The personal pages of
Copyright © 1998–2012
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
Introduction
[Summer 2000 NOTE: Although my attitudes, goals and motivations have changed since this was written in January 1998, I include this piece unchanged to give you an idea of where I was at when I first decided to become an online journaller.]
Where do I start? Well, why I'm attempting this would help.
In 1997 I became fascinated by Online Journalists. In particular, a group of guys in their late teens and early 20s who are gay and coming out. Online. For all the world to see. So I asked myself, "Self," I asked, "What would you have done if you'd found all this stuff when you were first coming out?" My life would have been very different. It would be very different now.
Lotsa guys around my age (40) [then, 46 now] lament, "Boy, if I could just go back knowing what I know now…" Yeah, me too. But I've come to realize, I still don't know now what I didn't know then. So it doesn't matter. I just wanna go back and try again. But you can't, can you?
First Things First
I have ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder. Fortunately I don't have the hyperactivity portion which would make it ADHD. But my mind takes these little trips. One thought sparks another, which sparks another, and it's not long before I'm far, far away from where I started. These little journeys are sometimes fun, sometimes annoying.
For your benefit, I'll try not to wander around here as much as I do in real life. But I will kinda take the Scenic Route to where I'm going. It's the way I am. Nothing will change it. Like being gay. Nothing will change that either. I just accept them both, and ask that you do the same. You don't have to understand me, like me or agree with me. Just accept me. I promise I'll do the same for you.
See how I go off? Anyway, think of these pages as a winding country lane through my life. I'll getcha there, eventually. That's why I've named the site "The Scenic Route". Just sit back and enjoy the ride. If you're in a hurry, click here.
Back to the Start
So what's my motivation here? What is it I'm trying to do?
Dunno. Not sure anyway. Partly, I guess, is I've found I like writing this stuff. Among my friends I've become famous for writing "e-novels." You know, like when a note just won't do? I write pages and pages to my friends. Mostly it's about me, sometimes about them, giving an unsolicited opinion or two. I've found it helps me think through my feelings. And it's WAY cheaper than psychotherapy. I know that first-hand.
It's a natural extension from writing to friends, to writing to people I don't know yet. Telling my stories, offering an opinion or two, and responding to feedback. A dialog. So you can expand my horizons, and maybe I can expand yours too.
Resonance
I resonate really well with some of the Online Journalists I've read. I don't like the words relate or identify. They sound too pretentious. Resonate feels a lot better. There's a church near my apartment. They have real bells in the tower. They ring ‘em a couple of times a day. Funny thing about bells, when you ring just one in a group, they all vibrate. They resonate.
When I read other guys' journals, what they feel, what they express, rings right through me. I resonate. Why does a guy who's 41 feel resonance with guys half his age? Because in a very real sense, between the ears, I'm about that age.
My Lament
No, I'm not retarded or learning disabled, wasn't in a coma. I'll admit to being immature, (although I prefer to say "young at heart" thank you very much.) No, I lost 20 years of my life. Lost 20 years of emotional growth and psychological development. I'm a chemical dependant.
Growing up gay probably wasn't any harder for me than it was, is, for anyone else. I felt ashamed, alone and isolated. I had these feelings, starting when I was four or five. Strong feelings. I liked guys. A lot. Everything in society told me that was wrong. So I thought what I was feeling was wrong, therefore, I was wrong. I wanted to stop feeling wrong. I wanted to stop feeling lonely. I wanted to stop feeling.
Then I found the answer to my prayers. Pot. It made me stop feeling bad. And it gave me friends, the other druggies. For the first time in my life I had friends, I was accepted. And I didn't feel bad any more about my dirty little secret.
For twenty years, from age 15 to age 35, I controlled my feelings chemically. At first, I tried anything anyone said would give me a buzz. I wanted so desperately to fit in somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. Finally, I settled on nicotine, caffeine, pot and alcohol. All accepted by the druggies, and for the most part, by legit society. Cool, huh?
Whenever I started feeling again, another dose made it go away. But it didn't go far. Funny thing about feelings. Until you let them be felt, acknowledge them, experience them, they don't go away. The just get warehoused somewhere in your neurons, waiting. They're patient, but persistent. They're happy to wait, but they try to get out at every opportunity.
I was never stoned or drunk at school or at work. My intellect and perfectionist streak wouldn't let me do it. But at school and at work I could smoke. Nicotine got me through the days, pot and alcohol got me through the nights, caffeine got me up the next day.
Nights were always the worst. They still are. Anything and everything I'd ever done wrong comes back to haunt me. I call it my "visitations". Still get them, not as often. Maybe only once or twice a month. I can usually get through them now without feeling the need for heavy sedation. I know they'll come back anyway, so what's the use?
Mr. Wilbur, this is your wake-up call…
My parents were high-school sweethearts. (It was the 50s, what can I say?) They got married at 20, as soon as they could afford it. A couple of weeks before their first anniversary, out popped their little bundle of joy. A first born son. Me.
Then a lot of stuff happened.
Years later, Mom calls me on the phone. "I'm at the hospital," she said, "Your father's having a heart attack." One week short of early retirement, Dad was 55 when he had his first Myocardial Infarction (MI). He had smoked for 20 years, then quit at age 35. I'd been smoking for 20 years. I was 35. Something clicked, and it wasn't my Bic.
The House of Cards Comes Down
I tried to quit smoking shortly after Dad's first MI. Found I couldn't. Dad had another MI. I still couldn't quit, I needed help. I was hooked and hooked bad. I came across a blurb in the paper about the brand new Nicotine Recovery Program at Park-Ridge Chemical Dependency. I thought, "Well, if they can get drunks of booze, and they get crack, cocaine and heroin addicts off the stuff, they can certainly get me off Marlboros."
I went in for an evaluation, was accepted in the program, and started a couple of weeks later, (I lied about my alcohol and pot use.) First, they take you off caffeine, cold turkey. They say that nicotine helps your body process, break down and eliminate caffeine. So if you're a heavy caffeine user, like I was, you'll get REAL hyper when they take you off nicotine. It also, I found, gives you an idea of what withdrawal is all about.
Two weeks later, they take you off nicotine. Cold turkey. The joys of nicotine withdrawal are a whole ‘nother journal. Suffice it to say, two of the drugs that had held me together for 20 years, were suddenly gone. I began to crack.
But there was light through those cracks. I had learned that my little "chemistry set" was not the answer to my problems. And I'd begun to FEEL again. Yeah, a lot of pain. Truckloads of pain. And anger. Whole ocean freighters full of anger. But every once in a while, briefly, I had glimpses other things. Wonderful things. Joy. Prior to that, for me it was just a word on Christmas cards. Happiness. I can't ever remember being happy in the first 35 years of my life. Drug induced giddiness, but never the true warmth of happiness, joy and so many other things most people (I think) think are normal parts of their lives.
I wanted more of those feelings. I craved them. A couple of months into the program, I stopped drinking. Didn't tell anyone. How could I? I'd lied about it to get into the program. The cracks burst open and I began to crumble. All the walls I'd built to protect myself from my feelings, turned to dust.
I got fired from my job for "behavioral issues." I was climbing the walls! One step away from the nut house. Behavioral issues? I was never so insulted in my life. I was having a major meltdown! When I most needed help, they fired my ass to avoid the health insurance issues.
Went from US$950 a week, to US$255 a week unemployment. But I still needed help. And, I'd lost my health insurance with the job. But I was now on a mission. Rebuild myself. It was either that or die. Suicide. But I was trying to avoid premature death by embarking on this little adventure in the first place. There was no going back. I'd sworn to myself I wouldn't use again.
I was faced with three choices: Suicide, drugs again, or bankruptcy so I could afford a shrink. (Before anyone writes, yes there is a fourth choice, religion. But I refuse to accept any institution that refuses to accept me and people like me. Gay people.)
After a couple of referrals, I found a therapist I could work with, Caroll. Six years later, I still see her from time to time. When I need a reality check. I've needed more of those lately. But we'll get to that. Later. On another page.
Six months into the program, a month into therapy, I quit smoking pot. When the smoke and the dust and the haze and the pain and the anger cleared, look what I found! I found a confused, frightened, lonely 15 year old boy. I found me. Hello, me.
Resonance Revisited
Told you I take the scenic route. You won't always like what you see. I don't. But I do getcha there.
So now you know why a 41 year old guy can feel resonance with guys half his age. Between my ears, I'm 20 again. Going through all the same personal growth. Experiencing all the same frustrations. Asking all the same questions. Things I should have done 20 years ago.
Only now I have to do it as a 41 year old. True, I have the benefit of 20 years additional experience. I can't say wisdom, I'm not naive.
But I also have to deal with middle-age, and all the joys that brings. I'm not a cute young twink anymore. My hair's in the shower drain. My buns have fallen. My washboard abs are buried under 15 pounds of extra groceries. I wear bi-focals. I have aches and pains.
Statistically Speaking
If you go by the doctors and insurance companies, I've lived somewhere between a half and two-thirds of my natural life expectancy. And I pissed away half of that. So, I have only somewhere between a third and a half of my life left. The declining years.
But I given myself a wonderful gift. A second chance. I've got to make the best of it. But what then? What happens when I'm gone?
I'll save myself a little typing here, and paste in the closing remarks I made in a recent e-mail to one of the OnLine Journalists who has inspired me. Slightly edited, cleaned up. He'll recognize it.
"I do contract computer work. A couple of years back, I had a six-month contract with 23 school districts in four counties of Western New York. It was the most wonderful job I've ever had. I found, I like hangin' out with younger people, girls too, not just guys. Talking and learning from each other. Enjoying each other's company. It makes me feel younger as time marches me relentlessly into middle-age. Keeps my mind sharp.
"As a non-breeder, I won't be passing on my genes to the following generations. I hope I can pass on my experiences, not as lessons -- that implies a hierarchy which I don't feel and find abhorrent -- but rather, as food for thought. An enrichment to this wonderful thing we call life. It's the best thing I can give back to our community.
"You've inspired me to think about a site of my own. A place where I can share my stories, my feelings, my experiences, my stupidity, with other people, and they can share theirs with me. I'd like a site from which, perhaps, I can have a positive influence on other peoples' lives, and they can influence mine."
He wrote back, in part:
"I say this only rarely, but you've helped me … somehow. It always takes me a while to put my finger on it."
He closed the note with:
"And yes, I think you should put up a web page."
That's what I'm doing here. That's my motivation.
So you'd better take a pee, get something to drink and maybe a snack. Then sit back and enjoy the Scenic Route.
