Hold On

I am a huge Hootie & the Blowfish fangirl.  And today as I listened to their music, a song played that touched me and brought me to write this blog.

Hold On…

"We gotta hold on, we gotta hold on

There ain't nothing that a little love can't get us through

We gotta hold on, when it feels like hope is gone

There is a remedy for you and me

We gotta hold on to each other, yeah

Oh to each other now, now”

      ~ Hootie and the Blowfish

I’ve written a lot about my journey, but maybe never as tenderly and as raw as this.  I’m holding on.  Not to a person, not to the past, though a huge part of me wants to do that.  I’m holding on to the one thing that I know is true.  My faith in God. Something I still have problems understanding, but I trust.

For most of my life I’ve wanted to die.  To leave this place.  It was a deep undercurrent amidst my days and nights, sometimes quiet and sometimes roaring like an unseen tidal wave.  That changed in late November.  I have truly lost ALL of the things I thought I had to have to survive.  I was given a huge gift at the same time.  For the first time in my life I can openly say that I’m not plotting, planning or looking forward to my own demise.  It’s always been a part, and it will most likely rear its ugly head from time to time - my counselor has already warned me of this.  But even today, on a day that I really wanted to just lay there and wait for the end, he got me up.  Through you, through my sponsor, my mentor, others in my group.  Through my daughter (who for the first time recently said she was proud of me), through friends and even through the love that I can’t talk or reach out to.

I’m walking one step at a time, one brief moment at a time.  I’m breathing.  I’m broke and probably more at peace than when I had money, a house, ‘the life’.  I have extreme social anxiety; I struggle with major depression and I can barely function some days because of it.  I can play the part of ‘the actor’, trying to be the star, but in actuality I am more the man behind the mask that has finally fully shattered and exposed all that I really am.  And I am thankful to be me.  To be here, mired in my emotions, but seeing that there is more than the Lightning Sand and R.O.U.S.s (think Princess Bride).  I am here, and I believe there may be a purpose for me yet. 

For those of you who I’m sending this to directly, I ask something of you that I may not have done before.  I ask you to pray - to God, to your higher power, to Buddha, to wherever the hell you go to reach out.  Pray for me and where I’m at.  For my family, my kids, for Annie, and for others who struggle with, well, life.  You are important to where I am, to helping me get here.  Through tears, pain, sorrow, anger and heartache.  All part of the whole of one man’s life.

I’m holding on.  

~ Peace

Chad

Foolish Love

They may call it foolish love 
The way I feel
That I’ve never felt 
Before

And some may say 
I’m wasting time
But how else can I breathe
All I know is what’s inside

It’s something I’ve never 
Known,
A love so deep
All I want is the best for her
Even if it’s not me

I pray for her each
And every day
Some may call it silly,
But it doesn’t go away

This foolish love.

01/04/21
clc