If you think suicide is cowardly and selfish then you just don't get it. We feel like a burden, and anybody violent and depressed enough to do it? The last thing on their mind is a want to be the center of attention. We want to not be a worry for those who love us, and sometimes it's the only answer after everything else has been tried and failed.

Out

There's this really weird un-easiness about me for obvious, and not-so obvious reasons. Moving back home, my Dad in the hospital. Makes sense why I'd be uneasy. But that's not it at all. I can handle all that. I'm having a hard time releasing resentment that I have towards people, as hard as I try.

It's stifling. I fully and entirely believe in removing yourself from situations that make you feel the way I am feeling now. And maybe that's just it. I really can't do anything about it. It's this simmering pot of loneliness, depression, frustration, sadness, and anxiety. It's always there and ready, and sometimes people or events come along and turn the heat up on the pot. I don't have any way to jump out of the situation. My hand is being forced, and I really feel suffocated.

Now it sounds like I'm blaming others and not taking any on my own. But nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone, in every walk of life have this...these catalysts that can spiral you down, but I just absolutely fail at knowing how to not let it get at me.

It's simplistic to say that I feel like the closest people around me just don't listen and respect anything that I have to say, but that really is a big part of it. On one end, every time I have an idea or a plan, there's a voice from somebody else -- the "yeah but..." or "no, that's not right." One day it's the best day ever, next day it's the best day to die. It's so fucking defeating. And that's part of what I am coming back home to -- terrific.

On another hand, I am putting all I am and all I have into coming home and trying to make it good...trying to make it work. The response is nothing. Just another day of mindlessness. I am fucking sick and tired of giving, and going out of my way for somebody else, and expecting even the littlest bit back in return. I've played this game too many times before, and I know what the result is going to be.

There it is right there. Expectation of others to be the way you are, the way I am. To be gone a year and think people will take the horror that they saw me go through, and take a little bit upon themselves and try to change. If they cared they'd want to welcome me home, with the knowledge that things are going to be different right? I haven't seen one ounce of evidence that things are going to be better then they were when I get home (for good?).

Why do I have expectations of others to value things as much as I value them, or put as much thought and effort into things as I put in. Why do I keep punching the wall, knowing that eventually no good will come from it except a broken hand?

Everything down here is the same as it was when I said I'd never come back when this was all said and done. I'll never come back down here and stay in Lakeland ever again once that truck pulls out of here. At least I didn't expect that to be different in a short time. I expect someone to wake up at some point though (and when that doesn't happen, I hope I can just dismiss it, and not hold on to it). Shit just doesn't make sense down here.

I thought maybe when I came back to Buff in July I was home for good, but, the same shit happened there, and I feel so trapped. Living here (Florida) is absolutely not an option. Absolutely not. The people down here are great (like people in the restaurants, stores, and people in group down here -- all fantastic). They really, truly are. The ratio of good people to assholes down here is a lot better than it is in most places in the country.

Maybe the saddest part of this entire year though is this -- I thought it would bring my Dad and I closer together. I thought I'd have someone to talk to, who understood everything, but more than once I've poured it all out to silence, or "huh? I wasn't paying attention" or "I don't know what you want me to do." The end result is going to be a chasm that won't ever be able to be patched over. That hurts a lot, but it is what it is. I've resigned myself to the fact that he's been taken away from his true nature. Everyone else has realized that a long time ago. I was the last hanger-on, and I'm letting go.

But I already don't want to come home. Do you see where this starts to get hopeless and leading back to where I never want it to lead back to? I have nowhere to go here...I don't want to be here. I want to be home, but, why? For what? For this delusion that things will be different? They've already proven that they won't be. If in the brief snippets of coming home things are fucked, why do I think they won't be fucked when the daily grind starts back up?

Don't ever let somebody else define who you are.

If you have an amazing day, just thank God at the end of the day. It's so simple, but some people live their whole lives without moments like the ones we're blessed with.

I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may never complete the last one, but I give myself to it. -- Ranier Maria Rike

"True love and prayer are learned in the hour where prayer has become impossible and the heart has turned to stone.". -- Thomas Merton

All you need is already within you, only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors...all I plead with you is this: make love of yourself perfect.

Fuck hospitals...especially hospitals in Polk County.

Word

My windows are open. If your air is dirty, that's you; you don't need me to help clear the air, you need yourself...open a window. I've never felt this good about things, felt this good about myself, and life in general. I carry no weight on my shoulders.

Anyways, the new Third Eye Blind album is out, and it's amazing. It's a big deal, believe me. It's been six years since they've put out an album, and I've seen them I think seven times live...Lyrically Stephan Jenkins is one of the best songwriters on the planet, and I owe a lot to them as a band. Being from San Francisco, they've got this beat/Kerouac influence on their lyrics, and Jenkins said in an interview once that On the Road changed his life.

On that, I picked up the book when I started college, and it changed my life. It made me fall in love with books, and led me to choose my English major. Most importantly though (and read it please...I'll lend you mine), besides the beautiful writing that is Kerouac, it instilled in me what I've lost in the last three years or so. That love of life experiences just fell apart as I got focused on "supposed to" living and money, and all of the trappings. I've gone into enough, but, I lost me. It's made crazier, because on the album there's a line "I've been lighting myself on fire the past three years." I've lit my old, happy self on fire over the last three years, without a doubt. This is why music and literature are art (well, MOST music and MOST literature). It moves you to a sublime place.

Timing has been really odd in the last 15 months of my life. Every big change has happened on the fly. I thought I was moving to Michigan, maybe permanently. The house in Michigan sells when nobody in the country is selling a house. And it happens the day before we left to go to Maryland for Thanksgiving (my favorite week of the year by far). I left the day after my birthday, and my stuff, in the Budget Truck will be rolling into Buffalo the day before my birthday....and I'll be spending September 12th in Detroit -- so it's come full circle.

I was in town in the perfect amount of time to find a house, and all the paperwork and headaches were done (knock on wood) the day before I left to come back down. Sadly, even with my Dad's medical issues, timing-wise it was all good with looking for work down here (I think it was a sign that Florida is not home), and even being able to be down here for his follow-up surgery next week.

I've had a crisis of a lot of things through this, but one of the most important things that was tested was my faith. There is unequivocally a higher power. I don't know its name or gender, or any of that, but I know that with belief, breathing and waking up every day simply trying to smile and laugh...that's it. It doesn't matter if you live in a third world country, Buffalo, Florida or Albuquerque. You make your own happiness.

The best song on the album:

Monotov's Private Opera

Every moment of your life
Is a chance to get it right
Any moment you've been living in
You could turn it on like a light
All the weight of the years
Has got me burstin' into tears
Standin' here with nothin'
I stand alone inside my fears

Like an atom reveals a deeper state
Well I swear for me tonight
It's not too late

To tell you baby
It's you and only you and no one else
And I'll mean it
Even when I'm talking to myself
I said maybe, it's you and only you and no one else

How I miss Moscow
Those people really know
How to have a good time
In a mixed up state of mind
And Monotov's Private Opera is closed
So I guess I'll go home now
Cause there's no wheres else to go

And I will tell you baby
It's you and only you and no one else
And I will mean it
Even when I'm talking to myself
I said baby, it's you and only you and no one else
You and no one else

Now I'm stuck inside a poem
And then I'm walkin by myself
In the dark, all alone
And these actors and dramatists
They won't send me home

Well, maybe I'm like my father
Strung out on something or another
Held to a standard
We were always sinking under
And maybe I'm like my mother
She shattered cause no one loved her
Maybe I, Maybe I am like no other

And some moments are more real than the books I've read
And a good woman, maybe she meant what she said
Cause to feel you now ya know, it goes straight to my head

So I'll tell you baby
It's you and only you and no one else
And I will mean it, even when I'm talkin' to myself
I said baby, it's you and only you and no one else
Talkin' to myself
Talkin' to myself

And everything changed in a day
And I know another one on the way
And I'll tell you
Everything changed in a day
And I know another one is on the way

Hipitty-Hop

What is life?
Life is like a big obstacle
put in front of your optical to slow you down
And everytime you think you gotten past it
it's gonna come back around and tackle you to the damn ground
What are friends?
Friends are people that you think are your friends
But they really your enemies, with secret indentities
and disguises, to hide they true colors
So just when you think you close enough to be brothers
they wanna come back and cut your throat when you ain't lookin
What is money?
Money is what makes a man act funny
Money is the root of all evil

Stigma

It's a funny thing man, to live alternate to the norm. But who amongst us doesn't have something they do or enjoy that wouldn't fit a social stigma? The truest test is to ask yourself if you stifle what you are and who you are because of your fear of stigma.

It's insidious to watch the news when the inevitable stories arise about gay Senators or gay evangelists stifling who they are, even when they are caught in moments of weakness. They are so afraid to let their true selves be shown. It saddens me so much to see it, because these are grown men, in their 50's and 60's who are so away from self-actualization, and so afraid of stigma that they will ruin lives of other people just to save face and maintain a facade.

My stigma is obvious on the surface. Most of y'all have talked about it, and I know you've even joked about it. It's pathetic, because anyone who has said a negative word about what I have gone through is so off course in their own lives that I take some empowerment from them.

The depression, and subsequent events that have followed in the last 14 months have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I shudder to think of where I would be if I, like those poor souls who keep it stifled underneath a hollow outside, were to have never gone through this and just continued on a path of false happiness.

I've learned that the judgment of others will always be there...No matter what you do, someone will be there to knock you down. But my foundation was weak and those people who just thrive off of defeating others won time and time again.

What I thought was a foundation of who I am was ultimately built on nothing, and I crumbled. Now I have a rock solid foundation, based on things that I know, things I've come to learn about myself and the world and most importantly things that I share with people who matter to me, and things they've shared with me. I was rocked to the core, and in reflecting, it didn't take much to break everything in my life open...But it was only so that everything could be built better in the end. Thank God it happened.

The world is a cruel place...It's horrible sometimes, but, life truly is suffering. Take that how you will. If you know me, you know how I understand that and interpret that. If you don't, or you think that's a fucked up philosophy, or a that's a cold way to look at life...then you just don't get it, and you should probably keep looking for ways to fill the void. We're never going to get on the same page...and that's OK.

Something to help y'all....Hopefully

The Pause. Something that's so much easier in theory than it is in practice. It's an important part of human interaction, and key to avoiding the assaults that we tragically all launch at each other on a daily basis. There isn't anybody in America that doesn't do it, but it's because of everything that we've lost sight of here. Life in America is about acquiring things, and the bullshit ideal of "keeping up with the Joneses." Pressure is put on most people, and they find it hard to handle, so when it all becomes too much you lash out in anger, or resort to drugs or alcohol to cope (much as I have since being home).

I'm trying really hard to install this huge piece of the puzzle, the pause, into my life. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, eventhough in theory it sounds incredibly simple.

With judgment a part of all of our hearts unfortunately, we're conditioned to snap judge everything. The 24-hour news cycle, and the God awful "talking head" shows on ESPN feed the monster. Michael Vick is a perfect example. Dog-fighting was truly part of his culture from childhood. He just thought that's what you did with pit bulls. Yeah, he knew at some level it was wrong, but, is there anything in your life you do that you know is wrong on some level but continue to do it? Vick was so aloof as to the cultural perception of dog-fighting that he did anything but hide it, which led to his easy conviction. There's an incredible back story that none of us know, just like the fact that there's an incredible life story to you and me and everyone else that we just don't know as outsiders.

We never saw Vick on a day-to-day basis. We don't know anything about Vick before he emerged as a freak of nature quarterback at Virginia Tech. Despite this, across any news platform, the guy, who none of the people who were speaking on him knew personally, was roundly vilified, received death threats, and disgusting things were said about him without a single damn person owning up to the fact that in the end, we don't know the whole story. We never walked in Mike Vick's shoes as a child and know what his norms are. But our first inclination is to judge from afar. All we know is surface, but so many more things should go into account for why Vick immersed himself into the dog-fighting culture.

When others in the black community come out and say that in a lot of urban areas, dog-fighting is a part of the culture, people scoff at the thought, and again, sit in their ivory towers and dispense judgment.

Life isn't black and white. There's a lot of gray area, yet, in these cases, where people know maybe 1% of the whole story, we're so quick to violently judge and tell someone he shouldn't have a career, or freedom.

Carry it into your daily (I hope they aren't daily) battles and fights, and nit-picky squabbles. Before you judge, before you respond with a sour comeback that only increases the fight, stop. Pause. Even if it takes pausing and leaving the room for a second. Pause, breathe, and think about the nature you were born into before society got their teeth into you. Our essential human nature is to be loving and kind. We've been corrupted by a streaming barrage of negativity and judgment since the second we came to this world. But if you pause, and let that loving kindness open up in that pause, you'll avoid so much conflict in your life. You'll let love conquer the sarcastic or nasty statement you were going to come back with.

Let it take time. In truth, that's my biggest problem. I think all of this should and will be fixed overnight. In the grand scheme of things for me -- it's only been a year. I've made a lot of fantastic progress in that year, but, I beat myself up a lot because I think I'm going to magically wake up and be completely who I want to be. It takes lifetimes to get there for some. It won't take that long for me, but it's an incredible work in progress. It's a project that might even take longer than the construction on Transit Road!

But what if the pause stops one fight this month, and you can keep working on it? A few months from now, maybe it stops two fights, and it stops you from judging someone from the outside.

What helps me most in the pause it to stop, take an incredibly deep breath, with a huge exhale. I think of the exhale as breathing out of all of that shit, all of that negativity and hostility that was about to come out. It may take more than once. Breathe it all out of you, and concentrate on ways to stifle the fight before it completely erupts. Believe me, it'll come back to you like you just awoke from a trance....a trance of unconscious thought and reaction. The Pause brings in consciousness, and our conscious minds and hearts are by nature good and loving.