my careless contagion

I don't know if she still reads here. I don't know if she thinks about me much anymore. I really don't know much, but I know she means the world to me. I see her trying. She's afraid. She's holding on to what she knows. She's afraid of what she doesn't know. I wish it was easier. Someday it will be. I know she'll be okay. I know because my Father told me.  When someone has been through hell in a relationship, they don't have the same fire to begin again. The fire is gone, but the need for love remains. The struggle of that person is a spectacular thing. It is a precious fight for sanity and safety and to not lose oneself in love. I want her to know it will be okay. We will both be okay. Because neither of us are in control. There is One who is in control, and He knows our struggles. He sees every tear and frustration, every moment of terror. Every fear. Every time we look in the mirror and wonder if they see what we see. Every moment we see that slip...

What is the nature of failure? What defines failure?   No, this isn't another post about how much I hate myself or my life. Really, I'm just asking questions and positing the truth. So, before you say, "Here we go again," relax. This isn't another I-hate-my-life post. It's just an honest assessment. A child has many people to look up to. But, a child also has many people telling him (let's assume it's a boy for our purposes) he's wrong. Tell a child this often enough and he becomes angry or sullen. And then he assumes he is always wrong. How do I know this? I was that child. In fact, I am still that child, and those same people who told me I was wrong back then still tell me I am wrong today. In fact, I feel I've never been right about anything. I've been swimming in a sea of wrongness my entire life! On a fairly recent and random Saturday, I realized in many people's eyes (or, potentially, if they have all the facts), I am a fa...

*** Spoiler alert. ***  Netflix's series You is a journey into the mind of a self-proclaimed "good guy," as in the last good guy in New York, who happens to be a serial killer. He's not just a serial killer, though; he's a guy who has convinced himself he's killing to protect those he loves. He never wants to kill. But he has to. Because he's really just a good guy who is forced into some bad situations, right?  It's hard not to see this as another brick in the wall of the narrative that there are no good guys, a theme that has been running in popular media for a few years now, highlighted most recently by the MeToo and TimesUp movements, movements I wholeheartedly agree are past due. Without getting into the irony that MeToo's great push came out of heathen Hollywood, a town long given over to vices such as giving sex for work (prostitution), let's take a look at how You fits into things.   Let me say first that I agree with the MeTo...

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...

When did I realize I experience the world differently than other people? I've tried to pinpoint when it all began. It must have started in my family unit at an early age, as I don't recall a particular moment of realization. Once my brain stopped trying to find that blip of time, it turned to the possible reasons why I felt so odd. The disconnect I felt from other people and their experiences was a clue that something wasn't right. Although I was a healthy weight and size when I was born, my health began to suffer soon after. I got pneumonia when I was a baby. I didn't grow or thrive like my brothers. In short, I was the runt of the litter.  As time went on, my mother became increasingly frantic about finding solutions for my physical state. It the age of 2.5, I was only 20 pounds. I had terrible digestive problems and couldn't seem to get well. After going to a doctor, it was revealed I had chronic impacted bowels. The doctor, by hand, disimpacted me. This...