do yourself a favor

so today is national coming out day in the united states, and as someone who has been out for fifteen years of my own life, i would be remiss if i didn't take the opportunity on this blog to encourage anyone who is struggling with their sexual identity to embrace and be proud of who you are. even if you only "come out" to yourself, you will have made a tremendous step to a better life. accepting within myself that i was gay was the most difficult aspect of my coming out journey and the reason it took so long for me to do so. letting so much of my life pass by before accepting who i am is one of the deep regrets of my life.

and if you are already at the point of acceptance within yourself but have not shared this gift you have with anyone else, i encourage you to find a friend or family member who you know cares about you and you can trust to speak your personal truth aloud. you will be amazed at how liberating it feels to overcome your fear and let the light of revelation into that very dark, secret corner of your soul.

so whether to yourself, one person, or even many people, use this special day to begin a new, better phase of your life. remember, you deserve to be happy and loved and knowing yourself and letting others know the full you is a vital part of making that happen.

moss free

over the past couple of weeks, i've had the opportunity to share the somewhat peripatetic nature of my life (for those who are new, i've lived in 7 states and 17 different domiciles (and counting) in my almost 50 years on this earth). today presented another such opportunity in a meeting with a group of consultants that are working with us on a large project.

upon hearing the statistics i shared above, one of the consultants stated, "well, you know the saying, a rolling stone gathers no moss." to which i responded, "in that case, i am most assuredly moss free."

later, as i contemplated the exchange, i couldn't help but thinking, yet again, that while most of the movement has been prompted by seeking out new career opportunities, when all is said and done, have i lost more than i've gained as a result. in other words, maybe having a little moss would be a fair exchange for a sense of home and belonging in the world.

how will i ever?

it's back again. a heart and mind filled with questioning and doubting. feelings of being inadequate and incapable of coping with all of this stuff that makes up this thing called life. alone and isolated. feeling forgotten and unwanted. it all has come crashing down around me. and i wonder how will i ever be able to get out of bed tomorrow or really ever?

it's a good thing

today is one of those days when i think, "it's a good thing the windows of my office are sealed shut because sailing out of one them sure seems tempting right about now."

so here's the gist of how i'm doing. i'm still experiencing pain in my lower back and now my hip has seemed to join the action. i have a meeting of this project committee that i've just been named to that judging by the last meeting (my first) and the materials that were distributed this morning for today's meeting, it is not likely to be a good experience. meanwhile, i'm trying to sort through how we are going to accomplish all of this work that we need to get done over the next few days and my "mental sorter" seems to be malfunctioning (i guess it doesn't help that i am hopped up on pain relievers).

in short, this is a miserable, miserable day. then again, it seems as if that's the recurring theme for this year with no sign of change in the foreseeable future. i guess it's also a good thing that my home is only a two story.

lost and trapped

i'm starting to not like sundays. at least the kind of sundays i have been having of late.

on this most recent sunday, i was having a continuation of the "drug induced existentialism" that i wrote about in my blog entry on saturday. in addition, i was experiencing the normal sunday pattern of feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work i had awaiting me in the work week to come. "how could i possibly get through the week feeling the way i do now?" i asked myself for what seems like the umpteenth time. it was bad enough to be struggling with the depression, but the back pain on top of it left me feeling utterly defeated and incapable.

i guess the good news is that i work up this morning feeling that i could at least get out of the bed and go into the day. the not as good news is that my back is still achy and my mood as the morning moves on feels a bit wobbly (i thought about writing "shaky" but rolled my eyes at the unintentional rhyming pattern that would have resulted. if that's your thing though please feel free to make the word substitution).

the reality is that i have in fact more than made it through every work week that i did not think i could possibly make it through on the sunday preceding it. and yet on every sunday following i feel that there has been even more of me lost in this whole process of my life.

it's like, in addition to that "lost in the woods" feeling i've described before, i feel trapped in the woods as well. it"s as if no matter how far i manage to travel through the woods, they continue to extend farther and farther around me still. and at the end of the week, all i have for my effort is fatigue, heartache, and lost hope.

and the feeling that the time would be better spent digging a deep hole, climbing in it, and pulling the dirt back around me. it feels like my broken spirit has already done so. maybe the rest of me should just go ahead and join it.