Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News

Today is a milestone for many reasons. I look at the things I’ve relinquished over the past few months -- drinking, DSL, driving, dating, Desperate Housewives – and I have some interesting news to report.

My life is pretty much the same ole confusing mess it was before I abandoned petroleum, porn, Passions (the TV show), Popov and passion (the unrequited love). I still do a piss poor job putting away my laundry, JC Penney still wants their money and my love life has started to resemble Harriet Meiers’. Even though I’ve turned off the TV and the internet at home, even though I haven’t started my car’s engine, even though I’ve become more monk than man-whore, I am not (truly) any different.

Now, I am not depressed by any of this that I am sharing with you. It’s just the conclusion that I’ve come through after spending a great deal of time alone thinking, writing, pondering and mulling over half-baked schemes for revenge and world domination. When I am king, things will be different!

But I am not a king, and while I give you full leverage to make your queen joke here, I think it’s more accurate to say that I am simply a slave, and a pretty content one, too.

For the longest time, I felt that I was a slave to Capitalism, to gay-male identity, to consumerism, to apathy, to fear, to hope, to this blog, to other people’s expectations. You name it – I felt enslaved by it. But as I started removing the things that I felt ensnared me, I realized that I was actually, just a slave to my own life, regardless of whatever circumstances, situations or nuanced experiences affected, informed, or changed it.

It seems so very damn obvious that life is just life – but it is a far easier situational dynamic to accept than some other paradigms. For instance, Fundamentalism frightens me, but so does Anarchy. In their extremes, there will, inevitably, be folks who challenge the status quo – so the “one answer fits every question” scenario becomes an absurdist parable – impossible to implement.

I do, however, refuse to believe that folks are (at their core) selfish assholes. I’ve seen and experienced love in my life and I believe that compassion and humanity will win out – or will, at least, always struggle against influences that seek to destroy it.

Yin-Yang, north-south, red-blue, boy-girl, left-right...whatever you wanna call it, there is always a struggle to be found in this world.

That, I see, is the way of life – and rather than choosing one side or the other, I’ve simply chosen to accept that both exist. It’s a new-found objectivity that I am trying to embrace. It is, by no means, simple, although at its premise -- it is.

Simplicity requires acceptance as much as it does control. To keep things simple, you have to choose what you will (or will not) allow to affect or enter your life. You also have to accept that no matter what choices you do make in your life, you are, without a doubt, destined to die.

Accepting death is a very challenging notion. My father’s death ten years ago still haunts my thoughts, as does a litany of personal and emotional losses that this year has presented me. But I know I am not alone in this matter. A friend of mine’s father died this year and another friend’s father is dying. There are no platitudes that will resolve the swirl of emotions that any of us face on a day to day basis. It sucks – it sucks hardcore - and the acceptance of suckage is where I am today.

Some days I just cry when I think about what I’ve learnt and what I’ve lost in my life. It is, at its core, very humbling to admit that I am (in so very many ways) not in control of what happened in a grain silo ten years ago or what happened across the country six months ago, or what happened or will happen in my friends’ lives.

I know I have tried very hard to absolve myself for things I have done in my past – and I continue to try to atone for my wrong doings. I very much want to feel love in my life, yet conspire to create situations that make its presence in my life unattainable.

Today, it would seem, is not a good news day. But neither was yesterday or the day before…

Everywhere there is death and destruction. An Angry Black Bitch asked me if I thought the world was ending. I said no, but that it could, if enough folks were convinced that it was. There’s always a tipping point in such matters. If enough folks abdicate hope, things get worse, if enough folks embrace hope and love, the tide can turn. For every cop that beats the shit out of someone, there’s a cop that saves a life. I’m not saying that makes it all moot, but I will say that every good deed is grounds for hope.

If all you do is seek the bad news, then all you will know is bad news.

I, for one, have grown tired of bitterness and despair. I have grown tired of calling my enemies names. I have grown tired of feeling that everyone is out to get me and that no one cares about anyone else in this world. But I am not Pollyanna in my thinking, either. I accept that there is bitterness, despair, assholism and all sorts of behavior that is at odds with my own moral core. I’ve just chosen to accept its existence rather than concede to it or continue a fruitless effort to combat it.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I no longer fear death. That is still very true. It is very hard to accept that at the moment you die, you could, conceivably, no longer exist. It’s done. It’s finished. You’re gone. That’s it.

Heaven and angels or even coming back as a cricket sounds a lot more promising than that, huh?

But if it is indeed over – then it’s over – and there’s no more fretting, and there’s no more slavery to life. It’s a blessing in the deadliest of disguises. And what I have to accept (and what has been very hard to accept) is that in his death, my father found his release. It is natural that my journey has been complicated by his departure -- but I have also been very selfish in this matter as well. Um....duh....this isn't www.selfless.com -- is it?

Now, trust – I’m not jumping off the ledge for sweet release anytime soon, at least deliberately. Like I said, I'm still selfish.

I’d still like to have a really great romance, or take a trip to Europe (sans bird flu), or write a really good story, or have another sordid adventure – or do any other number of things that I love and enjoy, while I'm still around to enjoy it.

But I have grown to accept, in ways that I would have never imagine, that some ya-hoo could pop a bullet in my head, that some careless driver could hit me with her car, that I could be taken out by an avian strain of flu, that any number of situations could happen that will remove me from this life and end my slavery to it.

It’s an odd sense of serenity, for sure, but it is, I will admit, really calming.

With that in mind, I think about what awaits me today and for the rest of the week and my life, for that matter. There’s a party to go to tonight, a bike ride I’ll share with a new friend, a note I need to write to an old one, a call to my mother that I need to make, a book I need to read, a photo I want to take, a story I’d like to tell, a volunteer task left to complete and some laundry that needs to be put away.

The laundry...well...that’s always gonna be last on my list. Some things in my life are destined to be a mess. I’d rather it be piles of clean and dirty clothes rather than piles of unfulfilled or broken dreams.