I hit 50 years old today. All those years ago, during my parent’s darkest days, they were told I wasn’t supposed to make it. I wasn’t supposed to be alive. Yet I am still here.
This isn’t to say that there haven’t been times during the intervening years of survival of the damnest rebel hellions such as myself when I stayed totally out of the woods. The pre-IBS diagnosis scare when I was crapping out all of the food I was eating and losing weight scared both me and my Mom to great lengths.
I nearly got beaned in the temple by a foul ball at Civic Stadium back in the ’80s when I worked as an usher for the Eugene Emeralds. I felt the air go by me even though I had my head turned the other way.
I have suffered great pains of losing close ones. The death of my Dad was a deck clearer. I have lost many animal friends which have caused me great heart pain.
I have had colds that seemed to take forever for me to get over.
I have endured a run since 1996 of long-term stress of being in bad apartment situations and then the famous Z house situation of 16 neighbors in 12 years of my living there. I endured the last terrible neighbor I had who was a meth-head and complete jerk. My health was giving out during the attempted selling and eventual sale of the house. And then the worst part was losing Sheba-my trenchmate through all of the shit.
I have even survived my own self. As I have said before, I came very close to committing suicide in April over losing Sheba and the stress of wondering if I was going to get out of that hell-hole or not.
I have now moved and I’m still dealing with the stress of it.
And yet, on this this day of my 50th birthday, I’ve been having thoughts about Sheba and my Mom run through my head all day.
I can see the look in my Mom’s face lately. She is amazed that I am still here. I still see the look of concern on her face as I am getting ready to undergo yet another ordeal not terribly long from now (which I will not detail until after the fact).
There’s been an image in my mind that I can’t stop thinking about today. I have mentioned it in my old blog over at blogspot. But I can’t stop thinking of my Mom and I on the top of the upstairs stair landing at my first house I ever lived in back in Santa Clara on Franklin Street. I can still see Mom trying to help teach me how to tie my shoes in vain as that particular day of trying ended in failure. Plus, I ended up learning how to tie my shoes which involved a compromise. I developed a way of tying them that went against the proper way I was supposed to do it. It puzzled my Mom, but it worked.
And someday, before my Mom will eventually pass away, I hope that she will see me with a woman with whom I will puzzle in much the same way when she’s teaching me things. And then she will learn that some of my variations work. My Mom and her will talk about them and then smile over the puzzle that is me.
I am thinking about the music I’ve listened to over the years. I cannot but help think that so much of that music has reflected my dreams. As I was driving home tonight and the moon was watching over me (or was it really Sheba’s eye as I spoke to her?) and I blew kisses at it, I heard “Tiny Dancer” from Elton John on the radio and thought to myself that I am the music man she will meet in the song.
How have I survived? How is it that I have not really changed all that much ever since I was a kid? How is it that I still have the same body I had when I was in High School? How have I managed to stand after so many personal trials I’ve gone through? How am I surviving the ones I’m still going through today. I can’t say what some of these things are for common sense safety reasons. I’ve hinted at a few of them in the past.
Am I out of the woods yet? Is this my last decade? Will I see another 50? I don’t know. My biggest fear is to go on this ride alone. There has to be a change coming soon even with the pending changes I know of already.
My birthday wish today was directed at Sheba. I just old her that I hope she’s happy in Heaven and that she and I will be reunited again someday.
I have other wishes running through my mind too. As time goes on, I dream of having some kind of advocate-whether legal/and or financial or otherwise. I need to eventually have somebody at my side to help me stand up to outside adversity in the form of strangers seeking to take advantage of me, threatening harm to me and my way of living. I need to have somebody who also sees through the people I meet and for them to help me more clearly see who my friends are and which people are not. I feel as if I’m losing my touch in figuring out whom to trust anymore. I also need to have an advocate of some sort who will protect me from internal attacks as well for preventative measure. I have lived a life which may be irritating to some and they may be waiting to strike out at me out of jealousy. I have done nothing to these people. I will do nothing against these people as long as they respect the uniqueness of my situation. I will do nothing to change their way of living as long as I am allowed my equal share of the living.
I have turned 50. I have a little bit tougher a skin now than when I was 40, but I feel more vulnerable than ever. I have found myself turning ever more inward. If I turn further inward, I would at least like to find someone special to keep myself from turning all the way inward. An advocate can help stem this feeling long enough until she comes in. And then I will still want to retain them.
I am sorry that my writing has now turned vague. But my situation is more precarious than you may be aware of.
I thank God for my Mom. I am thankful for my friend Elena. I am thankful for my phone friend Rick. I wish more of you would come out of the woodwork and be back in my life in a more full-time position. I am scared that you might think being in my life is somehow going to wreck you emotionally in some harmful way.
I will carry on. I guess I’ve been doing that all along. I’m surviving. I don’t know how, but I am. I love all of you who love me. I love those of you who should be in my life but are not.
I am going to enjoy the rest of the night off. I’m on my two -nights off of music listening so that my ears can recover from any shifts I put them through. I am about to go off and read for the rest of the evening. And I will dream that there are some of you who are going to come back into my life and be there on a regular basis. I am going to dream of having that advocate to protect me. I will keepdreaming of the lady who is going to walk into my life. I will have my new dog. And I will continue to love my dear Mom. I hope I will never get into a situation where I consider killing myself again. But now that I’ve tasted the temptation, I know that I’m not completely out of the woods. But there’s just enough to keep myself going for the time being.
I send my love to all of you who bothered reading this. There’s likely a few people who will read this with whom I don’t like and wish I never had any contact with again. But they will do what they do anyway and get some kind of sick pleasure of this.
I am alive. There are others suffering greatly compared to my measly little life. I am grateful for the little fragments of happiness I have found. I will be grateful for the snippets in the near future.
And it’s like David Essex sang back in 1974. “And where do we go from here?/Which is the way that’s clear/Still lookin’ for that blue-jeaned baby queen/Prettiest girl I ever seen/See her shake on the movie screen Jimmy Dean
Take Care Everybody.
