I fear I'm growing even stranger.
I used to make resolutions with each new year, resolve to make myself better and have a concise plan how to make that happen. I'd like to say that after all the years of doing so I no longer need to worry about improving myself, I'm as good as I'm going to be. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It seems that most of my life I've overthought every detail, agonized over the most meaningless minutia. I might have spelled that wrong, spelt that wrong, grammar and spelling and just trying to be comfortable with being me rather than who I think I'm supposed to be. That person who was never good enough.
I believe it's possible that another person can see you more clearly than you do, without need to overlook the rough edges or find the seeming charm in an awkward pause or gesture. My flaws used to bother me even more than other peoples did. And the whole world was so terribly flawed. A few people I knew took their lives and I never really questioned it. I didn't really know them, I didn't really know me. I'm getting comfortable with myself by trying not to be someone.
I make a modest living on disability and spend all the time I can doing volunteer work at an assisted living facility nearby. So close in fact that I walk or ride my bicyclye. In the grand scheme of things I guess I'm not that much younger than my friends there. When I was young and bullet-proof the concept of 25 or 30 years difference between my age and theirs seemed insurmountable, more challenging than anything I could think of.
And now? I've learned that age is timeless, At the end of the day it's just me, but in almost every waking minute I'm a companion to someone and they to me. I know I'm getting too attached to some of my friends there. They make you promise to keep a distance, not get too involved. And I think the residents try not to lure you in as well.
I would have been married 22 years just a few days ago, on the 30th. I overthought it, she overthought it. She's been an excellent mother to our children so I'll speak no ill of her. Neither of us remarried. She never really wanted to be married and I have to give her credit for saying so. She wanted children, so did I but I somehow thought we'd manage to share them. I'm too old to consider having children now but I'd have no problem embracing more children if they came along with the right mother.
I think if I found someone I could love enough to grow old(er) with I'd have to try and chase them away, at least make them read some of the evaluations I have copies of concerning the whole of me.
In the past I moved between episodes unaware of any change. I detest the common dismissive term bipolar so popular now. I was diagnosed in 1986 with manic-depressive psyhcosis, a definition i prefer. I like people but it doesn't come naturally to me befriend them. When I was a kid, say in that five to eight year range I've been told I creeped people out. I had no concept of someone being a stranger. I was as comfortable with the priest in my church as I was with the drunkards and derelicts in the park. This is stranger because I grew up in Detroit where they basicaclly tried to teach you FEAR in school and church and at home.
Through the years I've been robbed at gunpoint a few times, beaten to a point requiring hospitalization a few times, lived through a couple of accidents that could only be viewed as miraculous. I've had my feelings hurt a few times. All in all I'd probably prefer losing a limb to having my heart broken again.
I'll never have what my parents have shared in sixty years together. But I'd like to look into someone's eyes again with just that spark of... what's the word? Naievety? Innocence? Trust? Hope? None of them convey what I long for, maybe what I yearn for is unattainable. I've had this moment a few times in my past. Sadly with the wrong person or just wanting it so badly I convinced myself it was so.
You've had it too, and probably can describe it better than I can. They say the eyes are the mirror of the soul, and you can get lost in someone's eyes, I have, I'd like to think we all have. But in those rarest of moments you look into those eyes and you see admiration and love and something so heartfelt and profound that you never saw in yourself and you're suddenly a better person for it and aspire to be a better person because of it. So, that's what I want again before I move on. I want to see my potential in a loving eye, I want that brief moment of bliss when life seems to hold promise and everything seems possible
The real irony here of course is the mental imbalance thing. I'm drawn to damaged people because I understand them. And anyone out there reading this knows this without my saying so. We recognize each other. In a room of several hundred we two or three gravitate to each other, and even if we spend just a moment or two talking that'll be the moment or two we'll remember years later concerning that event. So I keep writing, I keep talking to strangers, I keep trying to discover myself as other people see me.
None of us have ever really seen ourselves. I find this endlessly fascinating. When I look in the mirror my image is reversed and so when i see a photo of me it looks even stranger. But I don't see me as the camera does or the mirror reflects me or anyone can. I see me as better looking and younger than I am. It's an odd quality I guess i acquired when I became a parent. You find that perfect moment when someone fills your heart, in the worst of times later that image returns and the anger takes a back seat to just wanting to guide them back to that perfect moment you want for them again.
I hear my voice in a recording and it doesn't sound like me. All the images of me look so different. I think that's a good thing. Those pictures they say are me reflect someone so much older than me. And I like volunteering with my friends because they see me as young, but the distinction between us diminishes as time progresses.
I used to believe all of us had more in common than we had apart. You and I would meet by chance, circumstance might cause us to smile or laugh in response to our surroundings and notice each other. Or it might require a deliberate effort to share that same spot in time. I come off as shy initially when I meet someone. Sounds a little out of character I suppose compared to my tendency to write about everything and nothing with equal enthusiasm.
I think life is simpler than it seems. My life was enriched by people no longer with me, some due to the natural loss of their lives, some through their own willfullness. Some that I just drove away.
This was intended as a sentence or two.
Happy New Year. Okay, maybe just one.
I want to share something so seemingly trivial, so fleeting I'm surprised that I was open to that moment. I was riding a bus rather than riding my bike due to a heavy snow on my way to work in Detroit. My high school sweetheart of three years had just broken up with me a week and a half or so ago, then called me that afternoon to invite me to her wedding in a week or so. I couldn't imagine my life being any worse. And while the bus I was riding paused for a red light I saw a young woman running toward it, and I called to the bus driver to let her catch it. The bus driver waited, she walked alongside the bus and stopped short of the door. She stood just a few feet from me on the other side of what now seemed the thickest piece of glass ever made. And she smiled right at me. And she blew me a kiss! That had to be at least thirty five years ago. It's not possible anyone could be as lovely as I remember her. I'm sure she's probably never thought about it again. But it made me forget how bad I was feeling, suddenly the world seemed a little less distant.
I'd probably creep people out these days blowing kisses at strangers but I did it for a few years so long ago when I was young, even arguably handsome. I don't know if I ever made a difference in anyone else's life, but if I did it was worth all the strange stares I got along the way.
I assume anyone out there is younger and better looking than me. Safely blow someone a kiss. Some creep might circle around in his car or stalk you in the supermarket, maybe it's not such a good idea after all. It should be. The world should be a safer place, a better place. So maybe if you blow a kiss and carry pepper-spray.
All of us will somehow change the world. I like to think the world is a little better off with me in it. And I believe my life will be a little better when you're a part of it.
I used to make resolutions with each new year, resolve to make myself better and have a concise plan how to make that happen. I'd like to say that after all the years of doing so I no longer need to worry about improving myself, I'm as good as I'm going to be. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It seems that most of my life I've overthought every detail, agonized over the most meaningless minutia. I might have spelled that wrong, spelt that wrong, grammar and spelling and just trying to be comfortable with being me rather than who I think I'm supposed to be. That person who was never good enough.
I believe it's possible that another person can see you more clearly than you do, without need to overlook the rough edges or find the seeming charm in an awkward pause or gesture. My flaws used to bother me even more than other peoples did. And the whole world was so terribly flawed. A few people I knew took their lives and I never really questioned it. I didn't really know them, I didn't really know me. I'm getting comfortable with myself by trying not to be someone.
I make a modest living on disability and spend all the time I can doing volunteer work at an assisted living facility nearby. So close in fact that I walk or ride my bicyclye. In the grand scheme of things I guess I'm not that much younger than my friends there. When I was young and bullet-proof the concept of 25 or 30 years difference between my age and theirs seemed insurmountable, more challenging than anything I could think of.
And now? I've learned that age is timeless, At the end of the day it's just me, but in almost every waking minute I'm a companion to someone and they to me. I know I'm getting too attached to some of my friends there. They make you promise to keep a distance, not get too involved. And I think the residents try not to lure you in as well.
I would have been married 22 years just a few days ago, on the 30th. I overthought it, she overthought it. She's been an excellent mother to our children so I'll speak no ill of her. Neither of us remarried. She never really wanted to be married and I have to give her credit for saying so. She wanted children, so did I but I somehow thought we'd manage to share them. I'm too old to consider having children now but I'd have no problem embracing more children if they came along with the right mother.
I think if I found someone I could love enough to grow old(er) with I'd have to try and chase them away, at least make them read some of the evaluations I have copies of concerning the whole of me.
In the past I moved between episodes unaware of any change. I detest the common dismissive term bipolar so popular now. I was diagnosed in 1986 with manic-depressive psyhcosis, a definition i prefer. I like people but it doesn't come naturally to me befriend them. When I was a kid, say in that five to eight year range I've been told I creeped people out. I had no concept of someone being a stranger. I was as comfortable with the priest in my church as I was with the drunkards and derelicts in the park. This is stranger because I grew up in Detroit where they basicaclly tried to teach you FEAR in school and church and at home.
Through the years I've been robbed at gunpoint a few times, beaten to a point requiring hospitalization a few times, lived through a couple of accidents that could only be viewed as miraculous. I've had my feelings hurt a few times. All in all I'd probably prefer losing a limb to having my heart broken again.
I'll never have what my parents have shared in sixty years together. But I'd like to look into someone's eyes again with just that spark of... what's the word? Naievety? Innocence? Trust? Hope? None of them convey what I long for, maybe what I yearn for is unattainable. I've had this moment a few times in my past. Sadly with the wrong person or just wanting it so badly I convinced myself it was so.
You've had it too, and probably can describe it better than I can. They say the eyes are the mirror of the soul, and you can get lost in someone's eyes, I have, I'd like to think we all have. But in those rarest of moments you look into those eyes and you see admiration and love and something so heartfelt and profound that you never saw in yourself and you're suddenly a better person for it and aspire to be a better person because of it. So, that's what I want again before I move on. I want to see my potential in a loving eye, I want that brief moment of bliss when life seems to hold promise and everything seems possible
The real irony here of course is the mental imbalance thing. I'm drawn to damaged people because I understand them. And anyone out there reading this knows this without my saying so. We recognize each other. In a room of several hundred we two or three gravitate to each other, and even if we spend just a moment or two talking that'll be the moment or two we'll remember years later concerning that event. So I keep writing, I keep talking to strangers, I keep trying to discover myself as other people see me.
None of us have ever really seen ourselves. I find this endlessly fascinating. When I look in the mirror my image is reversed and so when i see a photo of me it looks even stranger. But I don't see me as the camera does or the mirror reflects me or anyone can. I see me as better looking and younger than I am. It's an odd quality I guess i acquired when I became a parent. You find that perfect moment when someone fills your heart, in the worst of times later that image returns and the anger takes a back seat to just wanting to guide them back to that perfect moment you want for them again.
I hear my voice in a recording and it doesn't sound like me. All the images of me look so different. I think that's a good thing. Those pictures they say are me reflect someone so much older than me. And I like volunteering with my friends because they see me as young, but the distinction between us diminishes as time progresses.
I used to believe all of us had more in common than we had apart. You and I would meet by chance, circumstance might cause us to smile or laugh in response to our surroundings and notice each other. Or it might require a deliberate effort to share that same spot in time. I come off as shy initially when I meet someone. Sounds a little out of character I suppose compared to my tendency to write about everything and nothing with equal enthusiasm.
I think life is simpler than it seems. My life was enriched by people no longer with me, some due to the natural loss of their lives, some through their own willfullness. Some that I just drove away.
This was intended as a sentence or two.
Happy New Year. Okay, maybe just one.
I want to share something so seemingly trivial, so fleeting I'm surprised that I was open to that moment. I was riding a bus rather than riding my bike due to a heavy snow on my way to work in Detroit. My high school sweetheart of three years had just broken up with me a week and a half or so ago, then called me that afternoon to invite me to her wedding in a week or so. I couldn't imagine my life being any worse. And while the bus I was riding paused for a red light I saw a young woman running toward it, and I called to the bus driver to let her catch it. The bus driver waited, she walked alongside the bus and stopped short of the door. She stood just a few feet from me on the other side of what now seemed the thickest piece of glass ever made. And she smiled right at me. And she blew me a kiss! That had to be at least thirty five years ago. It's not possible anyone could be as lovely as I remember her. I'm sure she's probably never thought about it again. But it made me forget how bad I was feeling, suddenly the world seemed a little less distant.
I'd probably creep people out these days blowing kisses at strangers but I did it for a few years so long ago when I was young, even arguably handsome. I don't know if I ever made a difference in anyone else's life, but if I did it was worth all the strange stares I got along the way.
I assume anyone out there is younger and better looking than me. Safely blow someone a kiss. Some creep might circle around in his car or stalk you in the supermarket, maybe it's not such a good idea after all. It should be. The world should be a safer place, a better place. So maybe if you blow a kiss and carry pepper-spray.
All of us will somehow change the world. I like to think the world is a little better off with me in it. And I believe my life will be a little better when you're a part of it.