In the last 11 years I have learned more than the previous 36 before that. Fuck! It’s been a ride. To be honest though, the strides that were made in the last few months have been everything I never knew I needed. I saw Kevin Hart talking about manifesting your destiny and laughed because I didn’t know I had been doing that for months… then I stopped laughing…can I be doing that?
As the life I had no idea I was envisioning started to materialize it was fucking rough! People, partners, jobs, ‘friends’ in 12 step groups disappeared. One by one all the people and stuff took itself out, while I had been, completely unbeknownst to me, preparing. They had to go to make space. So this time, for the first time in my life, I let them. I felt like I might be important enough to not chase them AGAIN, not ask or beg AGAIN, but leave myself. “I can leave them“, was the freshest breath of air I had taken in a decade. My son and parents are the last ones left and they’re more than I deserve, but all that I need. So I left and I’m not going back. It was like I knew whatever I was going through and who was leaving was NOT meant for the life I had, the life I had before that one, before that, or that… or ever. I was desperately forcing myself to fit where I never belonged and it nearly killed me. Several times.
Since July everything has been improving, for my personal longevity, one step after the other. Each day was a new discovery that I was passionate and excited to share. Meditating, deep breathing, and… trauma therapy. That was the kicker. LONG story short, after talking to lots of specialists and docs and nurses and therapists and listening to about 30 testimonials they figured out how I was… fixed? A couples counselor, who wasn’t nearly ready for what I crammed in my head, opened a box she had no idea what to do with.
Crying, yelling, “I can feel the towel on my face!” “My hands look small like a child!” “It feels like my brain is growing!” And it was, kinda. I was actually processing trauma. And that was in her office during the session. But when I ended up shirtless in an alleyway, MAYBE someone should’ve rang a bell. But on I went. Rewiring my brain, alone, no job (took itself out), lots of time… and wow. It worked. I look at pictures and feel different things. I understand how and why I did certain things. It was amazing! Unfortunately my life was non too thrilled with what I was amazingly excited about! I am different in how I process emotions. But, not different. The same, but the same as when I was 17 before all the drinking and drugs and chaos and 8 year trauma bonds. I was Rob. I was happy and drug free and loving life. And it came back! And just as it all wrapped up and I was fit as a fiddle… that’s when “concern” blew in with the wind. But that kind of “concern” that is disproved immedately so more “concerns” have to pop up. And they’re disproved… you catch on. It’s not concern, its not coincidence… its excuses that will never mature past “concern”.
Conveniently timed, but horribly mistaken. The counselor admitted she took some bad advice from someone in crisis who really needed the help. It was just aimed at me and it missed. That was after I was long gone and building a new relationship with my mother and father. Talking and being with my son more than ever. There’s an old proverb that’s basically about just waiting to form an opinion… a guy’s son breaks his leg and everyone says it’s bad luck, “We’ll see”… and it’s not bad luck a year later when he can’t go to war, but, “We’ll see.”
When things happen I have this tendency to quickly label it. Good, bad, happy, sad. Man that was a big waste of time and really made things harder. Why do I want bad? I don’t. Things are only ‘bad’ if I choose to say they are and NEVER reinvestigate. “We’ll see.” But as this ‘manifesting’ or whatever was becoming so much more than me or I could understand; it seemed selfish and horrible and mean and how could you? To me!? …
Things were not done TO me. They were done AT me because, another great saying, Hurt People Hurt People. I just wish those hurt people knew it was a ‘them hurting’ thing and not a ‘me hurting them’ thing. It’s how nobody can make me or you FEEL love. We FEEL the emotions we’ve learned, named, and live within us. If you never allow anger you don’t have the full capacity for love. It’s how you cant have light without dark and all. Well I feel big. I am big energy. I love big and I got so tired of being small. I wasn’t big, they’re little, and I’m tried of being ashamed of that and made to apologize. Go find small people to be quiet and little with because I don’t want small anymore and realized i never did. Taking ownership of me and my emotions wasn’t that bad, but the hard part is that boundary was quickly expected by me, from the world. I’m still deciding if that’s good or bad or happy or sad, but what I do know is that, Just For Today, I wouldn’t change my life for anything in the world.
I was sitting on that cold ass piece of metal, with the cold ass bricks surrounding me, again. Every time that door slams we all think “How the fuck did I end up in jail again?!” And it was 12.15.14. I couldn’t believe I was about to turn 37! 2015 was a huge growing year for me. 2016 was even better. I kept focusing on me and my son and work and recovery. 2017 is when that focus shifted, and the tides turned. All that time later, all the life, all the love, experiences, memories, emotions…That focus was doing push-ups in the parking lot. Let’s go 2026!
Happy 11th Anniversary, Rob
