Be Thankful and Get On With It!

I'm lucky. 

I know I often bitch and complain about paper cuts and other terminal injuries here but I know in my heart I'm lucky. 

I'm lucky I have friends who give a shit about me. 

I have friends who actually care if I live or die.  I have friends who say things like, "Ted, don't die on me" or "I would really be hurt if you died." 

I have friends who watch out for me when I don't watch out for myself.  There have been times this year when I simply did not care about the consequences of my actions and my friends did.  Not only that, they stepped in and actively brought my attention to such things, and tried to steer me away from bad choices. 

Not that I listen, mind you, but they tried.  A for effort, right? 

I'm not going to insult myself today.  I'm not going to make a bunch of self-deprecating jokes, either.  Instead, I will say that I was on my way out and I didn't care but they did.  My friends cared. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who invite me over to their house for Thanksgiving because they know if they don't, I'll sit around at home and binge-watch crap like Lucifer. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who know me well enough to know I need to hear positive affirmations because it's hard for me to do it myself.  My friends know I have a lot of negative programming to overcome and they are doing their best to re-write that programming to reflect a positive self-image.  I can't do that myself.  I need friends to help me. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who put up with my self-pity as I wallow in the pit I dug for myself. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who listen to me complain about being alone after self-sabotaging just about every single relationship I've ever had. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who help me get the ice cream out of my freezer so I don't sit around eating it while binge-watching crap like Lucifer.  I have no idea why I keep watching that show but I do.  It's really not very good.  Lucifer is a pansy, his romantic interest is clueless, and his mother is so conflicted I keep waiting for her to split into two people.  All the while, they talk about God as if he's some drunken father stumbling around with a bottle of cheap whiskey. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who know about healing, recovery, and holistic methods for curing ailments that are often self-inflicted.  I never used to know much about that sort of thing.  I never cared.  I knew where I was going on pulling up and out of that nose-dive just wasn't part of the plan.  But my friends knew better and now that I'm making the effort, they're supplying the tools. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who hug me and tell me I'm important to not only them but to the rest of the world and losing me would be bad for everybody. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who made sure I went to see a doctor when I was perfectly content to just let nature take it's course. 

I'm lucky enough to have friends who watch out for me when it comes to women because I tend to be an emotional moth with a streetlamp.  Oh, you aren't repulsed by me?  I'll just gravitate towards you until you tell me you're not interested in anything other than friendship and totally destroy me because I banked everything on you being my salvation. 

Until I self-sabotage and self-destruct right in front of you, of course. 

I'm lucky I have friends who are there to help me pick up the pieces and wrap them all up with duct tape so I can do it all again a few months later. 

I'm lucky I have friends who don't roll their eyes when I tell them about the new "She's the one" every couple of months. 

I'm lucky I have friends who are happy for me when I announce some small victory because I'm so used to having every victory taken from me that I disqualify them myself now.  Just lost a few pounds?  Those are the garbage pounds early on.  Don't mean anything.  Just put on a pair of pants I haven't been able to wear in over a year?  Garbage pounds, no big deal. 

Tonight, I walked down a flight of stairs with a load of laundry and back up.  I was able to do so without pain, or having to go slowly, because of fear of falling or bad knees.  The lost weight is the reason for that.  I could discount that achievement by saying a lot of things.  My friends won't allow that and cheer for me when I'm not capable of being happy for myself. 

I'm lucky to have friends who understand that even a minor victory is still a victory. 

I'm lucky to have friends who didn't turn their backs and forget about me even though I removed myself from as much of life as possible. 

So yes, I'm thankful.  I'm thankful for a lot of things but more importantly, I'm thankful for people.  I'm here because of the people in my life.  Things aren't nearly as important as people.  Things are just things.  Situations can be managed.  It's the people who make the real difference in our lives. 

I'm afraid of admitting this.  The last time I expressed gratitude like this it was with my wife.  We were talking about how great things were.  I was holding our daughter and she was laughing as I blew raspberries into her belly.  My wife and I were acknowledging how good things were for us.  Within a few short weeks, all Hell broke loose, and everything was shattered. 

I don't think I could survive another one of those.  But fear is the mind-killer and so I'm confronting Fate by acknowledging that I'm lucky to have the people in my life that I do.  I feel incredibly vulnerable right now but ungratefulness is the worst sin of all.  Not acknowledging what you've been given diminishes just how great that gift is so saying nothing is far worse. 

I'm lucky.  Please, Fate, don't take this away from me, too.  

Are You There, Lucifer? It's Me, Ted.

I'm making huge changes in my life right now.  Worse, huge changes out of my control are happening around me.

It used to be, when those things happened, I retreated.  I couldn't deal with it so I retreated into the comfort of oblivion.  I unplugged as far as I could.  One time I almost ended up in the ER.

Not that I would have called for help or made an attempt to pass out in a public space so somebody could find me.  Had I really OD'd and died, I would have rotted in my apartment, and nobody would have known until one day all anybody could smell was rotten, dead fat guy.

The worms would have been crawling all over me as flies do tend to lay their eggs.

I just didn't care.

As long as I could run away, it was okay with me, because oblivion was always preferable.

But now that's not an option and I've made choices that have put me on a path that eliminates those ways to hide.  I'm told it'll make me happier later on down the road but right now it just sucks.

Case in point:  I had something happen recently to upset me.  I was extremely upset and hurt.  Usually, recovery from this would involve copious amounts of doughnuts, Mt. Dew, and other substances that alter my reality.  Enough to numb me so much you could perform surgery on me and I wouldn't care.

But NoooOOoo!  I had this brilliant idea to get healthy or whatever.

So, doughnuts are out of the question and the substances are as well.  Instead of running away, I'm dealing with the anxiety and depression and Satan knows what else.  I can't even count all the emotions anymore.

I feel like a kid who fell off his bike and his Mommy isn't around.  My knee is bleeding, my wrist is really swollen and I can't move it, and I'm on the front lawn just balling my eyes out but nobody hears me.

Okay, that was dramatic.  Even too dramatic for me.  Scratch that.

I feel like I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque and now I have to drive through the shittiest neighborhood ever to get back on the right road.

Last night, I pushed things a bit with my recovery.  I pushed until at around 2:30AM, I was twitching so hard, it felt like ants were in my muscles.  I'd taken a couple of Flexeril to deal with it and instead of helping, it had this strange effect where I felt the acid build in my muscles a few seconds before the twitch would not happen.  Instead, I'd feel pin and needles in that muscle.  Every 30-90 seconds this would repeat and had been happening for about two hours.  I couldn't sleep no matter what I did, nor could I get comfortable as my skin crawled.

I lasted until 2:30AM before I grudgingly conceded and acquiesced to my addiction.  It was a minor victory because I pushed for 18 hours or so.  It was brutal but I did it.

Here's the thing:  I keep reminding myself how this was my choice.  I made the decision to improve my health.  That meant eating better, exercising when I'm not too sick, and getting off various substances and habits.

It's been an incredible battle but I keep doing it.  I haven't stopped.  I want my life back.  I want my body back.  And more to the point--I want my mind back.

I've been incredibly angry these past few days.  I've been punching walls and getting off various social media so I don't shit-post all over the place.  Nobody cares that I'm missing but at least I know I'm not flooding those places with my bullshit.

I'm angry for a lot of reasons.  I'm angry at what has been taken from me.  I'm angry about what I've lost.  I'm angry at all of the time I've wasted just surviving and not living.  I'm angry that out of my 46 years on this miserable planet I can only point to a few months as being happy.  The rest have been spent struggling with depression, recovering from this or that, or in futile efforts to move beyond my station.

I'm angry at all the missed opportunities because I was too damaged to take advantage of them.  It was the damage I've been angry at.  The wreckage of the past.  I've been furious at this.

And I'm angry at myself.  I'm angry I didn't handle things in a healthy way.  I'm angry I escaped.  I'm angry I withdrew until I became a morbidly obese recluse while life passed me by.  All the while, lamenting how devastated I was my life was a miserable disappointment.

Now it's the 11th hour and I'm trying to pull out of this nosedive.  I'm furious at how much momentum I have going into the abyss.

The past week has been hard on me.  Work has cut my hours, I finally discovered who betrayed me, a person I had grown close to ghosted me, and all the while I have been working on recovery.  I have been doing exercises designed to take back my energy from those I have given so much.

But there's something else.  Satan has been on my mind a lot.  I know that sounds random but it isn't.

I've been listening to a lot of Satanic/Occult rock music.  I've found some good stuff, too.

Haunt-- Revenant  I really love these guys.  Their sound is much like Ghost but there's something else.  Either way, brilliant stuff.

Blood Ceremony -- Goodbye Gemini  How on Earth have I missed these guys?  I love their sound.  It's so 70's and dark, yet beautiful.  Just stunning.  And, of course, she's beautiful.

The Devil's Blood -- Voodoo Dust  Much of their work is visionary and once again I'm asking myself how I could possibly have missed this for so long?

The Devil's Blood -- The Madness of Serpents  I love her voice but this song should have ended at 4:00 instead of dragging on like it did.

I realize now why this has been on my mind.  Satanism is about personal responsibility.  It's about becoming stronger than your own environment and defeating your own personal demons.  Satanism is about taking charge of your own life on a level most people are unable to do and pushing through the bullshit in your mind that limits you from being more than what you are.

Satanism is intolerant of personal weakness.  Western religion, as well as most religions, teach that you should give up your own personal power and strength to a higher being.  Satanism teaches that you should be responsible for everything you can control, even if you need to use magic to control it, and the limitations are all on you. 

In recent months, I have felt incredibly weak from all that has transpired, and instead of looking to something outside myself for help, I have pulled within.  So much of what I thought I needed was inside me all along and I never knew it until now.  I've been seeking answers to questions and problems from external sources when really all I need to do was trust in myself. 

That also means I don't need to eat a dozen doughnuts while watching videos online.  I don't need to drink a 2-liter bottle of Mt. Dew in a day.  I don't need to alter my reality.  I can do this.  I can deal with what's being thrown at me because I'm strong enough. 

I just needed the Devil to remind me of this, that's all. 

Hail Satan!  

When the Armor Fails

The heavy oak door to the Healer's chambers burst open despite the iron locks and massive weight.

He stood up from his desk near the warm fire. 

"What sorcery is this?"

Only then he saw the white hair of the old woman known as The Seer.  She was leading a group of people who carried a large man in a blanket.  He was unconscious.

"I need your help tonight, old friend."

The Healer looked into the blanket and examined the man in armor.  It was Our Hero.

"What happened?"

"We need to get this armor off him right this instant!"

The Healer ran his fingers along the underside of the thick breast plate.  It was deeply gouged and dented from countless battles.

"Why did you bring him here?  Why wake the whole castle with this in the dead of night?"

The Seer showed him the unfastened straps dangling off Our Hero's body.

"How are these armor plates staying on him?"

"Look closer, Wise One."

Once again he ran his fingers under the armor and gasped.  "I can't tell where He begins and the armor ends!  It's meshed with is flesh!  It's a part of him now!"

"And if we don't get it off his body soon, he will die."

"He's dead already, my old friend.  There's no way to get that armor off his body.  It is now one with him."

"No!  We can cut it off.  It'll take some time and patience, but we can do it.  You, a skilled Healer, can do it."

The Healer looked up at the faces of those who brought Our Hero into his lab in the basement of castle.  They each wore expressions betraying their thoughts.  Worry, sadness, anger, disgust, and contempt.

He struggled for so long, he just needed protection

I hope he doesn't die like this....not like this.

How could he have been so stupid!  

Pathetic!  Nobody needs armor like that!  

It's weakness.  He's not a hero, he's just a weak man!  


"I will need each of you to assist me."

"Well," said one of the group.  "I've got plans.  I mean, really, I need to get going.  Besides, you guys have this under control, so bye.  Tell him I'll send a pigeon courier some time this week, okay?  Thanks!"

After she left the room, the Healer and The Seer spoke to each other in hushed tones.

"He's not going to want to lose this armor," she said.  "He doesn't think he can live without it."

"How many years has he worn this on his body?"

"At least nine, that I know of," she said.  "It became a habit after having so many battles."

"His enemies will smell blood and come for him.  And we can't protect him."

"I know," she said.  "But if we don't do this, he will surely die."

The Healer rubbed an ointment under Our Hero's nose while The Seer chanted a spell.

"He will be asleep for a while longer but once I start to carve this off his skin, he will awake from the pain.  I hope none of you are shy about blood--there will be a lot of it tonight."

A few left, the most loyal stayed, and the grim work began.

The first cuts were shallow, to test the flesh, and to see how bad it was.

"What's that horrible stench?"  A member of the group held a rag up to their face.

"It's infected," said the Healer.  His face held in a grim mask.  "And you're right, my dear friend.  If we don't remove this soon, he will die."

"Let us pray we made it in time," she said.

The Healer looked at her for a moment, and raised an eyebrow.

"I did not see his Fate, my Healer friend.  I don't know if this is his last day with us or not."

"Then I shall work faster," he said.  Sharp scalps were on a tray next to him, lined up in a row.  He would grab one, slicing as delicately as possible the skin away from the armor that had protected Our Hero for so long.

Bit by bit, the Healer released the skin from the armor.  The cold, stone room filled with the stench of necrosed flesh and infection. As a scalpel's blade lost its edge, he would put it down carefully and grab another.

One finger on Our Hero's right hand twitched.

"He's waking up!"  One of The Seer's helpers put both hands on his arm.

"We've only got a few moments left," said the old crone.

"And I've got at least an hour's worth of work to do," said the Healer.

Suddenly a chair flew across the room and smashed against the opposite wall.

"What in the hell was that?"

"It's one of his demons," cried The Seer.  "It's found him!"

"I can't see anything," said one of the helpers.

"And you won't," said the Healer.  "They belong to him.  But be careful because they'll kill you just the same."

A table disintegrated into a pile of splinters.

"He's coming for him!"

And then Our Hero's eyes shot open.  One hand reached for his sword and there wasn't one strapped to his waist.

He sat up and looked around.  One of the loyal friends who stayed to help was pushed aside without seeing the creature that did it.

Our Hero grabbed two of the dull scalpels and a battle ensued.  He sliced and stabbed an monster only he could see but everyone in the room could feel.  After the better part of an hour, there was the sound of limp flesh hitting the flagstone floor.

The battle was done. He was exhausted, covered in sweat, and blood both his own and otherwise.  Frantically he felt for his armor. 

"What have you done?"

The Seer knelt down next to him, placing a hand on each side of his head, holding him firmly so his frantic eyes would focus on her. 

"Listen to me!  Listen to me!  You are dying!  Can you understand that?  This armor is killing you and it has to be removed.  You are dying!" 

"No!" 

"Yes!  You cannot heal with it.  You are dying from infection.  It has become toxic." 

"It's my armor!  I need it!" 

"No," said the old woman.  "You do not.  You only think you do.  And you cannot rely upon it anymore." 

"I'm going to die without it." 

"You'll die with it, too." 

The Healer and the loyal friends slowly surrounded Our Hero, lifted him up, and brought him back to the table. 

"No," he said.  "Don't take my armor."  It sounded more like a plea than anything else. 

"This is killing you," said the Crone.  "I know you might have needed it in the past, but it has to go." 

"You can do this," said The Healer.  "You're stronger than you think." 

***

A day later, Our Hero was in a bed, covered in sweat and shivering.  He tried to talk but couldn't without vomiting.  His skin was white and once every few seconds he twitched.  He was oblivious to the two people in his room with him. 

"He's not good," said The Healer.  "I can't give him anything to sleep because it'll make the infection worse."

"I know," said The Seer.  "If he survives this, he'll be fine." 

"Let's just hope when he leaves here he doesn't find more armor."   

Do You Adore Life?

In the past few days, I have been haunted by something I cannot find an answer to no matter how hard I try.

It started because of a song.  I love the fact that I can still find new music that makes me think.  I love how I'm constantly discovering new music.  I think once I walk away from new music altogether and dismiss it as being redundant and derivative, that will signal when it's time for me to finally die.

I first heard it in the end credits on the Hulu show Chance.  I dearly love that show.  It's in the second season right now and Ethan Suplee's character, D, is so very similar to how I used to be many years ago.  Damaged, angry, lethal, and ready to hurt somebody without remorse and enjoy doing it.

When I heard the song, it was just the final few seconds, and it was beautiful, so I went on Youtube because I'm OCD about shit like that.  I hear a song, I have to know all about it.  I have to.  It's not something I can walk away from, either.  I've tried.  Believe me, I've tried.

The song was by a London band called Savages titled "Adore" and it's one of those that grabs you.

It's not a statement of fact for the singer.  Listen to her and watch her as she sings.  She's not telling you how life is just something to live.

No.

What she is saying is despite all the bullshit she's had to go through, she has taken the attitude of "Fuck you, I'm living my life and having fun."

She is saying that nothing anybody does will get in the way of that.

Then, she challenges us.  She challenges us to get up and live.  Live our lives and enjoy them.  Not just go through the motions but actually get out there and adore the life you have.

This is what haunts me.  Because I have not lived my life in a very long time.  I have existed.  I have gone through the motions so that I can be left alone.  I have self-sabotaged to the point where I have guaranteed I will die alone.  I have isolated until I've been forgotten.  I have done everything possible to drive my life nose-first into the ground.

And now I'm bitching that this life has been shit and I haven't really lived it.

So now that I'm in what I feel like is the fourth quarter, I'm trying to pull up out of this nose-dive and trying to change things.  I'm trying to actually live this life and instead I'm finding myself to be angry at the past and full of regrets--which is something you cannot do if you are living your life.

I'm not living.  I'm surviving.  I'm keeping my heart beating.  That's about it.

In the 1987 cult classic Dudes, with a very young Jon Cryer and Flea, there's a scene where they meet up with an Elvis impersonator driving a massive white Cadillac.  He asks them what kind of work they do and one guy says, "Survival."

The Elvis impersonator says, "Survival is the slowest form of suicide."

I've never forgotten that and it's always bugged me that really all I do is survive.  I'm sick of just surviving.  I want more.

I want it bad enough to make changes in my life.  Hard changes.  I've woken up sick for the past three months because of withdrawals while I taper off stuff.  I've begun to lose weight.  I've even gotten out of my apartment more.

I cannot live like this.

But do I adore life?  Am I in love with life?

No.  I cannot say that I am or ever was.   Looking back, it was a lot of boredom and just dealing with shit.  I was always stuck in the mud and had no clue how to get out of it.

But I'm done lamenting the past.  I'm done. I did the best I could with what I had to work with at the time.

I want to adore life.  I want to have a life worth having.  And I want to change things so that one day, I can wake up and not feel loathing and dread that I'm on this planet for another dreary day.

I don't remember the last time I woke up and looked forward to something.

I've been accused of being an old soul by a number of people.  But does that mean the enjoyment has been taken out of life?  If I am an old soul, then what exactly do I need?  What am I missing?  What am I craving that would satiate this need?

I don't have a clue.

And that bothers me, too.  I have no idea what I want.  It's like the foundation of my self-definition was shattered and reduced to dust so now I have no idea who I am or what I want.  And without that I am not enjoying life.

I've said before I take the longview of things.  I've been here before and I remember bits and pieces of those past lives.  I can only wonder if that's tempering my view of this life to a point where I don't engage life as I could.

I'm jealous of people like Jeb Corliss because of the sensations he must feel.  I'm not interested in pushing things beyond a certain point.






But that's not true, is it?  This isn't the only life.  I've touched the veil that separates our worlds.  I've embraced the darkness and breathed in that energy until my aura turned black and I vibrated with a power that terrified everybody.

And I miss that.  I miss touching that veil so much.  I miss who was on the other side every single day of my life.  For me, living life is playing in that darkness and exploring.  It's really the only time I ever felt alive.

What does it say about me that for me, living life, is being so close to death?

Once I get my higher brain functions back, I know the road I plan to go down.  I know what I'm going to do.  Once I get my higher brain functions back and I can once again feel the flow of energy and smell the winds, I have plans.  I am going back to that edge and I am touching that veil again.

And only then will I be able to say I feel alive.