What I Count When I Count My Blessings

Macro

Once upon a time I got born
 far, far away...

That didn't go well.  

Pretty cool story, though.  Here's the synopsis in a comprehensive timeline:  It starts in a testicle, then moves to a womb.  Calcium plate shifts in the head to make a soft point, and a slide into light where I'm cradled, and have my foreskin confiscated.  Los Altos.  Tahoe.  Los Altos.  Aptos.  San Diego.  San Francisco.  San Rafael.  Long Beach.   Aptos. 

Fifty-one Falls.  Fifty-one Winters.  Fifty-one Springs.  Fifty-one Summers.  Three false teeth.  Seven years in college.  One college degree that's worth less than a roll of toilet paper from the Dollar Store.  One wife.  One Ex-wife.  Three kids.  One brother.  Three friends.   A chorus of Judges.  Three dogs.  Two cats.  One raccoon.  

A head with some bad memories, and a heart that protects the few that are good.  Thirteen things I did that I'm too ashamed to share with anyone.  Five things I was a part of, of which I'm enormously proud.  Two things I'd like to forget completely, but I can't, because that's not how Life is done.  

Life is always done with a tally.

Five cars.  One motorcycle.  One kayak.  Two bus passes.  Eleven Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with family members from the day I was married, eight of each alone since getting divorced.  

Three really bad habits, one that is very good. 
But I quit doing it.  

One individual's name I can write in the 'who to contact in case of an emergency' box.  Eleven individual names I won't write again. 

Two jobs, no careers.  Twelve years as a stay-at-home dad whose doors were open to lots of stay-at-home kids.  Two serious hobbies.  A half dozen specific past times, and   millions of wandering daydreams.  
One singular passion.

Three sons, two nephews, & one niece.   3 I'm allowed to love. 3 I'm not.  
   One niece, and one nephew, I've never been allowed to meet, and only learned of through my sons, so I'm not certain they can be counted.

One vasectomy.

Far too many of the following to number:  Regrets.  Failures.  Let downs.  Disappointments.  Apologies.  Lies.  Personal issues.  Betrayals.  'What-The-Fucks', and 'Seriously's?!'.

And finally, too few of these to save me:  Reassurances.  Family members to trust.  Days with my sons.  Days without my Father.  Nights alone in a wooded cabin.  Therapists. 

Micro

I haven't decided, yet, whether retrospect provides an advantage for the future.  Nor am I clear on the value of revisiting the past to help understand the present.  Too much of consciousness seems to be outside of the simplistic domain we operate in for me to believe a sheer act of will can change anything.

I was raised in a chaotic household.  My parents engaged in maximum volume shouting matches when friends were over.  My dad would sleep until noon, and leave the list of angry messages I took from his clients on the counter.  Doors were broken from their hinges at 2 a.m. because a dish was left on the counter.  No one set a curfew, or checked to see if you came home.  The pattern of chaos became the equilibrium my mind knew as 'normal', or familiar.

No matter how much I tried to enter its opposite, I couldn't, or I could, but not for long.  In the simplistic realm of my ego I was telling myself how nice it was to be a part of something different.  In the underground, primal world of consciousness, my mind was in panic mode without me knowing.  If it couldn't find equilibrium in the environment sought by ego, it would transform it into its own. 

Those "I don't know why I just did that" moments begin to occur, as do those involving what is said.  Where you were punctual before gives way to diversions that won't allow it.  Where you showed up for people becomes all the ways you let them down, and you have no idea why you're acting this way.  Your mind does: Equilibrium.  You're just in the way of the modifications.  

Willpower may be ineffective against the night moves made by mind, but awareness isn't.  Where the timeline exposes the familiar shape that each outward growing limb will take, it's the revisiting of specific incidents, and the emotions they cemented to your interior, that are the seeds.  

Like when you were a robot for Halloween. 

The robot costume referenced is the one my mom made for me out of a box.  She used a bread knife to cut one hole out of each side panel for my arms to stick through, and one out of the top for my head.  Then she lifted the box, and slipped it over me.  That was it.  That was the entire costume.  

"Hi.  I.  AM. A.  RO.  BOT."   

Naaaah, no I'm not.  I'm a box with three holes in it. 

"Trick or treat!"

There wasn't enough money to buy one of those flimsy, polyester, or nylon, Casper the Friendly Ghost smocks with a plastic face, and my dad was nowhere, or somewhere, not here.  

Who cares?!  
I don't! 

 "I.   AM. A.  Box."

Maybe we should have Trick or Treated for money.

Just sayin'.

Rooted

One simple incident.  If it's one simple incident that never happens again it remains 'one simple incident'.  If it's one on a growing pile it's another anvil to speed up your journey into dark depths. 

If my mom was still alive I'd hug her for the longest time.  I'd say 'Thank You' for my robot costume.  The best robot costume in the history of robot costumes.  

Ever.

This is where an incident becomes a form of Chinese water torture done on the World.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  One thing I stopped counting was the number of times my robot costume memory entered my head.  

If I had to guess, I'd say it's somewhere in the neighborhood of sex thoughts.  Perhaps a little less, but it visits a lot.  And it never comes alone.

If I allow myself to settle into the robot memory it breaks my heart, and floods me with guilt, so I don't.  I turn, and run as fast, and as far away, as I can.  That is still my tactic today, and here's why...

I was only able to see my costume through the 11, or 12 year-old eyes in my head, and all they saw was a box, and Shame.  

• They saw being made fun of by friends. 
• And thinly veiled compliments made by neighbors. 
• They saw shame slipped over the head. 
• They saw me carry it door to door.  
• They saw me become a walking billboard for the desperation, and helplessness, that was my mother's.
• They saw me announce it to the world.

I remember the look on her face when she remembered it was Halloween, and that I had no costume.  I remember her lighting a cigarette, and leaning against the sink as she tried to figured out what to do for a 12-year-old boy soaked in vanity.  

I remember the pain under her forced, tight lipped smile as she slid the box over my head, and proclaimed me a robot.
I remember the shame I felt about wearing it, and the embarrassment of being seen like this by my friends.  This was a part of my family life I wanted to keep private, but oh well. 

I remember wearing my box all night, so I wouldn't hurt the feelings of my mother. 

If she were alive today I'd tell her how grateful I am for all that she did.   

I'd tell her the shame has been repurposed as compassion. 

I'd tell her how sorry I am that she was put in those positions alone, and I'd apologize for my 12-year-old eyes.

I'd tell her my new eyes see her more clearly, now that I'm getting out of my way.

I'd tell her I know 'thank you' isn't enough, but it's all that I have.
I'd tell her how grateful I am that my time as someone's son, was with her.