Drunken epiphany

So I'm sitting at home drinking to forget an up and down week that was mostly down, especially towards the end. However, as I sit here on my 5th or 6th Smirnoff Ice I've hit an epiphany thanks to a friend. She posted on Facebook "We accept the love we think we deserve" and that hit me at the right time.
I tend to be that person that puts people on pedestals and look to them for my fun and entertainment during my free time. I can go out and do for myself, but I admit now that I look to others more than 70% of the time for ideas on what to go out and do. And I need to change that. And I can't fit how love works into that, other than my Third, but it made me see things clearly. And I need to be more of my own influence. I have to get up and do for me. Not just a once a year vacation out of town, but every day, every weekend.
Losing Patti and all that drama really put me into a funk that I'm slower to get out of than I thought at first. But getting out of it I am. Time is a bitch a lot but it's also a teacher and walks with you. Time is also harsh in a way that we need it to be. And in time I'll get where I need to be, but I'm still struggling and staggering. Soon, I hope, I can apologize to those I've ignored. And that has been unintentional, I've kept myself behind a wall of protection that I need to rip out. I've kept me sheltered to keep me safe. And I need risk again, safe and sane risks, but risk none-the-less.

I'm tired of fear, self imposed exile and this sheer illogical bullshit I've put me in the middle of. I still have convictions and the constitution to stand by them and the attitude to fight for me. But I can know how and when to back down. I'm my own worst enemy and critic but my best chance to be who I'm meant to be. And it's time to do so.

Огонь, сладкий огонь. Мой наркотик, моя любовь и мое падение

I've bled, screamed and died inside for you. And silence is all I get for me efforts. I don't know what compels me to keep trying to...to....to do what the fuck ever it takes to have you love me like I love you! Gods, how fucking lame is that?! I sound so damn dumb! Who the Hades is this guy to get under my skin so thoroughly?
And you know what the fucked up part about this is? It's that I don't do this for anyone, not "just anyone" but ANYONE! If I was in my right mind, I'd have written you off a while ago. But I'll be Gods fuckin' damned that you're my drug of choice and as stupid as it sounds, I can't quit. I've tried, but like any good drug, you find a way back in. My defenses are useless against you. And that's the most damaging part of it all, how easily I'm so weak against you!

My Husband is the only person to affect and effect me like this. Maybe that's what has me so twisted, that I've successfully convinced myself that lightning has struck twice. But I've got to move on, somehow. The sweet pain of your absence is intoxicating because I know, I know that the damned rush of seeing you and hugging you and kissing you will make it all worth it. And I know how fucked up that is, but I can't find the exit to this madness!

Madness...that word sums this whole mess up pretty damned well. And it's all my fault, my mess. Yet I can't even begin to figure out how to clean it up or to move past it and let Nature have Her way with it all. I'm too addicted.

Oh well.

Let the inevitable depression come and let me get through it somehow...yet again. But I do warn you, when the time comes and I've had enough to the point that I get up and move on, finally, and you show up declaring that you're now ready and I'm not there, don't be surprised that someone else got the prize you took for granted!


А вот на русском языке, так как зрители, я получаю от матушки-России растет с каждым неделю! Люблю вас всех!


Я кровь, кричал и умер внутри для вас. И тишина все, что я получу за меня усилий. Я не знаю, что заставляет меня продолжать пытаться ... на .... делать то, что, черт возьми все что нужно, чтобы у вас любить меня, как я тебя люблю! Боги, как чертовски хромой это?! Я звучать так чертовски тупой! Кто Аида этот парень, чтобы получить под мою кожу так тщательно?

А вы знаете, что облажался часть об этом есть? Это, что я не делаю это для всех, а не "просто кто-то", но НИКОМУ! Если бы я был в своем уме, я бы написал вас некоторое время назад. Но я буду Богов гребаный проклятый, что ты мой наркотик выбора и так глуп, как это звучит, я не могу бросить курить. Я пытался, но, как и любой хороший наркотик, вы найдете способ масштаб Моя оборона бесполезна против вас. И это самый разрушительный частью всего этого, как легко я так слаб против Вас!

Мой муж является единственным человеком, который влияет и осуществления меня такой. Может быть, это то, что мне так скручены, что я успешно убедил себя, что молния ударила в два раза. Но я должен двигаться дальше, так или иначе.Сладкая боль вашего отсутствия опьяняет, потому что я знаю, я знаю, что проклятый пик видеть вас и обнимать и целовать вас вы будете делать это все стоит. И я знаю, как облажался, что есть, но я не могу найти выход на это безумие!

Безумие ... это слово подводит весь этот бардак до чертовски хорошо. И это все моя вина, моя беспорядок. Но я не могу даже начать, чтобы выяснить, как очистить его вверх или пройти мимо него, и пусть природа есть ее путь со всем этим. Я слишком зависимым.

Ну да ладно.

Пусть неизбежна депрессия приходить и позвольте мне пройти через это как-то ... еще раз. Но я предупреждаю вас, когда придет время, и у меня было достаточно того, что я встать и двигаться дальше, в конце концов, и вы показываете, заявив, что теперь вы готовы, и я не там, не удивлюсь, что кто-то получил приз вы считали само собой разумеющимся!

It Gets Better, my side of things

While we all like to complain about Facebook (those of us that use it), I have to say that the ability it creates to stay connected to people we don't see all that often is amazing. Also, allowing us to reconnect to others is just as amazing. But it also comes at the cost.
The cost is us having to reevaluate our pasts. Do we remember them correctly? How much is made up by how we wanted it to be? But also, it costs the other people we know or knew to find out things about us that they may not have know. Especially for those we haven't seen in ages. How shocking it must be for them.

For me, this holds true for those I'm reconnecting with from my days growing up in Country Club Hills and Jennings, Missouri. Country Club Hills is a small municipality in St. Louis County and is surrounded by Jennings, so they're practically one in the same.
What holds true for me is that as a child who was bullied for being fat and having a lazy eye (birth defect in the upper eyelid where the muscle that keeps the eyelid open wasn't fully formed), what I question is how bad was it for me and was it as bad as I make it out to be in my memories? Now, yes, it happened to me and thus it was bad for me. I don't think as many people where aware of it as I thought though. But it did happen and it got bad and worse year after year. How bad? So bad that I was on the most bottom rung of school social hierarchy. Bullied kids bullied me by the time I got to Junior High. It got to the point that I was so depressed that I was suicidal and even attempted once. But as I was about to slit my wrists, I dropped the knife and just looked into myself and swore that "they" wouldn't win. And they didn't.
Soon after that, I told my mom and among other family events, The Divorce Saga began. If I wasn't going to kill myself, I was going to run off. I had a bag packed for over a year, something else I told my mom that fateful night in late 1993. By this point, I had come out to my mother a year earlier and my depression and suicidal tendencies had no grounds in my sexuality, but in my hate of myself due to my size and eye. I allowed others to determine how I felt about myself and it lead me to nearly taking my own life.
So with this and reconnecting to people on Facebook, I wonder how much of this is/was in my own head. I take it as healthy to question it, but the memories are too strong to ignore as fantasy or a false recollection of faded memories. Maybe it wasn't as visible as I thought it was and I'm good with that. And I've never been the most secure person, so that meant easy pickings in school. But no matter what, that experience made me who I am and I wouldn't change that for anything.
After The Divorce Saga ended and me, my mother and brother moved to Florissant, another municipality in St. Louis County, and this is when I blossomed and grew and started to love me and care about how I was treated by others. I spoke up against remarks by one would-be bully during my first few months in my Freshman year. And it felt good to stand up for me, no one else was going to do it. I made friends, became semi-popular since I wasn't part of any specific clique and was accepted for who and what I was and am after taking my former boyfriend to my Senior Prom. I never judged others during High School and didn't tolerate it from others.
My time in Jennings isn't the best of memories I have, both from school and home, but that time laid the foundation for who I was to be and am continually growing into. In Florissant, I grew into a decent person, though I hid aspects of myself until the later part of my Senior Year. And though I'm 33 and it's coming up on 15 years since I graduated, I still struggle with my self-image and being secure in who I am. But at this point, it's all me and it is a full-time job to fight The Demons (most of them are dead or my friends now anyway). I think I'm physically bigger than what I actually am, which isn't helped much by how people treat full-figured people. Being gay and large in a Ken Doll Standard community isn't a treat either, but I'm doing pretty damn good. Ya know, seeing that I've got The Hubby, The Third (a.k.a. The Collared One) plus a couple guys on the side and all. I've found a segment of the gay male populace that loves the jiggly and loves me for me. It's a nice boost to my self-esteem.

So all-in-all, regardless of how real it was or how visible, I think I've turned out good. Being bullied sucks, but surviving it is kickass! It's also a wonderful thing when you run into a former bully and they apologize for their behavior and ask for forgiveness. That was a mind blowing experience that I'm blessed to have had.
Also, being bullied taught me to love and accept people for who they are, not what I or society want them to be. It taught me to stand up for me since no one else will, but to also be that person who speaks up.

So there it is. Something I've struggled to talk about, but not the post I'm still working on getting out to you. Being bullied isn't kids being kids, simply because of where it can lead. It seems most school shootings by kids are by kids who where bullied. Suicides by bullying aren't acceptable because it shouldn't happen. Teachers see it and need to speak up. Kids see it and need to speak up. Doing so may save a life and heartache for the family they leave behind. But in all that, I wonder what it's like for a bully to discover that one of their victims has taken their own life for how the bully treated them? Also, what is the home life like for a bully? There's so much more to this discussion than what is being talked about. If we want to stop this cycle, then we need to be talking about the parts of it that make us uncomfortable.
Only then can we solve this and grow beyond it.

I'm international?!

Seriously...who's reading this in Kazakstan, Belarus, Indonesia and Brazil??

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Brazil	2
Belarus	2
Thailand	2
India	1
Kazakhstan	1
Sweden	1

No, seriously, who are you? Comment and let me know because I'm flattered you found me and gave me a chance, even if I've failed it!

Growth is a pain sometimes

I haven't been posting for a bit and though my activity was increasing, I stopped. It's time I let you know why.

For a while now, I was posting poems and newer, enlightened viewpoints. Part of growing and becoming more than what and who I was I guess. Hell, it seems to even have a frienamy and I conversing more! So it all is interesting and a bore at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to no longer be who I was. But there was a certain fun factor to it.
However, that said, I've also gotten to find more about me and who I am and that I can no be able to admit things to myself that I couldn't have dreamed of just a couple years ago. The main being that I've got to learn to let go and not hold a grudge forever. I'm excelled at it, but that doesn't make it a strength. I've also learned forgiveness truly is about me and not the other person. Even when I'm the one who needs forgiveness from me the most.
I'm ready for further forgiveness and admission to who and what I am and was. Blogging has become a major factor in this. To reading older posts (who was that guy?!) and comments (and related Flame Wars) to where I am now. It's all cathartic. And WAY cheaper than a therapist. Besides, once you break a therapist, you find that the profession is sorely lacking in stamina.
So for a more serious note, there is one thing I want to talk about but I'm not ready. The time is coming and close, but I'm not there yet. I want to get it out but there's still a block holding me in place. And I'm taking that as a warning that I'm not ready. Hell, look how long it took me to confront and forgive my Aunt Linda!
I'll get there, in my own time and my own way. But I'm not ready to admit that I'm ready to share who and what I am without shame or fear. I only hope that the world is ready for it. I've spent far too long masking me that I'm not sure that some are ready for The Real Erick and not the illusion I've spent years crafting.

We'll see, won't we?