet, I’ve managed to get myself back on track in a lot of ways in the past three months. It’s a slow steady thing. For a while, Sundays were particularly bad for me. And I’d already worried about Mom with the various holidays and anniversaries that come along during the first year after such a loss.

And then the first such holiday to come along was Father’s Day. That was a tough Sunday as well.

So I still have my moments, and I still feel like I’ve got a ways to go, but I’m mentally and emotionally much improved from a couple of months ago. Healthy, and work has been good, too.

And I’m trying to counterbalance the unbidden events of the first half of this year by making an effort to be good to myself in the second half of the year. Do the sometimes unique things that make me happy. Large and small.

In the large category, I decided that three upgrades would happen by year’s end. The first was getting the Canon 5D. Later this year I’ll also be getting a MacBook, and upgrading my desktop computer, too (PC or Mac? We’ll see…)

Oh, goodness, I dread it. However, I look forward to a second half of the year where I have the luxury of worrying about such “problems.”

Because we’re not on this planet long, people. And we don’t get to choose how long. Tomorrow is guaranteed for no one. I’ve known this quite well, for a long time, since I broke my neck in November of 1983. But this year has strongly re-emphasized that in multiple ways.

Of course, the lack of a guarantee of tomorrow doesn’t mean you should go out and spend all your money on toys today. But I think it does mean you should be more careful about what you put off, not just the purchase of material things, but the things that bring happiness. To yourself, and others. Whatever that may be, even if it’s simply the gift of more time, or the recognition that no one on their death bed ever regrets that they didn’t work a few hours more.

When the world beats you down, you have to build yourself back up. And though others may want to help, the healing comes from doing it yourself. And it takes time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play hooky and go to the aquarium.