Arduous Cognition - 211

The featured picture was painted by one of the residents that I take care of! Isn't it lovely?

New day... my oh my a new day for me.

I have spent a very long time in life attempting to find someone like the young lady I have met recently. I am sure that I will have entries that reflect my thoughts and feelings in greater detail but the short status update here is that I am not on the market any longer for anyone, I am not looking for a relationship, and I am content.

My life has been a blur of stories that I have amassed. A tangled ball of yarn woven out of bitter regrets and hopeful dreams. There is so much that I have been through and often times I have found myself unsure about the value of the growth I was going through.

I hold the mantra that I want to grow through, what I go through, no matter what. I mentioned this a few entries back. I recently sustained a pretty substantial heartbreak and I never imagined I would tolerate feeling affections for anyone after that. I am glad that I was wrong. I feel that I know that in this life there will be ups and downs. I was explaining the phrase “to every cloud there is a silver lining” and how that is something that is a bit of a specialty for me. That I find the good in the bad. I sort of often assume that everyone defaults to this and forget that I took a very long time of intentional work in my thoughts to not be bitter and twisted up about everything I’ve been through.

I have been working adamantly on myself this past week and I had a couple of slips. One of which was becoming emotionally overwhelmed with the recent heartbreak and crying so intensely that I as sent home from work. This was embarrassing, I even had a friend of mine making light of the situation like I needed to just toughen up to make it through things. I started to feel some offense then I remembered one of the 4 agreements I’ve tried to keep with myself. I will not take anything personally, if it is offensive the statement made represents the speaker’s internal world more than anything, not me. A reflection of them hurled like a spear.

So I will give myself grace, that some days are difficult. Just like being sick physically we can become too ill mentally to work effectively or with a responsible conscience. I will focus that my job understood my situation and held no ill will with giving me the time I needed to work through my stress that was overwhelming me.

It’s difficult to find my peace between what people say and think... And what I feel. It is a very deliberate effort to try and reduce the impact of other’s point of view but I feel it is a necessary difficulty to hold on to your own hopes and dreams of yourself.

For now, I bring this to a close and I hope that you have had a day that you can stop and write something that you learned from something difficult

Breathe deeply, Sleep sweetly, and dream big dear reader.

A quick entry like a waffle house drive by - 210

I start writing today with a haze in my eyes. I think I perpetually feel a lagging drag in my life that can only be reasonably explained as a back log of things in my head that feels like it needs to get out or I’ll just...die...? I don’t know but it feels like I have to pour it out for it to be okay. So for what it is worth this is not even any longer an extra effort I’m doing to grow my writing but an essential part of the toolkit that I have to be able to take care of myself and part of my voice that needs to be expressed. It doesn’t take much looking over my writing to find that I have grown and I feel happy with that. My recent life experiences have left me feeling as if I am actually living my life and participating instead of spectating quite so much. I feel I am prone to doing that. Lately reeling in my distracted bouncy attention span is my prime focus. I want to improve my ability to complete tasks I set to initially setting out. So a few new developments to share that are relevant there. I think I am going to be working two jobs. I think I can handle it. I was asked by waffle house to return to work to cook, it felt like my superior skills finally were recognized as useful enough to pursue. Let me digress a little A few days ago I was feeling nostalgic and went by waffle house and had coffee. I got very pulled into conversation with the cook Rockelle as we used to cook together. She suddenly was this very forward spoken girl out of nowhere that I had not seen in all the months I worked next to her. Confident and well spoken. She explained to me how hard she had been working on the shift and just how difficult some moments have been for her and it felt like a really relateable and connected moment. I was very happy with her progress and proud to see her growth and in both skill and character. I could not help but warmly hug her, and I trusted she would prepare my food well and without any problems. Me accepting a waffle house cook as competent is not a small feat. If I can be honest I am brutally judgemental of someone’s skill level in this category and I do not believe in falsely inflating someone’s ego. She has shown exceptional cooking ability and there was a genuine finesse I could see in her movements and timing that only comes from the experience of paying attention and trying to grow and change. It was inspiring to see. A person just working so hard on their own personal growth journey that has come so far, and it was a hopeful moment to me because I could see a waffle house that I could actually work for again in watching her conduct herself. The bar she was setting would require that people were better in their performance and standards of professionalism and it reminded myself of a younger me in ways. I can’t help but get behind that. I think it is very admirable to hold a standard, especially when people are prone to taking for themselves when no one is around. I feel the compulsion to reward this beautiful growth that I saw in Rockelle but to honest she has little need for much of anything from me. She dates girls, not boys so thats out lol. She doesn’t ask people for much of anything so gift giving isn’t really the ticket. She repsected my work though. She had a sparkle in her expression when she spoke of how I worked that was evident that she was impressed with my abilities and that she respected what I was capable of and through that I feel there is something useful to be gained there. It was a happy moment for me because this is a girl that I respect and like, on a professional level, that nods the same respect to me. I like this! So I am going to undertake the effort work next to her... I got messaged by the regional manager personally to correlate coming back to work, and I got to put my foot in the door and speak up for her. So I feel I have gotten to use my skills for something even greater than just getting through a shift. hehe! I like this. :) This happened just in time for me to hear that she quit. Wait.. What. The. Actual. Fuck. We just wrote all that bro...and did all that and now she isn’t even working there anymore at all?!?!?? This won’t do. I message her. I wanted her to amd the regional manager to know that me coming back is tied to her. It may be using the limited pull I have to inspire them to hear her grievances and fix them... but I feel that is noble. and I get to get some more hours and make some more money and I enjoy the job. So we’re on to another day and that’s about all I’ve got in my energy tank. I mean there is more I could add right? But it is kinda like I need to acknowledge at some point in this writing, even if it is coming fruitfully I should do other things to to take care of myself. Like hydrate or eat or sleep. I want to have fans. I want to be cool. I want to be able to do it all. I’m tired. This was candid. Breathe deeply, sleep sweetly and dream as mother fucking big as you can.

🍄 - 209

8:51 AM I write with new tools at my disposal for my daily ritual. I am attempting to make my writing itself more comfortable. So I have acquired a lap desk. It has comfrotable wrist rests, so if I want to write for a while I can, comfortable padding for my lap so it can sit whereever, and even has a few convenient pockets for organizing things while I sit. I feel happy with the purchase even though at first I chastised it as a frivolous expenditure, but honestly if it contributes to just 4 writing sessions it was worth it to me. I write this entry today after taking a fairly heroic dose of mushrooms yesterday on 4/20. Why you may ask? Well. I’m that guy. I have always wanted to explore the limits of my mind an the ways it can be altered or twisted this way and that without being broken completely. I recognize plenty of humans before me and after me will play with this same concept and territory. We are a bit experimental in our nature. Seeing connections across experiences is an amazing thing. How I can remember something and describe it and you experience a feeling inside of you... it transcends time and space. Even the boundaries of our persons are blurred in this moment of shared experience in trying to understand each other through a dialogue. We step out of our familiar experience and into the words of someone else’s inner monologue. For a moment we see this world through a different lens and we understand the person walking next to us differently and better than we did before. Forgive me, I tend to get distracted in musings. I am a person I’m proud to have become. Even in my fragmented moments, I still can looks at all the little pieces and find things that I’m grateful for having held on to through the storms. Even the worst of times have given me gems that have improved my person through the experience. Difference pieces of me that I’ve refined and grown into brighter bigger parts I’m more confident to include in everyday life without shying away. There is a reason for every fearful reaction. All the little pieces I’ve fretted over and stared at and resented at times are essential to form the amalgamation of the being I am now. Forged in the fires of my soul through careful selection and blazing heat. Even the hardest part become soft in the flames of the experience of this life and eventually temper down into familiar parts of self. No longer rough and rigid. But still reliable. I close this entry with much more hopeful eyes looking to tomorrow than I had. I have a renewed thirst for pursuing the deeper beauty in life.

let's celebrate - 208

The average life expectancy for those afflicted with borderline personality disorder is 27 years of age. This is due to things like cardiovascular disease and other things. I suspect the cardiovascular disease is not just due to increased risk-taking behaviors but the heightened state of anxiety and increased heart rate. Risk factors that make this worse are sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and smoking. I was a smoker for 18 years of my life and I still use nicotine currently which I'm sure has equally harmful effects. I am 37 years old. I am 10 years past the life expectancy that would have been given to me with this diagnosis and I made it past that without any professional help until the age of 32 or 33.

 Today I'm proud of myself. There's lots of times that I didn't even know how to continue into the next day or how to take one step forward on what I needed to accomplish. By sitting with my feelings and trying to understand them I've grown. 

My motto for going on could be summed up as grow through what you go through, no matter what. Succinct as that is put the true struggle behind it has been anything but wrapped up in a neat package. It's been grueling. Blood... Wounds torn open over and over and callousing up into nearly bone. Sweat... Dripping from my brow like a metronome counting away the seconds of toiling the earth. And tears... Emotions inside seeping out... Like the weight of all that work squeezing you like a lemon 🍋.

Through any of it, there are beautiful things I've learned and not just that I find cool or neat... But things that have saved my life from certain destruction. I've painstakingly built every part of where I'm at intentionally, and carefully so as to have my own foundation that isn't starting from the needs of others. I had to unlearn a lot of coping mechanics that were not serving me anymore. Like turning to sexual gratification for emotional comfort because I didn't possess the language to describe what was going on.

I knew there had to be something more in the lowest moments. It didn't satisfy my desire to live when I felt like dying... So I continued. I used the battles to learn how to hurt less and improve my position by avoiding conflict that was not needed and handling swiftly and effectively what did need to be combative.

I stand now not the trembling boy that emerged from my mother's home those many years ago, he's inside now. He has his hand held by me now, the father he didn't have careful to guide his growth forward and through the hard things. Fathers do that, the call to adventure and the pull to risk to strain rewards greater than the risk free nurturing love of the mother.

I finally feel as if I'm balanced better than I was and I don't carry so much shame about myself. Thank you, me. For every time you continued when you could have quit.

Belle - 207

Two four leaf clovers!

 I would like to take some time to practice some gratitude today. I have a lot of things to be thankful for in life and an attitude of gratitude, is something that helps me keep from being sad. It is strange how it almost works like a healing salve over the emotional parts that hurt. Some boo boos take more salve than others, so I guess at times my need for gratefulness fluctuates.

Let's start with my dear friend.I've known her since the end of 2020? It was close to when I had seriously overwhelmed my gf with my emotionality and high needs after having moved away. I overwhelmed her to the point of her needing space and room away from talking to me at all. It was one of the hardest times in my life, not because omg I had something so mean done to me, but it was the beginning of me accepting that I could have things that I needed to work on about myself. I definitely did have work to do. I finally was sitting with it and I understood that I did in fact have limitations and would often time read over wheat I had said with my gf and feel embarassed and ashamed for my lack of emotional control and cruelty I could find in my voice.

This is the stage for when I met her, let's call her Belle. I was on a mental health discord server. I met quite a few people around that time trying to find my own purpose in helping other's with the same quest. Souls aching and in desperate need to be heard. There had to be someone among all of the wounded hearts here that was like me that just wanted to be heard, validated and accepted. That was my theory at the time I think going into it deep down. I helped people in my down time and earned the title mental health aide on that server. I was given the task of talking to people that were exceptionally overwhelmed with their life. Suicidal people or those on the edge of a relapse that could be the former if handled poorly.

She was in a support chat that was intended for those in crisis. The other two available aides had an attitude as if they already knew her story and were numb to it, and had difficulty being emotionally present with her. That hurt my heart to hear the lack of compassion and empathy and decided that they just must not have the space and resources to do the job they took on here. I entered the chat and invited her to a private conversation. We had a short playful banter before getting to the nuts and bolts of her wanting to unalive herself. She detailed atrocities she endured. I do not use the word lightly, she went through tragedies that would bring most grown men to their knees begging the world for just a little mercy. It was easy to read that she yearned for a diminutive tone in a way. Support was such a foreign thing to her from what I could understand so I did my best to listen.

As it happens when someone shares their life, pain and experiences with you, I found myself sharing my own life experiences and pain. She was an amazing listener and I would later realize through her own words, that she was mirroring the support that I had brought to her. That shook me to my core and suddenly I could see all the little ways that she was behaving were little mirrors that she made. Prisms perhaps refracted through her personality but the light that was shining through and helping me see what I needed to see was in fact coming from me. We continued to stay in touch...sometimes dropping off the map for a few months at a time. But occasionally exchanging a few days of conversation before settling back into silence. 

It was the kind of wonderful friend that was not going to abandon you just because you hadn't heard from them in a while, but would be there and excited that you still were alive and there to talk. It was the exact rock I needed through the storms my life continued to endure. It started as this small life raft of a rock jutting up from the sea floor in a storm, and has continued to grow through careful nurturing, love, respect and communication into an island that I can find sanctuary in.

Through every heart break that I have endured, through all of the tears cried about pain others have caused me, through all of the nights after nights of crying into the small hours of the morning just praying for one person to be there...it was right there she has been every time. More reliable than my sense of self, she reminds me regularly who I am by offering that beautiful mirror. I was so low. So damn low through the last few years and she kept seeing my waving that was drowning and pulling me back out of the water and gently remind me, " boi, don't swim in those waters, it isn't good for you...but I won't give up on you while I watch you learn what you need to"

I wish this world could normalize romanticizing friendships. Not because you want to escalate them into intimacy of sexuality but because sometimes significance and loyalty transcends typical human bonds. I like acknowledging the significance of the impact she has had on me because this is another thread in the tapestry of my experience, and unlike many threads... it continues to weave in and out of the picture, appearing through lines in the picture as bright little blots of color but now is a regular recurring part of the pattern that is my life.

I don't ever want to imagine a time I don't know her. I think in some really weird way I haven't known before she has superseded the significance of my future romantic relationships and may in fact help me from feeling so vulnerable to the offering of breadcrumbs of attention from potential suitors and hold out for true love because I value myself through her eyes in a way I didn't know before.

She wrote a poem that still shakes me every time I read it. I'll share a brief excerpt until I have the consent to share it all 

your willingness to accept me

as i am begs me to question

what are you

if you are not like the rest

whatever it is that you are

i want to be like you

-Belle

I am thankful for having a truly amazing friend, I'm humbled to learn in life someone could admire me and inspire me as she does.