my careless contagion

Me, when I was a boy in the 80s. That hair. It's either a helmet or a Q-tip. Hi, my name is Joshua. I don't think we've officially met. I write this blog.  I want to back up a little bit. All the way back. I was born in Hot Springs, S.D., in September of 1977, the third and final boy to Baby Boomer parents. My dad was an entrepreneurially-minded Vietnam veteran and my mother was a homemaker who also had a more-than-full-time job. As if minding three boys wasn't enough. My dad is a classic first-born, my mom a second-(and last-) born.  I'm the dinky one. Growing up in the 80s in a small town in South Dakota was pretty carefree. I've talked about my childhood years quite a bit here, so we know those years weren't perfect. There were a lot of good things to be thankful for, though.  I don't know much about the rest of the state, but I do know quite a bit about the Black Hills. It's been called "the land of infinite variety." It...

It's time for drastic actions. If I need to get over a girl, what's the best way? What's the fastest, surest way? Whatever that is, I have to find it. Now.  I've labored under many illusions over the years, especially in love. Maybe it's just dumb luck, or maybe it's me. After decades of heartache, I'm pretty sure it's just me. I don't know how to love, and that has to change.  What's wrong cannot be made right. What's done is done. But, I have the distinct advantage of being able to start again. Someday. Not today. Today I'm still fucked up over someone. In order to start again someday, I have to get over her.  The way I loved is not the way I will love. I've pulled back in horrifying ways. I don't resemble myself anymore, and that's frightening. It's what I have to live with; I'm the guy who put his hand in the chipper and lost it. I'm the guy who gambled everything he had and some things he didn't....

Lyrics:  Pull down the blinds Don't think I'll make it out today Spilling down from the sky Another day, one more than I can take Get my irons from the fire Cause mistakes are all I seem able to make these days Later to bed, later to rise Feeling unhealthy, unwealthy, and unwise I'm not screening calls I just ain't answering the phone Don't come banging on my door Please just leave me alone I don't know another way I'm waiting for my luck to change Without you by my side This loneliness I feel Is the kind I fear I'll keep I'm trying to fall out of love But I'm only falling asleep I miss you so much I might as well miss everyone Ain't we having fun   I've committed a great crime of omission. I have neglected to mention one of my favorite bands, a band I thought I would never get to see live yet got to see twice. Samiam! How do I describe Samiam? They're indescribable! Their name is clearly derived from Dr. Seuss. W...

"I see my future in your eyes." Those were the words I wanted to say to you all those years ago in my parents' basement. Oh, my dear, if only I had. How would our lives be different today?  It's one thing to love a woman. It is an incontestable fact I love you. It's another thing to miss a woman. That is another incontestable fact of how I feel, I'm afraid. But sadly, I believe I have missed you most of my life. Not only that, but I missed out on you.  If someone asked me what I love about you, I could answer at length. But the question I cannot answer is WHY I love you. Why do I miss you? Why do I love you? The answer is buried in my DNA, perhaps. It rides on my synapses and gathers in the corners of my mind, building upon itself until it overwhelms me. You make sense to me. I want you near me always, as I thought you would be.  It was a cruel day I realized you would never be mine. To experience that day twice in a lifetime was heretofore unthinkab...

This is the end of the road for me. Okay, not really. But, there are some themes I want to put away, as I feel I've gotten tremendous closure for things that have haunted me for eons. Coming back to this place at this point in time has given me tremendous insight into my childhood and the years after. I've seen myself through my son's eyes. I've seen my parents through new eyes. Hell, I've seen the world with new eyes. I've gotten the rare gift of a second chance at life. When I leave here, I know I'll take my biggest problem with me, but I've had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to truly sit down, converse with, and understand myself. I walk away from here more at peace than I've been in years.  There are things I will no longer write about because I've done a tremendous amount of work to understand and clean up those messes. I'm glad to be done with them. There will still be trickles of these themes from time to time, I'm sure, ...

I tried and I failed to walk away. There is something stitched into us stronger than anything I know, and it keeps pulling me back to her. Even though she is silent, and even though I have not a clue what thoughts pass through her mind, she is the vista at the end of the hike. She's the moon when I wonder if the sun will ever return. She's the coolness of the night when I've been burned by the sun. She's ice on a wound, calmness in a storm, a shadow to shield Me from the heat.  She's my only and my everything.    In my life, I've met many wonderful women, but she is the one I want. She is a lonely star in the sky when I gaze into the heavens. Other men see millions and billions of them, but she's the only one for me. I offer her neither riches nor status. I offer her a broken man who has had his heart broken too many times, but they say a broken heart loves bigger than one that has never seen pain. It knows what is at stake, and it loves anyway. M...

It was a privilege to have my heart broken by you, you beautiful thing. You let me believe things I never thought possible. I saw for a moment what it would be like to be loved by a woman like you, and I was forever changed. I cannot go back to my old self. I cannot but be forever grateful. You may have left me for good, but you've left me with such a wonderful, priceless, and perfect gift — the gift of hope.  The man I am today is the not the same man I was two years ago. The way you went through me was unprecedented and pure and complete. You rearranged me forever. Some may think this a bad thing, but I do not. Bad things happened, I know, but bad things always happen. Rarely do such good things happen, and almost never to me. I know we're done. I know we're over. But you still linger like a nuclear bomb. You will half-life away long after I'm dead. When I believed you could be mine, it changed something fundamental in me. When you left me, I rearranged again....

The last five years have been possibly the strangest of my life. The changes I've gone through were inevitable. Nothing strange there. The strangeness lies in what happened inside me.  I'm not the guy who gets fucked up over a woman. I'm not the guy who gets his feathers ruffled by life changes. I've seen it all. I've dealt with much worse. Those things don't bother me. But they did. I got laid out — clobbered by a perfect storm.  If I took it all apart and looked at it, there wasn't one thing that should have messed me up like that. I've withstood incredible pain and hardship in my 41 years. What shocked me the most was my aberrant reaction to what I was going through. I simply wasn't myself. By necessity, my whole life I've been laid back. It's been a bumpy ride, so I make jokes and get along no matter what. My wit intervenes. My mind finds other paths. Sometimes I even have to find my "happy place." I make mountains int...