Replacement

Last night my wife was laying her head on my shoulder in bed. Lightly running her hands over my body for no purpose other than to feel me, I asked her what she was thinking. She had no answer, though I find it difficult to imagine a completely quiet mind; something I have never experienced. She then directed the repeated question at me, to which I always have an answer. I told her I was wondering if she had ever pictured someone else laying on my shoulder, touching me the way she was. I know I do it all the time.

For me, removing myself from the relationship and looking at it from an outsider's view is a great way to remind me how horrible it would feel to not be in that space anymore, to see someone else replace me. I picture a scenerio that includes me as the 'ex'. Perhaps sitting on the couch sipping cocktails. Me on one couch, my wife and her new flame cozy on the other. I replay an intimate moment and replace me with someone else. I imagine someone else touching her, doing the things I do, and worst of all, her responding to it. This is usually where I get sick to my stomach and stop thinking.

In that moment, its that nausea and gaping hole in my heart that reminds me to never take what I have for granted. To never let life get so dull and mundane that my replacement looks like a better option. To leave yesterday's spat (not that we have many) in yesterday because bringing it into today could leave me sitting on the other couch tomorrow. The ill I feel from my clearly masochistic thought processes requires me to reflect, constantly, on how easily life could change. How quickly a replacement could come into play. It reminds me that I need to work every day to show the appreciation for what my relationship affords me.

So as you read this, try it. Remove yourself. Watch your relationship be had by someone else. I promise you, the loss you suddenly feel will be replaced with a much needed adoration for your partner.

The Antidote

I had a conversation with someone today. It was really just about her teenage daughter and the good for nothing boy she chooses to spend time with. While I sat and listened to my colleague she made the statement about all of us having that one poison or toxic person we just cant seem to shake. At first I thought, nah, not me. Then I realized, I was lying to myself.

I know the conversation was about having a relationship that is toxic. About wanting to be with someone that everyone in their right mind tells you not to be. Usually its for your own good, and the advice most times, should be heeded. I see it happen all the time and its very easy as an outsider to shake your head and think "what is wrong with them?".

Although I have had toxic people in my life, I cant say that I have any relationships with those people anymore. Well, unless you count my mother, who is poisonous to my heart and soul and doesn't even know it. But family isn't what I'm talking about here.

I would like to think that ridding myself of poison people has rid me of their effects on me, but that's not the case at all. And even though I don't keep running back for another shot of death, I still carry the effects of their lethal ways with me every day. I think this is pretty normal. Its normal to be effected by people. The relationship, no matter what kind, molded some part of you. But what does it mean when you find yourself capable of letting the toxins go, but unwilling?

For me, I find safety in knowing who I am and how I feel. Even if I don't like how it feels. I am a realist. I know life is not all good, and sometimes I will feel bad. I don't dwell on the negative impacts on my life, but have to admit that I venture back to them in my mind. I find a strange comfort in remembering the sad and empty times; the yearning etc of some of my adult relationships. I seek out the feelings of loss in an attempt to remind me that I don't feel like that anymore. Its my way of never taking what I have now for granted. A way to appreciate things even when they seem mundane and unimportant.

There are people that still haunt me. I find them in my thoughts, my photos, my dreams and many times, my disgust. But I still find them. I just cant seem to walk away; not because I enjoy their poison, but because it reminds me that I found the antidote.

No Longer Baggage

So lately I have focused my writing attention on my book primarily. Being a memoir, it has understandably given me an opportunity to look at my past again, from fresh eyes. Putting my life down on paper, sharing with someone, has started a transformation within me that I was not expecting.

When I began the book, I was very apprehensive. I have always been known to divulge anything someone wanted to know, however that information was always in a tailored format. I always made sure to reveal only what I felt that person was capable of understanding. I have taken the advice of a friend, and have tried very hard not to edit myself in my writing. I am putting down events as they happened, not as I wanted to remember them happening. I have found that as the memories are released, in their honesty, they are becoming less and less things I want and need to think about. It seems they have found their way to the same memory bank as the normal childhood events. They don't seem so big and important.

I feel a sudden stillness in my memories. I don't feel the constant swirling of emotion. I no longer feel like a balloon is going to pop if I don't allow someone, anyone, to share them. I spent decades with these experiences kept to myself. Not because I didn't like them, because albeit wrong, I did like many of them, but because I didn't think anyone one else would understand them.

I started this book very fearful of who would read it, what people would think and how small the audience of acceptors would be. But now I want to finish it. I want people to read it. I want the appalled reactions and the reaction of those that can relate. I want to share it all. And even though I know those experiences shaped who I am and my life as I know it, each time I let one out completely, it just becomes part of my past, not part of my baggage.

It Gets Better

I find it really sad that it takes the media and multiple deaths to wake up a country to the fact that bullying is real and deadly, emotionally and physically. However as sad as I am at that fact, I am elated at the availability social networking has offered our community to get the word out. Even if it doesn't change the views of those that bully, it is providing resources and support for the victims. Bullying will never end, but being able to combat it enough to move past it is a skill that most kids are lacking, yet one that is being taught through this medium.

I have a particular interest in these kids, I suffered severe depression and suicidal ideations most of my teenage life. Just last night I sat and read a 'letter' I wrote to someone, 78 pages long, that told of my struggles. It broke my heart to realize I thought I had no one to turn to then. At that time, I was writing to a poster on my wall. That letter was what saved me. A celebrity hanging over my bed was the one person who I could talk to, endlessly and who would understand.

At that age I was unsure of my sexuality completely. I was trying desperately to fit in at a new school, in a new town, and with feelings that were different than everyone else. I loved deeply, hurt often and was a product of a childhood full of despair and completely inexcusable moments. I was an outcast from day one; poor kid in the rich town. My clothes didn't measure up, my house was shameful and it was obvious I was different.

My family was never close. My mom was already out of the picture. My dad, just trying to survive. My friends treated me like a tag along and no one took me very seriously. For a long time I thought the advice "people will pity you only so long" written in a yearbook to me was sound advice. I replayed those words over and over trying to convince myself I was looking for sympathy I obviously didn't deserve. I drowned myself in alcohol and drugs for many years. Self medicating to avoid feeling.

I came out some time in high school and although it was a very small school, I was far from alone. I at least had a small group that I could relate to. People seem to remember those days as being OK for me. Someone actually said to me the other day 'we sure had it easy'. I am not so certain I should be included in that 'we'. I distinctly remember watching my father scrubbing the spray paint off the driveway so others would not be able to read the word "dyke". I can still recite, word for word, the derogatory song the football team made up and chanted as they jogged past my house. Senseless bullying for the sake of bullying that took an already lonely, unstable child to the edge. I didn't want to die, but it sure seemed like a much better option than living.

So I wrote. I wrote a lot. I wrote to my friend on the wall. I wrote in journals. I wrote letters I never intended to send. It was my only true connection to something. I focused on removing myself emotionally from people to avoid hurt. To this day, I am still trying to recover from that time in my life. It had a huge impact on my relationships now. It left me afraid of being me, unable to embrace myself, and watching my back at all times.

Everywhere I am seeing, "It gets better". For me it didn't get better, it got easier. I am still bullied to this day. Maybe not by chants or spray paint, but by a world that still cant accept me. However I have grown and I have learned and I would have missed a lot of fabulous things in this life if I had given in and let them win back then. I want to hand my phone number out to every kid that needs someone to talk to. To every kid that needs that poster friend.