Burned & Reborn

"... So suicides, homelessness, and breakups are the key events that clearly were taking a toll on me, but the less obvious issues are what made this moment in my life different. …"

      Apparently I am continuing the theme of growth & change.  This piece is the chorus to my song "Our Fire", and while certainly one of my more sappy songs, it was an important one to get out their for me.  At the time of writing it, I was so overwhelmed with life that one could almost say I wasn't even depressed at the moment.  There had been three family suicides at this point, I was back and forth between being homeless and couch surfing, and my best friend (and only friend at the time) had left me.  She was also my girlfriend, but certainly my best friend first.  She'll come up over time with these blogs I'm sure as well as the breakup itself so I won't delve into it now, but as a quick aside, the breakup was not at all dramatic or ugly.  After the annual close deaths I've experienced, it was just nice to know she was plenty alive, just away.

     So suicides, homelessness, and breakups are the key events that clearly were taking a toll on me, but the less obvious issues are what made this moment in my life different.  I was officially alone with those closest gone, and while I was never "surrounded" with love, there was always someone and I'm a quality over quantity kind of guy anyway.  But not anymore.  No one was left who truly understood me, that I could open up to, joke with, or cry with.

     What also makes this a different situation than before is I was no longer homeless.  I have a lot to say on the good and bad of homelessness, but for now I'll simply leave it as this was definitely feeling like a bad spot to be in (at least at the moment).  Ironically, there is security in homelessness, a security I no longer had.  I spent entire days doing nothing but walk, play guitar, write, and working to figure out when my next meal might be as there was no guarantee I would eat that day.  My time homeless or couch surfing is a topic for another time, but understand that when I was living that way, my time and mind was occupied constantly with simply getting by.  For someone with a lacking sense of belonging and an unexplored troubled mind, busy hands are happy hands.  The last thing I wanted was to be left alone with my thoughts.

     All of this is what set up the less obvious issues I was having.  The sort of things one doesn't tend to hear about.  Sure, there are the key events, but what about all the space in-between?  The time from event to event that, in actuality, is by far the bulk of what one's life really is.  I wasn't use to this.  I wasn't ready for it, though I'm not sure one could ever be.  It was up to me and me alone to evaluate everything I have experienced and figure out how to respond.  I always thought I knew who I was and lived genuine, and that is mostly true, but exceedingly undeveloped.  A decent comparison would be that I sort of believed I was a moderately intelligent idealist on the path to enlightenment (whatever the hell I thought enlightenment meant anyway), when in reality I was a tortured naïve visionary with a lot of heart.

     I kept myself as busy as possible with my creative endeavors and various jobs, often working 20 hours a day, but time alone with my thoughts was inevitable.  I'd find myself sitting on the floor in complete quiet and solitude, staring at the white walls of my trashy apartment.  White felt appropriate to me, as I did feel completely insane and institutionalized.  Sometimes I'd wallow in self pity as memories waved and crashed over me.  Other times I'd manage to smile, either with some positive reminisce or over a fantasy of a decent future to come.  The smiles were seldom.  Over time, the wallowing also become scarce.  My insomnia wouldn't let me sleep any of this away either.

     "Time wounds all heels" (a quote difficult to pin point an official source) is a great way to summarize my situation.  I thought things were suppose to get easier, but instead, thanks to time, I got so low to where I was numb. As I said from the beginning, I was overwhelmed with my entire life's worth of past, present, and future to the point where I wasn't even depressed anymore.  I believed I was decent person with solid values.  Sure, I made some enemies along the way, but I don't believe a "yes man" is a good man.  So if I was more or less doing things right by the book and had moderately solid karma, then what the hell was happening to me and the world?

Take everything you have
& everything you've learned
Throw it in a fire & let it all burn
It is time to start over
It is time to take a turn
For better or for worse
Throw it in a fire & let it all burn

     I mellowed out.  I didn't lose my values, but I became much more open minded.  I was never a know it all, but clearly I was far more off than I thought.  I use to fight for what I believed in, but now I essentially believed in nothing, like a clean slate.  I realized I could only do what feels right at the time, and my intelligence, perspective, and wisdom will continue to grow, forcing me to adapt.  What is right to me at the moment might not be what feels right a year from now.  Not fighting doesn't mean I got pushed around or anything, rather I listened more.  I stopped reacting to defend my beliefs and values and instead, I heavily considered theirs.

     Exploring everyone's perspective and philosophy is essential.  Often, I end up still completely disagreeing with those I initially disagreed with and same with anyone I agreed with, but sometimes I'm swayed into a new mindset.  Either way, agreeing or disagreeing wasn't exactly the point.  Understanding more clearly how other's feel and react, and why so, helps me understand myself and the world a great deal.  If I disagree with someone, why do I, and why are they so sure of themselves.  One should always question and challenge what they believe in because in the end, they'll either realize they were wrong or they'll have a better understanding and respect for their belief.

     This is getting long, so I'll wrap it up now.  It's all subjects that come up often anyway, so stay tuned if you were eager for further details and development.  I don't honestly have any closure that came from this quote, but that is sort of the point.  It was a major moment that pushed me to start truly discovering myself.  Whatever I believed or believe in isn't the point of this post.  What I was hoping to get across was a bit of what drove me to this shift along with the importance of keeping an open mind and exploring your thoughts.

     Has their been a time like this for any of you?  Any pivotable moments that completely warped the path you were previously on?  More interesting to me actually is if anyone else resonates to the idea of the time between traumatic events being one of the hardest parts.  People get so sympathetic when something awful happens to you like losing a loved one, but they typically get over it in a week or month.  In then they start to treat you like you should be over it too.  I'm starting to get into a tangent about a whole other subject though so I'll leave it at that for now.