You're asking so much of me, and expecting it to be of little consequence.

How dare you?  I mean, really how dare you?  I bet my life on this hand, and you dealt me a pair of twos.  I'm hoping against hope y'all got nothing better, because I've bet my stack on this hand.  I have nothing left.  There is no come back.  It's all down to this.

But you expect me to play my hand no matter what.  You know the chips are down, you know I'm fucked if I lose, but you expect me to play this hand.

Fuck you.  Fuck you all to hell, you motherfucker.  Why didn't you deal me something slightly better?

Because I've got a stone where my heart should be.  And it hurts like you wouldn't believe.  I've been beat up a thousand times, and this is what you give me: a stone.

And I still have to make it beat.

Self-Confidence

I guess that I wish we could still be friends.

I understand her point, that a relationship can't have two people with mental illness.  I understand how rough it can be to be around me, when everything is constantly on the edge of slipping into a chronic, painful madness.  I am, to put it bluntly, a depressing person to be around.

What I wish I could give her, or explain to her, is the fact that I actually have a deep faith in myself.  I know that I will continue to struggle with my problems, but I refuse to give up.  It's a powerful force in my life.  It has kept me alive despite everything that has happened, or will happen, to me.

It's a strange confidence, but a sustaining one.  And - I know that I myself need a partner who can also have that faith in me.  It's a tall order.

But a necessary one.

I suddenly feel OK.

Of course the answer was right there all along, staring me in the face.

"For God so loved the world that He gave." (John, 3:16).

And I don't mean this in a boring Christian episcopal, evangelical way.  John is describing an action, a course of action, for all of us to perform.

"For God so loved the world that He gave."

Almost one year ago, I made this promise.  I promised that no matter who or how I was, I would give as my expression of love.  I would be, for her, the ultimate expression of love.  For almost a year, that has been as a lover; and I have made a decidedly poor show of it.  But now is the opportunity to do it as a former lover, as an ex.  I am called upon to be selfless and pure without reward, to love for love's own sake.  And by God, I shall do it.

It is a time of endings.  She has left me and she has left me and she has left me.  I have no future now, nothing to look forward to.  Desolation and exhaustion are what I feel.  But also a curious kind of peace.  Something bigger, something larger is screeching to a halt.

I don't know what it is.  Me, I suppose.

Confusing Moods

It's been almost a year. Two months shy of a year, and yes - two months is a long time - but I feel strangely reflective lately. It started when I realized that I missed my parent's home. I didn't think I'd ever say that, considering how much I wanted to move out of there as soon as possible, but I do miss it.

I miss the central air. I miss the space. I miss the enormous bathtub. I miss the backyard. I miss the dishwasher, and the kitchen in general actually.

I want to say that things were better, then.  Gone is the memory of the crippling depression, only hinted at briefly in various bits of writing that I did from time to time, then.  Instead there is the memory of their ostentatious - but comfortable - house.  Instead there is the memory of watching Torchwood, watching Sherlock, smoking a hookah and feeling... more in tune with whatever it was I was feeling back then.  At least that's the current perception.

I feel more outwardly quiet, now, but quite conflicted inside.  We're living in a small flat in Hartford.  It's a rather downtrodden set of digs, in a not-terribly-nice-but-not-terribly-terrible part of town.  Money is fairly tight, and I have nothing to do all day long while I wait for the summer to wind down so that I can go back to school.  Two months, roughly.  Just two months to get through.

I honestly can't tell how I'm feeling.  On the one hand, it doesn't feel as if much has changed.  There's still depression, still wayward thoughts of suicide, still self-hatred.  I still want to crawl out of my skin and into someone else's.  This past year has been... rough, shall we say.  Relapse, divorce, dating a twenty-year-old with an autistic son, numerous hospitalizations for depression or contraindicated chemicals.  I'm trying to find my sea-legs but am not having an easy time of it.  On the other hand, for the past few days I've been feeling, ever so slightly, better.  More "whole."  I couldn't tell you why or what changed, but I'm feeling just a bit more "up."  And yet missing the past whilst staring hard at the future.

I have a year left of school.  Hopefully after that, I'll find work.  And when I find work, then I can do things that seem miraculous, like pay off the extant bills.  I would love to pay off my credit card, to have access to a bit of credit so we could do things like, I don't know, have decent coffee instead of Folgers in the morning, or shop at Trader Joe's once in a while.  Things like that.

I'm quite hopeful, you see.  There's a pit in my stomach all the time, but I'm still hopeful about the future and maybe it's that contradiction that confuses me.  Or maybe it's the fact that I'm feeling somewhat alright yet pining for the past still.  I don't know what to make of my moods.

It looks like I'll be getting an implant to help with the pain, and that has me looking up a bit as well.  We went to Lake Compounce, yesterday, and although I survived much better than I had been expecting, I'm hopeful the implant will make days like that seem a breeze.  The pain still cripples me, physically and emotionally; with luck, the implant will fix all that.  Though there is still a wad of painful emotion every time I watch someone walk barefoot, swim, jump, wear shorts.  I still run up against my envy of them and their able-bodied life.

But it's all changing, and rapidly.  Difficult or not, the past year has seen a lot of growth in me.  I should really smile more at my success, at all that I've accomplished.  I get stuck looking for things, things I can point to that are indicators of success, and in this case there aren't any.  But I'm still successful.

12 years ago this Saturday, I overdosed on heroin, permanently paralyzing myself and causing the chronic physical pain that has been a feature (if not the feature) of my every waking moment since.

I am the prodigal son.  I left my home to pursue selfish, self-centered things.  My fortunes ruined, I am just now returning to that home, to beg the father within me (that of God in me) for forgiveness.

I know that he is described as All-Forgiving, but I hesitate to bring this to him.  I am so deeply ashamed of what I have done, and I wish - in a way - for punishment.  I wish for justice.  I wish for the sick, self-centered fuck who maimed me to get just punishment.  I am angry.  I want retribution.

That anger keeps me from my forgiving father.  That anger clouds my heart, distorts my judgment.  But I love it so.  I love it because the cause is so just, because the perp who did this to me is so thoroughly rotten to the core.  I want this done to him.  I want him to suffer as I have.

I want to suffer.

What I don't see in this is the way that the anger is hurting others.  I am angry, so I punish myself, and then I seek to lose myself again and again in alcohol and drugs.  I am furious with myself, I push for more pain, and then I beg this torturer to stop through bribes of hedonism.

This is hurting others.  This is hurting my girlfriend, my parents, my friends... this is hurting my forgiving father within.  This pattern cannot stand, cannot last.

I must forgive myself for what I have done.  I must do the impossible, and reconcile my angry firebrand self with my prodigal son.  My angry self must become the prodigal son's father.  My angry self must learn to forgive this idiot son who has done so much damage.

I must start by learning to accept the forgiveness of others.  I must seek to make amends for my actions, and with luck I will be forgiven by at least some of the people I have harmed.  I must watch them, study them, learn how they do this thing called forgiving.  And perhaps then I will learn how to forgive myself..

I know what I must do, but it is the hardest thing for me to do.

I must forgive myself.  I must forgive myself for overdosing on heroin, paralyzing myself, causing the chronic pain I have had to live with for the past 12 years.  I must stop blaming myself for all the substance abuse, for the depression, for the fucked-upness of my life.

Honestly?  I don't know how to do it.  I hate myself.  I hate myself for all the damage I have caused, to me and to other people.  I feel I have been a constant source of anguish and hurt for all around me, and for myself.

I know the only way to end it is to forgive myself, to stop the hatred.  If I can forgive myself, then I won't feel prompted (at all times) to cause more damage.  I won't see-saw between self-righteous indignation and constant despair.

I have to learn to see the good in me.  I have to learn to value what I am and what I have.

But I don't know how.