Life

So here we are again. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. Before I go on, I'd like to give a shout out to my regular readers. I see you and appreciate you. Both of you. I'd call you out by name, but who has that kind of time? Alright, first the health stuff. Nothing is going on. Not a damn thing. I feel pretty good, although I do still get the mysterious tingling in my right leg, I'm still taking the Tecfidera, and have been receiving it with almost no headaches. My vision is as good as it will ever be. And that's it. Unfortunately for you, this little blurb isn't the only thing I'll be addressing today. I feel as though I broke ground into new territory with the previous

post. Specifically in talking about things that aren't MS related, so why stop there? This post is all about things that I have been thinking and feeling as of late. Never fear though, I can promise you that I will not be shedding any tears as I write this, though I can't promise that you won't, while reading it. So on second thought, maybe fear, a little bit. Now that the preamble is out of the way, let's get into it, shall we?

The other day I was watching the Patton Oswalt "Annihilation" special on Netflix, and I got to thinking. For the first half of it he was doing what comedians do, telling jokes about the world as seen through his eyes. Mid-way through, things changed. He started talking about his wife who had passed away. His recounting of their time together was a bit intense. So much so, that I had to stop watching and return to it the next day. Obviously, I don't know him, and had never met his wife. The reason I had to stop was because I started thinking about him, and what I felt like he was doing, and how I could relate to that.

What I saw was a guy, not so different from myself (or anyone else) trying to work through something tragic. Thinking about it now, I can easily see some people turning it off, and never going back to finish it. "Everything was going fine, he was being funny," they might have thought, "then he started talking about his dead wife." And while that would certainly be accurate on the surface, I think anyone who may have responded to it in that way, was missing the larger point.

I don't have a therapist, and in truth, I would never want to go to one. Not because I don't see what they do as valuable, but because I don't like the idea of telling some stranger what is going on in my mind. Over the years, and I really do mean all of the years, I have had to rely largely on myself for counsel. Granted, I was given the tools to do that effectively, over the course of many years, from my family and others, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. In my case, as well (I would imagine) as people who grew up in similar circumstances, it was never a matter of eschewing professional help, but rather a lack of access. I spent many of my early years, with a single parent. My mom had a job, and insurance, too. The reality though, was that my brother and I only went to the doctor, for a couple of things. Shots for school, and being broken or mangled. That was it. And this was all I had ever known, so it seemed pretty normal to me. As a side note, to this day, I still laugh (quietly) at people who go to the doctor for a sprained ankle, or a cold.

When I was a kid, I was picked on, or bullied in today's parlance. I was smart, and small for my age. In other words: an easy target. And when I would tell my mom about it, her response was usually something to the effect of, "So? Why do you care what these kids think? They're obviously not you're friends, so fuck 'em." And yes, she may have actually said "fuck 'em". I wasn't even aware that seeing a therapist for that kind of thing was an option. At the end of the day though, her voice may not have been the loudest, but it was constant. And it got me through a lot of shit. As time went on, I would further refine that sentiment and develop what would eventually become a pretty spectacular suit of armor. My system certainly isn't perfect, and I don't recommend it for everyone, but it works for me. As it happens, at least as far as being my own therapist, I'm a very good listener, and I give pretty solid advice.

So how does this all tie together? Well for starters, what I saw in Patton, I recognized in myself. Someone in pain, working through it as best they can. While I wouldn't consider myself to be in pain at this very moment, I have certainly been in some pretty dark places over the years. Through the perfect vision of hindsight, I can now quantify all of those instances. Some of the stuff I went through years, or even decades ago, I would practically kill to have that be the extent of what bothers me now. I also recognize though, that what got me down in those days wasn't necessarily less traumatic or painful, I simply hadn't acquired the particular piece of armor necessary to protect me from it's effects. And I do feel that it's important to acknowledge that, before I go too far down this particular rabbit hole. The pain that we feel should never be compared to that which someone else feels. It isn't a contest of who's had it worse. Different people, from different backgrounds, dealing with different things at different points in their lives. It's never an apples to apples comparison. I guess that's at the heart of what I really wanted to talk about.

I suppose it's worth addressing methodology. Specifically how I process and deal with my pain. When I saw Patton on that stage, doing his thing, I got the impression that he wasn't really talking to the crowd, and it was a full house. My take on this is clearly speculative, but it really seemed to me that he was talking more to himself, in a place where he felt comfortable doing so. Just a guy working through some stuff. I do something similar, so maybe I'm just projecting here. As I mentioned earlier, the idea of sitting down with a stranger and bearing my soul, makes my stomach turn. I have a few different outlets though.

First, and I've mentioned this in previous posts, I talk to myself, out loud. Not in public though, so you'll never catch me walking down the street muttering to myself. Something about hearing the things that are running through my head, helps me sort things out. As I said, I am a great listener. I never interrupt myself, and I can say whatever I want without judgement.

I also write stuff. Sometimes the old fashioned way, pen to paper. Other times I'll sit at my laptop. Occasionally I even post what's on my mind. Sitting here at my computer is almost as good as talking to myself. And yes, I recognize that I'm putting this stuff out into the world, where lots of strangers could read it. It's easy to imagine no one reading it though, so the sense of privacy is preserved.

Finally, I'll occasionally talk to a real person. That is a rarity though, at least as far as the really heavy stuff is concerned. As invaluable as a trusted person can be, I still find that I can be quite guarded when speaking to them. The exception to that was my ex. I would tell her everything. Not always immediately, but I'd tell her nonetheless.

That takes care of the how, so how about some stories? I'll limit things to the last few years. First up involves a friend of mine, Eric. We were in the Army together. I try to reach out to some of the guys throughout the year, usually around difficult times of the year. I had talked to Eric on the 4th of July, last year. A month later he was dead by his own hand. I was heartbroken. Not because we were best friends (we weren't). But I liked him, and even years after our service together, we had kept in touch. What was so painful about his death, was that he was just the latest of a bunch of suicides of guys that I had served with. That coupled with the fact that I had just talked to him a month prior, and that we had been cracking jokes and the like. I had no idea that he was going through his own, apparently, pretty heavy shit. And I felt troubled that I hadn't seen some kind of sign. His funeral was in St. Clair, Missouri, and I felt compelled to attend. So I drove down there, six hours each way, to attend. I could only stay for an hour or so, but I met his family and offered what I could, in the way of condolences. On the drive home, I had to pull over because I was overcome with grief. Twelve hours in the car, by myself. There was definitely a lot of talking to myself on the drive. A lot of conflicting emotions too. Grief, certainly, but a lot of anger, as well. I have mentioned previously how I am an expert at compartmentalizing, but here, I was helpless. That particular box has too many dead brothers in it, to ever be completely closed. I barely remember that week, it's all a fog. I do remember that Danielle was a rock star, though. I think I would have made it through without her, but it would certainly have been a lot harder.

Mike dying was the next major one. I had known him for the better part of twenty years. He was practically my brother, and he lived with me, on top of that. He was diagnosed with cancer which is bad enough, in itself. That the cancer was in the advanced stages when he was diagnosed, was even worse. I'm not the type of person to revise history to paint it in a more favorable light. It's important for me to say that before I say this. I loved Mike, sometimes though, I wanted to throw his ass down a flight of stairs, both before and after his diagnosis. And I wasn't shy about telling him that either. He was the same with me. That type of candor is one of the reasons we remained such good friends.

During his fight with cancer, he did indeed fight. He may not have always done everything that his doctors would have liked, but neither did he just lie down and accept his diagnosis as the end of the road. One morning Danielle woke me up and told me that I needed to take him to the hospital, that he was having difficulty breathing. So I got up, threw some clothes on and waited for him to get ready. When he came out of the bathroom, he was doing his best to hold back tears. He was having an incredibly difficult time even catching his breath, yet alone breathing normally. When we got to the hospital, I talked to someone, and got him a wheelchair. I ran out to park, and by the time I got back, a few minutes later, he was being wheeled into a room. The docs in the ER measured his oxygen levels and determined that his levels were really low, so they put him on oxygen.

We were in the ER for a few hours, while they sorted out a room for him, as sending him home was completely out of the question. While we were there, it was business as usual for us, a lot of shit talking, morbid jokes, and the like. He ended up staying in the hospital for a week and a half. When they finally let him go home, he had to drag around an oxygen tank. Since he had an upcoming chemo session, he stayed with his parents, as his dad took him to all of his sessions. Before he went to their place though, he stopped by the house to get a few things. That was the last time I would see him alive. He ended up dying at their house. His father found him unresponsive in the hallway, and that was that. As near as he could tell, Mike had gone to the bathroom during the night and collapsed. He didn't have his oxygen with him, so he would have been unable to call for help.

This one hit me as hard as you would expect. Once again, I was shattered...and angry. Very angry. At the injustice of it all. After everything he had endured, to go so...unceremoniously, was beyond the pale. Once again, Danielle was there for me. Not just her, of course, but I saw her every day, so it was her on whom I leaned the most. She and I talked a lot, but there were quite a few conversations that I had with myself too. Again, as with Eric, my mind wouldn't allow me to compartmentalize. I had to deal with it full on. Hell, I still deal with it. For me, the idea of closure is a bad joke. I really don't think that it exists. You find a way to deal with the loss, and you continue on because you have to.

This last one is about my break-up. Obviously, it's tough to try and equivocate a break-up with the death of someone close to you. Which is why I won't attempt to equivocate here. What I will say, is that pain doesn't just come in a couple of flavors. There is a veritable cornucopia of trauma out there, and the simple fact is that in my case, that was a very traumatic event. Earlier I suggested that certain events when we're younger can effect us profoundly because we haven't yet acquired the armor to protect ourselves from those effects. I also alluded to not being affected by things random people say or do (fuck 'em). But consider this: I also firmly believe that when you truly trust someone, and especially if you love them, whether a family member, close friend, lover, or whomever, you start shedding some of that armor you've acquired, around them. This, in turn, leaves you vulnerable. You can normally be the toughest person around, but still get your feelings hurt by the right person. Danielle left a few weeks after Mike died. While I wasn't particularly surprised, it still hurt. A lot. Our relationship had been in a downward spiral for a while. And while I still believe that we could have (and should have) figured it out, working through a rough spot, requires effort on the part of everyone involved.

A part of me wonders if I tried hard enough. Probably not. I was frustrated by things that were going on, just as much as she was. And even prior to Mike's death, I was wrestling with whether or not I wanted to continue on with her. Ultimately, I think it was a perfect storm of shit that had been developing between us. And being together so much of the time, I don't think either one of us was able to see the forest for the trees. As a result, the relationship died. A senseless death, at that.

Not having her around to lean on, is what has made this especially difficult. I mentioned in the last post, that in the span of a ten-minute conversation, the person who meant so much to me was replaced with "that girl I used to date". In dealing with this, there has been plenty of talking out loud. And to people. And some writing too. She has since moved on, and I have too. I run into her every now and then, and we talk...well, probably not talk. It's more that we chat. The days of the deep, no-holds-barred conversations are over. I still care about her, and don't harbor any animosity. The wound is still there though, like a deep cut that just won't close.

So where does that leave me? Here, for starters. I've come to acknowledge that every now and then, we need to hit pause and reassess, not just life, in general, but our place in this thing we call life. There is an often used trope in movies and t.v. You know the one, "Remember what we've done here. Tell my children, and your children. Sing songs about our sacrifice. Never let those who are to come, forget what we stood for..." I identify pretty closely with that sentiment. I don't claim to have a monopoly on pain, or on tragedy. But I have borne witness to my fair share of both. And I'm still here. So in a way, I feel a responsibility, not to simply carry around those memories, but to offer myself up as proof, that despite everything that life throws at you, there is a way through it all. It's not easy. It's exhausting, and will push you to the limits of endurance, and sanity, but you can survive it.

Life is chaos. Be kind.