A deep rooted fear of losing those I love...

"Life works in mysterious ways..."

That statement, as generic as it is, carries a lot of weight within the spaces of the words. Life has a way of granting you opportunities, and leading you in directions that seem so promising and full of mystery. It's these mysterious occurrences that make our lives worth while and worth pushing on for more, despite all the pitfalls and catastrophes that plague us all along the way...
           
              Life has a way of bringing people into our lives who make such a deep imprint on our souls that we have a hard time accepting that it's real, or that we deserve them. As a result, subconsciously, we tend to push these people away. There were a number of occasions in particular where I have been guilty of committing such an unforgivable act as to shove away the person who truly loved me for who I was. What more can one ask for than to be loved unconditionally, faithfully and wholeheartedly without hesitation or doubt? What more are we looking for in our lives that ultimately mean more to us than anything else in this world; success, fame, wealth, popularity, acceptance, recognition, than to find that one person who sees us for who we really are and loves us for all our faults, failures, insecurities and neurotic tendencies and loves us for them and for every other shred of our being. As humans we seem to have this flaw in our design where we can never seem to live in the moment. When someone compliments us, points out an aspect of our personalities that in their opinion is the definition of purity. When we're granted a streak of good luck. When someone generously and thoughtfully gives us the exact thing we needed at that exact moment because they feel that we deserve it. We always seem to think "This is too good to be true." or "What price will we have to pay down the line for this?" or, "I don't deserve this." or, "I have done so many horrible things in my life, no matter how much I try to make amends, it will never change what I did." Here's the biggest one: "I don't deserve to be happy."
       
        Alright, enough of the third person observation. This blog is my own and I should allow myself to freely express my feelings. Who's really going to read this anyway, other than me over and over again in the future. I will no longer walk circles around the purpose of this post, the core of the issue, if you will...
                 
                                     I grew up in a country town of Newfield, New York. A hick town, full of republicans, WW2/Korean War/Vietnam Vets and enough discrimination, close-mindedness and blatant prejudice to fill a thousand corn silos. To put it bluntly, if your family didn't live in the town for generations, you weren't white, you weren't inbreeding, or you weren't full blooded American, then you were different and were treated with general distaste and disrespect. My father was from Germany, born in 1939 and grew up terribly poor during World War 2. He came to this country, utilizing every opportunity that was presented to him, whether they be legal or completely illegal. He was sponsored to come to this country to work for the Veterinary Department at some Missouri University. He eventually met my mother in Iowa at Iowa State. My father was 40, a single father with two young sons and an ex-wife whose mind had succumbed to a horrible form  of Schizophrenia. My mother was 24, timid, low self esteem, creative and caring. They married and she helped him raise his two sons, my two older half brothers. She eventually gave birth to my older brother not long after. 6 years and a series of miscarriages later, I was conceived and born on May 1st 1985. Just before I was born, we moved to Newfield. My father suffered from mental health issues, and my mom stood by him through his hair brained schemes and his uncontrollable anger. He became physically, psychologically and emotionally abusive to my mother. I grew up, for the most part, a happy kid. We had a lot of land to run around on, woods surrounding our property, we always had Golden Retrievers and other animals. We didn't have cable tv and I was happy. But behind closed doors, our family was slowly crumbling. Many days I was afraid to come home from school, kindergarten and 1st grade... Some days I would get home and my mother would be screaming while my father tried breaking down the bathroom door to get to her. Once my father locked my mom outside, 7am in the middle of winter. Even though she begged him and pleaded with him to let her in, he locked her out. My mother has terrible asthma, and as a result of his actions, she had an asthma attack. This went on for years, I developed sleep issues. I seemed to always be afraid to sleep because my parents would fight at night and I was afraid if I was asleep I wouldn't hear my mom crying out for help, so I would stay awake at night and listen to them fight and argue, every single night, for years. My brother seemed to develop even more severe emotion issues than I did. He got into drugs at an early age, hung out with kids older than him, couldn't seem to go without having a girlfriend. I came to the breakfast table one morning where we would always sit, eat cereal and walk to the bus stop together. This particular morning my brother had decided to take an overdose of my fathers medication. That was the first time I felt that sense of fear, helplessness, that biting, anxiety inducing fear of loss of a loved on. Lucky I found him and went to tell my father, because we got him to the hospital in time for them to pump his stomach. He was gone for a month in a hospital and came back. After a few more years of dysfunction, my mother called a family meeting. We had never had a family meeting before. During which, my mother told my father that she was leaving him. She had had enough, my father had pushed her too far, she realized she was no longer happy and she was going to take the kids and leave him. My father was distraught. After the meeting, my brother and I went and watched tv. My father left in his jeep. An hour later he drove him and walked into my parents bedroom, said "Well Kathy, I finally did it..." and collapsed on the floor. My father had taken an overdose of every single medication he was prescribed. These were very serious medications, not just controlled substances but also anti-seizure medications and medications that were more toxic to the body than a regular sleeping pill or pain killer overdose would be. He wound up in a coma, on full life support. After 3 days, my father died. When my mother told me, that was the first time I experienced a terrible tendency that would plague me for the next 20 years. I turned to stone emotionally. Part of me withdrew and never returned since. I never cried, I didn't feel anything but cold. It was as if nothing had happened, and everything had happened at the same time. It was horrible. A year later, my brother had a fight with his girlfriend, walked to the house we grew up in and shot himself through the heart with a rifle. His girlfriend had found him. She was worried, went to the house, when she looked in through his bedroom she saw him slumped over but when she pounded on the window he didn't move. She went to the front and broke in through a window and found him. Still sitting up, his head slumped forward, completely pale, with the rifle still in one hand, the but on the floor and the barrel resting against his thigh. I loved my father, there is so much about him that I will never know, I am always learning new things about him that help me figure out who I am. But my brother was a biggest idol. I looked up to him more than anyone else in the world, and his suicide shattered my life completely. My mother took my brothers dead horribly, of course. She hasn't been the same since then either. I spent the next 15 years in therapy. I grew up, had girlfriends, had best friends, played in bands, smoked pot, skipped school, promiscuously had sex with the all the girls that hung out with me and my friends, the typical teen thing. I seemed to have overcome a burden that I felt was weighing me down. Somehow I always felt death looming over me. Like after my father committed suicide, then my brother committed suicide, I felt like I was supposed to be next. Like it was my ultimate fate. It was awful. I still catch myself feeling that way.
                                               
                                          But things seemed to work themselves out. I dropped out of high-school my junior year but got my GED immediately and went to college for Graphic Design. The lasted a semester and then I dropped out due to anxiety and decided to work a string of dead-end jobs instead. I became a cook, working in kitchen after kitchen. It was when I worked for the Lost Dog Cafe, an Italian-American traditional restaurant that also specialized in vegetarian and vegan plates. It was there that I met the only girl I have ever loved. She was young, immature. She would relentlessly try to get me to hang out with her, she was the most annoying girl I had ever met. Finally one day, a co-working who was a transexual/lesbian named Chach I was good friends with convinced me to give her a chance. "What's the worst thing that could happen? You'd have fun." So against my better judgement, I did it. We hung out once, with her friends who ended up leaving us later on, we watched a movie and made out passionately. I remember her sitting on my lap, straddling me. My arms were under her shirt massaging her back under her bra. We hit it off almost immediately. It was like there was this overwhelming spark between us that I had completely neglected to recognize up until that point. I think that's what pushed me away from her again. We didn't hang out again for a few months. I met a couple of other girls that served only as a temporary distraction. In the mean time, apparently she had fallen hard for me after that first night and took my silence really hard. Somehow we managed to start talking and seeing each other again. She was gorgeous, she was just naturally beautiful. Bright fiery red hair, freckles, green eyes, t-shirt and jeans kind of chick. Her body was perfect, not to thick, not too thin. She was creative, expressive, an excellent poet and more open minded than I could have imagined. When we started seeing each other again it didn't take long for things to get serious. We started having sex, although she said she wasn't a virgin I could tell that she was very inexperienced but was ready and willing to learn. I found out later that she had only had sex once before me, and it was an in and out just once kind of thing. One night, we were on my bed, I was laying on top of her, facing each other and talking. She said "I have a confession to make..." I was like "Okay, what is it?" She said "I'm afraid to tell you, I'm afraid of how you'll react." I kinda knew what she was eluding to, but I pushed her to say it anyway. "I love you" She said, then covered her eyes like a little kid. I was kind of put off by her shyness, I would much rather be told someone serious like that and have the person look me in the eyes right after. I didn't want to break her heart, truth was I felt like I still didn't know her well enough to know how I truly felt. Against my better judgement, I moved her hands away, looked into her eyes and said "I love you too." I think she knew that part of me was just saying it, but also part of me had a very easy time saying it, as if I knew that it would not take me long to really fall in love with this girl. Our relationship lasted almost 2 years. Majority of the time was spent very happy. We were perfect together, we always seemed to be on the same page. We always wanted to do the same things at the same time. I would be spontaneous, pick her up from school in my jeep and take her to the museum  of natural history, she was really impressed by that. I did fall in love with her, it didn't take long. Our sex was so full of passion that it seemed like our bodies were made for only one another. We would cum at the same time, it was almost a spiritual experience. I must say, when you orgasm at the exact same moment as the one you love, you feel your souls closer together than any other time, almost as one. We would get each other gifts randomly and spontaneously. I would always feed her and did my best to make her happy. We used to go to the book store and read children's books together or go to the Maternity book section to pick out our favorite kids names. One time a woman had walked by and saw us sitting on the floor together looking over kids names, she stopped and said "I just want to tell you that you two look perfect for each other. You both look so happy together and I wish the best of luck to you." Neither one of us knew what to say, but we just turned and looked into each others eyes, moved by the fact that we really were meant for each other that even a stranger could tell. Slowly, however, I seemed to be unraveling emotionally. It was almost as if I couldn't handle the level of love we had for one another. I found myself becoming progressively moody and unstable. I became possessive and controlling. She tolerated it. I would always say "I'm sorry." and she would accept my apologies. It got bad fast. I couldn't handle her hanging out with her guy friends, soon it became any of her friends. I expected her to always want to be with me. We became codependent on one another. It was unhealthy and neither of us realized it. My insecurities seemed to be eating me up inside, and always she was left to help piece my mind back together for me and smooth over the wrinkles. Then the abuse took a more sinister depth. There were times I would talk about dying, what she would do if I died. I would tell her she couldn't be with anyone else after me if I died. I made her cry so many times, she hated hearing me talk about it. One time I made her cry so hard she collapsed on her knees to the floor, begging and pleading with me to stop. Even that wasn't enough for me to realize what I was doing was wrong. It was horrible. I had finally met the one person who loved me for who I was, I finally met the perfect girl for all her imperfections. We were going to get married, she was going to have my children. A few months before we broke up, I started getting better. It seemed like something in my mind had changed and I didn't feel the need to put so much pressure on her all the time. I even picked out an engagement ring for her. She didn't want a really expensive one, she would have been happier with a ring from a 25 cent machine. I found a cheap ring from an Indian jewelry store. It was weaved with very fine silver, almost braided. I knew exactly what her measurement for her left ring finger. It was going to fit her just right. One day I picked her up from school and we only had a few hours to hang out before she had to be to work. It was one of the best, and happiest days we had ever had together, we were both just so content that day. When she had to leave for work, I walked her to my front door, kissed her and told her I would call her later. I went upstairs to my room and the only thing I could think of doing was open up my drawer where her ring was. I picked it up and thought to myself, "If I don't do it now, then we will never get married." I knew it was the perfect time. I even had a romantic setting and evening picked out for my proposal but this felt different, the timing just felt right. I ran downstairs and out my front door and met her just as she was opening her car door. She turned to me, surprised and not understanding what I was doing until I reached for her left hand. I looked her in the eye and pulled the ring out of my pocket. I gently took her finger and slid the ring on her ring finger. She had tears in her eyes, I could see it. I sensed how unbelievably happy and relieved she was. I opened my mouth to ask her "Katie Fives, will you marry me?" But I froze. All at once, I lost control of my vocal chords, my minds slate wiped clean all while a million insecurities and doubts ran through my mind, each one telling me I didn't deserve her. We stood there for a moment, she waited for me to ask, I could see it in her eyes. But the moment came and went, and the words never came... The look on her face went from unbelievable happiness, to confusion and hurt. I was too afraid. I knew she would say yes, yet I still couldn't bring myself to ask her. All I wanted was for that moment to be perfect, and I sabotaged it with my insecurities. We both parted awkwardly. She got in her car, and I turned around and slowly walked back into my house. My face was beat red, I hated myself more at that moment than I ever had before. I blew it. The moment was there, and it went and I just let it pass me by. A couple of months passed and nothing was said about that evening. One day I went to call her and she didnt answer. We hadn't gone a day without talking in what seemed like months. I didn't talk to her again until a day later, she was crying. All she could tell me was "I'm sorry... I'm sorry. I just can't talk to you right now. I'm sorry." I thought maybe something had happened, maybe she needed space. Maybe this, maybe that. Completely oblivious to the reality and severity of the situation. A couple more days passed and we hadn't spoken. Finally I got a call from her. She was cold and short. All she said was "I need to talk to you, meet me at Dewitt Park." Immediately I knew. It was over. I could just tell, I felt it, I felt my life shifting in a completely different direction, one that was terrifyingly bleak and dark, and mysterious. Dewitt Park was only a few blocks away, so I got in my car and drove down there. She was all the way in the back, sitting on a park bench nearest the back park exit. She was looking away, she wouldn't watch me walking up to her. I sat down, already slightly trembling. Hoping and praying that the worst wasn't about to happen. All she said was "It's over. I can't be with you anymore." Like a knife through the dark, a cold blade that was half expected yet nonetheless shocking. Once more I found myself at a loss for words. We sat for a moment, and she got frustrated. "Don't you have anything to say?!" She cried out. All these things were going through my mind, all the ways I could try to talk her back into staying with me, but deep down each one seemed completely futile. Her decision was made, without me, that much was painfully obvious. I may or may not have said "What can I say?" Eluding to the thoughts going through my mind. Right then she stood up and started walking away. I got up and ran after her, calling out her name. "Katie wait! Katie!" I grabbed her by the shoulder and she swung around, pushing my hand away. The look on her face at that exact moment was such as this "Don't you ever touch me again. I hate you. I never want to see you again. Fuck off and die" all rolled into one. The look on her face was full of anger, a look in her eyes like a feral animal on the offense. I was so shocked I actually took a few steps backwards in disbelief. She turned around and ran out and got into a car, the driver pulled off and drove away.
                                           
                                       It turned out that a family friend of her father, Janelle, who was a huge influence on Katie being raised, had talked her out of our relationship. Somehow she had said all the right things to convince her. Maybe that was all she needed, was someone to make the decision for her that she didn't have the courage to make on her own. She shut me off after that day, I tried calling obsessively trying to tack her down. At one point she answered and screamed into the phone "Stop calling me!" I started cutting again that day. When I got home, my arms were covered in knife cuts. I was a cutting growing up, you see. It took me a year of intense DBT therapy to overcome the compulsion and thousands of dollars in sessions, thrown away in a blink of an eye. Something went off in my mind. Something deep down, subconscious. As if a part of me, a dark and sinister part of me was waiting for this day and knew exactly what to do. I had already experimented freely with drugs and by that time was a regular pothead. But within weeks I had started using pills, pain killers mostly. Some time went by, we started talking again. The pills helped me create the illusion that I was doing alright without her. She on the other hand, was not taking the separation well. She told me later that she was crying herself to sleep every night being without me. Part of her wanted to take back what she did, part of her wanted so much to be back in my arms. But a bigger part of her, a more mature part, knew that too many pieces had be lost to be put back together. One night she was getting high with some friends of her in a car, and she started crying hard. A guy friend knew exactly what she was going through and said "Why don't you just go back to him. You know he still loves you." That night, at 1am, I seemed to be just waiting for something. Any other night I would have been stoned out of my gourd, fighting to numb the pain, zoning out to my music, but not that night. I got a call, answered it. It was Katie. She spoke the words I had been waiting to her for months. "Can I come home?" and I sighed. "I've been waiting." I said. We had a good night, but it seemed to fizzle out fairly quickly. We consciously tried to work things out, I tried my hardest to handle my emotions, not let them take me over, I tried so so hard to be better. One day after we went to the Trumansburg fair, we went to Friendlys together, which had been an old haunt of ours for dinner. She grabbed my hands and said. "I don't think this is going to work. I can't be with you." I remember feeling that pain again, another blade piercing an already bruised and beaten healing heart. I remember my emotions just taking over, a well erupting. It started with one hard tear. It didn't stream from my eye, it dropped heavily down my face. I remember the look on her face, of desperation, of guilt and empathy, her eyes followed that tear down my face. I could see she was fighting with herself but that's how it ended. There were a few more times we went back and forth, talking here and there. The one thing that remained fairly consistent was the sex, but isn't it always the last thing to go? I vaguely remember a time I was talking to her on the phone while I was at work, I told her anytime she missed me or looked up the hill at the clock tower she could think of me because I worked in a dining hall just below it. She started crying that night. I respect her for that, she fought hard to be strong enough to do what she knew was best for her. I can't blame her for ending it, although I suppose there were things she could have done to make it easier on both of us. I can only blame myself for the failure of that relationship. After all, she loved me loyally and faithfully and never doubted me for the longest time until I started doubting myself. The last time we had sex, she came over and we fucked, it wasn't even sex, it was just fucking. She insisted on doing it doggie style the whole time, what could be more primal that having sex doggie style where you can't look each other in the eyes. That night, while I slept, she got up out of bed and put her clothes on. I woke up, sensing her absent body next to mine just as she was putting on her shoes. I said "Where are you going?" She said "I'm leaving." and that was it. That was the end of it all.
                               
                            As time went on, without her I slipped into a deep depression. That deep dark feeling came back, it took me a while to realize what it was. It was that dark cloud looming over me again. Something in my mind, like a switch, flipped on when that relationship ended. It was like death was whispering to me "Now it's your turn to end it all. Pick your poison." And I did. First it was the pills, pain killers, then benzo's, then a combination of everything. Fentanyl, Methadone, Morphine, the heavy stuff. My best friend and I discovered Heroin together. He shot me up for the first time. Then it was all over. I had found my poison. It just felt right. I made the decision that if it was my turn to commit suicide, it would be by ODing on Heroin. Afterall, why would you want to go out any other way? An intense and comforting euphoria, completely painless, then you sleep, your heart slows down, your breathing slows to a stop. You slip away while unconscious and then it's over. That was how I would do it. But then things changed, I discovered Heroin served a purpose in covering my emotional pain, while helping me feel good physically and keeping my thoughts at bay. It helped my creativity, it helped me discover that being independent and alone was okay. There were times when my depression would get the best of me. I would save up enough money to buy enough Heroin where if injected all at once, would guarantee a successful overdose. I wouldn't want to OD, stop breathing, have severe brain damage and end up a vegetable... No it had to be done right. But then I would get it all. I would stand there staring at all the Heroin I had, and think to myself "Why would I want to kill myself when I have everything I need right here?" As terrible as my addiction was, I can honestly say that Heroin was the only thing keeping me alive during all those years of pain. I became a hardcore junkie, the whole kit in kaboodle, stealing, wheeling and dealing. Shooting, trackmarks, cotton fever, even caught the dreaded Hep-C so commonly associated with IV drug users. I maintained that for nearly 5 years before the legal system stepped in and forced me to get clean. I had to make the decision to either get clean and have my freedom, or continue using and be eventually thrown in jail or prison. The fear of losing my freedom as a human being luckily was stronger than my desire to continue shooting dope... I spent the next 3 years in consistent treatment. A series of relapses and finally one April 26th 2010, was the last time I shot Heroin. Ever since, I have never picked up a needle, or a bag of dope or even a pain killer. Not only did I survive a breakup and loss of someone I loved deeply to the point where I felt like she had died, I survived the looming seemingly destined fate of suicide and suicidal behaviors and tendencies, I survived a hardcore addiction to drugs and succeeded in overcoming one of the hardest things anyone could ever possibly do, kick a Heroin addiction and fixation to sticking syringes in my body. Now in a few days I will be 28 years old, I have overcome the dreaded 27 club made popular by such famous tragic drug addicts as Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin. But as of 4 and 1/2 hours ago, I have 3 years clean from Heroin. I am happier now than I have ever been my entire life. I have a future, I have an incredible talent for artistic expression, and I have my whole life ahead of me and I have complete control of it. If someone was to ask the generic question "If you could, would you do it all over again?" and my answer would be: "Well, that depends. Is Destiny so strong that no matter what decisions I made I would end up at the same place? Or if that isn't the case, then I would say 'Yes' with the exception of a few things. I wouldn't make the worst mistakes I made before, again. I wouldn't have hurt the ones I love so bad to push them away and cause them pain, I wouldn't have hurt most of all myself."
                                                  If anyone ever actually reads this whole post, then I commend you on finding my life so interesting as to wade through my past 28 years of tragedy and heartache. Maybe one day I'll be a well known artist, known for innovating my own particular style along the lines of my biggest influences like Salvador Dali, H.R. Giger, Chet Zar or Alex Grey. Hopefully the fate of my art won't follow along the lines of another huge influence, Vincent Van Gogh who died poor and unhappy, only to become famous after his death. Point is, maybe one day people will actually want to read this because they want to know more about who I am and what I went through. All I know is, by typing this, I'm able to put all my past woes to rest and finally move on. It almost like when a therapist gives you advice when it comes to making amends with someone who's dead. They'll tell you to write the letter, then burn it. Well that's kinda like what I'm doing, but instead of burning it, I'm posting on the internet where I know it will remain forever. That way I know my past is and was my past, it will always be there, but no longer there to haunt me. As a result of my experiences, I have spent the last 7 years of my life single. I have not allowed myself to get into another relationship until I have figured out all my issues. And if after 7 years of working to overcome my issues and still not quite being there yet, then holy fuck I must have had a lot of fucking issues! Haha! The reason I've done this is because I understand now that we are meant to love more than one person in our lives. There's no such thing as your One True Love. There is, however, such thing as your First Love, that would be Katie. I want to be happy, I want to find a beautiful girl who loves me unconditionally and faithfully, I want her to be my wife, the mother of my children and to put it bluntly: I don't want to fuck it up this time. Oh, and one more thing. A year after Katie and I broke up, we happened to get together one night to talk. For the most point the whole thing was pointless, but I promised myself if I ever got the opportunity, I would ask her "If I had asked you that day, 'Will you marry me?' What would you have said?" and that night I asked her. We were sitting on the stoop of a catholic church, both of us in torn jeans and t-shirts, chains and piercings, overflowing with personal style, smoking cigarettes. She turned and looked at me, then looked forward and said...

 "Yes. I would have said Yes."

The free love of Marty Balin and The Airplane

Todays post is dedicated to not only a founder of Jefferson Airplane, one of the most important bands of the psychedelic movement, but also a founder of the free love and cultural revolution of the late 60's and early 70's... Marty Balin. 
His heavy mutton chops, dark denim jacket, bell bottom jeans and neckerchief were his trademark, along with his mega-octave range that complimented and harmonized with Grace Slicks middle eastern influenced vocal style. Keeping with his reputation for fighting for his free rights as a human being and artist/musician, Balin was knocked unconscious during an infamous festival at the Altamont in 1969 for protecting a fan that was being beaten down by the Hell's Angels who acted as security. This started a chain reaction of violent outrage by fans and bikers alike, ending in the deaths of 4 fans, one in particular who was murdered on camera by a Hell's Angels member. In 1968, Marty Balin and Grace Slick led their band to play "House at Pooneil Corners" on the roof of a New York City apartment building. They locked the doors so police wouldn't be able to force them to stop playing. The song, know for it's heavy, hard hitting riffs rocked the entire building and grabbed the attention of anyone who resided within 4 blocks in all directions of the building and could be heard for miles. Marty Balin was and always will be a symbol of the late 60's and his impact one music and the American culture will be felt for many more years.

....And for those of you who are curious about the previously mentioned gig on top of an NYC apartment building, here's a link to the video. Enjoy House at Pooneil Corners !!!