Unfolding (Blog #762)

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It’s ten-thirty at night, and I’m house sitting for a friend, a different one than I house sat for last weekend. I spent the day at home–Mom and Dad’s–and have been here (where I’m house sitting) for several hours now. It’s the cutest place, this old house with low ceilings and kitchen sinks. Earlier I stood up out of the recliner in the living room and almost hit my head on the ceiling fan. I thought, Holy crap, I’ve grown! All that stretching must be paying off. But then I remembered it was just a matter of “everything’s relative.”

The little-ness of the house really makes it feel cozy, comfortable, and safe, like a cocoon. My therapist and I talked recently about how my room at my parents’ was basically the same thing, a protected place for me to grow, to transform. That’s how this house feels, like a little getaway right in the middle of town, a place where I can hang out with my friends’ animals, sit on their porch and sip coffee, and read.

Reading. That’s what I’ve been doing all day, all damn day. This afternoon I finished a book I started last night about the world between 1650 and 1720, when pirates, or buccaneers, sailed the seas, and how a large number of pirates were homosexuals, either because they were born that way or because there aren’t a lot of other options when you’re stuck on a ship for years at a time. This is something I never learned from Disney’s The Pirates of the Caribbean, the fact that they didn’t call it the Jolly Roger for nothing.

After finishing that book, I started another one this evening–about alchemy and how it relates to personal/spiritual transformation. This is an off-and-on fascination for me, the idea that we can change the lead in our lives into gold. I just like the metaphor. It resonates with me. Anyway, I read tonight until I got to the point in the book that included visualization/meditation exercises that are meant to be built upon–like you do one one day, then another the next. And whereas I’m excited to learn and try new things (and it never hurts to slow down, close your eyes, and breathe), I wish I could just read the damn book and be done with it.

Technically, I could. I realize that not every suggested exercise in a book is a “required” exercise. But I do like trying them. I mean, there’s a part of me that, believe it or not, would be content to just read, read, read all the time and learn, learn, learn. But learning isn’t just head-stuff. At some point, if it’s gonna make a difference, it’s gotta be embodied. Take dance for example, it isn’t just something you talk about, although you can. It’s something you DO. In my experience, it’s the same with personal growth. You have to live it. Hell, if all it took to be mentally and emotionally healthy was to post a meme about it, the world would already be a better place.

Unfortunately, growth takes more than just talking about it. As my therapist recently said, “It takes more than buying a Brene Brown book.” Personally, despite the fact that I love to read about personal growth, the only reason it’s more than a concept for me is because I’ve matched my reading with actions. Over the years this has looked like anything from a number of different meditation practices to having tough conversations, setting boundaries, and even ending relationships. And crying. I’ve cried a lot. Tonight it looked like a visualization exercise, an exercise I’m probably going to have to try a few times before I decide whether or not it’s doing any “good.”

This is my main gripe with books or teachers that give you exercises to do–if you do all of them every day, it eats up a lot of damn time. For example, for three months after knee surgery I not only did my rehab exercises every day, but also a form of meditation and writing for this blog. But recently I dropped the form of meditation in favor of other things (including going to bed) because it was just too much. That’s the pressure I’d like to take off, the idea that you have to do everything you start for the rest of your life. My inner student gets so excited about learning and thinks it has to do things “perfectly.” But that’s ridiculous–there’s no such thing as perfection. Plus, learning it should be fun, not burdensome.

I repeat–learning should be fun, not burdensome.

And another thing–I’ve already read more and learned more than some people ever have or will (a gay pirate, for example). So again, “everything’s relative.”

Earlier I took a break from reading to eat dinner and starts tonight’s blog. While I was in the kitchen, I let my friend’s cat in from outside, and he’s* been basically glued to me every since. I swear, he lay on the kitchen table eyeing me eat like he’d never seen a taquito before. As I’ve been writing, he’s been in and out of my lap. Y’all, it is so hard to type with a feline sprawled across you. That being said, his purring and stillness remind me to slow down, to not rush, to let all things, including myself, unfold in their own time.

[*I honestly have no idea whether my friend’s cat is a boy or a girl. It’s so hard to tell these days.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"When you’re authentic, your authenticity is enough. You don’t need to compare."

On Memories and Imagination (Blog #757)

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This morning I woke up at six-thirty (six-thirty!) to walk my friend’s dog and pick up its poop from the neighbor’s yard. Talk about my glorious life. (Don’t be jealous.) But really, it’s not like it was oh-my-gosh awful or anything. I mean, yeah, it was a little chilly, and I forgot to take a jacket. But the sun was up, the birds were chirping (as the dog was crapping), and spring was in full-bloom. Hell, I even saw a lady out running (running!). Apparently people do this–move, on purpose, with purpose, before seven.

Wonders never cease.

After a short walk with my friend’s dog (maybe twenty minutes?), I went back to bed. Passed out hard for four more hours. Well, not that hard. The dog woke me up several times. You know, they get excited and start barking about any ordinary old thing–passing cars, jumping bunny rabbits, the urge to urinate. My parents’ dog does this, goes absolutely bat-shit crazy every time someone walks by the front window. You think she’d never seen a Girl Scout before. Animals–it’s like everything is new to them.

Since waking back up, I’ve spent the day doing some odd-job work on my computer, as well as watching Netflix–Brene Brown (The Call to Courage) and John Mulaney (Kid Gorgeous at Radio City). John Mulaney was funnier. That being said, he IS a stand-up comedian. Brene Brown is a shame researcher and author. So it’s not really fair to compare them. But then again, life’s not fair.

Or so they say.

Last night and this afternoon I started reading and got through the bulk of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Three Questions. (Ruiz wrote The Four Agreements. He has a thing with numbers.) And whereas I’m still processing the book as a whole, I’d like to briefly mention a couple things. One, Ruiz says that our memories are a tool we can use, that they should “teach, not torture us.” To me this means that memory can remind me that the stove can burn me and that certain people can too. It tells me, We’ve been down this road before, and it doesn’t end well. In this way, memory can be my teacher and serve its proper function. But when I’m using my memory to go over-and-over a horrific event, or replay something nasty someone said to me, or beat myself up for something I did twenty years ago, I’m misusing it.

Ruiz says we can likewise use our imaginations to help or harm us. That is, we can imagine how we’d like to decorate a room or where we’d like to take our lover to dinner, or we can just as easily imagine that we’re going to get sick and die or that someone (a friend or even a total stranger) hates us. Imagining something good is just as easy as imagining something bad. Well, maybe imagining something good is more difficult if you’ve had a lot of practice at imaging something bad, but, at least in theory, imagination, like memory, is simply a neutral tool, and we each get to decide how we want to use it.

I repeat–we each get to DECIDE how we want to use it.

Recently I read Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson, and Rick suggests the following exercise. First, center yourself. (He suggests closing your eyes, focusing on your breath, and simply noticing any sounds, thoughts, emotions, etc.) Then open your eyes and tell yourself, “I just arrived on the planet with a head full of ideas and memories to which I can give whatever importance I choose.”

I love this idea of just arriving on the planet five minutes ago. I “imagine” it’s what dogs and children must feel like–everything is new, bright, beautiful, and exciting. Honestly, I think it’s how we’d all see the world if we weren’t caught up in our heads, obsessing, worrying. But I also like the second part of the exercise, that we can CHOOSE (decide) what the ideas and memories in our heads mean. Recently I told my therapist about losing my cool with a camper at summer camp when I was seventeen and how I’ve felt bad about it ever since. “It sounds like you acted like a seventeen year old,” she said. “I’d let that go.” So I am. I’m moving the event from the “big deal” category in my head to the “that used to be a big deal, but it’s no longer a big deal, and I learned something from it” category. Because there’s no need to continue to punish myself in this present moment over something that’s, well, a figment of my imagination.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"

Sometimes you have to give up wanting something before you can have it.

"

Every Square Inch (Blog #355)

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First, before I say anything else, let me say this. Praise God and all the saints, spring has officially arrived. That’s right, it’s the spring equinox. Today marks the point at which each day will become progressively sunnier, progressively warmer for the next three months. I can’t tell you how excited this makes me and how hopeful, especially considering what a serious bitch this last season has been. So hang a basket of flowers on your front door or put a bird on your shoulder–hell, buy some Claritin–but whatever you do, let’s mark this auspicious occasion. Winter is finally over.

The wicked witch is dead!

Okay, now let’s talk about something personal. As I’ve mentioned several times over the last week, I have this rash, a super-irritated and itchy section of my body that has been driving me crazy non-stop for a while now. I’ve been saying that it’s located “where no one wants a rash,” but I’m just going to go ahead and be more specific–the rash is on my junk, or as my mom (the nurse) taught me to say when I little–my scrotum. I’ve been hesitant to put this fact in writing, partly because it’s a little embarrassing and partly because (believe it or not) I do consider some things in my life private and sacred. Like, I don’t wake up on the regular and think, I know what I’m going to do today–I’m going to get on the internet and tell the entire digital world that my balls look like an angry apple.

(Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t consider it classy.)

That being said, my standards have been rapidly declining recently. Hell, in the last week alone, in an effort to figure this problem out, I’ve called up two doctors and one nurse on the phone and essentially said, “I don’t make it a habit of saying this to everyone, but let’s talk about my dick.” Unfortunately, none of the conversations have led to a solution, but the good thing that came from all of them was this–not one of the people I spoke to was as embarrassed by my situation as I was. Rather, the feeling I got from them was, this is pretty routine for us. Like, come back when you grow a third testicle.

A few years ago I saw a urologist for what ended up being non-bacterial prostatitis. The doctor said he was 99% sure my prostate wasn’t infected, but that we should check anyway. Well (in plain English), that required him to stick his finger up my butt, and whereas I might have been down for that sort of thing on a Friday night, I wasn’t exactly prepared for it on a Tuesday morning, what with the harsh lighting in the exam room and all. (I would have preferred candles.) But still, beggars can’t be choosers. (As the exam was happening I was like, “This is seriously what you do for a living?” And he was like, “Yeah, it’s not the easiest thing to talk about at Thanksgiving.”) Anyway, my point is this–had their been a meal involved before my prostate exam, I would have been ready to introduce this guy to my family, but it was all in a day’s work for him.

He probably doesn’t even remember my name.

But back to my junk.

Part of the reason I’m talking about my junk is that after almost a solid year of writing this blog, I’m coming around to the idea that we all have it. (Junk in general, not my junk specifically.) What I mean is that, yes, we all have physical junk, private parts we often consider embarrassing. But we also have emotional junk we keep to ourselves because we somehow believe “I’m the only one” or “No one would understand.” But having spent the last year openly and honestly discussing my fears, insecurities, and challenges (as well as my dreams and desires), I no longer believe these beliefs are good excuses to keep everything inside. Since not once has someone responded to even one of my most intimate posts by saying, “You’re a complete freak–I’ve never felt that way,” I’m convinced we’re more similar than different.

One of the great things that’s come out of this blog project is that I’m much (much) less embarrassed or ashamed than I used to be. I’m honestly not worried about telling anyone–anyone–that I’m gay, that my nut sack feels like it’s sitting on a family of fire ants, or that there are still days when my sweat smells like Easter eggs–because all of these things are true. Along these lines, my therapist and I recently had a conversation about vulnerability, a hot topic in the self-help world lately, largely due to the work of Brene Brown. I said, “My experience lately is that I don’t feel vulnerable when I tell someone something ‘private’ about me because I’m no longer afraid of their reaction. I’m no longer worried about how they’ll respond.”

“Right,” my therapist said. “When I think of someone who is vulnerable, I think of someone who is weak or unable to help themselves, like a child or someone being held captive or abused. But people who know who they are and aren’t afraid to speak their truth don’t feel weak or vulnerable when they do so–they feel strong.”

But back to my junk.

After a solid week of my junk itching and burning and a few days of my inner thighs itching, I thought, Maybe this has something to do with my boxer-briefs. So last night when I got home from Houston I asked my parents, “By any chance, did you start using a new laundry detergent?” Well, as it turns out, they did–about a month ago. Convinced the new detergent was the culprit, I took a shower then went to bed without any clothes on. Y’all, this morning things looked and felt significantly better. Not like perfect, but also not like an angry apple.

A distinctly upset apple, perhaps.

This afternoon I taught dance, so that means I had to put clothes on. (I’m not a complete animal.) I found a pair of underwear I haven’t worn in a while (and therefore would have been washed with the old detergent) so I wore those. And whereas things “flared up” after a couple hours of sweating and moving around, they’re still not currently as bad as they were yesterday or the day before. I guess I’ll see what the dermatologist recommends tomorrow, but I for one think the solution to my problem is simple–join a nudist colony. I mean, it is spring now, and clearly Junior could use some fresh air.

If you want to know the truth, I’ve given Junior a lot of grief over the years, either for not being “the right size” or looking “the right way” or “not working right” (I have a small bladder). In other words, I’ve been critical of Junior. But to be clear, I’ve been critical about a lot of my body parts. Actually, there’s probably not a square inch of my body that I haven’t been critical of at some point in my life. Like, I think my nose is “too big,” my back is “too round,” and my nipples stick out “too much.” But after a week of my junk feeling absolutely miserable, I’ve realized two things. First, there isn’t a square inch of my body that can’t make me miserable or shut me down in an instant should it decide to stop working or flare up. Second, the moment any part of my body stops working or goes wrong, all my thoughts about physical appearance and “too much” or “not enough” cease to matter. If they don’t, I’m not in enough pain. Because when I’m really physically miserable, I don’t care what I look like–I just want things to function as they did before.

Surely this is an innocent mistake…

For these reasons, I’m determined to be kinder to myself, to stop criticizing all the parts of my body that, for the vast majority of my life, have done nothing for me but work. Better said, they’ve done nothing for me but serve. My legs and feet take me where I want to go, my arms and hands dance with and hold the people I love, my big nose helps me breath, and my junk provides me daily relief and–sometimes–a lot of fun. All this my body does for me while asking nothing in return, even when I’m embarrassed by it or think it should be different than it is in this moment (as if that’s even possible). Surely this is an innocent mistake on my part, looking at a perfectly beautiful body and somehow finding it shameful, wanting it to be more or less than it is, being anything but grateful for every square inch of myself.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Why should anyone be embarrassed about the truth?"

That Which Is Scary (Blog #236)

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Currently it’s two in the morning, and Mom and Dad are in bed. The house is quiet, I’m at the kitchen table, and the most interesting thing I can find to talk about is the plant sitting next to me–the one my therapist told me to buy a couple months ago. Recently a new stem appeared. It’s tiny, but it’s taller than the others. The way its leaves are folded back, it reminds me of a rocket ship. To me it looks full of potential, and I wonder what will become of that new stem, haw far its leaves will spread out one day. And where did it even come from? I swear it wasn’t there five days ago. Honest to god, it’s like I’m sitting next to a miracle.

Today has been all over the place. I’m coughing less than yesterday, but I still feel like crap. There’s just no better way to say it. I know I was pretty pessimistic in yesterday’s blog, and some of that bad attitude leaked into today. Objectively I know that life will improve and everything isn’t all bad, but it certainly hasn’t felt that way. I’ve talked to my therapist about this before, and she says, “When you’re off in the body, you’re off in the mind.” To me this means I simply don’t have access to my best thinking when I’ve been sick for five weeks straight. So for now I’m trying to hang in there, to trust that things will look different after the storm has passed.

Since yesterday I wasn’t even trying, I consider this a big improvement.

I honestly am rather disgusted by the fact that one sinus infection has taken up so much space on this blog. I wish I had something else to talk about. That being said, I told a friend earlier tonight that sinus infections have been my constant teacher over the years, and this one has been no exception. Just when I think I’m trusting, patient, optimistic, and kind, all I need is a good sinus infection to bring me back to reality. But on a deeper level, being sick like this brings up all my emotional shit–all the icky feelings like “not good enough” and “despair” that have been making themselves at home and putting their feet on my table for decades.

You know how feelings can take over, like they own the damn place.

In terms of not feeling good enough, I imagine we all feel this way at times. After all, advertisers don’t exactly entice us to buy their products by suggesting we’re perfect the way we are. But I think the button that gets hit for me is deeper and goes back to having to grow up so fast when my dad went to prison. At the time I didn’t think it was a big deal to take over the house and keep going to school, even to stop going to church and stop eating pork when my family changed our religious beliefs. But I can see now that all of that was a huge deal. I did the best I could, but I really wasn’t up to the task emotionally. Not only was I in over my head, but I was also isolated because we’d made ourselves so different from everybody else.

Twenty years later, it still feels like I’m not up to the task. Well-meaning people make suggestions (Have you tried a Neti Pot?), and it feels like an accusation, something I’m not doing right. But earlier I was thinking about how I’d respond if a fifteen-year-old I knew were going through what I went through at that age–what I might say if he were giving himself a hard time–and my heart absolutely melted. So I’m trying to extend the compassion I’d feel for anybody else to myself, to realize that I’m doing best I can (damn it) and always have been.

In terms of feeling despair, this is something I’m just starting to unpack. It’s something my therapist and I have been talking about lately but that I haven’t discussed here because it feels so raw. But a few weeks ago I was talking about several things that happened–or rather, didn’t happen–when I was a teenager. These were things I got my hopes up about, like Dad being found innocent or, when he wasn’t, being let out of prison early. Anyway, I was telling my therapist that I often feel powerless, like there’s nothing I can do to make a situation better, and all of a sudden she got quiet. (She never gets quiet.) Then she said, “I just realized something that affects and changes everything else we’ve been talking about.”

“What?” I said.

“Hope is scary for you.”

Honestly, I haven’t exactly known what to do with this information, which, by the way, is correct. Brene Brown says that hope is information, and my therapist says I’ve been let down so many times over the years that I simply haven’t had the right data. Consequently, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about people who achieve their dreams or who overcome chronic health problems, but there’s always a part of me that doesn’t quite believe those things are possible. Well, maybe they’re possible for someone else, but not for me. “It’s too bad,” my therapist says, “since life is actually set up for you to succeed.”

Again, if some teenager in my improv class told me he was afraid to hope, I’d melt with compassion. If someone told me they were going through a storm, I’d say, “You’re going to make it. Things will look different when it’s over, but mostly because you’ll be different–stronger than you were before.” So I’m trying to take it easy on myself, to take both this sinus infection and my life one day at a time and not assume the worst. Things can get better–they’re already better than they used to be. Looking at the plant beside me, I’m reminded that I, too, am full of potential, capable of new growth at anytime. For surely if a plant is a miracle, then I am one too, ever ready to let go of that which is behind, turn my face toward the light, and hope again.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"

Just because your face is nice to look at doesn’t mean you don’t have a heart that’s capable of being broken. These things happen to humans, and there isn’t a one of us who isn’t human.

"

Gay Parties in 1981 (Blog #224)

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Introduction

Well, hell. It’s 3:36 in the morning, and I’m just sitting down to blog. This is nothing new, of course, but blogging at this hour always comes as a surprise, since I always mean to start earlier. But for over six months I’ve also been meaning to reread Practical Intuition by Laura Day, and I finally started that project tonight. For the last few hours I’ve had the book open, hunched over it like the monster of Notre Dame. But now the book is closed, and I’m sitting here at the kitchen table slightly more upright and eating pineapple chunks out of a can. It’s a glorious life, I know, but someone’s got to live it.

Earlier today I had the idea that tonight’s blog needed to be presented in vignettes. I suppose that’s often how my writing works, but today’s the first time I’ve thought, Just give the highlights, even if they don’t clearly tie together. And not that I always pay attention to every thought I have, but my relationship with this blog has taught me to trust my hunches more, so I’m going to pay attention to the thought about vignettes and see where it leads us. So far, my internal sense of “this is what I should write about today” hasn’t let me down. My internal sense of “this would be a good person to date,” however, is a different matter altogether.

Scene One

Today I got up at 2:30 in the afternoon and ate my first meal about an hour later. Considering the recent time change and the fact that I don’t see much daylight to begin with, I’ve started feeling like I’m living in Alaska. (I’ve wanted to use that line for five days now.) Anyway, Virgos tend to worry about their health, so I’ve been concerned that I won’t get enough Vitamin D this winter and will develop Seasonal Affective Disorder, a medical condition related to depressed moods with the best abbreviation ever–SAD. With all this in mind, I took myself for a walk today at 4:15, the same time senior citizens have dinner at The Golden Corral and only an hour before the frickin’ sun went down.

Scene Two

Recently I started listening to a podcast called A Mother of a Murder, which is about the murder of Ruie Ann Park that took place here in Van Buren in 1981. My friend Anita Paddock wrote a book, Blind Rage, about the murder and is featured in the podcast. Anyway, the podcast is delicious and takes under two hours to listen to, and I finished it while walking today. My favorite line from the whole thing, referring to some of the murder suspects and said by an older man in a deeply southern accent, was, “They were gay and they were having gay parties.” I didn’t get the impression the gentleman thought this was a good thing, like something to be celebrated or attended, but I certainly did.

Just think of all the glitter.

Scene Three

As the podcast was ending, I looked up and saw a boy, a toddler, running–absolutely running–toward me, his arms spread out as if he were an airplane. His mother was behind him, by their house, and she tried to stop him from “bothering me.” But he just continued his long journey across their big front yard–thump, thump, thump–until he made it to me and the street. His little red head no higher than my knee, he flung both his arms around my left leg as if it were his best friend and said, “Hi!” Wrapping one of my arms around his back, I said, “Hi! You are so cute!” then continued walking. When I turned a corner two houses down, he waved and screamed, “Bye!”

My heart is still melting.

Scene Four

This evening I attended improv class and afterwards went to Starbucks and finished reading Rising Strong, the book by Brene Brown I blogged about yesterday. While sitting at a table trying to concentrate on the book, I kept getting distracted by the conversation at the table next to me, where sat a nineteen- year-old in the reserves and–from what I could gather–a potential mentor who wanted to know the kid’s views on money and whether or not he had a five-year plan. I thought, I’m thirty-seven and I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow. Anyway, while this whole thing was going on, a total stranger asked if he could sit at my table until his friends arrived. I said, “You bet” and returned to my book, but as he sat down he reminded me of that kid running across the yard with his arms spread out, someone unafraid of asking for what they want.

Scene Five

The book I started rereading tonight is about how to use your intuition. The idea is that our inner wisdom is willing and able to communicate with us on all subjects if we would just slow down enough to listen, so each time you go through the book you get to ask three questions. Will I get married in the next year? What stocks should I invest in? Could I pick up extra cash as a drag queen? Whatever you’re curious about–sky’s the limit. When I worked through the exercises in the book five years ago, I wanted to know what profession I’d enter into after dancing. I dug out my answers from an old notebook tonight, and my intuition was obviously spot on and getting me ready, since the pages were littered with words like writer, author, and communication.

As I understand it, your intuition can answer questions about your past, present, and future (and anyone else’s) because a part of you is connected to everyone and everything else. As the mystics say, “We are one,” and, “There is no time and space.” Of course, it’s hard to wrap my head around these ideas, but I’m inclined to believe they’re true. One of the warm-up questions in the book tonight was, “Without thinking, what do you need most?” and my answer was, “A hug.” Later it asked, “Upon reflection, what do you need most?” and I answered, “Authentic connection.”

Conclusion

Only later while reviewing my answers about needing a hug and authentic connection did I remember about the little boy and the hug he gave me this afternoon. And whereas my first thought was, I guess I need more hugs, I later realized my inner wisdom was telling me that all my needs are met before I even ask for them. Now I realize I’ve spent so much time thinking about what could go wrong–what could happen if I don’t wake up in time to get enough sunlight–that I’ve often missed what is going right, including the sleeping in and worrying about Vitamin D that were necessary to get me walking by that boy’s front yard at just the right moment. So in the same way that he wrapped his arms around my leg, I’m starting to wrap my arms around this glorious life, this life that connects me vignette by vignette to toddlers running freely across front yards, strangers sitting down at tables in coffee shops, and even gay parties in 1981.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"

The more honest you are about what's actually happening inside of you, the happier you are.

"

Ready to Rumble (Blog #223)

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It’s 2:26 in the morning, and I’d rather be reading, which is what I’ve been doing all day. My friend Elisabeth recently told me I “had to read” Rising Strong by Brene Brown, and since Elisabeth was the one who told me about The Artist’s Way, the creativity workbook I wouldn’t shut up about for twelve weeks earlier this year, I bumped Brene’s book to the top of my reading list. Plus, it didn’t hurt that Elisabeth apologized for being bossy (without prompting) when she told me what to do. Anyway, I started Rising Strong today, and I’m currently about two-thirds of the way through it, which I guess means that I’m “reading strong.”

See what I did there?

If you’re familiar with Brene’s work, you know that she talks a lot about shame, vulnerability, authenticity, and boundaries. Well, in this book, she emphasizes the importance of being able to sit with and dig into your uncomfortable feelings and difficult circumstances, which (apparently), does not look like eating chocolate cake and watching pornography until you feel better or things improve. Rather, it involves something she calls “the rumble,” which she compares to the middle of a story or the second act in a three-act play. It’s the point at which the hero has already identified a problem but has yet to identify a solution, the period of time when things get worse before they get better, the dark before the dawn. In other words, the rumble is when the shit hits the fan. The rumble, of course, sucks. In order to avoid it, we’ll shut down, shut off, go out, light up, and overeat. But as I understand it, the rumble is absolutely necessary if a person wants to rise strong.

Think about it this way–you can’t get back up if you don’t get knocked down first.

Personally, I hate this. Having been emotionally knocked down on more than one occasion, I can say that a person’s “time on the ground” can last a while. When I started therapy three and a half years ago, I was in a terrible (horrible, no good, very bad) relationship and wouldn’t have known a boundary if it’d slapped me in the face. I hadn’t heard of the rumble back then, but I honestly thought I’d be back on my feet after six to eight therapy sessions.

Uh, try a hundred, Marcus.

Don’t bother–go bowling instead.

Actually, my therapist says that I’ve been “out of the woods” for a while now. Most of the major issues have been dealt with, or as she says, “done and dusted.” But for anyone really considering living an authentic lifestyle consisting of vulnerability, honesty, boundaries, and healthy relationships, I’d say, “Don’t bother–go bowling instead.” (Just kidding.) What I mean by this is that those things look really good on paper, but I’d be lying if I told you they were easy. (If it were easy, everyone would do it.) Rather, they’re a lot of hard work, work that takes time, makes you bleed, and turns your world upside down.

In my experience, it’s not just that rumbles–especially big rumbles like the one I went through–are difficult because you feel lonely, sad, or confused. They’re difficult because if you truly hang out with those emotions, you realize they’ve been around for a while and show up in a lot of different situations. Then what are you gonna do? When I broke up with my ex, I got that I didn’t have good boundaries with him, but what I didn’t get was that I didn’t have good boundaries with most people. What’s more, I didn’t get why, that the issue of boundaries ultimately had to do with my sense of self-worth, and that self-worth is a big truck to turn around.

Of course, when your self-esteem and self-confidence change, your entire world changes too. Think about it–it has to. If you let one person walk on you, you let all people walk on you. Likewise, if you decide you’re worth more in one relationship, you automatically have to be worth more in all relationships. This is the big truck I’m talking about. In my case, three and a half years after starting therapy, there’s not a relationship in my life that hasn’t been affected, changed, or even “deleted” as a result of my increase in self-worth and, therefore, desire for healthy boundaries. Ultimately, this is why I think we’re afraid of listening to our emotions–not just because they’re uncomfortable–but also because they have the power to uproot everything familiar in our lives when genuinely responded to.

Does anyone want an Oreo yet?

If you’re not living a fully authentic life, a part of you will never be satisfied.

I realize this may not sound like an encouragement, and I’m not saying that every difficult emotion or circumstance calls for completely remodeling your interior and exterior worlds. Sometimes all you need to do is change the curtains. (Of course, even this is a big deal–trust a gay man.) But either way, I do believe that if you’re not living a fully authentic life, a part of you will never be satisfied, and your emotions will continually let you know there’s a problem. And that’s the encouraging part. Being in the rumble may suck, but it’s more than worth it because that’s the place where you discover who you actually are. I can’t stand being alone–I’m terrified I’m not good enough–I deserve better than this. Whatever. After all the weeping and gnashing of teeth, there you are on the ground–naked, not faking it for once, finally real, and ready to stand up again.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Everything is all right and okay.

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