Life is better with coffee...

            I'm sitting here with a fresh cup of coffee waiting to be drunk...it's 6:15pm. I feel like I'm getting ready for a long night, but that's won't really be the case. Everyday, well almost everyday, I start out with a cup of coffee...a love, a simplicity that I have convinced myself is worth getting up for in the morning. It's definitely a hard sell. I find myself having trouble getting past a block. For once I have the ability to say what I want and now I can't seem to find the words, or even topic to start with. My roommates find this to be a wonderful outlet; something they find to be cathartic. I, however, still, in some ways, hold my tongue. I function in an m-f /8-5 world where it's always about somebody else. I sit through so many stories trying to help those telling them keep themselves together.  I struggle with it daily. It's really hard to be in the other chair when you are completely helpless. Granted, people are responsible for their own lives, but when they feel lost and they say "my life is in your hands" it's hard not to feel stuck.
              It's all really quite funny though, me being here, the person in the other chair. Especially after years of being the person on the couch. In reality I still am, trying to work through my own struggles. I am still fighting my own inner demons and that voice that tells me some pretty crappy things. I used to not be able to ignore it. I used to be tortured...now I just have moments of suffering. I am working on letting those moments go faster and faster.
              Let me take you back, about eight years ago. I was 19. I was with a freaking nutcase and I had lost it. I couldn't tell reality from dreams and I was running trying desperately to grab onto some truth. I couldn't find it. She couldn't lead me to it. If fact she kept leading me away from it. Then came decision time. San Francisco State University of Washington State University? WSU won out. I did it to save myself which is pretty ironic since I think I came the closest to killing myself that year. I didn't know that at the time. I needed to get away from everything that was trying to kill me. I needed to start over. So I loaded up a u haul and drove from Hollister, CA to Pullman, WA on New Year's day 2004. I had a hangover. My mom and I were in my jeep and my dad was driving the u haul. I was excited and scared all at the same time.
                By the time we got to my new apartment in Pullman it was cold as shit. I think it was 10 degrees, maybe less. My California grown ass was not excited about this weather and especially not the feet of snow. Eventually my parents left...I was alone...I had to push myself. I was tired of sitting at home with papa john's pizza and Friday Night Stand Up on comedy central (it was my savior in the beginning. It kept me laughing.). I was already struggling with my sexuality at this time so I went and joined the GLBTA and I met a girl...you know in every story, there is always a girl.
                She helped me to come out...I fell in love with her. She never fell in love with me, but I kept hanging on hoping that I could change her mind. I was so desperate for any small feeling of happiness that I put up with her shit. That whole year I tried to date other girls...but there was always her. I risked my job...and I almost dropped out of school to move to Seattle, to be closer to her. I was already miserable and wanted to die. She was the only light I had...
                I didn't follow her.
                But I came very close.
               Instead I found myself having nights where I drank an entire bottle of Raspberry Vodka with Ruby Red Squirt. There may of may not have been a knife or a bottle of pills in my hand at some point that night. I called a friend. I apparently passed out on the phone with them. I had two others that were supposed to be friends come over the next day. They saw the empty bottle...they kind of asked about it...they never really saw anything wrong.
                I almost stayed, afraid to make another move again, but I realized that I had to move again or I'd be dead. Two moves in one year to try to save me.
                I didn't think I could be saved.

                Everything changed. I went to The Evergreen State College. There were a few girls between that move and my wife, whom I'm happily with now. Of course...there was another girl in the middle of that who shattered me. She told me that I had nothing to fear and I believed her. It really was the most emotional 4 months that led to two more years of self loathing. There is still a wound in my heart from her that may never heal. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife more than anything and the love I have with my wife is more real and seasoned, but there is still that part she owns. It's weird to say. I even feel guilty. I don't believe you ever stop loving someone even though sometimes that love feels like hate. There is a scar in my heart left from her, that is the part she owns. There are lots of scars on my heart, but she is one of the biggest ones.
                After her I finished school. I started going to grad school, but I had a gaping wound that I kept trying to fill. It took two years for it to close enough so that I could be willing to accept love. That moment started in Hawaii. I found a love tiki...I got that love tiki tattooed and made a choice. I made a choice to finally try something different.
                 It was two years after our initial meeting at a party that she came back into my life...we began to fall for each other during a camping trip. It was a long, long fall...a fall where I was trying to "save" myself from the ultimate bottom. I t didn't work. I finally fell utterly in love with her. I couldn't stop it and I'm glad I didn't. She has helped me want to continue changing. She has helped me get out of that pit that I was in. I am changing. I am realizing that life is a series of moments. I am realizing that my flaws are my fault because I haven't dealt with what caused the scars. I am slowly tattooing over them now, but I have a long ways to go.
                 Now I have a wife, a career, and I am buying a house...
                  I have a dog and two cats...
                  We are planning for our future...
                  However, I still have a lot of past resentment.
                  I still have those past fears...I am who I am now because of the things I've learned and the scars I still hold onto. I am hoping that some sort of release will happen and I can finally stop trying to control everything. I want to find peace in more than just sporadic moment.