Reborn?

I picked up my duplicate birth certificate today. I flown some 3,000 miles to do so, back to my old home town of San Francisco. It was the occasion of my semi annual trip to visit all of my family, who still live on the west coast. Since one can only request duplicates in person, and since I hope to soon have a passport, this was my one little chunk of bureaucracy that needed to be tended to before I could go back to enjoying a rare vacation as best I can.

The woman at the Department of Health was remarkabl helpful. I presented my Virginia driver's liscence, filled out a simple form, and handed her $14. A laser printer whirred, a form fed out and that was it. When she placed her "official stamp" on it, her first exclamation was... "Oh, damn." Seems she had placed it upside down, and after telling me to hold on, printed another, stamped it correctly and handed me both with a smile. I walked out into a very pleasant SF afternoon holding a duplicate and its duplicate of the record of my birth - a time when all was possible, all was new. It was a time in fact that seems almost antithetical to the place I seem to have ended up, which is here: very, very unhappy.

Now let me say up front, this is no sob story. I have never been affluent, but have wanted for very little. I have had some rough bits that were mere chance, but have always been surrounded by an abundance of unconditional love. I have an amazingly supportive family. I have a decent, if not soul suckingly boring job that manages to pay almost all of my daily bills, if not some accumulated debt. I have two amazing nearly grown children whom I love very much. I have rich set of experiences to draw upon, have known a amazing variety of people, and been blessed with some fairly interesting talents. I own my own home, and while no mansion, I have put some love in to it, and with just a little more could be quite the nice place to settle down in.

Sounds OK doesn't it? Its certainly more than some people in this world. Walking through the area near city hall this afternoon, seeing the vast amount and incredible variety of suffering that can only exist in a large city, it would seem I have more than most. So why so unhappy?

Well, Im not exactly sure, but I intend to at least make an honest attempt to find out. And I intend to find out by doing rather than the time honored tradition of understanding. I have tried the "understanding the problem first" road many many times, and yet, here I am. And since I am so very very unhappy, and also very very tired of being such, its time for something new.

"Alright Eeore, then why are you not out "doing" something, and are instead sitting at a computer, ahem... blogging?" you might rightly ask. And I would say one word. Accountability. I have been offered so much in the way of unconditional love, have had so little expectation of me, and have had so many people offer me the benefit of the doubt, that I believe, despite all the wonderful things that has brought me, it has had its costs. My mind works in such a way that I can convince myself of almost anything in real time, a trait that I am only somewhat able to control. By placing actions, thoughts and hard facts in a document, in evidence, and making said information public, it will be impossible for me to deny reality, my reality - a reality that I believe is contributing to my unhappiness. It is a reality I hope to change. Whether this is possible or not, I dont know, all I know is that I have to try. I know there will be no overnight miracles, and I am sure there will be setbacks. All I know is I have to do something, take a step, anything, or I will lose myself to my sorrow. All one has to do is take a stroll down the bowery of any major city and you will know, when you lose yourself to your sorrow, you go insane. And not the kind of insane from which you can come back.

So why now? Well of course what drove me to my most recent precipice was a failed relationship. It was probably the most meaningful relationship of my life, and I lost it because I had developed so many bad habits over the years. There may be other reasons, of course, but I own the ones I know about. The woman, and I will call her Beatrice, not only to respect her privacy, but because she used to love it when I would substitute her name for a typical "old lady" name, was truly the one for me. I had wedding bells ringing in my ears, which, if you knew me, is quite unlike me. I could go on and on extolling the virtues of and my love for Beatrice, but I dont want to distract from the task at hand, which is improving myself. There are too many lost love blogs out there anyway. This will not be one of them. The only reason I bring her up at all is she is at the center of my most recent, most devestating slip into the abyss, and I am sure she will come up from time to time. I guess I mean to say that I was incredibly lucky for the two years I spent with her, incredibly stupid to have let it slip away, and want to be in position - happy, healthy, successful - should love ever deign to toss an idle glance my way again. And in the mean time, I want to be happy with myself.

So then. "Doing", eh? What's all this then? Well, as I see it there are three main areas of my life that need vast improvement, under which I can ascribe numerous sub directories. These areas are my mind, my body, and my environment. It is my great hope that by making improvements in the three intertwining areas that I can improve my spirit. I know, I know, this all sounds so obvious to some of you (for the sake of narrative, I will assume an audience, although of course I know there is none), but I have never really got it down. It is the obviousness of the statements written down that give me hope. It will be the detailed and frank minutae of those endeavors which will aid my discipline to achieve a positive effect - at least that is my hope. So I suppose it is at this point that I should enumerate some of the problems, though I am loathe to. This is by no means the complete roster, but rather, the biggies. We will start in the reverse of the above list. So with out further ado, an brief overview of my darkest bits:

ENVIRONMENT

By this I mean my home, my work and my relationships with others.

My home has so much potential, it is in a great spot, lots of land and well... it needs some love. I have let so many projects languish out of laziness.. well its embarrassing. True many things needed are out of my price range, but that is no excuse to do the things that CAN be done. I have made millions of excuses. Also, I am a slob. Not in the worst way, but I need to get rid of shit and get some organization going. I slack, get distracted and stuff piles up. Its chaos. This will be on my immediate list of thing to tend to. Just a little bit, every day, and maybe I can turn it around.

My work, during the day, should be a lot more engaging and more challenging than it is. I believe I have skills beyond my salary level, which has stagnated for at least seven years. Lately it has gotten worse. And worse. I cant even get distracted from dwelling on the sad in my head at work, because very little there engages my brain. So that's 8 hours of scheduled dwelling on shit, five days a week. In the long term (especially given the current economic environment) I will need to think about some long term career advancement/change. My night job, spinning disco in the local gay bar two nights a week, for the most part, is really fun. It does however open me up to some of my other darker bits, as we will cover later. There is no future in dj'ing, even though I consider myself pretty good. I am however in the position of needing the extra cash throughout the month to pay for incidentals. As it stands, I cant cover my bills without doing it. It is what it is.

My relationships with family and friends, well, I am just horrendous. Not in a mean way, but in an absent way. I am currently in my sister's house, and just gave her newest baby a toy I bought for her oldest daughter's first birthday. That was four years ago. I gave both of them all the presents I bought for them over the years and never mailed. Its just so wrong. I like to say I have a million acquaintances but no real friends. The first problem with this is that it is mostly true. The second problem with this is that I like to say it. I mean what the fuck? I make friends really easy, and am just absolutely incapable of maintaining them, engaging and investing in them. Fuck, this has to change. Im not sure what to do, but this has to change. Beatrice was not only my love but my best friend. When she removed herself from my life, I had nothing. I spent three days in bed, and no one even noticed I was gone. My phone did not ring once, and I had no one to call. If I had invested even a small amount of time in everyone that has ever been on my side in the last ten years I would have a small army. It just sucks how stupid I have been in this regard. I have no excuse.

BODY

Oh my poor body, how I have abused thee. You are magnificent underneath, I know I have seen you, but you are giving me signs that you will no longer tolerate my taking you for granted. I must tend to you most of all three of these categories. I am so sorry for the relentless abuse and neglect. I am going to take care of you, a little more every day.

Jesus fucking christ on a cracker, what a fat little toad I have become. Not obese mind you, but enough to make me feel shame. I hope to make regular weigh ins part of this little experiment. Its a good indisputable numerical. Your belly doesn't lie. Since I have no scale handy I am guessing I am about 235-40 at the moment. I am six feet tall. Almost all of my weight is in my belly. Terrible. For reference, when I was in college I weighed 128 lbs, which of course is way too skinny. I think I would like to be about 190-200, which means I have some work to do. I dont over eat, am a vegetarian, but often make poor choices both calorically and nutritionally. None of that is too too bad... so what has led my to become slightly on the extra large side? Well two things clearly.

One, sloth. The last time I had any regular exercise is when I used to ride my bike six miles to work each way fifteen years ago in San Francisco. I also remember that was the last time i felt, well, at ease. Im thinking this is no coincidence. I simply got lazy, no other excuse. I dont know shit about exercise, but I can learn, and now is the time. I plan to start biking to work soon, when I can, and taking regular walks and anything else I can think of. Of course it was beatrice that got me into 'exercise walking', and it will be an hour of sad memories but I simply have to get over that somehow. What am I gonna do, not walk? These two things I know and so I will begin there. We shall see what else I can come up with.

Two, drinking. Good lord, what have I become? Whether or not I am an alcoholic is a matter of some debate, as I believe I have a psychological rather than physical dependency, but no matter how its defined, I drink way way too much. I drink when I am stressed, and there are so many things that cause me stress. If I dont reign it in soon, I sure as hell will have a physical dependency, and that is something nobody wants. Its merciless. I have seen it. Alcohol has really fucked up some good things in my life, and is a main focus of this here rebirthing experiment. Im mean fuck, its a depressant for christs sake? And I wonder why Im depressed? I dont want to become a teatotaller, i could not tolerate AA and all its spiritual shenanigans. But I dont want to be rushing off to a stupor whenever things get scary. Shit has been scary. And shit is going to get scarier. This whole idea scares me to the core, especially the alone-ness of it all. I would like to have support, but then again, here I am. Me and my internet experiment. The alcohol topic is so big, I think it merits its own post, so I will leave it until I have time to do it justice.

Toss on these two, the one that probably keeps me from being a fat blob, and thats smoking. I have been smoking for a long time, nearly 23 years. The health problems. The money I have spent. It pains me to consider. I am truly adicted, I confess it openly. This will be the hardest of all, and will probably be addressed as I get the alcohol and exercise topics on board but in the mean time, I will start in small ways, like counting the number of cigs I smoke a day etc. I will not ignore this as a problem, but man. This probably merits its own post as well.

MIND

My mind is a wonderful, terrifying, recursive circus of things like lust and cynicism and curiosity and fear and arcanity and irreverence and vengence and humor and darkness and wonder. It is an amazing swirling place that if you were to step in it, you might drown. Many things in my life, like constantly listening to headphones, I do simply to distract it, to leave it from circling on itself. I have only one plan to address my mind alone, although I hope all my other endeavors will help it some. I plan to sit quiet. Meditate if you will. I have failed at this so many times before, but perhaps this time not. I will simply sit and let my mind have at itself.

So thats that then. And by "that" I mean the very beginning. I have a new birth certificate, I want a new life. I no longer wish to be shackled by my neurosis. I want to do at least one good thing for each my my mind body and environment, every day. I expect no miracles, I am merely taking steps. I have no deadline, but I do have urgency.

I am currently on vacation without regular access to a computer, but once I return I plan to attend to this document as close to daily as possible. And in such posts I will attempt to honestly document what I have done to address the problems, only so superficially noted above, and whatever others may be lurking in the wings, including both successes and failures. I know it sounds boring, but who knows, it could grow into something interesting. We'll see. And even if no one sees, like I said, its all I got. I dont expect anyone will read this, and thats ok. If someone does stumble upon it, well feel free to give me sage advice, heckle me, hit me with exercise tips or whatever... even you jesus folks, give me your best shot. I welcome all input without judgment. I just need an outlet, something anything. Without this, well, look for me down by the civic center. I'll be the one crocheting something that isn't there.

Wish me luck, Im gonna need it.