A break in the shell


It can be amazing how separation from your normal every day life can see a person turn his eyes on himself, and inside of him.

I had taken a trip to San Diego for the weekend as two-fold venture…visit friends and a town I have not yet been to, and also as a means of trying to place certain aspects of my life into perspective. A perspective that I try not to do on a regular basis as it would possibly turn any normal person mad. *LOL* Just kidding. Although, I do know that many have tried to figure me out and it has not been very easy for those who have understood me.

Why is it so difficult to get me? I think a lot has to do with me being very unwilling to open up to others. I actually prefer to keep my life private and out of the microscope. But of the world of fags and gays in which I live, it is hard not to have yourself placed there on many occasion.

Side track: Why is it that people feel that they need to discuss others so much? What is lacking in their lives that they feel they need to poke into someone else’s? I have always asked that question and never gotten an answer. I have to wonder if people are dissatisfied so much that they feel they need to inflict it on others. Yes, I am aware that I am guilty of this to a degree, but I don’t feel that I have done it out of harm or spreading lies. Those close in my circle of family know that I care deeply about others, and that I will do what I can to make sure that they are not lead blindly into the pitfalls of life.

Anyway, enough of that side track.

My life has not been a disaster, but neither has it been one for the easy roads. My original mother was extremely young when she bore me (or so I am told). About the best thing that she was able to do for me was secretly place me with her neighbour so that I could be placed with a good family. My foster father, though, was another story. I had already experienced the joys of sunburn by the time I was two months old because he was drunk half the time and didn’t have the wherewithal to pull the kids out of the desert sun.

The parents that raised me did their best for what they could. At the time of my adoption, they were already dealing with another child who was psychologically unstable and running away from all homes on a regular basis. She regularly caused pain to everyone involved, and brought the police by on many an occasion. When I was seven, it was decided to leave and move out east….and leave her as a ward of the state. We moved through a couple states up in the northeast before finally moving down south. But dad had to stay up north for a few years, not actually making it down until late in my sixteenth year.

That time period, though, saw it just being me and my mother around the house. Bothe my parents were Gemini, but almost polar opposites. Was funny at times, but also a serious pain. She didn’t seem to understand an emotional side to life because she had to always have control. Any opinion other than hers did not matter. It was not uncommon for some variation of ‘your opinion and feelings do not matter’ to be heard within the house. So, I kept things to myself, bottling all anger, pain, and anything else that might have occurred within my psyche to myself.

I left home when I was 17, probably to the relief of bothe me and my parents. From there life started going downhill for me, going into a rockstar mentality of sorts – drugs, sex (escorting), excessive partying, and plenty of alcohol. I would stay awake for days at a time, allowing it to affect my life and my schooling. But I had a sort of saving grace after roughly six months or so.

I met my first true love, Darrell. He was only a few years older than me, hot, and extremely caring. And he was the first person I dated that was HIV+. Six months later, a twist of fate took him from my life forever, and I dealt with the blame from his parents. They knew about his being gay, but not about his status. They banned me from his burial, and the denial from something that was so personal drove me even further into a deep depression and heavy alcoholism. Much of my time was spent in a stupor, but I managed to hide all but the strongest affects from my friends and coworkers.

Time went on and I relocated cities yet again, and drove myself even farther into the drug world, dating some of the dealers for the city. When I married my now ex-husband, I didn’t know that I was entering into a world of insecurities that could almost come close to trumping my own. He was a good person underneath, I feel, but he also didn’t know how to deal with his own past and demons. And, even after all the crap I went through on our divorce, I still have a part of me that will always care. But he didn’t understand me, and my dive deeper into the drug realm didn’t do anything to help our relationship out. Ultimately, I had rely on myself to quit the drugs, in hopes of saving my own life.

My relationship with my parents didn’t exactly improve after my relocation out of the house. I think it might have gotten worse, although they seemed to want to hang on a bit after my marriage. They were upset at what I had gone through, and truly upset at my visit to the hospital for stitches after my last and final fight. They started showing a little more curiousity into the world of the gays, and kept trying to draw comparisons between the homo and the hetero. I thought it was funny that it took physical harm for them to become involved in my life when they didn’t care about any emotional damage that I had faced, or half of the physical damage I had faced when I was younger. I probably never will understand the sudden switch. They didn’t care for me dating again after the marriage…mom instead urging me to sleep around. Little did she know that I had already managed to accomplish that task. ‘You need time to find yourself and focus on you, on going back to school’ is what she would always tell me. I was too busy trying to live to stay alive.

Once more I relocated and traveled through the dream called life. I still experienced great nightmares. I feel sorry for my last boyfriend because he had to deal with me trying to assemble all my pieces back into the puzzle of me. At the same time he was dealing with his own daemons and nearly drove himself insane with it. Or maybe we drove each other that way because we were attempting to be strong on all levels. He wanted me to feel secure, but the security wasn’t felt. But to no fault of his. Communication lines were very blurred…almost to the point of non-existence. That ultimately led to our downfall. But, we have remained really good friends, and I am glad for his continued inclusion in my life.

After the split three years ago, my parents decided to come back into my life…although it did take a letter describing the life of drugs and everything else I had become involved in to get them to become involved. And yet again I listened to the criticisms about how my life had gone downhill because I was not back in school; I could have been doing more and better with my time and life. Judgements were passed without listening to what I truly had to say; my mom becoming guilty of the one thing she had always told me never to do – assume.

Over a year ago I published a blog on father discussing what he had done to try to provide a good life for me. I sent them a copy to read, to see that I didn’t hold any grudges against him anymore. I had buried the hatchet a long time ago, or so I thought. After two weeks of not hearing from them in regards to the post, I finally called my mom. I received snide comments and a general attitude that I was not worth the time or effort. Tempers started to grow, as they tend to do when me and my mom are having difficulties in our communication. And then I was told that the only reason I wanted a relationship was so that I could use them. There could be nothing further from the truth. I wanted a relationship with the people who had taken the time and raised me for as long as they could. But I also wanted to close the doors on final chapter that led me to leaving home. I wanted there to be clean, fresh air between us.

I guess that had been too much to ask for. I don’t know if the damage that was done on bothe sides was too great, or if it was another part of my mom’s inability to see where she could have done wrong. I knew what I had done wrong, took the responsibilities for my own issues and daemons. But the conversations were deftly steered in a new direction. Apparently she wanted them to remain in the filing cabinet and locked away for good as unsolved cases. Heated words were exchanged and I later received an email regarding symptoms for being bipolar. She had forgotten that I was already diagnosed as such a long time ago, but the medications were dropped for the side effects that I refuse to live through yet again. We decided that it was probably better for us not to talk to each other for awhile. My dad has been caught in the crossfire, and I feel bad for that. He was the one thing that had really helped with easing the passing of time, and the settlements of arguments. But, this time it was inevitable. He took his wife’s side that no wrong could be done.

I relocated back up to my last childhood home with work and had been deciding to ease things out a little bit with the parental units. On a Wednesday afternoon, I was walking through target and saw my mother walking towards me on the other side of the aisle. I had had no communication from them since moving back, although I felt it pertinent to inform them to me being back in the area. However, my attempts of saying hello were spurned. And it wasn’t because she didn’t see me or recognize me. I know that I had changed a lot since the last time she saw me, but my voice didn’t change at all. It was then that I decided that maybe it wasn’t a bad thing for me to not remain in communication.

It kills me that a parent could turn her back on her child…the only child that she had left. But, maybe it was the apparent ease from the last time that made it so easy. Or maybe the way had already been paved when I was 15 and my name was changed. I don’t think the mystery will ever be solved.

So, I sit in the airport terminal waiting on my connection back to the city I currently call home and ponder over the mysteries of life, and the paths I have traveled these last eight years. This trip has seen me extremely introspective, and I don’t know why. Maybe I am at that next crossroads and I am trying to view through the fog in the crystal ball. But I do know one thing. This was the first time that I had really been calm and felt at home in my life. It hurts to fly back to someplace where I don’t fit, where life has always been a case of survival.

I have had my iPod playing the entire trip, and it is always amazing to me how much I can wrap myself into the music. I have been mixing CDs on a relatively regular basis since summer of last year, and my friends tell me that they are impressed with the work that I do. Maybe it is because I allow my senses to expand and flow through the words, the soul of the songs. I don’t know. But there is something I can definitely relate to within each.

Anastacia stated it best when she said that she had paid her dues, that she could not be held down. “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” How true. I have grown a lot in the last nine years, and sometimes I wonder if it was such a good thing that I grew so fast, in such a short amount of time. I sometimes feel isolated from those of my generation, not having known the joys of being free and uninhibited like many had been. But, I have made the best of my life and learned many lessons. Ones that I try to pass on to my friends to the best of my capabilities.

But, it is that time where I need to stop worrying about everyone around me and actually live for me. That isn’t to say that I am kicking everyone to the curb. But, I can’t keep making them a higher priority. Yes, I know that I have said that a lot of times in the past. And one day I will actually get it balanced correctly. Live for today…don’t be afraid of tomorrow.

Don’t be surprised if you hear of me talking of relocations soon. Accuse me of running if you want. But please don’t judge me like I try not to judge you. My niche is no longer in the east, but appears to have moved back out to the west again. And, so, I will soon be riding off into the sunset like the old cowboys of my home state…making a life for myself again soon.

“Once again I’m longing
for your hungry touch
Picturing you on me
I’m missing you so much
You turn on my imagination
though you’re far away
And in my fantasy you crave my body
I need you back to stay

“I got my inside out and my headache won’t stop
I felt another look back as I’m bouncing down the wrong track
Halfway up feels like going down
But I’m getting stronger and stronger…

“Midnight turns to morning
I don’t get no sleep
I know that you are out there somewhere
Being someone else’s dream
Your fingers know just how to please me
And chills run down my spine
And when you wake and spill your kisses
I am shivering inside….” Inez “Stronger”  ¶ 10/01/2007 05:02:00 PM